-^,-^ V ^N^ ^P.;\^ ;X,y-;^ ,^^' :% V-. .0 o. .0 N ■ <0 '^- K J' .^H '■'■.o wV ^\- ^>^" ,0 o v\^ ^.^ .0^ ■A' '^a^y''3<^ \- 'CO'- e^^ .^■■ CO .^^ -^^^ o .A- ,# THE GREAT TRADITION A BOOK OF SELECTIONS FROM ENGLISH AND AMERICAN PROSE AND POETRY, ILLUSTRATING THE NATIONAL IDEALS OF FREEDOM, FAITH, AND CONDUCT CHOSEN AND EDITED BY EDWIN GREENLAW KENAN PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AND JAMES HOLLY HANFORD ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us. Burns, Shelley were with us — they watch from their graves. SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK 0^ COPYBIGHT, 1919 By Scott, Foresman and Company ©CLA5ii21l9 TABLE OF CONTENTS ^ ^ THE RENAISSANCE I. THE EXPANSION OF THE INDIVIDUAL— page Doctor Faustus {Abridged), Christopher Marlowe '..... 1 Tamburlaine (Selection), Christopher Marlowe 12 "All Knowledge to Be My Province," Francis Bacon 13 A More Divine Perfection, Richard Hooker 14 Self Discipline: The Story of Guyon, Edmund Spenser 15 The Gospel of Beauty, Edmund Spenser , , , , 23 n. A GREATER BRITAIN— The Character of Elizabeth, John Richard Green 25 The Menace of Spain, John Richard Green 28 The Spirit of England, William Shakespeare 31 "This England" {Richard II) 31 Unity Against the Foe {King John) 32 England at War {Henry V) 32 Ballad of Agincourt, Michael Drayton 34 The Deeds of Elizabethan Seamen, Richard Hakluyt 36 To the Virginian Voyage, Michael Drayton. 36 The Victory of England, Sir Walter Raleigh 37 in. TRAINING FOR EMPIRE— The Education of Men Who Are to Rule, Sir Thomas Elyot 42 "The Rank Is But the Guinea's Stamp," Sir Thomas Elyot 46 Op Virtuous and Gentle Discipline, Edmund Spenser 47 "The Brave Courtier," Edmund Spenser 49 Counsels of Experience, Francis Bacon 50 Of Truth 50 Of Travel 51 Of Studies 52 Of Nature in Men 53 Of Great Place 53 Of Dispatch 55 The Service of Learning to the State, Francis Bacon 56 In Praise of Learning 56 Some Defects in Learning 59 Of the Architecture of Fortune 60 This Third Period of Time 62 IV. IDEAS OF THE STATE— The Imaginary Commonwealth op Utopia, Sir Thomus More 63 Thomas More to Peter Giles, of Antwerp 63 England Through Utopian Eyes 66 iii iv CONTENTS PAGE A Discourse upon International Relations, Happiness, and Reformers 72 Labor in Utopia 76 "And the Pursuit of Happiness" 79 The WeKare of all the People 82 "One Sovereign Governor," Sir Thomas Elyot 84 The Garden of the Commonwealth, Sir Thomas Elyot 85 Some Elizabethan Political Ideas in Shakespeare's Dramas 85 Our Sea-Walled Garden (Richard II) 85 Of Divine Right {Richard II) 87 The Commonwealth of the Bees {Henry V) 90 Of "Degree" {Troilus and Cressida) 91 Of Government, Richard Hooker ; 93 Maintaining Things That Are Established 93 Of Law in Nature 94 Of the Sources of Government 94 Of the Law of Nations. 98 "Her Voice the Harmony of the World" 99 Two Counsels on Government, Francis Bacon 101 Of Empire 101 Of Innovations , , , , 102 V. THE POET'S comment- Sonnets, William Shakespeare 102 My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is, Sir Edward Dyer 105 The Character of a Happy Life, Sir Henry Wotton 105 Death, John Donne 105 A Pindaric Ode, Ben Jonson 106 His Pilgrimage, Sir Walter Raleigh 107 The Last Pages of "The History of the World," Sir Walter Raleigh, ,,,,,. 108 PURITANS AND KINGS I. THE SOUL AND THE WORLD— 1. The People of a Book The Puritan Spirit, John Richard Green 109 2. The Conflict in the Soul The Collar, George Herbert. 112 Love, George Herbert 112 Virtue, George Herbert 112 The Retreat, Henry Vaughqn 112 The World, Henry Vaughan 113 Behind the Veil, Henry Vaughan 113 The Fight with ApoUyon, John Bunyan 114 Vanity Fair, John Bunyan 115 3. Carpe Diem: Robert Herri ck Corinna's Going a-Maying 117 To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time 118 To Daffodils 118 A Thanksgiving to God for His House 118 To Keep a True Lent 119 CONTENTS V n. FAITH AND FREEDOM: JOHN MILTON— page 1. The Maker of an Heroic Poem Himself a True Poem (An Apology, and A Letter) 119 L'AUegro 120 II Penseroso 122 Lycidas 123 Sonnets: On Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-Three 126 On His Blindness 126 To Cyriack Skinner 126 Of Darkness Visible {The Second Defense) 126 Of Celestial Light (Paradise Lost) 127 The Poet's Service to the State (Reason of Church Government) 128 Fallen on Evil Days (Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes) 130 "Servant of God, Well Done!" (Paradise Lost) 131 2. The Poem Paradise Lost, Book I, and Book II, 1-527) 131 3. Liberty and Discipline (Areopagitica) The Virtue of Books 146 Of Restraints 147 Liberty of Thought 148 A Heretic in the Truth 150 Liberty the Nurse of All Great Wits 150 Of DiscipUne (Reason of Church Government) 153 Britain the Home of True Liberty (Second Defense) , 154 4. The State The Masterpiece of a Politician (Reformation in England) 154 The Source of Power (Tenure of Kings and Magistrates) 155 Of Justice (Eikonoklastes) 156 A Free Commonwealth (A Ready and Easy Way) 157 So Foes op the State On the Detraction upon Certain Treatises 159 On the Same 159 On the New Forcers of Conscience 159 On the Lord General Faiiiax 159 To the Lord General Cromwell 160 6. The International Mind On the Late Massacre in Piedmont 160 The Nation's Protest (Piedmont) 160 England and America (Of Reformation in England) 161 The Brotherhood of Man (Tenure of Kings) 162 m. THE BEGINNINGS OF FREE GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA— The Pilgrims and Their Compact, William Bradford 162 The First Promotion of Learning, Edward Johnson 164 The Mat-Pole of Merry Mount, Nathaniel Hawthorne 165 IV. COMMONWEALTH AND RESTORATION— The Triumphs of the Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell 171 Peace Hath Its Victories, Oliver Cromwell 173 An Appeal for Unity, Oliver Cromwell 174 The Restoration, Samuel Pepys 175 The Puritan, Samuel Butler 177 Of Commonwealth (Leviathan), Thomas Hobbes 178 vi CONTENTS PAGB The Political Verse op John Dryden 183 Astraea Redux (Selection) 183 Absalom and Achitophel (Selection) 184 The Hind and The Panther (Selection) 186 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEALS OF SANITY AND ORDER I. CRITICISMS OF SOCIAL LIFE AND MANNERS— The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope 188 The Spectator as an Instrument op Reform, Joseph Addison 198 The Trumpet Club, Richard Steele 199 The Spectator Club, Joseph Addison 201 Public Opinion in the Making, Joseph Addison 203 A Political Busybody, Joseph Addison 205 II. STANDARDS OF INTELLECT AND TASTE— A Busy Life, Joseph Addison 207 A Lady's Library, Joseph Addison 209 The Education of Women, Daniel Defoe 210 An Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope (Selection) 212 How TO Judge a Play, Joseph Addison 213 ni. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL IDEALS— The True Born Englishman, Daniel Defoe 215 The British Constitution, Joseph Addison 216 The Career of Conquest, Richard Steele 218 Selections from Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift 219 Political Acrobatics 219 Political Parties and International Relations 221 Pubhc Servants in Lilliput 225 EngUsh Institutions 225 Research. 228 War 232 The Uses of Wealth 234 IV. PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE— Woman (Moral Essays), Alexander Pope 235 The Golden Mean (Second Epistle of Second Book of Horace), Alexander Pope. . 235 A Perfect Universe (Essay on Man, Epistle I), Alexander Pope 236 Self Love and Reason (Essay on Man, Epistle II), Alexander Pope 239 Government (Essay on Man, Epistle III), Alexander Pope 240 Equality (Essay on Man, Epistle IV), Alexander Pope 241 Virtue (Essay on Man, Epistle IV), Alexander Pope 241 Men of Fire, Richard Steele 241 A Vision op Human Life, Joseph Addison 242 THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY I. THE ERA OF REVOLUTION— 1. The New Sympathy An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray 245 The Wrongs of Man, William Cowper 247 CONTENTS vii PAoa Of Slavery 247 The Lot of Poverty 248 Of War 249 Of Tyranny 249 My Country 251 The ReaHty of Humble Life, George Crabbe 251 Democratic Ideals in the Poetry of Robert Burns The Cotter's Saturday Night 253 A Winter Night 256 A Man's a Man for A' That 258 The Twa Dogs 258 To a Mouse 261 Macpherson's Farewell. 261 A Dream 262 The Tree of Liberty 263 The American War 264 Scots Wha Hae 265 A Vision 265 The Dumfries Volunteers 266 The Toast 266 Address to the Deil 266 The Sincerity of Burns, Thomas Carlyle 268 2. The Struggle Against Tyranny in England and America The Character of Pitt, John Richard Green 269 Cabinet Government under George III, "Junius" 272 An Address to the King, "Junius" 273 An Imperial Britain, Edmund Burke 274 On Concihating the Colonies, Edmund Burke 277 On the Affairs of America, Edmund Burke 283 Concord Hymn, Ralph Waldo Emerson 294 Lexington, John Greenleaf Whittier 294 Liberty or Death, Patrick Henry 295 Washington Anticipates the Declaration, George Washington 296 From the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson 296 Times That Try Men's Souls, Thomas Paine 297 On the American Revolution, William Cowper 298 The Destiny of England and America, John Richard Green 298 England and America in 1782, Alfred Tennyson 299 3. The Upheaval in France Storm and Victory, Thomas Carlyle 299 The Death-Birth of a World, Thomas Carlyle 304 The Storm, Matthew Arnold 304 4. The Theory of Political Justice Burke, William Wordsworth 305 The Character of Burke, John Morley 305 "A Liberty Connected with Order," Edmund Burke 307 Of the Nature of Liberty 307 The Nature of the British Constitution 309 Of the Rights of Men 311 Of Chivah-y 313 Of Free Government 316 The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine 319 Government Is for the Living 319 viii ' CONTENTS FAQB Of "Chivalry" 321 What Are "The Rights of Man"? 325 Of an Ambitious Norman, and of Titles 327 America and the French Revolution 329 "Made in Germany" 330 A League of Nations 331 Pohtical Justice, William Godwin 333 Wealth and Poverty 333 Of Perfectibility 334 The Moral Effects of Aristocracy 335 5. England and the French Revolution On the French Revolution, WiUiam Cowper 336 Experiences of an English Idealist, William Wordsworth 337 First View of the Revolution 337 An Idealist of the Revolution 338 Disappointment and Restoration 341 France: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 350 n. THE CONFLICT WITH NAPOLEON— 1. The Issue The War of Liberty, William Wordsworth 352 The Cause 352 The Relation of National Happiness and National Independence 354 The Grounds of Hope 356 Sonnets on the Crisis, William Wordsworth 356 "Fair Star of Evening" 356 On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic 356 Thought of a Briton 357 September, 1802, Near Dover 357 Written in London, September, 1802 357 "Milton! Thou Shouldst Be Living" 357 "It Is Not to Be Thought of" 357 "When I Have Borne in Memory" 358 "There Is a Bondage Worse" 358 "These Times Strike Monied Worldlings" 358 "England! The Time Is Come" 358 "Here Pause: The Poet Claims at Least This Praise" 358 "Vanguard of Liberty" 359 "Come Ye— Who, If" 359 "Another Year!" 359 2. The Downfall op Tyranny Sonnets on Napoleon, William Wordsworth 359 October, 1803 359 Anticipation 360 Nelson at Trafalgar, Robert Southey ; 360 Waterloo, Lord Byron , 366 Waterloo, William Makepeace Thackeray 371 Waterloo, William Wordsworth 380 Moscow, William Wordsworth 380 Political Greatness, Percy Bysshe Shelley 381 Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley 381 CONTENTS ix m. THE FAILURE OF REVOLUTION : SOLUTIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL PROBLEMS— 1. The Return to Nature ^^°^ The Poet, William Wordsworth 381 The Poet's Mission, William Wordsworth 382 The Divine Life in Man and Nature, William Wordsworth.'. .-. 384 Expostulation and Reply r 384 Tintem Abbey 384 Ode: Intimations of Immortality 386 The World Is Too Much with Us 389 Toussaint L'Ouverture ; 389 Peele Castle 389 Ode to Duty 390 The Mountain Echo 390 To a Skylark. 391 Laodamia 391 Character of the Happy Warrior 393 On Universal Education {The Excursion) 394 Propaganda and Poetry, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 395 Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 401 Dejection: An Ode, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 404 2. The Free Personality Selections from the Poetry of Lord Byron 406 Prometheus 406 Sonnet on Chillon 406 Solitude {Childe Harold) 407 The Onward March of Freedom {Childe Harold) 409 The Ocean {Childe Harold) 409 The Renegade Poets {Don Juan) 410 The Isles of Greece {Don Juan) 412 The Vision of Judgment {Selection) 413 3. A Vision of Perfection Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley 415 Hymn to Intellectual Beauty 415 Ode to the West Wmd 416 England in 1819 418 The Power of Man {Prometheus Unbound) 418 A Vision of the Future {Prometheus Unbound) 418 The Day! {Prometheus Unbound) 420 The World's Great Age Begins Anew {Hellas) 420 Adonais 421 A Du-ge 428 4. The Immortality of Beauty The Poetry of John Keats 429 Beauty {Endymion) 429 Le Belle Dame Sans Merci 429 Ode To a Nightingale 430 Ode on a Grecian Urn 431 On Chapman's Homer 431 When I Have Fears 432 3j CONTENTS NINETEENTH CENTURY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS I. THE PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL REFORM— 1. Utilitarian- Ideas of Liberty ^^°^ On Liberty, John Stuart Mill 433 2. The Principles and Policies of British Liberalism — ■ The Spirit of Liberalism, Viscount Morley 439 Progress of the Nation under the Liberal Regime, John Bright 440 Why I Am a Liberal, Robert Browning 444 The Lost Leader, Robert Browning 444 3. Freedom and the Empire Home-Thoughts, from Abroad, Robert Browning 444 Home-Thoughts, from the Sea, Robert Browning 445 You Ask Me, Why, Tho' 111 at Ease, Alfred Tennyson 445 Of Old Sat Freedom on the Heights, Alfred Tennyson 445 Love Thou Thy Land, Alfred Tennyson 445 Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, Alfred Tennyson 447 Hands All Round, Alfred Tennyson 450 To the Queen, Alfred Tennyson ._ 450 A Song in Time of Order, Algernon Charles Swinburne 451 An Appeal, Algernon Charles Swinburne 452 Recessional, Rudyard Kipling 452 4. International Sympathies At the Sunrise in 1848, Dante Gabriel Rossetti 453 Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth, Arthur Hugh Clough 453 The Italian in England, Robert Browning 453 The Patriot, Robert Browning 455 On the Monument Erected to Mazzini at Genoa, Algernon Charles Swinburne 455 To Louis Kossuth, Algernon Charles Swinburne 456 France 1870, George Meredith 456 America, Sidney Dobell 461 To Walt Whitman in America, Algernon Charles Swinburne 461 II. THE CRUSADE AGAINST MATERIALISM— 1. The Gospel of Work The Inheritance, Thomas Carlyle 463 Happiness and Labor, Thomas Carlyle 464 Plugson of Undershot, Thomas Carlyle 465 Labor, Thomas Carlyle 468 Captains of Industry, Thomas Carlyle 470 2. The Poet's Comment The Song of the Shirt, Thomas Hood 473 West London, Matthew Arnold 474 The Day Is Coming, William Morris 475 Northern Farmer: New Style, Alfred Tennyson 476 3. Wealth and Commonwealth Traffic, John Ruskin 477 The Soldier's Duty to His Country, John Ruskin 487 The White Thorn Blossom, John Ruskin 489 4. The Ministry of Culture Sweetness and Light, Matthew Arnold 495 CONTENTS xi in. SCIENCE AND FAITH— 1. The Problem Stated ^^°^ The Physical Basis of Life, Thomas Henry Huxley 507 2. The Supernatural in Life Natural Supernaturalism, Thomas Carlyle 516 Certainty and Peace, John Henry Newman 521 3. Poems of Doubt and Faith The Challenge of Science (In Memoriam), Alfred Tennyson 524 The Higher Pantheism, Alfred Tennyson 525 Wages, Alfred Tennyson 626 Crossing the Bar, Alfred Tennyson 526 An Epistle of Karshish, Robert Browning 626 Abt Vogler, Robert Browning 630 Rabbi Ben Ezra, Robert Browning 531 Prospice, Robert Browning 634 Epilogue to Asolando, Robert Browning 634 Quiet Work, Matthew Arnold 534 To a Friend, Matthew Arnold 635 Morahty, Matthew Arnold 635 Self-Dependence, Matthew Arnold 535 Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold 636 Where Lies the Land, Arthur Hugh Clough 536 "Carpe Diem" (From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam), Edward Fitzgerald. . 536 The Garden of Proserpine, Algernon Charles Swinburne 537 Invictus, William Ernest Henley 538 AMERICAN IDEALS— NATIONAL PERIOD I. THE NEW NATION 539 Mother of a Mighty Race, William Cullen Bryant 539 Liberty and Union, George Washington 539 Party Spirit, George Washington 542 America and the World, George Washington 543 The Foundations of Our Government, Thomas Jefferson 545 The Comedy of Politics, Washington Irving 546 The American Experiment, Daniel Webster 660 Free Government, Daniel Webster 661 Sacred Obligations, Daniel Webster 663 A Nation of Men, Ralph Waldo Emerson 564 The Present Crisis, James Russell Lowell 568 What Mr. Robinson Thinks, James Russell Lowell 569 The Pious Editor's Creed, James Russell Lowell 570 The Poor Voter on Election Day, John Greenleaf Whittier 571 The Ship of State, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 572 n. EXPANSION AND SOVEREIGNTY— 1 Hear America Singing, Walt Whitman 572 Pioneers! O Pioneers! Walt Whitman 572 Rise, O Days, Walt Whitman 574 Address at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln 575 The Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln 575 Commemoration Ode, James Russell Lowell 576 xii CONTENTS PAGE Thott Mother With Thy Equal Brood, Walt Whitman 581 O Star of France, Walt Whitman , . . . 583 The Purpose op Democracy, Walt Whitman 584 A New Earth and a New Man, Walt Whitman 586 Dangers Within the State, Walt Whitman 587 Nationality — (And Yet), Walt Whitman 588 One Country, Frank L. Stanton 589 m. THE EVE OF A NEW ERA— Not the Pilot, Walt Whitman 590 The Prophecy op a New Era, Walt Whitman . 590 The Destiny of America, Walt Whitman 590 The Meaning op the Declaration of Independence, Woodrow Wilson 591 Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson 594 America, Sidney Lanier 596 THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY I. A CLASH IN IDEALS— A Challenge to the Democratic Principle, Hugo Munsterherg 597 The Mind of Germany, John Dewey 597 The Gospel of Duty and Its Implications, John Dewey 601 n. THE CASE AGAINST GERMANY— 1. Britain's Indictment International Honor, David Lloyd George 603 2. America's Indictment The Menace of Prussian Ambition, Woodrow Wilson 608 The Significance of America's Entry into the War, Viscount Grey 611 III. PROBLEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION— 1 . The New Democracy A New Force in Politics, Carleton Hayes 613 The Reconstruction of British Labor, From the Report of the Sub-Com- mittee of the Labor Party 614 An Experiment in Democracy, Donald Hankey 618 ■ The Organization of Democracy, Edwin A. Alderman 619 Natural Aristocracy, Paul Elmer More 620 2. The Fellowship of Nations The British Commonwealth of Nations, General Smuts 623 America and England, Arthur J. Balfour 625 America in the World, John Dewey 627 International Justice, Woodrow Wilson 628 The Associated Peoples of the World, Woodrow Wilson 630 INTRODUCTION This book is the result of a study, extending through five years, of methods by which the required course in literature for elementary college students may be made more effective. The editors, with their colleagues who have been asso- ciated in teaching English (3) in the University of North Carolina, were dissatis- fied with the prevailing type of course, — the study of literary history illustrated by "specimens" — as a requirement for elementary classes made up of students preparing for all sorts of careers. They believed that there should be a sharp differentiation between the methods used in such a course and those employed in advanced elective courses, where philological scholarship and literary criti- cism have value not only because of the greater maturity of the students but also because these students have chosen their courses through liking for such work. The editors believed, therefore, that that type of course which endeav- ored to create an interest in literary phenomena, their sequence and relations, was unwise because such interest, even when induced by an experienced teacher, is factitious, possessing little permanent value for the average student, who means to be a farmer, or a banker, or a lawyer, or an engineer. They believed, also, that the type of course which has developed through the dissatisfaction of many teachers with the one just outlined, — the course founded not on technical scholarship but on ''interest," a series of pleasant rambles among the foibles of Pepys or in the intricate rhythms of De Quincey, or a compound of love lyrics and fiction and Elia, while more likely than the other to arouse interest in reading, yet offends by its miscellaneousness, its lack of body, its failure to supply material for the development of what Bacon called "the sinews and steel of men's minds." The present volume recognizes both the need of teaching literature for its human and intrinsic value and the need of providing salutary discipline through a rigid adherence to a logically connected program of ideas. The basis of the book is historical, but it does not represent literary history in the narrower sense. The selections are chosen partly for their value as expressions of permanent human emotions and points of view; partly as landmarks in the march of the Anglo-Saxon mind from the beginning of the modern period. They are intended to represent, not the literary forms and manners, but the dominant ideas of successive epochs in the national life of the two great English speaking peoples, as these ideas have received large and permanent expression in literature. It will be recognized at once that in making this their principle of selection the editors have been true to the deeper current and the main intention of English literature, which has from the beginning been conditioned not by canons and xiv THE GEEAT TEADITION principles of art but by national thought and feeling. It will be acknowledged also that what is most vital in English literature, especially in the later periods, has connected itself more or less closely with the special problem and the great practical achievement of the Anglo-Saxon race, the working out of self-govern- ment. For this reason the emphasis on political materials, in so far as these materials embody principles rather than detailed applications, is justified, not only by their practical value in the problems and duties of citizenship, but by their adaptability to the broader end of humanistic culture. That the book, however, is not an anthology of patriotic literature will be apparent upon examination of the table of contents. Indeed, the editors have carefully avoided the poetry and prose of national aggrandizement. The prin- ciple that has guided the choice of material has been that expressed by Arnold : *'It is important, therefore, to hold fast to this: that poetry is at bottom a criticism of life ; that the greatness of a poet lies in his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life, — to the question. How to live." It is this quality of the poet as a teacher that the greatest English poets themselves have always insisted upon as the mark of their calling. Philip Sidney speaks of "that delightful teaching which must be the right describing note to know a poet by " ; and, like others of his contemporaries, "a passionate lover of that unspeakable and everlasting beauty to be seen by the eyes of the mind," he regards poetry as the chief means by which to attain the end of knowledge — * ' to know, and by knowledge to lift up the mind from the dungeon of the body to the enjoying his own divine essence." One might make use of that time-honored device, the ' ' roll-call, ' ' to show how continually this view is voiced by the greatest English poets. Spenser, the poet's poet, the embodiment of the qualities which seem to make of poetry a thing apart, nevertheless stated that his aim in writing the Faerie Queene was "to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline." Milton summed his idea of Spenser, whose disciple he was, in the statement that he was "a better teacher than Aquinas," and Milton's own writings bear abundant witness to his wish to be regarded as a teacher. In countless places in his poetry Wordsworth illustrated his faithfulness to the ideal which he professed: "Every great poet is a teacher; I wish to be con- sidered as a teacher or as nothing." To him "poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge ; it is the impassioned expression which is in the counte- nance of all science"; a belief which Shelley reiterates when he holds that poetry is ' ' the center and circumference of knowledge ; it is that which compre- hends all science"; and which rings out in the final words of his Defense: * ' Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. ' ' The task of the editors has been to select a body of prose and poetry that should not only illustrate the "planet-like music" of great thought clad in fitting vesture but should also reveal a great tradition, a constant and pro- gressive commentary on what the race has achieved in the arts of life. It is what Shelley called "idealized history," by which he meant events seen as outward shadows of spiritual truths. It is a bible of the English speaking INTRODUCTION XV peoples on both sides of the Atlantic, made up of scriptures that we value not for flawless art but for their interpretation of the spirit of the race. Whatever has been admitted has been chosen because it seemed to have some bearing on the right interpretation of this spirit and to have the quality of permanence. It will be found that the book includes most of the poetry and much of the prose that teachers have long agreed upon as the basis for an elementary college course. There is, therefore., ample material for the teacher who wishes to trace the his- torical development of English literature or for him who wishes to emphasize the imaginative sweep and the beauty of expression found in great literature. But it is felt that elementary students are more likely to arrive at some measure of appreciation of literature as belles lettres if little is said in class about the value of such appreciation. For such students the best method of approach would seem to be frankly intellectual : the attempt to answer the question ' ' What does the author have to say in this piece of writing and how is this related to what we have studied or to what men have thought in the past or are thinking in the present?" In order to assist the student in his effort to assimilate the material and to make it a permanent possession, a complete outline has been supplied and special titles are given, usually in the words of the author, for the selections from longer works. ' But while the book contains a large amount of the material generally included in books designed for survey courses, presenting it, however, in such a way as to assist the pupil to get something permanent out of it, the editors have omitted many writers and works usually represented in such anthologies. Many authors, significant for historical reasons, are appropriately studied in advanced courses where the chief emphasis is on the history and development of English literature as an art, but have no value to the elementary student except for their contribution to his lumber-room of facts. Thus, Cowley is an important figure for the study of the growth of English classicism; his dates, his use of the couplet or the ode, and the names of his poems will not ordinarily be retained by a Sophomore beyond the date of the final examination in the course. We inflict such "discipline" upon him because of our own interests or our own scholarly training; we are not thinking of him at all. It ought not to fill us with pride if the examination books we read at the end of the term are mere compounds of more or less accurate information about the relations between Genesis A and Genesis B, the middle English dialects, the problem of author- ship of Piers Plowman, the poetry of Crashaw, the use of the Spenserian stanza in the eighteenth century, ''the return to nature," and the other disjecta membra of a Cook's tour through literature. Through the marvelous recupera- tive power of nature, the germs of such misinformation as may chance to find a temporary lodgment within the outer corridors of sophomore intelligence are lightly and easily brushed aside after the day of testing has passed, and things are as they were. The space saved by these omissions and others like them has been used for presenting many new selections. These will be found valuable, it is believed, xvi THE GEEAT TRADITION not only because of their timeliness but also because they help to give unity an( solidity to the entire structure of the book. For example, we are accustomed t( the use of selections from the essays of Lord Bacon. These, however, have not hitherto been related to present thought; they have been studied chiefly for their difficulties of style and vocabulary. But the Advancement of Learning, which is practically unknown to college students, contains many passages which are much easier for them to understand ; it is also a trumpet-call for ambitious youth. Furthermore, when these passages from Bacon's treatise on learning in his own day are studied in connection with certain of his essays, or counsels of experience, and along with selections from Elyot and Spenser which bear on the same subject, — the training of those who were to rule Britain, we have a sounder principle of organization than that given by literary bibliography, annotation, and criticism of style ; we have also an excellent method for under- standing the mind of the Renaissance; and, best of all, we have solid cont tion to the education of those of this new day who are to rule in our comi^. wealth and in the new and greater commonwealth of the peoples of the worl^ As to timeliness of interest, examples are to be found in the scathing satire oi war and governments in Swift's Gulliver, or in Thomas More's sarcasm on "a place in the sun" as given in Utopia, or in Hooker's judgment on the philosophy that led Germany to attack the world, or in the fine argument for a League to Enforce Peace contained in the extract from the Leviathan of Hobbes, or in the compact summary of the difference between the theory ' government held by the late masters of Germany and the ideals of democrac^. set forth in the closing paragraph of Mills 's essay on Liberty. This last example is one of many that are scattered through the book which serve to show t|it difference between the philosophy and ideals of militarist Germany and the philosophy and ideals of the allied democracies. Could anything be more timely from this standpoint than to have college men study Burke, not only for the splendors of his style, or as an illustrious exponent of the art of oratory, but for those great passages in which he sets forth the principles of justice, international honor, and free government? Consider, for example, in the light of present problems, his treatment of the nature of empire, or his warning against the attempt to draw an indictment against a whole people, or his conception of justice tempered with mercy — "not what I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do ' ' — or his insistence that the safety of the people consists not in documents and constitutions but in the spirit that informs them, a spirit as light as air, as strong as links of iron ; or his definition of free gcvern- ment : "To make a government requires no great prudence. Settle the seat of power; teach obedience; and the work is done. To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide ; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government ; that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work, requires much thought; deep reflection; a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind." Throughout the book will be found such passages, sometimes familiar enough, but here thrown into INTEODUCTION xvii ^^new relief because of the quickening of our sensibilities in a time of national ^ danger and triumph, or because of the setting in which they are here placed. Take for example Wordsworth's vision of the old chivalry and old romance in France, with the appeal that the thought of them made to his poet's imagina- tion, and then his meeting with a ' ' hunger-bitten girl ' ' and his friend 's comment, ' ' 'Tis against that that we are fighting. ' ' The incident illuminates, as by a lightning's flash, the problem of present life. Or who among the throngs of students who learn, wearily enough, something about Milton would miss the thrill that comes from recognizing a familiar spirit if his ''lesson" should contain the passage from the tract on Reformation in England, here printed on pages 161-162, in which Milton, more than a century and a quarter before Burke, spoke passionately in defence of America and of the spirit that led eventually to the founding of a new nation across the seas; or if it contained -jjcf^^.paragraph from the Tenure of Kings in which Milton proclaims the brother- "'W6d of man: "Who knows not that there is a mutual bond of amity and •brotherhood between man and man over all the world, neither is it the English ^sea that can sever us from that duty and relation." Such passages, made '" impressive because they become parts of a great tradition that the student gleans from the literature of centuries, are not transient steps toward a pass- "5 mark ; in the moments in which they are found there is stored up life and food for future years, to T In order to bring out clearly the meanings that such a body of thought contains for us, the arrangement of the material differs widely from that usually * employed. Chronology has been disregarded where it has seemed desirable to do so ; dates have been supplied where necessary to the understanding of the . selection, and not otherwise ; the same author may be represented under different ' headings. More important than these matters of detail is the outline, or syllabus, which is supplied as a guide. Thus, the sixteenth century is not studied as a time when certain authors wrote at certain times various poems, dramas, and prose works. The ideas which enable one to enter into the mind of the Renaissance, so far as this is possible in an elementary course, are impressed upon the stu- dent's mind through definition and illustration. So throughout the book the plan of listing chronologically a large number of authors, with specimens of their work, is abandoned. The ideas that are expressed by the author of the selection are what the pupil is expected to master. The Table of Contents is therefore an integral part of the method of the book ; it is to be carefully studied in order that the relationship of the particular selection to that section in which it is placed may be fully understood. Further helps will be found in the Index, which again is not a mere catalogue of facts, or a body of notes, but a com- mentary. It follows from what has been said that annotation, in the ordinary sense, is not a part of the plan of the book. The editors believe that over- efnnotation, for elementary classes, not only deadens interest but confuses the student's mind by leading him to think that the results of his study are to be xviii THE GREAT TEADITION tabulated like a dictionary or an encyclopaedia instead of organized into a structure like a building. In this combination of doctrine with discipline we find once more the old definition of Humanism. Such was the conception of the men who founded classical learning in the Renaissance. The discipline they sought in the orderly and precise study of the classics was not a philological discipline alone, a matter of syntax and Greek particles, but the rebirth of a civilization in the minds of men. And the doctrine was the translation of this discipline into terms of citizenship. For Vergerius and Vittorino in Italy and Erasmus and Thomas More in England sought always to train men to be governors. The movement took its strength from the desire to realize the great tradition of antiquity in order to translate it into an intense nationalism for new times. Italy knew little gf her past; those who sought to create for her a soul founded their work on what they considered their true ancestry, ancient Rome, and, through Rome, Greece. Classical tradition was her tradition. So, too, Tudor England lacked national culture and sought the grounds for creating it in a similar study of a perfect civilization. There was reason, then, for the predominance of the classics in any scheme for the education of a gentleman. The new nations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries found in antiquity, classical and Hebraic, their Great Tradition. The bearing of these facts on our present educational and national problems is unmistakable. We stand at the end of an era, at the dawn of a new day. The rise of the modern state in the Renaissance was not more completely a phe- nomenon in that time than the conquest of the world by democracy is destined to become in our own. Our need is the same as theirs : to realize a new humanism, competent to guide through doctrine and discipline. Our need is greater than theirs, because the chief responsibility in those days rested on kings. About the only hope held out by Castiglione, in his treatise on courtiership, was that the prince might be a decent fellow, amenable to suggestions offered by wise cour- tiers. In those days the prince was the state. It is not so with us, now that all the world is to be the inheritance of democracy, either a democracy in which liberty is connected with order, or a democracy in which all things are levelled; nothing is secure, a new chaos in which hot, cold, moist and dry strive for momentary mastery and are gone. Now this need, overwhelming as it is, is met by a racial tradition as rich and as clearly defined as that of classical antiquity. It is only of late years that we have become somewhat aware of this, — fitfully, uncertainly, partially aware of it. For example, the teaching of history in our schools has somehow missed the fact that England and America are united not only by blood and speech but by a common tradition extending back through centuries; that American free institutions took form from the institutions of England; and that the American Revolution was one step in the great evolution of free government, a step as significant for the mother country as for us. The full value of this stupendous INTRODUCTION xix achievement, the joint working-out of free government, we have only begun to estimate. England is too often thought of as the abode of tyranny, the hereditary enemy of free America ; the old battles are still stupidly fought over in our schools, and a prejudice is formed that is not only dangerous but destructive to that cooperation in democratic government which is the manifest destiny of England and America. Something of what all this means, or is capable of meaning, is revealed in this book, in which for the first time the deepest idealism of the two countries, their bible of democracy as expressed in their literature, is set forth as a unity and with the cumulative effect of a mighty evolution. The book, therefore, becomes a revelation of the doctrine and the discipline of an ordered liberty, of the way in which the best liberal thought of today grows out of a great tradition, the warp and woof of the life of a thousand years. The best possible preparation for the new life, no longer isolated and set apart, that America now enters upon is to see that these ideas are as widely diffused as possible, so that they may reach, in one form or another, every citizen, every- where. And the best possible antidote to the madness of disordered liberty is to translate this idealism into what Walt Whitman called ''personalities." With such a tradition to draw upon for steadiness and vision, the oppor- tunity of the teacher of English is immeasurably extended. The greatest need of the present in the field of higher education is, as Paul Elmore More has said, "to restore to their predominance in the curriculum those studies that train the imagination, not, be it said, the imagination in its purely aesthetic function, . . . but the imagination in its power of grasping in a single firm vision, so to speak, the long course of human history and of distinguishing therein what is essential from what is ephemeral. ' ' The present volume, by enabling the stu- dent to enter into the mind of a past which is great in itself and vitally related to the present, invites the teacher of English literature to become what he has hitherto signally failed to be, a real champion of those elements in education which are faring ill amid the pressure of utilitarian subjects. Incidentally, such a preliminary study of the course of English literature affords the best possible basis for advanced study. Thus, a training in the fundamental ideas of the Renaissance is a better foundation for a scholarly and technical knowledge of Shakespeare or Spenser than is a survey, no matter how careful, of dramatic origins, or of Renaissance epic theory, or of the literary ideas of the Areopagus. So also in the Romantic period the first essential of thorough comprehension is a consideration of the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual experience which came to Englishmen as a result of the French Revolution. Thus the ninth, tenth, and eleventh books of Wordsworth's Prelude, which are not given in any book of selections commonly used in survey courses, become altogether the most important literary document of the age, constituting, as Legouis remarks, an inward history of Wordsworth's generation and showing how the nineteenth century was born out of the eighteenth. To pass lightly over a subject of such commanding importance, while attempting to focus th,e stfadent's attention XX THE GREAT TRADITION on the development of medievalism, or even, choosing the better part, while encouraging him in pleasant rambles with Elia or Hazlitt through the by-ways of literature, is to put a weapon into the hands of those critics who condemn the English teacher as a pedant or a dilettant and to hasten the exodus of college men from the liberal arts course. If we wish to restore literature to its true place as the main fortress of liberal culture we shall revise our methods of dealing with it. A peculiar advantage of studying literature in this way is the opportunity which it affords of bringing about a new integration of the entire curriculum of liberal subjects. It was perhaps the greatest advantage of the older classical discipline, intelligently conceived,, that it dealt with culture as a unit. Thus in Milton's program of education the history, the science, the art, the philosophy of Greece and Eome were studied as a single subject matter, interrelated in all its parts. The common medium of all was literature. The fruit of education in the ancient tongues was the comprehension of a great civilization in its entirety, a closely woven knowledge of the best that had been thought and done by a great people. The time for such a re-creation of antiquity in the mind has long since passed. Greek and Latin, even for the few who surrender themselves to the claims of the most classical of courses, have shrunk to a mere department of knowledge. Rightly or wrongly, we have substituted modern culture for ancient as the material of humane discipline. And in so doing, as the defenders of the old system are ever ready to point out, we have failed to secure a compar- able result. But this failure is due to no inherent deficiency in the subject matter. It is due rather to the fact that we have found no new unity to take the place of the old. We have divorced science from philosophy and history from art. The chief virtue of the modern professor consists in his ability to stick to his last. The teacher of science, the teacher of history, the teacher of philosophy, ''each in his sea of life enisled," continues to dispense his private and peculiar knowledge, indifferent to its place or bearing in the sum of things. To the teacher of literature above all others falls the task of relating the work of other departments, for literature in the broadest sense contains the fruit of all. Unfortunately, however, too many teachers of English treat, their subject as if it were no less isolated than the rest, and the emphasis in the available books of selections accentuates this tendency. In the course contemplated for users of this volume, literature is the record of man's achievement on this planet in modern times. It is indeed a criticism of life, and that in no narrow sense. An understanding of it demands that the student draw on all his resources of knowledge in many fields. Adequate instruction implies the closest cooperation between the teacher of English and the teachers of history, of ethics and meta- physics, of social science, of government. The method looks forward to a revision of the whole curriculum of liberal arts in the interests of singleness of impres- sion. Meanwhile, the teacher of literature, if he is awake to his responsibilities, can do much to remedy the chief defect in our college program by revealing to the student the essential unity of human thought. INTKODUCTION xxi The unity of human thought, and the enormous, silent power of forces inherited are written in our blood. After speaking of the argument that a virile nation had better give attention to "doing things worthy to be written [than] writing things fit to be done," Philip Sidney says of England: Certain it is that, in our plainest homeliness, yet never was the Albion nation without poetry. Marry, this argument, though it be levelled against poetry, yet is it indeed a chain-shot against all learning. ... Of such mind were certain Goths, of whom it is written that, having in the spoil of a famous city taken a fair library, one hangman — belike fit to execute the fruits of their wits — who had murdered a great number of bodies, would have set fire in it. ''No," said another very gravely, "take heed what you do; for while they are busy about these toys, we shall with more leisure conquer their countries." This, indeed, is the ordinary doctrine of ignorance. So in overweening and pride a band of men who likened their leaders to "Wotan and Siegfried, and to another tribal deity, trampled Belgium, destroyed cathe- drals and colleges and libraries, and boasted that they would replace these treas- ures inherited from the workmen and artists and dreamers of past ages with something just as good, turned out with speed and precision in their modern factories. But in "these toys," symbolic of the great tradition of the human spirit, resided a potency that called to arms freemen from the four quarters of the earth. In Sidney's story, as in the recent incarnation of it in the conquerors of Belgium and their nemesis, are seen the two heredities. The first heredity is that of the lust for power, brutal, unregardful alike of human suffering and of human effort to escape from the dungeon of the body to a realization of the divine essence of the soul. The savagery of war, the savagery of industrialism, the savagery of intolerance, the savagery of the mob, are all fruits of this heredity, the survival of the beast. And the other heredity is the gift of the spirit. The Russian peasant, most humble of men, thinks that he possesses some share of it. Piers Plowman talked of it, Latimer and Ridley and all the glorious company of martyrs saw its brighter flame through the flames that consumed their mortal bodies. It was the Grail that cheered the little company of exiles in the cabin of the Mayflower and enabled them to write that first compact of free government in America. It was the courage in the heart of Washington, . and the divinity that was in Lincoln. It is " the one Spirit 's plastic stress ' ' that Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there All new successions to the forms they wear, Torturing the unwilling dross that checks its flight To its own likeness, as each mass may bear. And bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light. "Genius itself," as Paul Elmer More has admirably said, "the master of music and poetry and all art that enlarges life, genius itself is nothing other than the reverberations of this enormous past [the voice of the race] on the sounding-board of some human intelligence, so finely wrought as to send forth Xxii THE GREAT TRADITION in purity the echoed tones which from a grosser soul come forth deadened and confused by the clashing of the man's individual impulses." The faith of the martyr, the courage of the pioneer, the steadfastness of the hero, the love of the emancipator, the vision of the poet, — and the virtue of plain and inarticulate men and women everywhere, gain their power from this great tradition of the race. It was this idealism, sleeping but not dead, that swept America like a divine fire in the months following April of 1917. In the great war this heredity met and conquered the heredity of brute power. Other crises remain to be met, for the warfare never ends. It is the task of school and college to guard the flame. The editors desire to express their grateful acknowledgements to the follow- ing authors and publishers for the use of copyrighted matter contained in the book : To Paul Elmer More and to the Houghton Mifflin Company, for the selection from Aristocracy and Justice; to John Dewey and to Henry Holt & Company, for the extract from German Philosophy and Politics, and to Professor Dewey and the Atlantic Monthly Company for the paragraphs from ''Understanding the Mind of Germany." The extract from British Social Politics is used by the kind permission of the author. Professor Carleton Hayes. Through the kindness of the Atlantic Monthly Company the editors are enabled to include the paragraphs from Professor Miinsterberg 's article on ''The Standing of Scholarship in America." The selection by Donald Hankey, from A Student in Arms, is included by kind permission of E. P. Dutton & Company, publishers of the book. For the right to use an extract from Viscount Morley 's Recollections, the editors are indebted to the publishers, the Macmillan Company. The selections from Whitman's, prose and verse are used by the kind permission of the literary executor of Whitman's works, Mr. Horace Traubel. THE GEEAT TRADITION THE RENAISSANCE I. THE EXPANSION OF THE INDIVIDUAL The Tragical History op Doctor Faustus cpieistopher marlowe Enter Chorus Chorus. ISi^ot marching now in fields of Thrasymene, Where Mars did mate the Carthaginians ; Nor sporting in the dalliance of love, In courts of kings where state is overturn'd ; Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds, Intends our Muse to vaunt her heavenly verse : Only this, gentlemen, — we must perform The form of Faustus' fortunes, good or bad : To patient judgments we appeal our plaud, And speak for Faustus in his infancy. Now is he born, his parents base of stock, In Germany, within a town call'd Rhodes : Of riper years, to Wertenberg he went. Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up. So soon he profits in divinity. The fruitful plot of scholarism grac'd. That shortly he was grac'd with doctor's name, Excelling all whose sweet delight disputes In heavenly matters of theology; Till swoln with cunning, of a self-conceit, His waxen wings did mount above his reach. And, melting, heavens conspir'd his over- throw ; For, falling to a devilish exercise. And glutted now with learning's golden gifts. He surfeits upon cursed necromancy; Nothing so sweet as magic is to him. Which he prefers before his chief est bliss: And this the man that in his study sits. [Exit. Faustus discovered in his study Faust. Settle thy studies, Faustus, and be- gin To sound the depth of that thou wilt pro- fess: Having commenc'd, be a divine in show, Yet level at the end of every art, And live and die in Aristotle's works. Sweet Analytics, 'tis thou hast ravish'd me ! Bene disserere est finis logices. Is, to dispute well, logic's chief est end? Affords this art no greater miracle? Then read no more ; thou hast attain'd that end: A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit : Bid Economy farewell, and Galen come, Seeing, Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medieus : Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold. And be eternis'd for some wondrous cure : Sumtnum bonum medicines sanitas, The end of physic is our body's health. Why, Faustus, hast thou not attain'd that end? Is not thy common talk found aphorisms ? Are not thy bills hung ujd as monuments. Whereby whole cities have escaj)'d the plague. And thousand desperate maladies been eas'd? Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man. Couldst thou make men to live eternally, Or, being dead, raise them to life again, Then this profession were to be esteem'd. Physic, farewell ! Where is Justinian ? [Reads. Si una eademque res legatur duobus, alter rem, alter valorem, rei, etc. A pretty case of paltry legacies ! [Beads. Exhcereditare filium non potest pater, nisi, etc. Such is the subject of the institute, And universal body of the law : This study fits a mercenary drudge, Who aims at nothing but external trash; Too servile and illiberal for rne. When all is done, divinity is best: Jerome's Bible, Faustus; view it well. [Beads. THE GEEAT TRADITION Stipendium peccati mors est. Ha! Stipen- dium, etc. The reward of sin is death : that's hard. [^Beads. Si peccasse negamus, fallimur, et nulla est in nobis Veritas; If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us. Why, then, belike we must sin, and so consequently die: Ay, we must die an everlasting death. What doctrine call you this, Che sera, sera, What will be, shall be ? Divinity, adieu ! These metaphysics of magicians, And necromantic books are heavenly; Lines, circles, scenes, letters, and characters ; Ay, these are those that Faustus most de- sires. 0, what a world of profit and delight, Of power, of honor, of omnipotence, Is promis'd to the studious artisan ! All things that move between the quiet poles Shall be at my command: emperors and kings Are but obeyed in their several provinces, Nor can they raise the wind, or rend the clouds ; But his dominion that exceeds in this, Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man ; A sound magician is a mighty god : Here, Faustus, tire thy brains to gain a deity. Enter Wagner Wagner, commend me to my dearest friends. The German Valdes and Cornelius; Eequest them earnestly to visit me. Wag. I will, sir. [Exit. Faust. Their conference will be a greater help to me Than all my labors, plod I ne'er so fast. Enter Good Angel and Evil Angel G. Ang. 0, Faustus, lay thy damned book aside. And gaze not on it, lest it tempt thy soul, And heap God's heavy wrath upon thy head ! Read, read the Scriptures: — that is blas- phemy. E. Ang. Go forward, Faustus, in that fa- mous art Wherein all Nature's treasure is eontain'd: Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky. Lord and commander of these elements. [Exeunt Angels. Faust. How am I glutted with conceit of this ! Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please. Resolve me of all ambiguities. Perform what desperate enterprise I will ? I'll have them fly to India for gold, Ransack the ocean for orient pearl. And search all corners of the new-found world For pleasant fruits and princely delicates; I'll have them read me strange philosophy. And tell the secret of all foreign kings ; I'll have them wall all Germany with brass. And make swift Rhine circle fair Werten- berg ; I'll have them fill the public schools with silk, Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad; I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring, And chase the Prince of Parma from our land. And reign sole king of all the provinces ; Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war. Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp's bridge, I'll make my servile spirits to invent. Enter Valdes and Cornelius Come, German Valdes and Cornelius, And make me blest with your sage confer- ence, Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cornelius, Know that .your words have won me at the last To practice magic and concealed arts: Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy. That will receive no object ; for my head But ruminates on necromantic skill. Philosophy is odious and obscure; Both law and physics are for petty wits ; Divinity is basest of the three. Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile : 'Tis magic, magic, that hath ravish'd me. Then, gentle friends, aid me in this attempt ; And I, that have with concise syllogisms Gravell'd the pastors of the German church. And made the flowering pride of Werten- berg Swarm to my problems, as the infernal spirits On sweet Mus^us when he came to hell. Will be as cunning as Agrippa was. Whose shadow made all Europe honor him. Vald. Faustus, these books, thy wit, and our experience. Shall make all nations to canonize us. As Indian Moors obey their Spanish lords, So shall the spirits of every element THE EENAISSANCE Be always serviceable to us three ; Like lions shall they guard us when we please ; Like Almain rutters with their horsemen's staves. Or Lapland giants, trotting by our sides ; Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids, Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows Than have the white breasts of the queen of love : From Venice shall they drag huge argosies, And from America the golden fleece That yearly stuffs old Philip's treasury ; If learned Faustus will be resolute. Faust. Valdes, as resolute am I in this As thou to live : therefore object it not. Corn. The miracles that magic will perform Will make thee vow to study nothing else. He that is grounded in astrology, Enrich'd with tongues, well seen in minerals. Hath all the principles magic doth require:^ Then doubt not, Faustus, but to be re- nowm'd. And more frequented for this mystery Than heretofore the Delphian oracle. The spirits tell me they can dry the sea. And fetch the treasure of all foreign wrecks. Ay, all the wealth that our forefathers hid Within the massy entrails of the earth : Then tell me, Faustus, what shall we three want? Faust. Nothing, Cornelius. 0, this cheers my soul ! Come, shoAV me some demonstrations magi- cal. That I may conjure in some lusty grove. And have these joys in full possession. Vald. Then haste thee to some solitary grove, And bear wise Bacon's and Albertus' works, The Hebrew Psalter, and New Testament ; And whatsoever else is requisite We will inform thee ere our conference cease. Corn. Valdes, first let him know the words of art; And then, all other ceremonies learn'd, Faustus may try his cunning by himself. Vald. First I'll instruct thee in the rudi- ments. And then wilt thou be perfeeter than I. Faust. Then come and dine with me, and, after meat. We'll canvass every quiddity thereof; For, ere I sleep, I'll try what I can do : This night I'll conjure, though I die there- fore. [Exeunt. Enter two Scholars First Schol. I wonder what's become of Faustvis, that was wont to make our schools ring with sic probo. Sec. Schol. That shall we know, for see, here comes his boy. Enter Wagner First Schol. How now, sirrah! where's thy master ? Wag. God in heaven knows. Sec. Schol. Why, dost not thou know"? Wag. Yes, I know ; but that follows not. First Schol. Go to, sirrah ! leave your jest- ing, and tell us where he is. Wag. That follows not necessary by force of argument, that you, being licentiates, should stand upon: therefore acknowl- edge your error, and be attentive. Sec. Schol. Why, didst thou not say thou knewest ? Wag. Have you any witness on't? First Schol. Yes, sirrah, I heard you. Wag. Ask my fellow if I be a thief. Sec. Schol. Well, you will not tell us? Wag. Yes, sir, I will tell you; yet, if you were not dunces you would never ask me such a question, for is not he corpus naturalef and is not that mobile f then wherefore should you ask me such a question? But that I am by nature phlegmatic, slow to wrath, and prone to lechery (to love, I would say), it were not for you to come within forty foot of the place of execution, although I do not doubt to see you both hanged the next sessions. Thus having tri- umphed over you, I will set my coun- tenance like a precisian, and begin to speak thus : — Truly, my dear brethren, my master is within at dinner, with Valdes and Cornelius, as this wine, if it could si^eak, would inform your wor- ships : and so, the Lord bless you, pre- serve you, and keep you, my dear brethren, my dear brethren! [Exit. First Schol. Nay, then, I fear he has fallen into that damned art for which they two are infamous through the world. See. Schol. Were he a stranger, and not allied to me, yet should I grieve for . him. But, come, let us go and inform the Rector, and see if he by his grave counsel can reclaim him. First Schol. 0, but I fear me nothing can reclaim him! Sec. Schol. Yet let us try what we can do. [Exeunt. THE GEEAT TEADITION Enter Faustus to conjure Faust. Now that the gloomy shadow of the eai'th, Longing to view Orion's drizzling look, Leaps from th' antarctic world unto the sky, And dims the welkin with her pitchy breath, Faustus, begin thine incantations. And try if devils will obey thy best. Seeing thou hast pray'd and sacrifle'd to them. Within this circle is Jehovah's name, Forward and backward anagrammatis'd, Th' abbreviated names of holy saints. Figures of every adjunct to the heavens, And characters of signs and erring stars. By which the spirits are enf orc'd to rise : Then fear not, Faustus, but be resolute, And try the uttermost magic can perform. — Sint mihi dei Acherontis propitii! Valeat numen triplex Jehovce! Ignei, aerii, aquatani spiritus, salvete! Orientis princeps Belzehub, inferni ardentis monarcha, et Demogorgon, propitiamus vos ut appareat et surgat Mephis- topJiilis, quod tumeraris : per Jeliovam, Gehennam, et consecratam aquam quam nunc spargo, signumque crueis quod nunc facio, et per vota nostra, ipse nunc surgat nobis dicatus Mepliistophilis ! Enter Mephistophilis I charge thee to return, and change thy shape ; Thou art too ugly to attend on me : Go, and return an old Franciscan friar; That holy shape becomes a devil best. [_Exit Mephistophilis. I see there's virtue in my heavenly words : Who would not be proficient in this art? How pliant is this Mephistophilis, Full of obedience and humility ! Such is the force of magic and my spells : No, Faustus, thou art conjurer laureat. That canst command great Mephistophilis : Quin regis Mephistophilis fratris imagine. Be-enter Mephistophilis like a Franciscan friar Meph. Now, Faustus, what wouldst thou have me do? Faust. I charge thee wait upon me whilst I live. To do whatever Faustus shall command. Be it to make the moon drop from her sphere. Or the ocean to overwhelm the world. Meph. I am a servant to great Lucifer, And may not follow thee without his leave : No more than he commands must we per- form. Faust. Did not he charge thee to appear to me? Meph. No, I came hither of mine own ac- cord. Faust. Did not my conjuring speeches raise thee ? speak. Meph. That was the cause, but yet per ac- cidens; For, when we hear one rack the name of God, Abjure the Scriptures and his Saviour Christ, We fly, in hope to get his glorious soul ; Nor will we come, unless he use such means Whereby he is in danger to be damn'd. Therefore the shortest cut for conjuring Is stoutly to abjure the Trinity, And pray devoutly to the prince of hell. Faust. So Faustus hath Already done; and holds this principle. There is no chief but only Belzehub ; To whom Faustus doth dedicate himself. This word "damnation" terrifies not him, For he confounds hell in Elysium: His ghost be with the old philosophers ! But, leaving these vain trifles of men's souls. Tell me what is that Lucifer thy lord? Meph. Arch-regent and commander of all spirits. Faust. Was not that Lucifer an angel once ? Meph. Yes, Faustus, and most dearly lov'd of God. Faust. How comes it, then, that he is prince of devils? Meph. 0, by aspiring pride and insolence ; For which God threw him from the face of heaven. Faust. And what are you that live with Lucifer ? Meph. Unhappy spirits that fell with Luci- fer, Conspir'd against our God with Lucifer, And are for ever damn'd with Lucifer. Faust. Where are joxi damn'd? Meph. In hell. Faust. How comes it, then, that thou art out of hell? Meph. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it. Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven. Am not tormented with ten thousand hells. In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss ? 0, Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, THE EENAISSANCE Which strike a terror to my fainting soul! Faust. What, is great Mephistophilis so passionate For being deprived of the joys of heaven? Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude, And scorn those joys thou never shalt pos- sess. Go bear these tidings to great Lucifer : Seeing Faustus hath incurr'd eternal death By desjDerate thoughts against Jove's deity, Say, he surrenders up to him his soul, So he Avill spare him four-and-twenty years. Letting him live in all voluptuousness; Having thee ever to attend on me, To give me whatsoever I shall ask, To tell me whatsoever I demand. To .slay mine enemies, and aid my friends. And always be obedient to my will. Go and return to mighty Lucifer, And meet me in my study at midnight. And then resolve me of thy master's mind. Meph. I will, Faustus. [Exit. Faust. Had I as many souls as there be stars, I'd give them all for Mephistophilis. By him I'll be great emj^eror of the world, And make a bridge thorough the moving air, To pass the ocean with a band of men ; I'll join the hills that bind the Afric shore, And make that country continent to Spain, And both contributory to my crown : The Emperor shall not live but by my leave, Nor any potentate of Germany. Now that I have obtained Avhat I desir'd, I'll live in speculation of this art. Till Mephistophilis return again. [Exit. ****** Faustus discovered in his study Faust. Now, Faustus, must Thou needs be damn'd, and canst thou not be sav'd: What boots it, then, to think of God or heaven ? Away with such vain fancies, and despair; Despair in God, and trust in Belzebub : Now go not backward ; no, Faustus, be reso- lute : Why waver'st thou 1 0, something soundeth in mine ears, "Abjure this magic, turn to God again!" Ay, and Faustus will turn to God again. To God ? he loves thee not ; The god thou serv'st is thine own apjoetite. Wherein is fix'd the love of Belzebub: To him I'll build an altar and a church. And offer lukeAvarm blood of new-born babes. Enter Good Angel and Evil Angel G. Ang. Sweet Faustus, leave that execrable art. Faust. Contrition, i3rayer, repentance — what of them? G. Ang. 0, they are means to bring thee unto heaven ! E. Ang. Rather illusions, fruits of lunacy. That make men foolish that do trust them most. G. Ang. Sweet Faustus, think of heaven and heavenly things. E. Ang. No, Faustus; think of honor and of wealth. [Exeunt Angels. Faust. Of wealth ! Why, the signiory of Embden shall be mine. When Mephistophilis shall stand by me. What god can hurt thee, Faustus? thou art safe: Cast no more doubts. — Come, Mephis- tophilis, And bring glad tidings from great Luci- fer ; — • Is't not midnight ? — come, Mephistophilis, Veni, veni Mephistophile! Enter Mephistophilis Now tell me what says Lucifer, thy lord? Mejyh. That I shall wait on Faustus whilst he lives. So he will buy my service with his soul. Faust. Already Faustus hath hazarded that for thee. Meph. But, Faustus, thou must bequeath it solemnly, And write a deed of gift with thine own blood ; For that security craves great Lucifer. ■ If thou deny it, I will back to hell. Faust. Stay, Mephistophilis, and tell me, what good Avill my soul do thy lord? Meph. Enlarge his kingdom. Faust. Is that the reason why he tempts us thus? Meph. Solamen miseris socios habuisse do- loris. Faust. Why, have you any jDain that tor- ture others ! Meph. As great as have the human souls of men. But, tell me, Faustus, shall I have thy soul ? And I will be thy slave, and wait on thee. And give thee more than thou hast wit to ask. Faust. Ay, Mephistophilis, I give it thee. THE GREAT TRADITION Mepli. Then, Faustus, stab thy arm coura- geously, And bind thy soul, that at some certain day Great Lucifer may claim it as his own ; And then be thou as great as Lucifer. Faust. [Stabbing his arm] Lo, Mephis- tophilis, for love of thee, I cut mine arm, and with my proper blood Assure my soul to be great Lucifer's, Chief lord and regent of i^erpetual night ! View here the blood that trickles from mine arm. And let it be propitious for my wish. Meph. But, Faustus, thou must Write it in manner of a deed of gift. Faust. Ay, so I will [Writes]. But, Mephis- tophilis. My blood congeals, and I can write no more. Meph. I'll fetch thee fire to dissolve it straight, [Exit. Faust. What might the staying of my blood portend ? Is it unwilling I should write this bill ? Why streams it not, that I'may write afresh ? Faustus gives to thee his soul: ah, there it stay'd ! Why shouldst thou not? is not thy soul thine own? Then write again, Faustus gives to thee his soul. Re-enter Mephistophilis with a chafer of coals Meph. Here's fu-e ; come, Faustus, set it on. Faust. So, now the blood begins to clear again ; Now will I make an end immediately. [Writes. Meph. 0, what will not I do to obtain his soul ! [Aside. Faust. C onsummatum est; this bill is ended, And Faustus hath bequeathed his soul to Lucifer. But what is this inscription on mine arm ? Homo, fuge: whither should I fly? If unto God, he'll throw me down to hell. My senses are deceiv'd; here's nothing writ : — I see it plain; here in this place is writ. Homo, fuge : yet shall not Faustus fly. Meph. I'll fetch him somewhat to delight his mind. [Aside, and then exit. Be-enter Meppiistophilis with Devils, who give crowns and rich apparel to Faustus_, dance, and then depart Faust. Speak, Mephistophilis, what means this slaow ? Meph. Nothing, Faustus, but to delight thy mind withal. And to show thee what magic can perform. Faust. But may I raise up spirits when I please ? Meph. Ay, Faustus, and do greater things than these. Faust. Then there's enough for a thousand souls. Here, Mephistophilis, receive this scroll, A deed of gift of body and of soul: But yet conditionally that thou perform All articles jjrescrib'd between us both. Meph. Faustus, I swear by hell and Lucifer To effect all promises between us made ! Faust. Then hear me read them. [Reads] On these conditions following. First that Faustus may be a spirit in form and substance. Secondly, that Mephis- tophilis shall be his servant, and at his command. Thirdly, that Mephis- tophilis shall do for him, and bring him whatsoever he desires. Fourthly, that he shall be in his chamber or house in- visible. Lastly, that he shall appear to the said John Faustus, at all times, in what form or shape soever he please. I, John Faustus, of Wertenberg, Doc- tor, by these presents, do give both body and soul to Lucifer prince of the east, and his minister Mephistophilis ; and furthermore grant unto them, that, twenty-four years being expired, the articles above-written inviolate, full power to fetch or carry the said John Faustus, body and soul, flesh, blood, or goods, into their habitation wheresoever. By me, John Faustus. Meph. Speak, Faustus, do you deliver this as your deed? Faust. Ay, take it, and the devil give thee good on't ! Meph. Now, Faustus, ask what thou wilt. Faust. First will I question with thee about hell. Tell me, where is the place that men call hell? Meph. Under the heavens. Faust. Ay, but whereabout? Meph. Within the bowels of these elements, Where we are tortur'd and remain for ever : Hell hath no limits, nor is cireumscrib'd In one self place ; for where we are is hell. And where hell is, there must we ever be : And, to conclude, when all the world dis- solves, And every creature shall be purified. THE EENAISSANCE All places shall be hell that are not heaven. Faust. Come, I think hell's a fable. Meph. Ay, think so still, till experience change thy mind. Faust. Why, think'st thou, then, that Faus- tus shall be damn'd ? Meph. Ay, of necessity, for here's the scroll Wherein thou hast given thy soul to Lucifer. Faust. Ay, and body too : but what of that"? Think'st thou that Faustus is so fond to imagine That, after this life, there is any pain 1 Tush, these are trifles and mere old wives' tales. Meph. But, Faustus, I am an instance to prove the contrary. For I am damn'd and am now in hell. Faust. How ! now in hell ! Nay, an this be hell, I'll willingly be damn'd here : What ! walking, disputing, etc. But, leaving off this, let me have a wife, The fairest maid in Germany ; For I am wanton and lascivious, And cannot live without a wife. Meph. How ! a wife ! I prithee, Faustus, talk not of a wife. Faust. Nay, sweet Mephistophilis, fetch me one, for I will have one. Meph. Well, thou wilt have one? Sit there till I come : I'll fetch thee a wife in the devil's name. [Exit. Re-enter Mephistophilis with a Devil drest like a Woman, with fireworks Meph. Tell me, Faustus, how dost thou like thy wife ? Faust. A plague on iier ! Meph. Tut, Faustus, Marriage is but a ceremonial toy ; If thou lovest me, think no more of it. I'll cull thee out the fairest courtesans. And bring them every morning to thy bed : She whom thine eye shall like, thy heart shall have. Be she as chaste as was Penelope, As wise as Saba, or as beautiful As was bright Lucifer before his fall. Hold, take this book, peruse it thoroughly : [Gives book. The iterating of these lines brings gold ; The framing of this circle on the ground Brings whirlwinds, tempests, thunder, and lightning ; Pronounce this thrice devoutly to thyself. And men in armor shall appear to thee, Ready to execute what thou desir'st. Faust. Thanks, Mephistophilis: yet fain would I have a book wherein I might behold all spells and incantations, that I might raise up spirits when I please. Meph. Here they are in this book. [Turns to them. Faust. Now would I have a book where I might see all characters and i^lanets of the heavens, that I might know their motions and dispositions. Meph. Here they are too. [Turns to them. Faust. Nay, let me have one book more, — and then I have done, — wherein I might see all plants, herbs, and trees, that grow upon the earth. Meph. Here they be. Faust. 0, thou art deceived. Meph. Tut, I warrant Uiee. [Turns to them. Faust. When I behold the heavens, then I repent. And curse thee, wicked Mei3histo]3hilis, Because thou hast depriv'd me of those joys. Meph. Why, Faustus, Thinkest thou heaven is such a glorious thing? I tell thee, 'tis not half so fair as thou. Or any man that breathes on earth. Faust. How prov'st thou that? Meph. 'Twas made for man, therefore is man more excellent. Faust. If it were made for man, 'twas made for me : I will renounce this magic and repent. Enter Good Angel and Evil Angel G. Ang. Faustus, repent ; yet God will pity thee. E. Ang. Thou art a spirit ; God cannot pity thee. Faust. Who buzzeth in* mine ears I am a spirit ? Be I a devil, yet God may jDity me ; Ay, God will pity me, if I repent. E. Ang. Ay, but Faustus never shall repent. [Exeunt Angels. Faust. My heart's so harden'd, I cannot repent : Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven, But fearful echoes thunder in mine ears, "Faustus, thou art damn'd!" then swords, and knives, Poison, guns, halters, and envenom'd steel Are laid before me to despatch myself; And long ere this I should have slain myself, 8 THE GEEAT TEADITION Had not sweet pleasure eonquer'd deep despair. Have not I made blind Homer sing to me Of Alexander's love and CEnon's death f And hath not he, that built the walls of Thebes With ravishing sound of his melodious harp, Made music with my Mephistophilis ? Why should I die, then, or basely despair! I am resolv'd ; Faustus shall ne'er repent. — Come, Mephistophilis, let us dispute again, And argue of divine astrology. Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon? Are all celestial bodies but one globe. As is the substance of this centric earth ? Meph. As are the elements, such are the spheres. Mutually folded in each other's orb. And, Faustus, All jointly move upon one axletree, Whose terminus is term'd the world's wide pole; Nor are the names of Saturn, Mars, or Jupiter Feign'd, but are erring stars. Faust. But, tell me, have they all one mo- tion, both situ et tempore f Meph. All jointly move from east to west in twenty-four hours upon the poles of the world; but differ in their motion upon the poles of the zodiac. Faust. Tush, These slender trifles Wagner can decide : . Hath Mephistophilis no greater skill? Who knows not the double motion of the planets ? The first is finish'd in a natural day ; The second thus ; as Saturn in thirty years ; Jupiter in twelve; Mars in four; the Sun, Venus, and Mercury in a year; the Moon in twenty-eight days. Tush, these are freshmen's suiDpositions. But, tell me, hath every sphere a dominion or intelligentiaf Meph. Ay. Faust. How many heavens or spheres are there? Meph. Nine; the seven planets, the firma- ment, and the empyreal heaven, Faust. Well resolve me in this question; why have we not conjunctions, opposi- tions, aspects, eclipses, all at one time, but in some years we have more, in some less? Meph. Per incequalem motum respectu totius. Faust. Well, I am answered. Tell me who made the world ? Meph. I will not. Faust. Sweet Mephistophilis, tell me. Meph. Move me not, for I will not tell thee. Faust. Villain, have I not bound thee to tell me anything? Meph. Ay, that is not against our kingdom ; but this is. Think thou on hell, Faustus, for thou art damned. Faust. Think, Faustus, upon God that made the world. Meph. Remember this. [Exit. Faust. Ay, go, accursed spirit, to ugly hell ! 'Tis thou hast damn'd distressed Faustus' soul. Is't not too late? Ee-enter Good Angel and Evil Angel E. Ang. Too late. G. Ang. Never too late, if Faustus can re- pent. E. Ang. If thou repent, devils shall tear thee in pieces. G. Ang. Repent, and they shall never raze thy skin. . [Exeunt Angels. Faust. Ah, Christ, my Saviour, Seek to save distressed Faustus' soul ! Enter Lucifer, Belzebub, and Mephistophilis Luc. Christ cannot save thy soul, for he is just : There's none but I have interest in the same. Faust. 0, who art thou that look'st so ter- rible? Luc. I am Lucifer, And this is my companion-prince in hell. Faust. 0, Faustus, they are come to fetch away thy soul! Luc. We come to tell thee thou dost in- jure us; Thou talk'st of Christ, contrary to thy promise : Thou shouldst not think of God: think of the devil. And of his dam too. Faust. Nor will I henceforth : pardon me in this, And Faustus vows never to look to heaven, Never to name God, or to pray to Him, To burn his Scriptures, slay his ministers, And make my spirits pull his churches down. Luc. Do so, and we will highly gratify thee. Faustus, we are come from hell to show thee some pastime : sit down, and thou shalt see all the Seven Deadly Sins appear in their proper shapes. THE EENAISSANCE 9 Faust. That sight will be as pleasing unto me, As Paradise was to Adam, the first day Of his creation, Luc. Talk not of Paradise nor creation; but mark this show: talk of the devil, and nothing else. — Come away! ****** [JL long interval, during which Faustus has many marvelous adventures in all parts of the world] Enter Wagner Wag. I think my master means to die shortly, For he hath given to me all his goods : And yet, methinks, if that death were near. He would not banquet, and carouse, and swill Amongst the students, as even now he doth. Who are at supper with such belly-cheer As Wagner ne'er beheld in all his life. See, where they come! belike the feast is ended. [Exit. Enter Faustus with two or three Scholars, and Mephistophilis First Schol. Master Doctor Faustus, since our conference about fair ladies, which was the beautif ulest in all the world, we have determined with ourselves that Helen of Greece was the admirablest lady that ever lived : therefore. Master Doctor, if you will do us that favor, as to let us see that peerless dame of Greece, whom all the world admires for majesty, we should think ourselves much beholding unto you. Faust. Gentlemen, For that I know your friendship is unf eign'd, And Faustus' custom is not to deny The just requests of those that wish him well You shall behold that peerless dame of Greece, No otherways for pomp and majesty Than when Sir Paris cross'd the seas with her. And brought the spoils to rich Dardania. Be silent, then, for danger is in words. [Music sounds, and Helen passeth over the stage] Sec. Schol. Too simple is my wit to tell her praise. Whom all the world admires for majesty. Third Schol. No marvel though the angry Greeks pursu'd With ten years' war the rape of such a queen. Whose heavenly beauty passeth all compare. First Schol. Since we have seen the pride of Nature's works. And only paragon of excellence. Let us depart ; and for this glorious deed Happy and blest be Faustus evermore ! Faust. Gentlemen, farewell: the same I wish to you. [Exeunt Scholars. Enter an Old Man Old Man. Ah, Doctor Faustus, that I might prevail To guide thy steps unto the way of life, By which sweet path thou mayst attain the goal That shall conduct thee to celestial rest ! Break heart, drop blood, and mingle it with tears, Teai's falling from repentant heaviness Of thy most vile and loathsome filthiness, The stench whereof corrupts the inward soul With such flagitious crimes of heinous sin As no commiseration may exjDel, But mercy, Faustus, of thy Saviour sweet, Whose blood alone must wash away thy guilt. Faust. Where are thou, Faustus? wretch, what hast thou done? Damn'd art thou, Faustus, damn'd; despair and die! Hell calls for right, and with a roaring voice Says, "Faustus, come; thine hour is almost come" ; And Faustus now will come to do thee right. [Mephistophilis gives him a dagger. Old Man. Ah, stay, good Faustus, stay thy desperate steps! I see an angel hovers o'er thy head. And, with a vial full of precious grace, Offers to pour the same into thy soul : Then call for mercy, and avoid despair. Faust. Ah, my sweet friend, I feel Thy words to comfort my distressed soul ! Leave me a while to ponder on my sins. Old Man. I go, SAveet Faustus; but with heavy cheer, Fearing the ruin of thy hopeless soul. [Exit. Faust. Accursed Faustus, where is mercy now^ I do repent ; and yet I do despair : Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast : What shall I do to shun the snares of death 1 Meph. Thou traitor, Faustus, I arrest thy soul For disobedience to my sovereign lord : Revolt, or I'll in piecemeal tear thy flesh. 10 THE GREAT TEADITION Faust. Sweet Mephistophilis, entreat thy lord To pardon my unjust presumption, And with my blood again I will confirm My former vow I made to Lucifer. Meph. Do it, then, quickly, with unfeigned heart, Lest greater danger do attend thy drift. Faust. Torment, sweet friend, that base and crooked age, That durst dissuade me from thy Lucifer, "With greatest toi-ments that our hell affords. Meph. His faith is great ; I cannot touch his soul; But what I may afflict his body with I will attempt, which is but little worth. Faust. One thing, good servant, let me crave of thee. To glut the longing of my heart's desire, — That I might have unto my paramour That heavenly Helen which I saw of late, Whose sweet embraeings may extinguish .clean Those thoughts that do dissuade me from my vow. And keep mine oath I made to Lucifer. Meph. Faustus, this, or what else thou shalt desire. Shall be perf orm'd in twinkling of an eye. Be-enter Helen Faust. Was this the face that launch'd a thousaiad ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium 1 — Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. — [Kisses her. Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies !— Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, And all is dross that is not Helena. I will be Paris, and for love of thee, Listead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sack'd ; And I will combat with weak Menelaus, And wear thy colors on my plumed crest ; Yes, I will wound Achilles in the heel. And then return to Helen for a kiss. 0, thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars ; Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter When he appear'd to hapless Semele ; More lovely than the monarch of the sky In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms; And none but thou shalt be my paramour! [Exeunt. Enter the Old Man Old Man. Accursed Faustus, miserable man, That from thy soul exelud'st the grace of heaven. And fly'st the throne of his tribunal-seat ! Enter Devils Satan begins to sift me with his pride : As in this furnace God shall try my faith, My faith, vile hell, shall triumph over thee ; Ambitious fiends, see how the heavens smile At your repulse, and laugh your state to scorn ! Hence, hell ! for hence I fly unto my God. [Exeunt — on one side, Devils, on the other, Old Man. Enter Faustus, with Scholars Faust. Ah, gentlemen ! First Schol. What ails Faustus? Faust. Ah, my sweet chamber-fellow, had I lived with thee, then had I lived still ! but now I die eternally. Look, comes he not? comes he not? Sec. Schol. What means Faustus? Third Schol. Belike he is grown into some sickness by being over-solitary. First Schol. If it be so, we'll have physi- cians to cure him. — 'Tis but a surfeit; never fear, man. Faust. A surfeit of deadly sin, that hath damned both body and soul. Sec. Schol. Yet, Faustus, look up to heaven; remember God's mercies are infinite. Faust. But Faustus' offence can ne'er be pardoned : the serpent that tempted Eve may be saved, but not Faustus. Ah, gentlemen, hear me with patience, and tremble not at nay speeches! Though my heart pants and quivers to remember that I have been a student here these thirty years, 0, would I had never seen Wertenberg, never read book! and what wonders I have done, all Germany can witness, yea, all the world ; for which Faustus hath lost both Germany and the world, yea, heaven itself, heaven, the seat of God, the throne of the blessed, the kingdom of joy; and must remain in hell for ever, hell, ah, hell, for ever ! Sweet friends, what shall become of Faustus, being in hell for ever? Third Schol. Yet, Faustus, call on God. Faust. On God, whom Faustus hath ab- jured ! on God, whom Faustus hath blasphemed! Ah, my God, I would weep ! but the devil draws in my tears. Gush forth blood, instead of tears ! yea, THE EENAISSANCE 11 life and soul ! 0, he stays my tongue ! I would lift up my hands ; but see, they hold them, they hold them ! All. Who, Faustus? Faust. Lucifer and Mephistophilis. Ah, gentlemen, I gave them my soul for my cunning ! All. God forbid! Faust. God forbade it, indeed ; but Faustus hath done it : for vain pleasure of twen- ty-four years hath Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity. I writ them a bill with mine own blood; the date is expired; the time will come, and he will fetch me. First Schol. Why did not Faustus tell us of this before, that divines might have prayed for thee? Faust. Oft have I thought to have done so ; but the devil threatened to tear me in pieces, if I named God, to fetch both body and soul, if I once gave ear to divinity : and now 'tis too late. Gentle- men, away, lest you perish with me. Sec. Schol. 0, what shall we do to save Faustus ? Faust. Talk not of me, but save yourselves, and depart. Third Schol. God will strengthen me; I will stay with Faustus. First Schol. Tempt not God, sweet friend ; but let us into the next room, and there pray for him. Faust. Ay, pray for me, pray for me ; and what noise soever ye hear, come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me. Sec. Schol. Pray thou, and we will pray that God may have mercy upon thee. Faust. Gentlemen, farewell: if I live till morning, I'll visit you; if not, Faustus is gone to hell. All. Faustus, farewell. [Exeunt Scholars — The clock strikes eleven. Faust. Ah, Faustus. Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be damn'd perpetually ! Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven. That time may cease, and midnight never come; Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make Perpetual day ; or let this hour be but A year, a month, a week, a natural day, That Faustus may repent an.d save his soul ! lente, lente cur rite ^ noctis equi! The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike. The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd. 0, I'll leap up to my God ! — Who pulls me down ? — See, see, where .Christ's blood streams in the firmament ! One drop would save my soul, half a drop : ah, my Christ ! — Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ ! Yet will I call on him : 0, spare me, Luci- fer!— Where is it now? 'tis gone: and see, where God Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows ! Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me. And hide me from the hea^^ wrath of God? No, No ! Then will I headlong run into the earth : Earth, gape ! 0, no, it will not harbor me I You stars that reign'd at my nativity. Whose influence hath allotted death and hell Now draw up Faustus, like a foggy mist. Into the entrails of yon laboring clouds. That, when you vomit forth into the air. My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths. So that my soul may but ascend to heaven ! [The clock strikes the half -hour. Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon. God, If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul. Yet for Christ's sake, whose blood hath ran- som'd me. Impose some end to my incessant pain ; Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years, A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd. 0, no end is limited to damned souls! Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? Or why is this immortal that thou hast? Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true. This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd Unto some brutish beast! all beasts are happy, For, when they die. Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements; But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell. Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me ! No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven, [The clock strikes twelve. 0, it strikes, it strikes ! Now, body, turn to air. Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell ! 12 THE GEEAT TEADITION [Thunder and lightning. soul, be ehang'd into little water-drops, And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found ! Enter Devils My God, my God, look not so fierce on me ! Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while ! Ugly hell, gape not ! come not, Lucifer ! I'll burn my books ! — Ah, Mephistophilis ! [Exeunt Devils with Faustus. Enter Chorus Chor. Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough, That sometime grew within this learned man. Faustus is gone : regard his hellish fall. Whose fiendf ul fortune may exhort the wise. Only to wonder at unlawful things, Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits To practice more than heavenly power per- mits. [Exit. Terminat hora diem; terminai auctor opus Selections from Tamburlaine christopher marlowe 1. The Will to Power Meander {to the Persian Prince). Your majesty shall shortly have your wish, And ride in triumph through Persepolis. [Exeunt all except Tamburlaine and his three Captains. Tamb. And ride in triumph through Per- sepolis ! — Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles ! — Usumcasane and Theridamas, Is it not passing brave to be a king. And ride in triumph through Persepolis? Tech. 0, my lord, it is sweet and full of pomp ! TJsum. To be a king, is half to be a god. Ther. A god is not so glorious as a king : I think the pleasure they enjoy in heaven. Cannot compare with kingly joys in earth ; — To wear a croAvn enchas'd with pearl and gold. Whose virtues carry with it life and death ; To ask and have, command and be obey'd; When looks breed love, with looks to gain the prize, ^ Such power attractive shines in princes' eyes. Tamb. Why, say, Theridamas, wilt thou be a king? Ther. Nay, though I praise it, I can live without it. Tamb. What say my other friends? will you be kings? Tech. I, if I could, with all my heart, my lord. Tamb. Why, that's well said, Techelles: so would I : — And so would you, my masters, would you not? Usum. What, then, my lord? Tamb. Why, then, Casane, shall we wish for aught The world affords in greatest novelty, And rest attemptless, faint, and destitute? Methinks we should not. I am strongly mov'd. That if I should desire the Persian crown, I could attain it with a wondrous ease : And would not all our soldiers soon consent. If we should aim at such a dignity ? Ther. I know they would with our persua- sions. Tamb. Why, then, Theridamas, I'll first assay To get the Persian kingdom to myself; Then thou for Parthia; they for Seythia and Media; And, if I prosper, all shall be as sure As if the Turk, the Pope, Afric, and Greece, Came creeping to us with their crowns a-pieee. [From Act. II, Sc. v.] 2. Infinite Desire Tamburlaine (to the Persian Prince, whom he has conquered). The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown. That caus'd the eldest son of heavenly Ops To thrust his doting father from his chair. And place himself in the empyreal heaven, Mov'd me to manage arms against thy state. What better precedent than mighty Jove? Nature, that fram'd us of four elements Warring within our breasts for regiment, Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds : Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend The wondrous architecture of the world, And measure every wandering planet's course, Still climbing after knowledge infinite. And always moving as the restless spheres. Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest, Until we reach the ripest fruit of all. That perfect bliss and sole felicity. The sweet fruition of an earthly crown. [From Act II, Sc. vii.] THE EENAISSANCE 13 3. In Praise of Beauty Ah, fair Zenocrate ! — divine Zenoerate ! Fair is too foul an epithet for thee, — That in thy passion for thy country's love, And fear to see thy kingly father's harm, With hair dishevel'd wip'st thy watery cheeks ; And, like to Flora in her morning's pride, Shaking her silver tresses in the air, Rain'st on the earth resolved jaearl in show- ers, And sprinklest sapphires on thy shining face. Where Beauty, mother to the Muses, sits, And comments volumes with her ivory pen. Taking instructions from thy flowing eyes; Eyes, when that Ebena steps to heaven. In silence of thy solemn evening's walk. Making the mantle of the richest night, The moon, the planets, and the meteors, liglit; There angels in their crystal armors fight A doubtful battle with my tempted thoughts For Egypt's freedom and the Soldan's life. His life that so consumes Zenocrate ; Whose sorrows lay more siege unto my soul Than all my army to Damascus' walls ; And neither Persia's sovereign nor the Turk Troubled my senses with conceit of foil So much by much as doth Zenoerate. What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then ? If all the pens that ever poets held Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts. And every sweetness that inspir'd their hearts. Their minds, and muses on admired themes ; If all the heavenly quintessence they still From their immortal flowers of poesy. Wherein, as in a mirroi', we perceive The highest reaches of a human wit ; If these had made one poem's period. And all eombin'd in beauty's worthiness, Yet should there hover in their restless heads One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least, Which into words no virtue can digest. But how unseemly is it for my sex. My discipline of arms and chivalry. My nature, and the terror of my name. To harbor thoughts effeminate and faint ! Save only that in beauty's just applause, With whose instinct the soul of man is touched ; And every warrior that is rapt with love Of fame, of valor, and of victory. Must needs have beauty beat on his conceits : I thus conceiving, and subduing both. That which hath stoop'd the chiefest of the gods. Even from the fiery-spangled veil of heaven. To feel the lovely warmth of shepherds' flames, And mask in cottages of strowed reeds, Shall give the world to note, for all my birth, That virtue solely is the sum of glory, And fashions men with true nobility. — [From Act V, Sc. i.] "All Knowledge to Be My Province" francis bacon [A Letter to Lord Chancellor Burghley] My Lord — With as much confidence as mine own honest and faithful devotion unto your service and your honorable correspond- ence unto me and my poor estate can breed in a man, do I commend myself unto your Lordship. I wax now somewhat ancient; one and thirty years is a great deal of sand in the hour glass. My health, I thank God, I find confirmed; and I do not fear that action shall impair it, because I ac- count my ordinary course of study and meditation to be more painful than most parts of action are. I ever bare a mind (in some middle place that I could discharge) to serve her majesty, not as a man born under Sol, that loveth honor; nor under Jupiter, that loveth business (for the con- templative planet carrieth me away wholly) ; but as a man born under an excellent sovereign, that deserveth the dedication of all men's abilities. Besides, I do not find in myself so much self-love, but tha. the greater parts of my thoughts are to de- serve well (if I be able) of my friends, and namely of your Lordship; who, being the Atlas of this commonwealth, the honor of my house, and the second founder of my poor estate, I am tied by all duties, both of a good patriot and of an unworthy kins- man, and of an obliged servant, to employ whatsoever I am to do you service. Again, the meanness of my estate doth somewhat move me: for, though I cannot accuse my- self that I am either prodigal or slothful, yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to get. Lastly, I confess that I have as vast con- templative ends as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province ; and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivol- ous disputations, confutations, and verbosi- 14 THE GEEAT TRADITION ties, the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discoveries ; the best state of that province. This, whether it be curiosity or vain glory, or nature, or (if one take it favorably), pMlanthropia, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonable countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a man's own ; which is the thing I greatly affect. And for your Lordship, perhaps you shall not find more strength and less encounter in any other. And if your Lord- ship shall find now, or at any time, that I do seek or affect any place whereunto any that is nearer unto your Lordship shall be concurrent, say then that I am a most dis- honest man. And if your Lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contempla- tion unto voluntary poverty, but this I will do — I will sell the inheritance I have, and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain that shall be executed by deputy, and so give over all care of service, and become some sorry book-maker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth, which (he said) lay so deep. This which I have writ unto your Lordship is rather thoughts than words, being set down without all art, disguising, or reservation. Wherein I have done honor both to your Lordship's wisdom, in judging that that will be best believed of your Lordship which is truest, and to your Lordship's good nature, in retaining noth- ing from you. And even so I wish your Lordship all happiness, and to myself means and occasions to be added to my faithful desire to do you service. From my lodgings at Gray's Inn. A More Divine Perfection" RICHARD hooker [From Ecclesiastical Polity^ Book 1, cli. xi.] Now if men had not naturally this de- sire to be happy, how were it possible that all men should have it? All men have. Therefore this desire in man is natural. It is not in our power not to do the same ; how should it then be in our power to do it coldly or remissly"? So that our desire being natural is also in that degree of earnestness whereunto nothing can be added. And is it probable that God should frame the hearts of all men so desirous of that which no man may obtain? It is an axiom of Nature that natural desire cannot utterly be frustrate. This desire of ours being natural should be frustrate, if that which may satisfy the same were a thing impossible for man to aspire unto. Man doth seek a triple per- fection : first a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requireth either as necessary supplements, or as beauties and ornaments thereof; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none under- neath man is either capable of or acquainted with; lastly a spiritual and divine, consist- ing in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them. They who make the first of these three the scope of their whole life, are said by the Ajjostle to have no god but only their belly, to be earthly-minded men. Unto the second they bend themselves, who seek especially to excel in all such knowl- edge and virtue as doth most commend men. To this branch belongeth the law of moral and civil perfection. That there is some- what higher than either of these two, no other proof doth need than the very process of man's desire, which being natural should be frustrate, if there were not some farther thing wherein it might rest at the length contented, which in the former it cannot do. For man doth not seem to rest satisfied, either with fruition of that wherewith his life is preserved, or with jDerformance of such actions as advance him most deservedly in estimation; but doth further covet, yea oftentimes manifestly pursue with great sedulity and earnestness, that which cannot stand him in any stead for vital use; that which exceedeth the reach of sense; yea somewhat above capacity of reason, some- what divine and heavenly, which with hid- den exultation it rather surmiseth than con- ceiveth ; somewhat it seeketh, and what that is directly it knoweth not, yet very intentive desire thereof doth so incite it, that all other known delights and pleasures are laid aside, they give place to the search of this but only suspected desire. If the soul of man did serve only to give him being in this life, then things appertaining unto this life would content him, as we see they do other crea- tures; which creatures enjoying what they live by seek no further, but in this contenta- tion do show a kind of acknowledgment that there is no higher good which doth any way belong unto them. With us it is otherwise. THE EENAISSANCE 15 For although the beauties, riches, honors, sciences, virtues, and perfections of all men living, were in the j^resent possession of one ; yet somewhat beyond and above all this there would still be sought and earnestly thirsted for. So that Nature even in this life doth iDlainly claim and call for a more divine perfection than either of these two that have been mentioned. Self-Discipline: The Story of Guyon edmund spenser [The Faerie Queene, Book II, Canto VII] 1 As Pilot well expert in perilous wave. That to a stedfast starre his course hath bent, When foggy mistes or cloudy tempests have The faithfull light of that faire lampe yblent. And cover'd heaven with hideous dreriment. Upon his card and compas firmes his eye, TJie maysters of his long experiment, And to them does the steddy helme apply, Bidding his winged vessell fairely forward fly; 2 So Guyon having lost his trustie guyde, Late left beyond that Ydle lake, proceedes Yet on his way, of none accompanyde; And evermore himself e with comfort f eedes Of his own vertues and praise-worthie dedes. So, long he yode, yet no adventure found. Which fame of her shrill trompet worthy reedes ; For still he traveild through wide wastefull ground. That nought but desert wildernesse shewed all around. 3 At last he came unto a gloomy glade, Cover'd with boughes and shrubs from heav- ens light. Whereas he sitting found in secret shade An uncouth, salvage, and uncivile wight. Of griesly hew and f owie ill f avour'd sight ; His face with smoke was tand, and eies were bleard. His head and beard with sout were ill bedight, His cole-blacke hands did seem to have been seard In smythes fire-spitting forge, and nayles like clawes appeard. His yron cote, all overgrowne with rust. Was underneath enveloped with gold ; Whose glistring glosse, darkned with filthy dust, Well yet appeared to have beene of old A worke of rich entayle and curious mould, Woven with antickes and wyld ymagery; And in his lap a masse of coyne he told. And turned ujDside downe, to f eede his eye And covetous desire with his huge threas- ury. And round about him lay on every side Great heapes of gold that never could be spent ; Of which some were rude owre, not purifide Of Mulcibers devouring element; Some others were new driven, and distent Into great Ingowes and to wedges square; Some in round plates withouten moniment ; But most were stamjDt, and in their metal bare The antique shapes of kings and kesars straunge and rare. Soone as he Guyon saw, in great affright And haste he rose for to remove aside Those pretious hils from straungers envious sight, And downe them poured through an hole full wide Into the hollow earth, them there to hide. But Guyon, lightly to him leaping, stayd His hand that trembled as one terrifyde; And though himselfe were at the sight dismayd. Yet him perforce restraynd, and to him doubtfuU sayd: "What art thou, man, (if man at all thou art) That here in desert hast thine habitaunee, And these rich hils of welth doest hide apart From the worldes eye, and from her right usaunce ?" Thereat, with staring eyes fixed askaunce. In great disdaine he answerd: "Hardy Elfe, That darest view my direful eountenaunce, I read thee rash and heedlesse of thy selfe, To trouble my still seate, and heapes of pre- tious pelfe. 16 THE GREAT TRADITION "God of the world and worldlings I me call, Great Mammon, greatest god below the skye, That of my plenty poure out unto all, And unto none my graces do envye: Riches, renowme, and principality, Honour, estate, and all this worldes good. For which men swinck and sweat inces- santly, Fro me do flow into an ample flood, And in the hollow earth have their eternall brood. 9 "Wherefore, if me thou deigne to serve and sew. At thy command lo! all these mountaines bee: Or if to thy great mind, or greedy vew. All these may not sufiftse, there shall to thee Ten times so much be nombred francke and free." "Mammon," (said he) "thy godheads vaunt is vaine, And idle offers of thy golden fee; To them that covet such eye-glutting gaine Proffer thy gif tes, and fitter servaunts enter- taine. 10 "Me ill besits, that in der-doing armes And honours suit my vowed dales do spend. Unto thy bounteous baytes and pleasing charmes. With which weake men thou witchest, to at- tend; Regard of worldly mucke doth fowly blend. And low abase the high heroicke spright. That joyes for crownes and kingdom es to contend ; Faire shields, gay steedes, bright armes be my delight; Those be the riches fit for an advent'rous knight." 11 "Vaine glorious Elfe" (saide he) "doest not thou weet, That money can thy wantes at will sup- ply? Sheilds, steeds, and armes, and all things for thee meet. It can purvay in twinckling of an eye; And crownes and kingdomes to thee mul- tiply. Do not I kings create, and throw the crowne Sometimes to him that low in dust doth ly. And him that raignd into his rowme thrust downe, And whom I lust do heape with glory and renowne?" 12 "All otherwise" (saide he) "I riches read, And deeme them roote of all disquietnesse ; First got with guile, and then preserv'd with dread, And after spent with pride and lavishnesse, Leaving behind them grief e and heavinesse : Infinite mischiefes of them doe arize. Strife and debate, bloodshed and bitter- nesse, Outrageous wrong, and hellish eovetize, That noble heart as great dishonour doth despize. 13 "Ne thine be kingdomes, ne the scepters thine ; But realmes and rulers thou doest both con- found. And loyall truth to treason doest incline : Witnesse the guiltlesse blood pourd oft on ground, The crowned often slaine, the slayer cround ; The sacred Diademe in jaeeces rent, And purple robe gored with many a wound. Castles surprizd, great ciities sackt and brent : So mak'st thou kings, and gaynest wrong- full government. 14 "Long were to tell the troublous stormes that tosse The private state, and make the life un- sweet : Who swelling sayles in Caspian sea doth crosse. And in frayle wood on Adrian gulf doth fleet, Doth not, I weene, so many evils meet." Then Mammon wexing wroth, "And why then," sayd, "Are mortall men so fond and undiscreet So evill thing to seeke unto their ayd, And having not complaine, and having it upbrayd?" 15 "Indeede," (quoth he) "through fowle in- temperaunce, Frayle men are oft captiv'd to covetise; But would they thinke with how small al- lowaunce THE EENAISSANCE 17 Untroubled Nature doth her selfe suffise, Such superfluities they would despise, Which with sad cares empeach our native joyes. At the well-head the purest streames arise; But mucky filth his braunching armes an- noyes, And with uncomely weedes the gentle wave accloyes. 16 "The antique world, in his first flowring youth, Fownd no defect in his Creators grace; But with glad thankes, and unreproved truth, The gifts of soveraine bounty did em- brace : Like Angels life was then mens happy eace ; But later ages pride, like corn-fed steed, Abusd her plenty and fat swolne encrease To all licentious lust, and gan exceed The measure of her meane and naturall first need. 17 "Then gan a cursed hand the quiet wombe Of his great Grandmother with Steele to wound. And the hid treasures in her sacred tombe With Sacriledge to dig. Therein he found Fountaines of gold and silver to abound. Of which the matter of his huge desire And pompous pride eftsoones he did com- pound ; Then avarice gan through his veines inspire His greedy flames and kindled life-devour- ing fire." 18 "Sonne," (said he then) "lett be thy bitter seorne. And leave the rudenesse of that antique age To them that liv'd therin in state forlorne: Thou, that doest live in later times, must wage Thy workes for wealth, and life for gold engage. If then thee list my offred grace to use, Take what thou please of all this surplus- age; If thee list not, leave have thou to refuse: But thing refused doe not afterward ac- cuse." 19 "Me list not" (said the Elfin knight) "re- ceave Thing offred, till I know it well be got ; Ne wote I but thou didst these goods be- reave From rightf ull owner by unrighteous lot. Or that bloodguiltinesse or guile them blot." "Perdy," (quoth he) "yet never eie did vew, Ne tong did tell, ne hand these handled not ; But safe I have them kept in secret mew From hevens sight, and powre of al which them poursew." 20 "What secret place" (quoth he) "can safely hold So huge a masse, and hide from heavens eie"? Or where hast thou thy wonne, that so much gold Thou canst preserve from wrong and rob- bery?" "Come thou," (quoth he) "and see." So by and by Through that thick covert he him led, and fownd A darkesome way, which no man could des- cry, That deep descended through the hollow ground, And was with dread and horror compassed arownd. 21 At length they came into a larger space. That stretcht itself e into an ami^le playne; Through which a beaten broad high way did trace, That streight did lead to Plutoes griesly rayne. By that wayes side there sate internall Payne, And fast beside him sat tumultuous Strife : The one in hand an yron whip did strayne, The other brandished a bloody knife; And both did gnash their teeth, and both did threten life. 22 On thother side in one consort there sate Cruell Revenge, and rancorous Despight, Disloyall Treason, and hart-burning Hate; But gnawing Gealosy, out of their sight Sitting alone, his bitter lips did bight; And trembling Feare still to and fro did fly, And found no place wher safe he shroud him might : Lamenting Sorrow did in darknes lye, And shame his ugly face did hide from living eye. 18 THE GEEAT TEADITION 23 And over them sad horror with grim hew Did alwaies sore, beating his yron wings; And after him Owles and Night-ravens flew, The hatefull messengers of heavy things. Of death and dolor telhng sad tidings; Whiles sad Celeno, sitting on a clifte, A song of bale and bitter sorrow sings, That hart of flint asonder could have rif te ; Which having ended after him she flyeth swifte. 24 All these before the gates of Pluto lay. By whom they passing spake unto them nought ; But th' Elfin knight with wonder all the way Did feed his eyes, and flld his inner thought. At last him to a litle dore he brought, That to the gate of Hell, which gained wide. Was next adjoyning, ne them parted ought : Betwixt them both was but a litle stride, That did the house of Richesse from hell- mouth divide. 25 Before the dore sat self e-consuming Care, Day and night keeping wary watch and ward. For feare least Force or Fraud should un- aware Breake in, and spoile the treasure there in gard: Ne would he suffer Sleepe once thither-ward Approch albe his drowsy den were next; For next to death is Sleepe to be compard ; Therefore his house is unto his annext : Here Sleep, ther Richesse, and Hel-gate them both betwext. 26 So soon as Mammon there arrivd, the dore To him did open and affoorded way: Him followed eke Sir Guyon evermore, Ne darkenesse him, ne daunger might dis- may. Soone as he entred was, the dore streight way Did shutt, and from behind it forth there lept An ugly feend, more fowle then dismall day. The which with monstrous stalke behind him stept, And ever as he went dew watch upon him kept. 27 Well hoped hee, ere long that hardy guest. If ever covetous hand, or lustfuU eye. Or lips he layd on thing that likte him best, Or ever sleepe his eie-strings did untye, Should be his pray. And therefore still on hye He over him did hold, his cruell elawes, Threatning with greedy gripe to doe him dye, And rend in peeces with his ravenous pawes, If ever he transgrest the fatall Stygian lawes. 28 That houses forme within was rude and strong, Lyke an huge cave hewne out of rocky clifte. From whose rough vaut the ragged breaches hong Embost with massy gold of glorious gifte, And with rich metall loaded every rifte, That heavy ruine they did seeme to threatt ; And over them Arachne high did lifte Her cunning web, and spred her subtile nett. Enwrapped in fowle smoke and clouds more black then Jett. 29 Both roofe, and floore, and walls, were all of gold, But overgTowne with dust and old decay, And hid in darkenes, that none could behold The hew thereof; for vew of cherefuU day Did never in that house it selfe display, But a faint shadow of uncertein light : Such as a lamp, whose life does fade away, Or as the Moone, eloathed with clowdy night. Does show to him that walkes in feare and sad a&ight. 30 In all that rowme was nothing to be seene But huge great yron chests, and coffers strong. All bard with double bends, that none could weene Them to efforce by violence or wrong : On every side they placed were along ; But all the grownd with sculs was scattered, And dead mens bones, which round about were flong ; Whose lives, it seemed, whilome there were shed, And their vile carcases now left unburied. THE EENAISSANCE 19 31 They forward passe; ne Guyon yet spoke word, Till that they came unto an yron dore, Which to them opened of his owne accord, And shewd of richesse such exceeding store. As eie of man did never see before, Ne ever could within one place be fownd. Though all the wealth which is, or was of yore, Could gathered be through all the world arownd, And that above were added to that under grownd. 32 The charge thereof unto a covetous Spright Commaunded was, who thereby did attend. And warily awaited day and night, From other covetous feends it to defend, Who it to rob and ransacke did intend. Then Mammon, turning to that warriour, said: "Loe ! here the worldes blis : loe ! here the end, To which al men doe ayme, rich to be made : Such grace now to be happy is before thee laid." 33 "Certes," (sayd he) "I n'ill thine off red grace, Ne to be made so happy doe intend: Another blis before mine eyes I jalace. Another happines, another end. To them that list these base regardes I lend ; But I in armes, and in atchievements brave. Do rather choose my flitting houres to spend, And to be Lord of those that riches have. Then them to have my selfe, and be their servile sclave." 34 Thereat the feend his gnashing teeth did grate, And griev'd so long to laeke his greedie pray. For well he weened that so glorious bayte Would tempt his guest to take thereof assay ; Had he so doen, he had him snateht away. More light then Culver in the Faulcons fist. Eternall God thee save from such decay! But, whenas Mammon saw his purpose mist. Him to entrap unwares another way he wist. 35 Thence forward he him ledd, and shortly brought Unto another rowme, whose dore forthright To him did open, as it had beene taught. Therein an hundred raunges weren pig'ht, And hundred f ournaces all burning bright : By every fournaee many feendes did byde, Deformed creatures, horrible in sight; And every feend his busie paines applyde To melt the golden metall, ready to be tryde. 36 One with great bellowes gathered filling ayre, And with f orst wind the f ewell did inflame ; Another did the dying bronds repayre With yron tongs, and sprinckled ofte the same With liquid waves, fiers Vuleans rage to tame, Who, maystring them, renewd his former heat: Some seumd the drosse that from the metall came; Some stird the molten owre with ladles great ; And every one did swincke, and every one did sweat. 37 But, when an earthly wight they present saw Glistring in armes and battailous aray. From their whot work they did themselves withdraw To wonder at the sight ; for till that day They never creature saw that cam that way : Their staring eyes sparckling with fervent iyre And ugly shapes did nigh the man dismay. That, were it not for shame, he would re- tyre; Till that him thus bespake their soveraine Lord and syre : 38 '^Behold, thou Faeries sonne, with mortall eye, That living eye before did never see. The thing, that thou didst crave so earnestly. To weet whence all the wealth late shewd by mee Proceeded, lo! now is reveald to thee. Here is the fountaine of the worldes good: Now, therefore, if thou wilt enriched bee, 20 THE GEEAT TRADITION Avise thee well, and chaunge thy wilfuU mood, Least thou perhaps hereafter wish, and be withstood." 39 "Suffise it then, thou Money God," (quoth hee) "That all thine ydle offers I refuse. All that I need I have: what needth mee To covet more then I have cause to use! With such vaine shewes thy worldings vyle abuse ; But give me leave to follow mine emprise." Mammon Avas much displeased, yet no'te he chuse But beare the rigour of his bold mesprise; And thence him forward ledd him further to entise. 40 He brought him, through a darksom nar- row strayt, To a broad gate all built of beaten gold : The gate was open ; but therein did Avayt A sturdie villein, stryding stiffe and bold. As if the highest God defy he would : In his right hand an yron club he held, But he himselfe was al of golden mould, Yet had both life and sence, and well could weld That cursed weapon, when his cruell foes he queld. 41 Disdayne he called was, and did disdayne To be so eald, and who so did him call : Sterne was his looke, and full of stomaeke vayne ; His portaunee terrible, and stature tall. Far passing th' hight of men terrestriall, Like an huge Gyant of the Titans race ; That made him scorne all creatures great and small. And with his pride all others jDowre deface : More fitt emongst black fiendes then men to have his place. 42 Soone as those giitterand armes he did espye. That with their brightnesse made that dark- nes light. His harmefull club he gan to hurtle hye, And threaten batteill to the Faery knight; Who likewise gan himselfe to batteill dight, Till Mammon did his hasty hand withhold, And counseld him abstaine from perilous fight; For nothing might abash the villein bold, Ne mortall Steele emperce his miscreated mould. 43 So having him with reason paeifyde, And that fiers Carle commaunding to for- beare. He brought him in. The rowme was large and wyde. As it some Gyeld or solemne Temple weare. Many great golden pillours did upbeare The massy roof e, and riches huge sustayue ; And every pillour decked with full deare With crownes, and Diademes, and titles vaine. Which mortall Princes Avore whiles they on earth did rayne. 44 A route of people there assembled were, Of every sort and nation under skye. Which with great uprore preaeed to draw nere To th' upper part, where was advaunced hye A stately siege of soveraine majestye; And thereon satt a woman, gorgeous gay And richly cladd in robes of royaltye, That never earthly Prince in such aray His glory did enhaunce, and pompous pryde display. 45 Her face right wondrous f aire did seeme to bee. That her broad beauties beam great bright- nes threw Through the dim shade, that all men might it see: Yet was not that same her owne native hew, But wrought by art and counterfetted shew, Thereby more lovers unto her to call: Nath'lesse most hevenly faire in deed and veAV She by creation was, till she did fall ; Thenceforth she sought for helps to cloke her crime withall. 46 There, as in glistring glory she did sitt. She held a great gold chaine ylincked well, Whose upper end to highest heven was knitt, And lower part did reach to lowest Hell ; And all that preace did rownd about her swell To catchen hold of that long chaine, thereby To climbe aloft, and others to excell; THE EENAISSANCE 21 That was Ambition, rash desire to sty, And every linck thereof a step of dignity. 47 Some thought to raise themselves to high degree By riches and unrighteous reward; Some by close shouldring; some i)y flat- teree ; Others through friendes; others for base regard, And all by wrong waies for themselves pre- pard : Those that were up themselves kept others low; Those that were low themselves held others - hard, Ne suffred them to ryse or greater grow ; But every one did strive his fellow downe to throw. 48 Which whenas Guyon saw, he gan inquire, What meant that preace about that Ladies throne, And what she was that did so high aspyre 1 Him Mammon answered ; "That goodly one. Whom all that folke with such contention Doe flock about, my deare, my daughter is : Honour and dignitie from her alone Derived are, and all this Avorldes blis. For which we men doe strive; few gett, but many mis : 49 "And fayre Philotime she rightly hight. The fairest wight that wonneth under skie. But that this darksom neather world her light Doth dim with horror and deformity; Worthie of heven and hye felicitie. From whence the gods have her for envy thrust : But, sith thou hast found favour in mine eye, Thy spouse, I will her make, if that thou lust. That she may thee advance for works and merits just." 50 "Gramercy, Mammon," (said the gentle knight) ''For so great grace and ofPred high estate ; But I, that am f raile flesh and earthly Avight, Unworthy match for such immortall mate My self e well wote, and mine unequall fate : And were I not, yet is my trouth yplight, And love avowd to other Lady late. That to remove the same I have no might : To chaunge love causelesse is reproch to war- like knight," 51 Mammon emmoved was with inward wrath ; Yet, forcing it to fayne, him forth thence ledd. Through griesly shadowes by a beaten path, Into a gardin goodly garnished. With hearbs and fruits, whose kinds mote not be redd : Not such as earth out of her fruitful woomb Throwes forth to men, sweet and well savored. But direfuU deadly black, both leafe and bloom, Fitt to adorne the dead, and deck the drery toombe. 52 There mournfull Cypress grew in greatest store. And trees of bitter Gall, and Heben sad; Dead sleeping Poppy, and black Hellebore; Cold Coloquintida and Tetra mad; Mortall Samnitis, and Cicuta bad. With which th' unjust Atheniens made to . dy Wise Socrates; who, thereof quaffing glad, Pourd out his life and last Philosophy To the fayre Critias, his dearest Belamy. 53 The Gardin of Proserpina this hight; And in the midst thereof a silver seat, With a thick Arber goodly over-dight, In which she often usd from open heat Her selfe to shroud, and pleasures to en- treat : Next thereunto did grow a goodly tree. With braunches broad dispredd and body great, _ Clothed with leaves, that none the wood mote see. And loaden all with fruit as thick as it might bee. 54 Their fruit were golden apples glistring bright. That goodly was their glory to behold; On earth like never grew, ne living wight Like ever saw, but they from hence were sold; For those which Hercules, with conquest bold 22 THE GEEAT TEADITION Got from great Atlas daughters, hence be- gan, And planted there did bring forth fruit of gold; And those with which th' Eubcean young man wan Swift Atalanta, when through craft he her out ran. 55 Here also sprong that goodly golden fruit, With which Acontius got his lover trew, Whom he had long time sought with fruit- lesse suit; Here eke that famous golden Apple gTew, The which emongst the gods false Ate threw ; For which th' Idsean Ladies disagreed, Till partiall Paris dempt it Venus dew, And had of her fayre Helen for his meed, That many noble Greekes and Trojans made to bleed. 56 The warlike Elfe much wondred at this tree, So fayre and great that shadowed all the ground. And his broad braunches, laden with rich fee, Did stretch themselves without the utmost bound Of this great gardin, compast with a mound; Which over-hanging, they themselves did steep e In a blacke flood, which flow'd about it round. That is the river of Cocytus deepe, In which full many soules do endlesse wayle and weepe. 57 Which to behold he clomb up to the bancke, And looking downe saw many damned wightes In those sad waves, which direfull deadly stancke, Plonged continually of cruell Sprightes. That with their piteous cryes, and yelling shrightes, They made the further shore resounden wide. Emongst the rest of those same ruefull sightes. One cursed creature he by chaunee espide, That drenched lay full deepe under the Garden side. 58 J)eepe was he drenched to the upmost chin. Yet gaped still as coveting to drinke Of the cold liquor which he waded in ; And stretching forth his hand did often thinke To reach the fruit which grew upon the brincke ; But both the fruit from hand, and flood from mouth. Did fly abacke, and made him vainely swincke ; The whiles he sterv'd with hunger, and with drouth, He daily dyde, yet never throughly dyen couth. 59 The knight, him seeing labour so in vaine, Askt who he was, and what he ment thereby? Who, groning deepe, thus answerd him againe ; "Most cursed of all creatures under skye, Lo ! Tantalus, I here tormented lye : Of whom high Jove wont whylome feasted bee; Lo ! here I now for want of food doe dye : But, if that thou be such as I thee see. Of gxace I pray thee, give to eat and drinke to mee !" 60 ''Nay, nay, thou greedy Tantalus," (quoth he) "Abide the fortune of thy present fate; And unto all that live in high degree, Ensample be of mind intemiDerate, To teach them how to use their present state." Then gan the cursed wretch alowd to cry, Accusing highest Jove and gods ingrate; And eke blaspheming heaven bitterly, As author of un justice, there to let him dye. 61 He lookt a litle further, and espyde Another wretch, whose earcas deepe was drent Within the river, which the same did hyde; But both his handes, most filthy feculent. Above the water were on high extent. And faynd to wash themselves incessantly, Yet nothing cleaner were for such intent. But rather fowler seemed to the eye; So lost his labour vaine and ydle industry. 62 The knight him calling asked who he was? Who, lifting up his head, him answerd thus ; "I Pilate am, the falsest Judge, alas! THE RENAISSANCE 23 And most unjust; that, by unrighteous And wicked doome, to Jewes despiteous Delivered up the Lord of life to dye, And did aequite a murdrer f elonous ; The whiles my handes I washt in purity, The whiles my soule was soyld with fowle iniquity." 63 Infinite moe tormented in like paine He there beheld, too long here to be told: Ne Mammon would there let him long remayne. For terrour of the tortures manifold. In which the damned soules he did behold, But roughly him bespake: ''Thou fearefuU foole. Why takest not of that same f ruite of gold f Ne sittest downe on that same silver stoole. To rest thy weary person in the shadow eoolef 64 All which he did to do him deadly fall In frayle intemperaunee through sinful! bayt ; To which if he inelyned had at all. That dreadful feend, which did behinde him wayt. Would him have rent in thousand peeces strayt : But he was wary wise in all his way. And well perceived his deceiptf nil sleight, Ne suffred lust his safety to betray. So goodly did beguile the Guyler of his pray. 65 And now he has so long remained theare. That vitall powres gan wexe both weake and wan For want of food and sleepe, which tAVo upbeare. Like mightie pillours, this frayle life of man. That none without the same enduren can : For now three dayes of men were full out- wrought. Since he this hardy enterpinze began : Forthy great Mammon fayrely he besought Into the world to guyde him backe, as he him brought. 66 The God, though loth, yet was eonstraynd t' obay; For lenger time then that no living wight Below the earth might suffred be to stay : So backe againe him brought to living light. But all so soone as his enfeebled spright Gan sucke this vitall ayre into his brest, As overcome with too exceeding might, The life did flit away out of her nest, And all his sences were with deadly fit opprest. The Gospel of Beauty edmund spenser [From An Hymn in Honor of Beauty] What time this world's great Workmaster did cast To make all things such as we now behold. It seemS that he before his eyes had placed A goodly iDattern, to whose perfect mould He fashioned them as comely as he could. That now so fair and seemly they appear As nought may be amended anywhere. That wondrous pattern, whereso'er it be. Whether in earth laid up in secret store. Or else in heaven, that no man may it see With sinful eyes, for fear it to deflore, Is jDcrfect Beauty, which all men adore; Whose face and feature doth so much excel All mortal sense, that none the same may tell. Thereof as every earthly thing partakes Or more or less, by influence divine, So it more fair accordingly it makes, And the gross matter of this earthly mine Which clotheth it, thereafter doth refine, Doing away the dross which dims the light Of that fair beam which therein is empight. For, through infusion of celestial power, The duller earth it quickeneth with delight. And life-full spirits privily doth pour Through all the parts, that to the looker's sight They seem to please. That is thy sovereign might, Cyprian queen ! which, flowing from the beam Of thy bright star, thou into them dost stream. That is the thing which giveth pleasant ■ grace To all things fair, that kindleth lively fire. Light of thy lamp; which, shining in the face. Thence to the soul darts amorous desire. And robs the hearts of those which it ad- mire ; Therewith thou pointest thy son's poisoned 24 THE GEEAT TEADITION That wounds the life, and wastes the inmost marrow. How vainly then do idle wits invent, That beauty is nought else but mixture made Of colors fair, and goodly temp'rament Of pure complexions, that shall quickly fade And pass away, like to a summer's shade; Or that it is but comely composition Of parts well measured, with meet disposi- tion ! Hath white and red in it such wondrous power, That it can pierce through th' eyes unto the heart, And therein stir such rage and restless stour, As nought but death can stint his dolor's smart ? Or can proportion of the outward part Move such affection in the inward mind, That it can rob both ^ense, and reason blind? Why do not then the blossoms of the field, Which are arrayed with much more orient hue. And to the sense most dainty odors yield, Work like impression in the looker's view? Or why do not fair pictures like power shew, In which ofttimes we nature see of art Excelled in perfect limning every part? But ah! believe me there is more than so, That works such wonders in the minds of men; I, that have often prov'd, too well it know, And whoso list the like assays to ken, Shall find by trial, and confess it then. That Beauty is not, as fond men misdeem, An outward show of things that only seem. For that same goodly hue of white and red, With which the cheeks are sprinkled, shall decay. And those sweet rosy leaves, so fairly spread Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away To that they were, even to corrupted clay : That golden wire, those sparkling stars so bright. Shall turn to dust, and lose their goodly light. But that fair lamp, from whose celestial ray That light proceeds, which kindleth lover's fire, Shall never be extinguished nor decay; But, when the vital spirits do expire, Unto her native planet shall retire; For it is heavenly born and cannot die, Being a parcel of the purest sky. So every spirit, as it is most pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light. So it the fairer body doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight With cheerful grace and amiable sight; For of the soul the body form doth take; For soul is form, and doth the body make. Therefore wherever that thou dost behold A comely corps, with beauty fair endued, Know this for certain, that the same doth hold A beauteous soul, with fair conditions thewed, Fit to receive the seed of virtue strewed; For all that fair is, is by nature good ; That is a sign to know the gentle blood. Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind Dwells in deformed tabernacle drowned. Either by chance, against the course of kind. Or through unaptness in the substance found. Which it assumed of some stubborn ground. That will not yield unto her form's direc- tion, But is deformed with some foul imperfec- tion. And oft it falls, (ay me, the more to rue!) That goodly beauty, albe heavenly born, Is foul abused, and that celestial hue. Which doth the world with her delight adorn. Made but the bait of sin, and sinners' scorn. Whilst every one doth seek and sue to have it. But every one doth seek but to deprave it. Yet nathemore is that fair beauty's blame. But theirs that do abuse it unto ill : Nothing so good, but that through guilty shame May be corrupt, and wrested unto will : Natheless the soul is fair and beauteous still, However flesh's fault it filthy make; For things immortal no corruption take. THE RENAISSANCE 25 II. A GREATER BRITAIN The Character of Elizabeth john richard green [From A Short History of the English People] Never had the fortunes of England sunk to a lower ebb than at the moment when Elizabeth mounted the throne. The country was humiliated by defeat and brought to the verge of rebellion by the bloodshed and mis- government of Mary's reign. The old social discontent, tramjaled down for a time by the horsemen of Somerset, remained a menace to public order. The religious strife had passed beyond hope of reconciliation, now that the reformers were parted from their opponents by the fires of Smithfield and the party of the New Learning all but dis- solved. The more earnest Catholics were bound helplessly to Rome. The temper of the Protestants, burned at home or driven into exile abroad, had become a fiercer thing, and the Calvinistie refugees were pouring- back from Geneva with dreams of revolu- tionary change in Church and State. Eng- land, dragged at the heels of Philip into a useless and ruinous war, was left without an ally save Spain; while Prance, mistress of Calais, became mistress of the Channel. Not only was Scotland a standing danger in the north, through the French marriage of its Queen Mary Stuart and its consequent bond- age to French policy; but Mary Stuart and her husband now assumed the style and arms of English sovereigns, and threatened to rouse every Catholic throughout the realm against Elizabeth's title. In pres- ence of this host of dangers the country lay heliDless, without army or fleet, or the means of manning one, for the treasury, already drained by the waste of Edward's reign, had been utterly exhausted by Mary's restoration of the Church-lands in posses- sion of the Crown, and by the cost of her war with France. England's one hope lay in the character of her Queen. Elizabeth was now in her twenty-fifth year. Personally she had more than her mother's beauty; her figure was commanding, her face long but queenly and intelligent, her eyes quick and fine. She had grown up amidst the liberal culture of Henry's court a bold horsewoman, a good shot, a graceful dancer, a skilled musician, and an accomplished scholar. She studied every morning the Greek Testament, and followed this by the tragedies of Sophocles or orations of Demosthenes, and could "rub up her rusty Greek" at need to bandy pedantry with a Vice-Chancellor. But she was far from being a mere pedant. The new literature which was springing up around her found constant welcome in her court. She spoke Italian and French as fluently as her mother-tongue. She was familiar with Ariosto and Tasso. Even amidst the affection and love of anagrams and puerilities which sullied her later years, she listened with delight to the "Faery Queen," and found a smile for "Master Spenser" when he appeared in her presence. Her moral temper recalled in its strange contrasts the mixed blood within her veins. She was at once the daughter of Henry and of Anne Boleyn. From her father she inherited her frank and hearty address, her love of popularity and of free intercourse with the people, her dauntless courage and her amazing self-confidence. Her harsh, manlike voice, her impetuous will, her pride, her furious outbursts of anger came to her with her Tudor blood. She rated great nobles as if they were schoolboys; she met the insolence of Essex with a box on the ear ; she would break now and then into the gravest deliberations to swear at her ministers like a fishwife. But strangely in contrast with the violent out- lines of her Tudor temper stood the sen- suous, self-indulgent nature she derived from Anne Boleyn. Splendor and pleasure were with Elizabeth the very air she breathed. Her delight was to move in per- petual progresses from castle to castle through a series of gorgeous pageants, fan- ciful and extravagant as a caliph's dream. She loved gaiety and laughter and wit. A happy retort or a finished compliment never failed to win her favor. She hoarded jewels. Her dresses were innumerable. Her vanity remained, even to old age, the vanity of a coquette in her teens. No adulation was too fulsome for her, no flattery of her beauty too gross. "To see her was heaven," Hatton told her, "the lack of her was hell." She would play with her rings that her courtiers might note the delicacy of her hands; or 26 THE GEEAT TRADITION dance a coranto that the French ambassador, hidden dexterously behind a curtain, might report her sprightliness to his mas- ter. Her levity, her frivolous laughter, her unwomanly jests gave color to a thou- sand scandals. Her character in fact, like her portraits, was utterly without shade. Of womanly reserve or self-restraint she knew nothing. No instinct of delicacy veiled the voluptuous temper which had broken out in the romps of her girlhood and showed itself almost ostentatiously throughout her later life. Pei'sonal beauty in a man was a sure passport to her liking. She patted hand- some young squires on the neck when they knelt to kiss her hand, and fondled her "sweet Robin/' Lord Leicester, in the face of the court. It was no wonder that the statesmen whom she outwitted held Elizabeth almost to the last to be little more than a frivolous woman, or that Philip of Spain wondered how "a wanton" could hold in check the policy of the Escurial. But the Elizabeth whom they saw was far from being all of Elizabeth. The wilfulness of Henry, the triviality of Anne Boleyn played over the surface of a nature hard as steel, a temper purely intellectual, the very type of reason untouched by imagination or passion. Lux- urious and pleasure-loving as she seemed, Elizabeth lived simply and frugally, and she worked hard. Her vanity and caprice had no weight whatever with her in state affairs. The coquette of the presence-chamber be- came the coolest and hardest of politicians at the council-board. Fresh from the flat- tery of her courtiers, she would tolerate no flattery in the closet; she was herself plain and downright of speech with her coun- selors, and she looked for a corresponding plainness of speech in return. If any trace of her sex lingered in her actual statesman- ship, it was seen in the simplicity and tenacity of purpose that often underlies a woman's fluctuations of feeling. It was this in part which gave her her marked superiority over the statesmen of her time. No nobler group of ministers ever gathered round a council-board than those who gath- ered round the council-board of Elizabeth. But she was the instrument of none. She listened, she weighed, she used or put by the counsels of each in turn, but her policy as a whole was her own. It was a policy, not of genius, but of good sense. Her aims were simple and obvious: to preserve her throne, to keep England out of war, to re- store civil and religious order. Something of womanly caution and timidity perhaps backed the passionless indifference with which she set aside the larger schemes of ambition which were ever opening before her eyes. She was resolute in her refusal of the Low Countries. She rejected with a laugh the offers of the Protestants to make her "head of the religion" and "mistress of the seas." But her amazing success in the end sprang mainly from this wise limitation of her aims. She had a finer sense than any of her counselors of her real resources; she knew instinctively how far she could go, and what she could do. Her cold, critical intel- lect was never swayed by enthusiasm or by panic either to exaggerate or to under- estimate her risks or her power. Of political wisdom indeed in its larger and more generous sense Elizabeth had lit- tle or none; but her political tact was un- erring. She seldom saw her course at a glance, but she played with a hundred courses, fitfully and discursively, as a musician runs his fingers over the key- board, till she hit suddenly upon the right one. Her nature was essentially prac- tical and of the present. She distrusted a plan in fact just in proportion to its speculative range or its outlook into the future. Her notion of statesmanship lay in watching how things turned out around her, and in seizing the moment for making the best of them. A policy of this limited, practical, tentative order was not only best suited to the England of her day, to its small resources, and the transitional char- acter of its religious and political belief, but it was one eminently suited to Eliza- beth's pecuhar powers. It was a policy of detail, and in details her wonderful readiness and ingenuity found scope for their exercise. "No War, my Lords," the Queen used to cry imperiously at the coun- cil-board, "No War!" but her hatred of war sprang less from her aversion to blood or to expense, real as was her aversion to both, than from the fact that peace left the field open to the diplomatic maneuvers and intrigvies in which she excelled. Her de- light in the consciousness of her ingenuity broke out in a thousand puckish freaks, freaks in which one can hardly see any purpose beyond the purpose of sheer mys- tification. She revelled in "bye-ways" and "crooked ways." She played with grave THE EENAISSANCE 27 cabinets as a cat plays with a mouse, and with much of the same feline delight in the mere embarrassment of her victims. When she was weary of mystifying foreign states- men she turned to find fresh sport in mys- tifying her own ministers. Had Elizabeth written the story of her reign she would have prided herself, not on the triumph of England or the ruin of Spain, but on the skill with which she had hoodwinked and outwitted every statesman in Europe, dur- ing fifty years. Nor was her trickery with- out political value. Ignoble, inexpressibly wearisome as the Queen's diplomacy seems to us now, tracing it as we do through a thousand despatches, it succeeded in its main end. It gained time, and every year that was gained doubled Elizabeth's strength. Nothing is more revolting in the Queen, but nothing is more characteristic, than her shameless mendacity. It was an age of political lying, but in the profusion and recklessness of her lies Elizabeth stood without a peer in Christendom. A false- hood was to her simply an intellectual means of meeting a difficulty; and the ease with which she asserted or denied whatever suited her purpose was only equaled by the cynical indifference with which she met the exposure of her lies as soon as their purpose was answered. The same purely intellectual view of things showed itself in the dexterous use she made of her very faults. Her levity carried her gaily over moments of detection and embarrassment where better women would have died of shame. She screened her tentative and hesitating statesmanship under the natural timidity and vacillation of her sex. She turned her very Itixury and sports to good account. There were moments of grave danger in her reign when the country re- mained indifferent to its perils, as it saw the Queen give her days to hawking and hunt- ing, and her nights to dancing and plays. Her vanity and affectation, her womanly fickleness and caprice, all had their part in the diplomatic comedies she played with the successive candidates for her hand. If political necessities made her life a lonely one, she had at any rate the satisfaction of averting war and conspiracies by love son- nets and romantic interviews, or of gain- ing a year of tranquillity by the dexterous spinning out of a flirtation. As we track Elizabeth through her tor- tuous mazes of lying and intrigue, the sense of her greatness is almost lost in a sense of contempt. But wrapped as they were in a cloud of mystei'y, the aims of her policy were throughout temperate and simple, and they were pursued with a singular tenacity. The sudden acts of energy which from time to time broke her habitual hesitation proved that it was no hesitation of weakness. Eliza- beth could wait and finesse; but when the hour was come she could strike, and strike hard. Her natural temper indeed tended to a rash self-confidence rather than to self-distrust. She had, as strong natures always have, an unbounded confidence in her luck. "Her Majesty counts much on For- tune," Walsingham wrote bitterly; "I wish she would trust more in Almighty God." The diplomatists who censured at one moment her irresolution, her delay, her changes of front, censure at the next her "obstinacy," her iron will, her defiance of what seemed to them inevitable ruin. "This woman," Philip's envoy wrote after a wasted remonstrance, "this woman is pos- sessed by a hundred thousand devils." To her own subjects, indeed, who knew noth- ing of her maneuvers and retreats, of her "bye-ways" and "crooked ways," she seemed the embodiment of dauntless reso- lution. Brave as they were, the men who swept the Spanish Main or glided between the icebergs of Baffin's Bay never doubted that the palm of bravery lay with their Queen. Her steadiness and courage in the pursuit of her aims was equaled by the wisdom with which she chose the men to accomplish them. She had a quick eye for merit of any sort, and a wonderful power of enlisting its whole energy in her service. The sagacity which chose Cecil and Wal- singham was just as unerring in its choice of the meanest of her agents. Her success indeed in securing from the beginning of her reign to its end, with the single excep- tion of Leicester, precisely the right men for the work she set them to do sprang in great measure from the noblest character- istic of her intellect. If in loftiness of aim her temper fell below many of the tempers of her time, in the breadth of its range, in the universality of its sympathy it stood far above them all. Elizabeth could talk poetry with Spenser and philosophy with Bruno; she could discuss Euphuism with Lyly, and enjoy the chivalry of Essex ; she could turn from talk of the last fashions to pore with Cecil over despatches and treasury books; 28 THE GEEAT TEADITION she could pass from tracking traitors with Walsingham to settle points of doctrine with Parker, or to calculate with Frobisher the chances of a north-west passage to the Indies. The versatility and many-sided- ness of her mind enabled her to understand every phase of the intellectual movement of her day, and to fix by a sort of instinct on its higher representatives. But the greatness of the Queen rests above all on her power over her people. We have had grander and nobler rulers, but none so popular as Elizabeth. The passion of love, of loyalty, of admiration which finds its most perfect expression in the "Faery Queen," throbbed as intensely through the veins of her meanest subjects. To England, during her reign of half a century, she was a virgin and a Protestant Queen ; and her immorality, her absolute want of religious enthusiasm, failed utterly to blur the brightness of the national ideal. Her worst acts broke fruitlessly against the general devotion. A Puritan, whose hand she cut off in a freak of tyrannous resentment, waved his hat with the hand that was left, and shouted "God save Queen Elizabeth!" Of her faults, indeed, England beyond the circle of her court knew little or nothing. The shiftings of her diplomacy were never seen outside the royal closet. The nation at large could only judge her foreign policy by its main outlines, by its temperance and good sense, and above all by its success. But evei'y Englishman was able to judge Elizabeth in her rule at home, in her love of peace, her instinct of order, the firmness and moderation of her government, the judi- cious spirit of conciliation and compro- mise among warring factions which gave the country an unexampled tranquillity at a time when almost every other country in Euroj^e was torn with civil war. Every sign of the growing prosperity, the sight of London as it became the mart of the world, of stately mansions as they rose on every manor, told, and justly told, in Elizabeth's favor. In one act of her civil administra- tion she showed the boldness and originality of a great ruler; for the opening of her reign saw her face the social difficulty which had so long impeded English prog- ress, by the issue of a commission of in- quiry which ended in the solution of the problem by the system of poor-laws. She lent a ready patronage to the new com- merce; she considered its extension and protection as a part of public policy, and her statue in the center of the London Ex- change was a tribute on the part of the mer- chant class to the interest with which she watched and shared personally in its enter- prises. Her thrift won a general grati- tude. The memories of the Terror and of the Martyrs threw into bright relief the aversion from bloodshed which was con- spicuous in her earlier reign, an-d never wholly wanting through its fiercer close. Above all there was a general confidence in her instinctive knowledge of the national temper. Her finger was always on the pub- lic pulse. She knew exactly when she could resist the feeling of her people, and when she must give way before the new senti- ment of freedom which her policy uncon- sciously fostered. But when she retreated, her defeat had all the grace of victory ; and the frankness and unreserve of her surrender won back at once the love that her re- sistance had lost. Her attitude at home in fact was that of a woman whose pride in the well-being of her subjects, and whose long- ing for their favor, was the one warm touch in the coldness of her natural temper. If Elizabeth could be said to love anything, she loved England. "Nothing," she said to her first Parliament in words of unwonted fire, "nothing, no worldly thing under the sun, is so dear to me as the love and good- will of my subjects." And the love and good-will which were so dear to her she fully won. The Menace of Spain" john richard green [From A Short History of the English People] But if a fierce religious struggle was at hand, men felt that behind this lay a yet fiercer political struggle. Philip's hosts were looming over sea, and the horrors of foreign invasion seemed about to be added to the horrors of civil war. Spain was at this moment the mightiest of European powers. The discoveries of Columbus had given it the New World of the West; the conquests of Cortes and Pizarro poured into its treasury the plunder of Mexico and Peru; its galleons brought the rich pro- duce of the Indies, their gold, their jewels, their ingots of silver, to the harbor of Cadiz. To the New World its King added the fair- THE EENAISSANCE 29 est and wealthiest portions of the Old; he was master of Naples and Milan, the rich- est and the most fertile districts of Italy; of the busy provinces of the Low Countries, of Flanders, the great manufacturing dis- trict of the time, and of Antwerp, which had become the central mart for the com- merce of the world. His native kingdom, poor as it was, supplied him with the stead- iest and the most daring soldiers that the world has seen since the fall of the Roman Empire. The renown of the Spanish in- fantry had been growing from the day when it flung off the onset of the French chivalry on the field of Ravenna; and the Spanish generals stood without rivals in their military skill, as they stood without rivals in their ruthless cruelty. The whole, too, of this enormous power was massed in the hands of a single man. Served as he was by able statesmen and subtle diplo- matists, Philip of Spain was his own sole minister; laboring day after day, like a clerk, through the long years of his reign, amidst the papers which crowded his closet; but resolute to let nothing pass without his supervision, and to suffer noth- ing to be done save by his express com- mand. It was his boast that everywhere in the vast compass of his dominions he was "an absolute King." It was to realize this idea of unshackled power that he crushed the liberties of Aragon, as his father had crushed the liberties of Castille, and sent Alva to tread under foot the constitutional freedom of the Low Countries. His bigo- try went hand in hand with his thirst for rule. Italy and Spain lay hushed beneath the terror of the Inquisition, while Flanders was being purged of heresy by the stake and the sword. The shadow of this gigantic power fell like a deadly blight over Europe. The new Protestantism, like the new spirit of political liberty, saw its real foe in Philip. It was Spain, rather than the Guises, against which Coligni and the Huguenots struggled in vain ; it was Spain with which William of Orange was wrestling for re- ligious and civil freedom; it was Spain which was soon to plunge Germany into the chaos of the Thirty Years' War, and to which the Catholic world had for twenty years been looking, and looking in vain, for a victory over heresy in England. Vast in fact as Philip's resources were, they were drained by the yet vaster schemes of ambi- tion into which his religion and his greed of power, as well as the wide distribution of his dominions, perpetually drew him. To coerce the weaker States of Italy, to command the Mediterranean, to preserve his influence in Germany, to support Catholicism in France, to crush heresy in Flanders, to despatch one Armada against the Turk and another against Elizabeth, were aims mighty enough to exhaust even the power of the Spanish Monarchy. But it was rather on the character of Philip than on the exhaustion of his treasury that Eliza- beth counted for success in the struggle which had so long been going on between them. The King's temper was slow, cautious even to timidity, losing itself con- tinually in delays, in hesitations, in an- ticipating remote perils, in waiting for dis- tant chances ; and on the slowness and hesi- tation of his temper his rival had been playing ever since she mounted the throne. The diplomatic contest between the two was like the fight which England was soon to see between the ponderous Spanish gal- leon and the light pinnace of the buc- caneers. The agility, the sudden changes of Elizabeth, her lies, her mystifications, though they failed to deceive Philip, puz- zled and impeded his mind. But amidst all this cloud of intrigue the actual course of their relations had been clear and simple. In her earlier days France rivaled Spain in its greatness, and Elizabeth simply played the two rivals off against one another. She hindered France from giving effective aid to Mary Stuart by threats of an alliance with Spain; while she induced Philip to wink at her heresy, and to discourage the risings of the English Catholics, by playing on his dread of her alliance with France. But as the tide of religious passion which had so long been held in check broke at last over its banks, the political face of Europe changed. The Low Countries, driven to despair by the greed and perse- cution of Alva, rose in a revolt which after strange alternations of fortune gave to Europe the Republic of the United Prov- inces. The opening which their rising af- forded was seized by the Huguenot lead- ers of France as a political engine to break the power which Catharine of Medicis exer- cised over Charles the Ninth, and to set aside her policy of religious balance by placing France at the head of Protestantism in the West. Charles listened to the coun- sels of Coligni, who pressed for war upon 30 THE GEEAT TEADITION Philip and promised the support of the Huguenots in an invasion of the Low Coun- tries. Never had a fairer prospect opened to French ambition. Catharine, hovfever, saw ruin for the monarchy in a France at once Protestant and free. She threw her- self on the side of the Guises, and ensured their triumph by lending herself to their massacre of the Protestants on St. Bartholo- mew's day. But though the long gathering clouds of religious hatred had broken, Eliza- beth trusted to her dexterity to keep out of the storm. France plunged madly back into a chaos of civil war, and the Low Countries were left to cope single-handed with Spain. Whatever enthusiasm the heroic struggle of the Prince of Orange ex- cited among her subjects, it failed to move Elizabeth even for an instant from the path of cold self-interest. To her the revolt of the Netherlands was simply "a bridle of Spain, which kept war out of our own gate." At the darkest moment of the contest, when Alva had won back all but Holland and Zealand, and even William of Orange de- spaired, the Queen bent her energies to pre- vent him from finding succor in France. That the Provinces could in the end with- stand Philip, neither she nor any English statesmen believed. They held that the struggle must close either in utter subjec- tion of the Netherlands, or in their selling themselves for aid to France; and the ac- cession of power which either result must give to one of her two Catholic foes the Queen was eager to avert. Her plan for averting it was by forcing the Provinces to accept the terms offered by Spain — a restoration, that is, of their constitutional privileges on condition of their submission to the Church. Peace on such a footing would not only restore English commerce, which suffered from the war; it would leave the Netherlands still formidable as a weapon against Philip. The freedom of the Prov- inces would be saved; and the religious question involved in a fresh submission to the yoke of Catholicism was one which Elizabeth was incapable of appreciating. To her the steady refusal of William the Silent to sacrifice his faith was as unintel- ligible as the steady bigotry of Philip in demanding such a sacrifice. It was of more imm^ediate consequence that Philip's anxiety to avoid provoking an intervention on the part of England which would destroy all hope of his success in Flanders, left her tranquil at home. Had revolt in England prospered he was ready to reap the fruits of other men's labors; and he made no objec- tion to plots for the seizure or assassination of the Queen. But his state was too vast to risk an attack while she sate firmly on her throne; and the cry of the English Catho- lics, or the pressure of the Pope, had as yet failed to drive the Spanish King into strife with Elizabeth. The control of events was, however, pass- ing from the hands of statesmen and dip- lomatists; and the long period of suspense which their policy had won was ending in the clash of national and political passions. The rising fanaticism of the Catholic world was breaking down the caution and hesita- tion of Philip; while England set aside the balanced neutrality of her Queen and pushed boldly forward to a contest which it felt to be inevitable. The public opinion, to which the Queen was so sensitive, took every day a bolder and more decided tone. Her cold indifference to the heroic struggle in Flan- ders was more than compensated by the en- thusiasm it excited among the nation at large. The earlier Flemish refugees found a refuge in the Cinque Ports. The exiled mer- chants of Antwerp were welcomed by the merchants of London. While Elizabeth dribbled out her secret aid to the Prince of Orange, the London traders sent him half-a- million from their own purses, a sum equal to a year's revenue of the Crown. Volun- teers stole across the Channel in increasing numbers to the aid of the Dutch, till the five hundred Englishmen who fought in the be- ginning of the struggle rose to a brigade of five thousand, whose bravery turned one of the most critical battles of the war. Dutch privateers found shelter in English ports, and English vessels hoisted the flag of the States for a dash to the Spanish traders. Protestant fervor rose steadily as "the best captains and soldiers" returned from the campaigns in the Low Countries to tell of Alva's atrocities, or as privateers brought back tales of English seamen who had been seized in Spain and the New World, to linger amidst the tortures of the Inquisition, or to die in its fires. In the presence of this steady drift of popular passion the diplo- macy of Elizabeth became of little moment. When she sought to put a check on Philip by one of her last matrimonial intrigues, which threatened England with a Catholic sovereign in the Duke of Anjou, a younger THE EENAISSANCE 31 son of the hated Catharine of Medieis, the popular indignation rose suddenly into a cry against "a Popish King" which the Queen dared not defy. If Elizabeth Avas resolute for peace, England was resolute for war. A new courage had arisen since the beginning of her reign, when Cecil and the Queen stood alone in their belief in England's strength, and when the diplomatists of Europe re- garded her obstinate defiance of Philip's counsels as "madness." The whole people had caught the self-confidence and daring of their Queen. The seamen of the southern coast had long been carrying on a half- piratical war on their own account. Four years after Elizabeth's accession the Chan- nel swarmed with "sea-dogs," as they were called, who sailed under letters of marque from the Prince of Conde and the Huguenot leaders, and took heed neither of the com- plaints of the French Court nor of Eliza- beth's own attempts at repression. Her efforts failed before the connivance of every man along the coast, of the very port-officers of the Crown who made profit out of the spoil, and of the gentry of the west, who were hand and glove with the adventurers. They broke above all against the national craving for open fight with Spain, and the Protestant craving for open fight with Catholicism. Young Englishmen crossed the sea to serve under Conde or Henry of Navarre. The war in the Netherlands drew hundreds of Protestants to the field. The suspension of the French contest only drove the sea-dogs to the West Indies; for the Papal decree which gave the New World to Spain, and the threats of Philip against any Protestant who should visit its seas, fell idly on the ears of English seamen. It was in vain that their trading vessels were seized, and the sailors flung into the dungeons of the Inquisition, "laden with irons, without sight of sun or moon." The profits of the trade were large enough to counteract its perils; and the bigotry of Philip was met by a bigo- try as merciless as his own. The Puritanism of the sea-dogs went hand in hand with their love of adventure. To break through the Catholic monopoly of the New World, to kill Spaniards, to sell negroes, to sack gold- ships, were in these men's minds a seemly work for the "elect of God." The name of Francis Drake became the terror of the Spanish Indies. In Drake a Protestant fanaticism was united with a splendid dar- ing. He conceived the design of penetrating into the Pacific, whose waters had never seen an English flag ; and backed by a little com- pany of adventurers, he set sail for the southern seas in a vessel hardly as big as a Channel schooner, with a few yet smaller companions who fell away before the storms and perils of the voyage. But Drake with his one shija and eighty men held boldly on ; and passing the Straits of Magellan, un- traversed as yet by any Englishman, swept the unguarded coast of Chili and Peru, loaded his bark with the gold-dust and sil- ver-ingots of Potosi, and with the pearls, emeralds, and diamonds which formed the cargo of the great galleon that sailed once a year from Lima to Cadiz. With spoils of above half-a-million in value the daring ad- venturer steered undauntedly for the Moluc- cas, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and after completing the circuit of the globe dropped anchor again in Plymouth harbor. The Spirit of England 1. "This England" [The speech of John of Gaunt, Shake- speare's Richard 77] Methinks I am a prophet new inspired And thus expiring do foretell of him : His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last. For violent fires soon burn out themselves; Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes ; With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder : Light vanity, insatiate cormorant. Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea. Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands. This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth, 32 THE GEEAT TEADITION Renowned for their deeds as far from home, For Christian service and true chivalry, As is the sepulcher in stubborn Jewry Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son, This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it. Like to a tenement or pelting farm: England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds : That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life. How happy then were my ensuing death ! 2. Unity Against the Foe [The speech of Faulconbridge, Shake- speare's King John] Bast. This England never did, nor never shall. Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror. But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms. And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue. If England to itself do rest but true. 3. England at War [From Shakespeare's Henry V, Act III] Enter Chorus Chor. Thus with imagined wing our'swift scene flies In motion of no less celerity Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen The well-appointed king at Hampton pier Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning : Play with your fancies, and in them behold Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing ; Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails. Borne with the invisible and creeping wind. Draw the huge bottoms through the fur- row'd sea, Breasting the lofty surge : 0, do but think You stand upon the rivage and behold A city on the inconstant billows dancing ; For so appears this fleet majestical. Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow : Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy. And leave your England, as dead midnight still. Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women, Either past or not arrived to pith and puis- sance ; For who is he, whose chin is but enrich'd With one appearing hair, that will not fol- low These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France ? Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege ; Behold the ordnance on their carriages. With fatal mouths gaping on girded Har- fleur. Suppose the ambassador from the French comes back; Tells Harry that the king doth offer him Katharine his daughter, and with her, to dowry. Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms. The offer likes not : and the nimble gunner With linstock now the devilish cannon touches, {^Alarum, and chambers go off And down goes all before them. Still be kind, And eke out our performance with your mind. [Exit ScEKE I. France. Before Harfleur Alarum. Enter King Henry, Exeter, Bed- ford^ Gloucester, and Soldiers, with scal- ing-ladders. K. Hen. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ; Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility ; But when the blast of war blows in our ears. Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. Disguise fair nature with hard-f avor'd rage : Then lend the eye a terrible aspect ; Let it pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'er- whelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock THE EENAISSANCE 33 O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swiird with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest Eng- lish, Whose blood is fet from fathers of war- proof ! Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders, Have in these parts from morn till even fought And sheathed their swords for lack of argu- ment : Dishonor not your mothers ; now attest That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you. Be copy now to men of grosser blood, And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture ; let us swear That you are worth your breeding ; which I doubt not ; For there is none of you so mean and base, That hath not noble luster in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot : Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry, "God for Harry, England, and Saint George !" [Exeunt. Alarum j, and chambers go off. [From Act IV] Enter Chorus Chor. Now entertain conjecture of a time When creeping murmur and the poring dark Fills the wide vessel of the universe. From camjD to camp through the foul womb of night The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fixed sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch: Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames Each battle sees the other's umber'd face; Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Piercing the night's dull ear, and from the tents The armorers, accomplishing the knights. With busy hammers closing rivets up. Give dreadful note of preparation: The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll. And the third hour of drowsy morning name. Proud of their numbers and secure in soul, The confident and over-lusty French Do the low-rated English play at dice ; And chide the cripjDle tardy-gaited night Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp So tediously away. The poor condemned English, Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires Sit patiently, and inly ruminate The morning's danger, and their gesture sad Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats Presenteth them unto the gazing moon So many horrid ghosts. now, who will behold The royal captain of this ruin'd band Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent. Let him cry, "Praise and glory on his head !" For forth he goes and visits all his host, Bids them good morrow with a modest smile, And calls them brothers, friends, and coun- trymen. Upon his royal face there is no note How dread an army hath enrounded him ; Nor doth he dedicate one jot of color Unto the weary and all-watched night, But freshly looks and over-bears attaint With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty; That every wretch, pining and pale before. Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks : A largess universal like the sun His liberal eye doth give to every one, Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all. Behold, as may unworthiness define, A little touch of Harry in the night. And so our scene must to the battle fly ; Where — for pity! — we shall much dis- grace With four or five most vile and ragged foils, Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous, The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see, Minding true things by what their mockeries be. • [Exit Scene III. The English Camp Enter Gloucester, Bedford, Exeter^ Er- piNGHAM, with all his host; Salisbury and Westmoreland. Glou. Where is the king'? 34 THE GKEAT TRADITION Bed. The king himself is rode to view their battle. West. Of fighting men they have full three-score thousand. Exe. There's five to one ; besides, they all are fresh, Sal. God's arm strike with us ! 'tis a fear- ful odds. God be wi' you, princes all; I'll to my charge : If we no more meet till we meet in heaven. Then, joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford, My dear Lord Gloucester, and my good Lord Exeter, And my kind kinsman, warriors all, adieu! Bed. Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck go with thee ! Exe. Farewell, kind lord ; fight valiantly today : And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it, For thou art framed of the firm truth of valor. [Exit Salisbury Bed. He is as full of valor as of kind- ness ; Princely in both. Enter the King West. that we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in Eng- land That do no work today ! K. Ben. What's he that wishes so ? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin : If we are mark'd to die, we are enow To do our country loss ; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honor. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost ; It yearns me not if men my garments wear ; Such outward things dwell not in my desires : But if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England : God's peace I I would not lose so great an honor As one man more, methinks, would share from me For the best hope I have. 0, do not wish one more ! Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host. That he which hath no stomach to this fight. Let him depart ; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy pvit into his purse: We would not die in that man's company, That fears his fellowship to die with us. This day is call'd the feast of Crispian : He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors, And say, "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian" ; Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say, "These wounds I had on Crispin's day." Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember with advantages What feats he did that day : then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words, Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Glou- cester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remem- ber'd. This story shall the good man teach his son : And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ; For he today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother : be he ne'er so vile. This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now abed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here. And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Ballad of Agincourt michael drayton 1 Fair stood the wind for France, When we our sails advance; Nor now to prove our chance Longer will tarry; But putting to the main. At Caux, the mouth of Seine, With all his martial train Landed King Harry. THE RENAISSANCE 35 And taking many a fort, Furnished in warlike sort, Marcheth towards Agincourt In happy hour; Skirmishing, day by day, With those that stopped his way, Where the French general lay With all his power. Which, in his height of pride. King Henry to deride, His ransom to provide. To the King sending; Which he neglects the while. As from a nation vile, Yet, with an angry smile, Their fall portending. And turning to his men. Quoth our brave Henry then; "Though they to one be ten . Be not amazed ! Yet have we well begun: Battles so bravely won Have ever to the sun By Fame been raised! "And for myself," quoth he, "This my full rest shall be: England ne'er mourn for me, Nor more esteem me ! Victor I will remain, Or on this earth lie slain; Never shall she sustain Loss to redeem me ! "Poitiers and Cressy tell, When most their pride did swell. Under our swords they fell. No less our skill is. Than when our Grandsire great, Claiming the regal seat. By many a warlike feat Lopped the French lilies." The Duke of York so dread The eager vanward led; With the main, Henry sped Amongst his henchmen; Exeter had the rear, A braver man not there ! Lord, how hot they were On the false Frenchmen! They now to fight are gone ; Armor on armor shone; Drum now to drum did groan : To hear, was wonder; That, with the cries they make, The very earth did shake; Trumpet to trumpet spake ; Thunder to thunder. 9 Well it thine age became, noble Erpingham, Which didst the signal aim To our hid forces ! When, from a meadow by. Like a storm suddenly. The English archery Stuck the French horses, 10 With Spanish yew so strong; Arrows a cloth-yard long, That like to serpents stung, . Piercing the weather. None from his fellow starts ; But playing manly parts, And like true English hearts, Stuck close together. 11 When down their bows they threw, And forth their bilboes drew, And on the French they flew : Not one was tardy. Arms were from shoulders sent. Scalps to the teeth were rent, Down the French peasants went : Our men were hardy. 12 This while our noble King, His broad sword brandishing, Down the French host did ding, As to o'erwhelm it. And many a deep wound lent ; His arms with blood besprent, And many a cruel dent Bruised his helmet. 36 THE GEEAT TEADITION 13 Gloucester, that duke so good, Next of the royal blood, For famous England stood With his brave brother. Clarence, in steel so bright. Though but a maiden knight. Yet in that furious fight. Scarce such another! 14 Warwick in blood did wade ; Oxford, the foe invade. And cruel slaughter made, Still as they ran up. Suffolk his axe did ply ; Beaumont and Willoughby Bare them right doughtily ; Ferrers, and Fanhope. 15 Upon Saint Crispin's Day Fought was this noble fray; Which Fame did not delay To England to carry. 0, when shall English men With such acts fill a pen? Or England breed again Such a King Harry? The Deeds of Elizabethan Seamen richard hakluyt [From the Voyages, 1589] To harp no longer upon this string, and to speak a word of that just commenda- tion which our nation do indeed deserve: it cannot be denied, but as in' all former ages they have been men full of activity, stirrers abroad, and searchers of the remote parts of the world, so in this most famous and peer- less government of her most excellent Ma- jesty, her subjects, through the special as- sistance and blessing of God, in searching the most opposite corners and quarters of the world, and to speak plainly, in com- passing the vast globe of the earth more than once, have excelled all the nations and people of the earth. For which of the kings of this land before her Majesty had their banners ever seen in the Caspian sea? which of them hath ever dealt with the emperor ■of Persia as her Majesty hath done, and obtained for her merchants large and lov- ing privileges? who ever saw, before this regiment, an' English Ligier in the stately porch of the Grand Signor at Constanti- nople? who ever found English consuls and agents at Tripolis in Syria, at Aleppo, at Babylon, at Balsara, and which is more, who ever heard of Englishman at Goa before now? what English ships did heretofore ever anchor in the mighty river of Plate? pass and repass the unpassable (in former opinion) Strait of Magellan, range along the coast of Chili, Peru, and all the backside of Nova Hispania, further than any chris- tian ever passed, traverse the mighty breadth of the South Sea, land upon the Luzones in despite of the enemy, enter into alliance, amity, and traffic with the princes of the Moluccas and the isle of Java, double the famous cape of Bona Speranza, arrive at the isle of St. Helena, and last of all re- turn home most richly laden with the com- modities of China, as the subjects of this now flourishing monarchy have done ? To THE Virginian Voyage MICHAEL DRAYTON You brave heroic minds. Worthy your country's name. That honor still pursue; Go and subdue! Whilst loitering hinds Lurk here at home with shame. Britons, you stay too long; Quickly aboard bestow you ! And with a merry gale Swell your stretched sail, With vows as strong As the winds that blow you! Your course securely steer, West-and-by-south forth keep ! Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals, When Eolus scowls. You need not fear. So absolute the deep. And, cheerfully at sea. Success you still entice. To get the pearl and gold ; THE EENAISSANCE 37 And ours to hold, Virginia, Earth's only Paradise. Where Nature hath in store Fowl, venison, and fish; And the fruitful'st soil, — Without your toil, Three harvests more, All greater than your wish. And the ambitious vine Crowns with his purple mass The cedar reaching high To kiss the sky, The cypress, pine. And useful sassafras. To whom, the Golden Age Still Nature's laws doth give: Nor other cares attend. But them to defend From winter's rage, That long there doth not live. When as the luscious smell Of that delicious land, Above the seas that flows, The clear wind throws. Your hearts to swell, Approaching the dear strand. 9 In kenning of the shore (Thanks to God first given!) you, the happiest men, Be frolic then ! Let cannons roar, Frightening the wide heaven! 10 And in regions far. Such heroes bring ye forth As those from whom we came! And plant our name Under that star Not known unto our North! 11 And where in plenty grows The laurel everywhere, Apollo's sacred tree Your days may see A poet's brows To crown, that may sing there. 12 Thy Voyages attend, Industrious Hakluyt! Whose reading shall inflame Men to seek fame; And much commend To after times thy wit. The Victory op England sir walter raleigh [From A Beport of the Fight betwixt the Revenge and an Armada of the King of Spain, 1591] Because the rumours are diversly spred, as well in Englande as in the lowe countries and els where, of this late encounter between her maiesties ships and the Armada of Spain; and that the Spaniardes according to their usual maner, fill the woi'ld with their vaine glorious vaunts, making great appar- ance of victories: when on the contrary, themselves are most commonly and shame- fully beaten and dishonoured ; therby hoping to possesse the ignorant multitude by an- ticipating and forerunning false reports : It is agreeable with all good reason, for mani- festation of the truth to overcome falsehood and untruth; that the beginning, continu- ance, and suecesse of this late honourable en- counter of Syr Richard Grinvile, and other her maiesties Captaines, with the Armada of Spaine; should be truly set downe and pub- lished without parcialltie or false imagina- tions. And it is no marvell that the Span- iard should seeke by false and slandrous Pamphlets, advisoes and Letters, to cover their owne losse, and to derogate from others their due honours especially in this fight beeing performed farre of; seeing they were not ashamed in the yeare 1588, when they purposed the invasion of this land, to pub- lish in sundrie languages in print, great vic- tories in wordes, which they pleaded to have obteined against this Realme, and spredde the same in a most false sort over all partes of France, Italie, and elsewhere. When shortly after it was happily manifested in verie deed to all Nations, how their Navy which they termed invincible, consisting of 240 saile of ships, not onely of their own kingdom, but strengthened with the greatest 38 THE GEEAT TEADITION Argosies, Portugall Caractes, Florentines, and huge Hulkes of other countries; were by thirtie of her Maiesties' owne shippes of warre, and a few of our owne Marchants, by the wise, valiant, and most advantagious conduction of the L. Charles Howard, high Admirall of England, beaten and shuffeled togither, even from the Lizard in Cornwall: first to Portland, where they shamefully left Bon Pedro de Valdes, with his mightie shippe : from Portland to Cales, where they lost Hugo de Moncado, with the Gallias of which he was Captain, and from Cales, driven with squibs from their anchors : were chased out of the sight of England, round about Scotland and Ireland. Where for the sympathie of their barbarous religion, hop- ing to flnde succour and assistance : a great part of them were erusht against the rocks, and thos6 other that landed, • being verie manie in number, were not withstanding broken, slaine, and taken, and so sent from village to village coupled in halters to be shipped into Engla [n] d. Where her Maiestie of her Princely and invincible disposition, disdaining to put them to death, and scorn- ing either to retaine or entertaine them: [they] were all sent baeke againe to theire countries, to witnesse and recount the worthy achievements of their invincible and dreadfuU Navy. Of which the number of souldiers, the fearefull burtiien of their shippes, the commanders names of everie squadron, with all other their magasines of provision, were put in print, as an Army and Navy unresistible, and disdaining pre- vention. With all which so great and ter- rible an ostentation, they did not in all their sailing rounde about England, so much as sinke, or take one ship, Barke, Pinnes, or Cockbote of ours: or ever burnt so much as one sheep-cote of this land. When as on the contrarie, Syr Francis Drake, with only 800 souldiers not long before, landed in their Indies, and forced Santiago, Santa Domingo, Cartagena, and the Fortes of Florida. And after that, Syr loJin Norris marched from Peniche in Portugall, with a handfull of souldiers, to the gates of Lisbone, being above 40 English miles. Where the Earle of Essex himself e and other valiant Gentlemen, braved the Cittie of Lisbone, encamped at the verie gates; from whence after many dales abode, finding neither promised partie, nor provision to batter: made retrait by land, in despite of all their Garrisons, both of Horse and f oote. In this sort I have a little digressed from my first purpose, only by the necessarie comparison of theirs and our actions : the one covetous of honor without vaunt or ostentation; the other so greedy to purchase the opinion of their own affaires, and by false rumors to resist the blasts of their owne dishonors, as they wil not only not blush to spread all maner of untruthes : but even for the least advantage, be it but for the taking of one poore ad- venturer of the English, will celebrate the vietorie with bonefiers in everie town, alwaies spending more in faggots, then the purchase was worth they obtained. When as we never yet thought it worth the con- sumption of two billets, when we have taken eight or ten of their Indian shippes at one time, and twentie of the Brasill fleet. Such is the difference between true val- ure, and ostentation : and betweene hon- ourable actions, and frivolous vaine- glorious vaunts. But now to returne to my first purpose. The L. Thomas Howard, with sixe of her Maiesties ships, sixe victualers of London, the barke Ralegh, and two or three Pinnasses riding at anchor nere unto Flores, one of the Westerlie Hands of the Azores, the last of August in the after noone had intelligence by one Captaine Midleton, of the approach of the Spanish Armada. Which Midleton being in a. verie good Sailer, had kept them companie three dales before, of good pur- pose, both to discover their forces the more, as also to give advice to my L. Thomas of their approch. He had no sooner delivered the newes but the Fleet was in sight : manie of our shippes companies were on shore in the Hand; some providing balast for their ships ; others filling of water and refreshing themselves from the land with such thinges as they coulde either for money, or by force recover. By reason whereof our ships being all pestered and romaging everie thing out of order, verie light for want of balast. And that which was most to our disadvantage, the one halfe part of the men of every shippe sicke, and utterly unserviceable. For in the Revenge there were ninetie diseased : in the Bonaventure, not so many in health as could handle her maine saile. For had not twentie men beene taken out of a Barke of Sir George Caryes, his being commanded to be sunke, and those appointed to her, she had hardly ever recovered England, The rest for the most part, were in little better state. THE EENAISSANCE 39 The names of her Maiesties shippes were these as followeth: the Defiaunce, which was Admiral!, the Revenge Vieeadmirall, the Bonaventure, commanded by Captaine Crosse, the Lion by George Fenner, the Foresight by M. Thomas Vavisour, and the Crane by Duffeild. The Foresight and the Crane being but small shijDS ; onely the other were of the middle size; the rest, besid[e]s the Barke Ralegh, commanded by Captaine •Thin, were victualers, and of small force or none. The Spanish fleete having shrouded their approch by reason of the Hand ; were now so soone at hand, as our ships had scarce time to waye their anchors, but some of them were driven to let slippe their Cables, and set sayle. Sir Richard Grinvile was the last waied, to recover the men that were upon the Hand, which otherwise had beene lost. The L. Thomas with the rest verie hardly recovered the winde, which Sir Richard Grinvile not being able to do, was perswaded by the maister and others to cut his maine saile, and east about, and to trust to the sailing of his shippe : for the squadron of Sivil were on his weather bow. But Sir Richard utterly refused to turne from the enimie, alledging that he would rather chose to dye, then to dishonour him self e, his eoun- trie, and her Maiesties shippe, perswading his companie that he would passe through the two Squadrons, in despight of them : and enforce those of Sivill to give him way. Which he performed upon diverse of the formost, who as the Marriners terme it, sprang their luffe, and fell under the lee of the Revenge. But the other course had beene the better, and might right well have beene answered in so great an impossibilitie of prevailing. Notwithstanding out of the greatnesse of his minde, he could not bee persAvaded. In the meane while as hee at- tended those whiehjwere nearest him, the great San Philip being in the winde of him, and comming towards him, becalmed his sailes in such sort, as the shippe could neither way nor feele the helme: so huge and high carged was the Spanish ship, being of a thousand and five hundredth tuns. Who afterlaid the Revenge aboord. When he was thus bereft of his sailes, the ships that wer under his lee luffing up, also laid him aborde : of which the next was the Admirall of the Biseaines, a verie mightie and puysant shippe commanded by Brittan Dona. The said Philip carried three tire of ordinance on a side, and eleven jDeeces in everie tire. She shot eight forth right out of her chase, be- sides those of her Sterne portes. After the Revenge was intangled with this Philip, f oure other boorded her ; two on her larboord, and two on her starboord. The fight thus beginning at three of the elocke in the after noone, continued verie terrible all that evening. But the great San Philip having receyved the lower tire of the Re- venge, discharged with crossebarshot, shifted hir selfe with all diligence from her sides, utterly misliking hir first entertainment. Some say that the shippe f oundred, but wee cannot report it for truth, unlesse we were assured. The Spanish ships were filled with companies of souldiers, in some two hun- dred besides the Marriners ; in some five, in others eight hundred. In ours there were none at all, beside the Marriners, but the servants of the commanders and some fewe voluntarie Gentlemen only. After many en- ter changed voleies of great ordinance and small shot, the Spaniards deliberated to enter the Revenge, and made divers at- tempts, hoping to force her by the multi- tudes of their armed souldiers and Mus- ketiers, but were still repulsed againe and againe, and at all times beaten backe, into their owne shippes, or into the seas. In the beginning of the fight, the George Noble of London, having received some shot thorow her by the armados, fell under the Lee of the Revenge, and asked Syr Richard what he would command him, being one of the victulers and of small force: Syr Richard bid him save himselfe, and leave him to his fortune. After the fight had thus without intermission, continued while the day lasted and some houres of the night, many of our men were slaine and hurt, and one of the great Gallions of the Armada, and the Admirall of the Hulkes both sunke, and in many other of the Spanish ships great slaughter was made. Some write that sir Richard was verie dangerously hurt almost in the beginning of the fight, and laie speech- less for a time ere he recovered. But two of the Revenges owne companie, brought home in a ship of Lime from the Ilandes, examined by some of the Lordes, and others : affirmed that he was never so wounded as that hee forsooke the upper decke, til an houre before midnight ; and then being shot into the bodie with a Musket as hee was a dressing, was againe shot into the head, and withall his Chirugion wounded to death. This agreeth also with an examination taken 40 THE GEEAT TEADITION by Syr Frances Godolphin, of 4 other Mar- riners of the same shippe being returned, which examination, the said Syr Frances sent unto maister William Killigrue, of her Majesties privie Chamber, But to return to the fight, the Spanish ships which attempted to board tlie Revenge, as they were wounded and beaten of, so alwaies others came in their places, she hav- ing never lesse than two mightie Gallions by her sides and aboard her. So that ere the morning, from three of the eloeke the day before, there had flfteene several! Armados assailed her; and all so ill approved their entertainment, as they were by the breake of day, far more willing to barken to a com- position, then hastily to make any more assaults or entries. But as the day en- creased, so our men decreased: and as the light grew more and riiore, by so much more grew our discomforts. For none appeared in sight but enemies, saving one small ship called the Pilgrim, commanded by lacoh Whiddon, who hovered all night to see the successe: but in the mornyng bearing with the Revenge, was hunted like a hare amongst many ravenous houndes, but escaped. All the powder of the Revenge to the last barrell was now spent, all her pikes broken, fortie of her best men slaine, and the most part of the rest hurt. In the beginning of the fight she had but one hundred free from sieknes, and f ourescore and ten sicke, laid in hold upon the Ballast. A small troupe to man such a ship, and a weake Garrison to resist so mighty an Army. By those hun- dred all was sustained, the voleis, bourdings, and entrings of fifteene shippes of warre,. besides those which beat her at large. On the contrarie, the Spanish were.alwaies sup- plied with souldiers brought from every squadron: all maner of Armes and pouder at will. Unto ours there remained no com- fort at all, no hope, no supply either of ships, men, or weapons; the mastes all beaten over board, all her tackle cut asunder, her upper worke altogither rased, and in effect evened shee was with the water, but the verie foundation or bottom of a ship, nothing being left over head either for flight or defence. Syr Richard finding him- selfe in this distresse, and unable anie longer to make resistance, having endured in this fifteene houres fight, the assault of fifteene several Armadoes, all by tornnes aboorde him, and by estimation eight hundred shot of great artillerie, besides manie assaults and entries. And that himself and the shippe must needes be possessed by the enemie, who were not all cast in a ring round about him; The Revenge not able to move one way or other, but as she was moved with the waves and billow of the sea : commanded the maister Gunner, whom he knew to be a most resolute man, to split and sinke the shippe; that thereby nothing might remaine of glorie or victorie to the Spaniards : seeing in so manie houres fight^ and with so great a Navie they were not able to take her, having had fifteene houres time, fifteene thousand men, and fiftie and three saile of men of warre to perf orme it withall. And perswaded the companie, or as manie as he could induce, to yeelde themselves unto God, and to the mercie of none els; but as they had like valiant resolute men, repulsed so ' manie enimies, they should not now shorten the honour of their nation, by pro- longing their owne lives for a few houres, or a few dales. The maister Gunner readilie condescended and divers others; but the Captaine and the Maister were of an other opinion, and besought Sir Richard to have care of them: alleaging that the Spaniard would be as readie to entertaine a composi- tion, as they were willing to otf er the same : and that there being diverse sufficient and valiant men yet living, and whose woundes were not mortall, they might doe their coun- trie and prince acceptable service hereafter. And (that where Sir Richard had alleaged that the Spaniards should never glorie to have taken one shippe, of her Maiesties, see- ing that they had so long and so notably de- fended them selves) they answered, that the shippe had sixe foote water in hold, three shot under water which were so weakly stopped, as with the first working of the sea, she must needes sinke, and was besides so crusht and brused, as she could never be removed out of the place. And as the matter was thus in dispute, and Sir Richard refusing to hearken to any of those reasons : the maister of the Revenge (while the Captaine wan unto him the greater party) was convoy de aborde the Generall Don Alfonso Bassan. Who finding none over hastie to enter the Revenge againe, doubting least S. Richard ^f^o^a\^i have blowne them up and himself e, and perceiving by the report of the maister of the Revenge his daungerous disposition: yeelded that all their lives should be saved, the companie sent for England, and the better sorte to THE EENAISSANCE 41 pay such reasonable ransome as their estate would beare, and in the meane season to be free from Gaily or imprisonment. To this he so much the rather condescended as well as I have saide, for f eare of further loss and mischief e to them selves, as also for the de- sire hee had to recover Sir Richard Grinvile; whom for his notable valure he seemed greatly to honour and admire. When this answere was returned, and that safetie of life was promised, the common sort being* now at the end of their perill, the most drew backe from Sir Richard and the maister Gunner, being- no hard matter to diswade men from death to life. The maister Gunner finding him selfe and Sir Richard thus prevented and maistered by the greater number, would have slaine himselfe with a sword, had he not beene by force withheld and locked into his Cabben. Then the Gen- erall sent manie boates abord the Revenge, and diverse of our men fearing Sir Richards disposition, stole away aboord the Generall and other shippes. Sir Richard thus over- matched, was sent unto by Alfonso Bassan to remove out of the Revenge, the shippe being marvellous unsaverie, filleft with bloud and bodies of deade, and wounded men like a slaughter house. Sir Richard answered that he might do with his bodie what he list, for he esteemed it not, and as he was carried out of the shippe he swounded, and reviv- ing againe desired the eompanie to pray for him. The Generall used Sir Richard with all humanitie, and left nothing unattempted that tended to his recoverie, highly com- mending his valour and worthines, and greatly bewailed the daunger wherein he was, beeing unto them a rare spectacle, and a resolution sildome approved, to see one ship turne toward so many enemies, to en- dure the charge and boording of so many huge Armados, and to resist and repell the assaults and entries of so many souldiers. All which and more, is confirmed by a Span- ish Captaine of the same Armada, and a present actor in the fight, who being sev- ered from the rest in a storm, was by the Lyon of London a small ship taken, and is now prisoner in London. The generall commander of the Armada, was Don Alphonso Bassan, brother to the Marquesse of Santa Cruce. The Admirall of the Biscaine squadron, was Britan Dona. Of the squadron of Sivil, Marques otiArum- burch. The Hulkes and Flyboates were com- maunded by Luis Cutino. There were slaine and drowned in this fight, well neere two thousand of the enemies, and two especiall commanders Don Luis de Sant lohn, and Don George de Prunaria de Mallaga, as the Spanish Captain eonfesseth, besides divers others of es^Decial account, whereof as yet report is not made. The Admirall of the Hulkes and the Ascention of Sivill, were both suncke by the side of the Revenge; one other recovered the rode of Saint Michels, and sunke also there; a fourth ranne her selfe with the shore to save her men. Syr Richard died as it is said, the second or third day aboard the Generall, and was by them greatly be- wailed. What became of his bodie, whether it were buried in the sea or on the lande wee know not : the comfort that remaineth to his friendes is, that he hath ended his life honourably in respect of the reputation wonne to his nation and country, and of the same to his posteritie, and that being dead, he hath not outlived his owne honour. For the rest of her Majesties ships that entred not so far into the fight as the Revenge, the reasons and causes were these. There Avere of them but six in all, whereof two but small ships; the Revenge ingaged past recoverie : The Hand of Flores was on the one side, 53 saile of the Spanish, divided into squadrons on the other, all as full filled with soldiers as they could containe. Almost the one halfe of our men sicke and not able to serve : the ships growne f oule, unroom- aged, and scarcely able to beare anie saile for want of ballast, having beene sixe moneths at the sea before. If al the rest had entred, all had ben lost. For the verie hugenes of the Spanish fieet, if no other violence had been offred, would have crusht them between them into shivers. Of which the dishonour and losse to the Queene had been far greater than the spoile or harme that the enemy could any way have received. Notwithstanding it is veiie true, that the Lord Thomas would have entred betweene the squadi'ons, but the rest wold not con- descend; and the maister of his owne ship offred to leape into the sea, rather than to conduct that her Maiesties ship and the rest to be a praie to the enemy, where there was no hope nor possibilitie either of defence or victorie. Which also in my opinion had il sorted or answered the discretion and trust of a Generall, to commit himselfe and his charge to an assured destruction, without hojDe or any likelihood of prevailing : therby 42 THE GEEAT TEADITION to diminish the strength of her Maiesties Navy, and to enrich' the pride and glorie of the enemie. The Foresight of the Queenes commanded by M.. Th. Vavisor, performed a verie great fight, and stayd two houres as neere the Revenge as the wether wold per- mit him, not forsaking the fight, till hee was like to be encompassed by the squadrons, and with great difflcultie cleared himselfe. The rest gave divers voleies of shot, and entred as far as the place permitted and their own necessities, to keep the weather gage of the enemy, untill they were parted by night. A f ewe dales after the fight was ended, and the English prisoners dispersed into the Spanish and Indy ships, there arose so great a storme from the West and North- west, that all the fleet was dispersed, as well the Indian fleet which were then come unto them as the rest of the Armada that at- tended their arrival!, of which 14 saile togither with the Revenge, and in her 200 Spaniards, were cast away upon the Isle of S. Michaels. So it pleased them to honor the buriall of that renowned ship the Re- venge, not suffring her to perish alone, for the great honour she achieved in her life time. On the rest of the Ilandes there were cast away in this storme, 15 or 16 more of the ships of war ; and of a hundred and odde saile of the Indie fleet, expected this yeere in Spaine, what in this tempest, and what before in the bay of Mexico, and about the Bermudas there were 70 and odde consumed and lost, with those taken by our ships of London, besides one verie rych Indian shippe, which set her selfe on fire, beeing boorded by the Pilgrim, and five other taken by Master Wats his ships of London, between the Havana and Cape S. Antonio. The 4 of this month of November, we re- ceived letters from the Tercera, affirming yat there are 3000 bodies of men remaining in that Hand, saved out of the perished ships : and that by the Spaniards own con- fession, there are 10000 cast away in this storm, besides those that are perished be- tweene the Hands and the maine. Thus it hath pleased God to fight for us, and to defend the iustice of our cause, against the ambicious and bloudy pretenses of the Span- iard, who seeking to devour all nations, are themselves devoured. A manifest testimonie how iniust and how displeasing their at- tempts are in the sight of God, who hath pleased to witnes by the successe of their affaires, his mislike of their bloudy and iniurious designes, purposed and practised against all Christian Princes, over whom they seeke unlawful and ungodly rule and Empery. . . . To conclude, it hath ever to this day pleased God, to prosper and defend her Maiestie, to breake the purposes of malicious enimies, of foresworne traitours, and of unjust practises and invasions. She hath ever beene honoured of the worthiest Kinges, served by faithfuU subjects, and shall by the favor of God, resist, repell, and con- found all what soever attempts against her sacred Person or kingdome. In the meane time, let the Spaniard and traitour vaunt of their successe ; and we her true and obedient vassalles guided by the shining light of her vertues, shall alwaies love her, serve her, and obey her to the end of our lives. . III. TEAINING FOR EMPIRE The Education of Men Who Are to Rule sir thomas elyot [From The Boke of the Governour, 1534] Nowe wyll I somwhat declare of the chiefe causes why, in our tyme, noble men be nat as excellent in lernying as they were in olde tyme amonge the Romanes and grekes. Surely, as I haue diligently marked in dayly experience, the principall causes be these. The pride, avarice, and negligence of par- entes, and the lacke or fewenesse of suffy- cient maysters or teachers. As I sayd, pride is the first cause of this inconuenienee. For of those persons be some, which, without shame, dare afflrme, that to a great gentilman it is a notable reproche to be well lerned and to be called a great clerke : whiche name they aecounte to be of so base estymation, that they neuer haue it in their mouthes but when they speke any thynge in derision, whiche perchaunee they wolde nat do if they had ones layser to rede our owne cronicle of Englande, where they shall fynde that kynge Henry the first, Sonne of willyam conquerour, and one of the moste noble princes that euer reigned THE RENAISSANCE 43 in this realme, was openly called Henry beau clerke, wliiche is in engiysslie, fayre clerke, and is yet at this day so named. And wheder that name be to his honour or to his reproche, let them iuge that do rede and compare his lyfe with his two bretherne, William called Rouse, and Robert le courtoise, they both nat hauyng semblable lernyng with the sayd Henry, the one for his dis- solute lyuyng and tyranny beynge hated of all his nobles and people, finally was sodaynely slayne by the shotte of an arowe, as he was huntynge in a forest, whiche to make larger and to gyue his deere more lybertie, he dyd cause the houses of lii parisshes to be pulled downe, the people to be expelled, and all beyng- desolate to be tourned in to desert, and made onely pasture for beestes sauage; whiche he wolde neuer haue done if he had as moche delyted in good lerning as dyd his brother. The other brother, Robert le Courtoise, beyng duke of Normandie, and the eldest Sonne of wylliam Conquerour, all be it that he was a man of moehe prowesse, and right expert in martial affayres, Avherfore he was electe before Godfray of Boloigne to haue ben kyng' of Hierusalem; yet natwith- standynge whan he inuaded this realme with sondrie puissaunt armies, also dyuers noble men aydinge hym, yet his noble brother Henry beau clerke, more by wysdome than power, also by lernynge, addyng polycie to vertue and courage, often tymes vayn- quisshed hym, and dyd put him to flyght. And after sondry victories finally toke him and kepte hym in prison, hauyng none other meanes to kepe his realme in tranquillitie. It was for no rebuke, but for an excellent honour, that the emperour Antonine was surnamed philosopher, for by his moste noble example of lyuing, and industrie in- comparable, he during all the tyme of his reigne kept the publike weale of the Romanes in suche a perfecte astate, that by his actes he confirmed the sayeng of Plato, That blessed is that publike weale wherin either philosophers do reigne, or els kinges be in philosophic studiouse. These persones that so moche eontemne lernyng, that they wolde that gentilmen's children shulde haue no parte or very litle therof, but rather shulde spende their youth alway (I saye not onely in huntynge and haukyng, whiche moderately used, as solaces ought to be, I intende nat to disprayse) but in those ydle pastymes, whiche, for the vice that is therin, the commaundement of the prince, and the uniuersall consent of the people, expressed in statutes and lawes, do prohibite, I meane, playeng at dyce, and other games named unlefuU. These per- sones, I say, I wolde shulde remembre, or elles nowe lerne, if they neuer els herde it, that the noble Philip kyng of Macedonia, Avho subdued al Greece, aboue all the gocd fortunes that euer he hadde, most reioysed that his Sonne Alexander was borne in the tyme that Aristotle the philosopher flourisshed, by whose instruction he mought attaine to most excellent lernynge. Also the same Alexander often tymes sayd that he was equally as moche bounden to Aristotle as to his father kyng Philip, for of his father he receyued lyfe, but of Aristotle he receyued the waye to lyue nobly. Who dispraysed Epaminondas, the moost valiant capitayne of Thebanes, for that he was excellently lerned and a great philoso- pher? Who euer discommended Julius Cesar for that he was a noble or at our, and, nexte to Tulli, in the eloquence of the latin tonge excelled al other ? Wlio euer reproued the emi^erour Hadriane for that he was so exquisitely lerned, nat onely in greke and latine, but also in all sciences liberall, that openly at Athenes, in the uniuersall assem- bly of the greatteste clerkes of the worlde, he by a longe tyme disputed with philoso- phers and Rhetoriciens, Avhiche were estemed mooste excellent, and by the iugement of them that were present had the palme or rewarde of victories And yet, by the gouernance of that noble emperour, nat only the publik weale flourisshed but also diners rebellions were siippressed, and the maiesty of the empire hugely increased. Was it any reproche to the noble Germanicus (who by the assignement of Augustus shulde haue succeeded Tiberius in the empire, if traitor- ous enuy had nat in his flourysshynge youth bireft hym his lyfe) that he was equall to the moost noble poetes of his time, and, to the increase of his honour and moost worthy commendation, his image was set up at Rome, in the habite that poetes at those dayes used? Fynally howe moche excellent lernynge commendeth, and nat dispraiseth, nobilitie, it shal playnly appere unto them that do rede the lyfes of Alexander called Seuerus, Tacitus, Probus Aurelius, Con- stantine, Theodosius, and Charles the gret, surnamed Charlemaine, all being emjDerours, 44 THE GEEAT TEADITION and do compare them with other, whiche lacked or had nat so moche of doctrine. Verily they be ferre from good raison, in myne opinion, whiche couaite to haue their children goodly in stature, stronge, deliuer, well synging, wherin trees, beastes, fysshes, and byrdes, be nat only with them equall, but also ferre do exeede them. And eonnynge, wherby onely man excelleth all other creatures in erthe, they reiecte, and accounte unworthy to be in their children. What unkinde appetite were it to desyre to be father rather of a peee of flesshe, that can onely meue and feele, than of a ehilde that shulde have the perfecte fourme of a man? What so perfectly expresseth a man as doctrine? Diogines the philosopher seing one without lernynge syt on a stone, sayde to them that were with him, beholde where one stone sytteth on an other; whiche wordes, well considered and tried, shall ap- pere to contayne in it wonderfull matter for the approbation of doctrine, wherof a wyse man maye accumulate ineuitable argu- mentes, whiche I of necessite, to auoide tediousnes, must nedes passe ouer at this tyme. The seeonde occasion wherf ore gentylmens children seldome haue sufficient lernynge is auarice. For where theyr parentes wyll nat aduenture to sende them farre out of theyr propre • countrayes, partely for f eare of dethe, whiche perchance dare nat approche them at home with theyr father ; partely for expence of money, whiche they suppose wolde be lesse in theyr owne houses or in a village, with some of theyr tenantes or frendes; hauyng seldome any regarde to the teacher, whether he be well lerned or ignorant. For if they hiare a schole maister to teche in theyr houses, they chiefely en- quire with howe small a salary he will be contented, and neuer do inserche howe moche good lernynge he hath, and howe amonge well lerned men he is therin es- temed, usinge therin lasse diligence than in takynge seruantes, whose seruice is of moche lasse importance, and to a good schole mais- ter is nat in profite to be compared. A gentilman, er he take a cooke in to his seruice, he wyll firste diligently examine hym, howe many sortes of meates, potages, and sauces, he can perfectly make, and howe well he can season them, that they may be bothe pleasant and nourishynge ; yea and if it be but a fauconer, he wyll scrupulously enquire what skyll he hath in f eedyng, called diete, and kepyng of his hauke from all sickenes, also how he can reclaime her and prepare her to flyght. And to suche a cooke or fauconer, whom he flndeth expert, he spareth nat to gyue moche wages with other bounteous rewardes. But of a schole maister, to whom he will committe his ehilde, to be fedde with lernynge and instructed in vertue, whose lyfe shall be the prineipall monument of his name and honour, he neuer maketh further enquirie but where he may haue a schole maister; and with howe litel charge; and if one be perchance founden, well lerned, but he will nat take paynes to teache without he may haue a great salary, he than si^eketh nothing more, or els saith. What shall so moche wages be gyuen to a schole maister whiche wolde kepe me two seruantes? to whom maye be saide these wordes, that by his Sonne being wel lerned he shall receiue more commoditie and also worship than by the seruice of a hundred cokes and fauconers. The thirde cause of this hyndrance is neg- ligence of parentes, Avhiche I do specially note in this poynt; there haue bene diuers, as well gentillmen as of the nobilitie, that deliting to haue their sonnes excellent in lernynge haue prouided for them eonnynge maysters, who substancially haue taught them gramer, and very wel instructed them to speake latine elegantly, wherof the par- entes haue taken moche delectation; but whan they haue had of grammer sufficient and be comen to the age of xiiii yeres, and do approche or drawe towarde the astate of man, whiche age is called mature or ripe, (wherin nat onely the saide lernyng con- tinued by moche experience shal be perfectly digested, and confirmed in perpetnall re- membrance, but also more seriouse lernyng contayned in other lyberall sciences, and also philosophy, wolde than be lerned) the par- entes, that thinge nothinge regarding, but being suffised that their children can onely speke latine proprely, or make verses with out mater or sentence, they from thens forth do suffre them to line in idelnes, or els, put- ting them to seruice, do, as it were, banisshe them from all vertuous study or exercise of that whiche they before lerned; so that we may beholde diuers yonge gentill men, who in their infancie and childehode were won- dred at for their aptness to lerning and prompt speakinge of elegant latine, whiche nowe, beinge men, nat onely haue forgotten their congi'uite, (as in the commune worde), THE EENAISSANCE 45 and unneth can speake one hole sentence in true latine, but, that wars is, hath all lernynge in derision, and in skorne therof wyll, of wantonnesse, sjjeake the moste bar- berously that they can imagine. Nowe some man will require me to shewe myne opinion if it be necessary that gentil- men shulde after the age of xiiii yeres con- tinue in studie. And to be playne and trewe therein, I dare affirme that, if the elegant speking of latin be nat added to other doe- trine, litle frute may come of the tonge; sens latine is but a naturall speche, and the frute of speche is wyse sentence, whiehe is gathered and made of sondry lernynges. And who that hath nothinge but langage only may be no more praised than a popiniay, a pye, or a stare, whan they s^Deke featly. There be many nowe a dayes in famouse scholes and uniuersities whiehe be so moche gyuen to the studie of tonges onely, that whan they write epistles, they seme to the reder 'that, like to a trumpet, they make a soune without any purpose, where unto men do herken more for the noyse than for any delectation that therby is meued. Where- fore they be moche abused that suppose elo- quence to be only in wordes or coulours of Rhetorike, for, as Tulli saith, what is so furiouse or mad a thinge as a vaine soune of wordes of the best sort and most ornate, contayning neither connj^nge nor sentence? Undoubtedly very eloquence is in euery tonge where any mater or acte done or to be done is expressed in wordes clene, propise, ornate, and comely : whereof sentences be so aptly compact that they by a vertue inex- plicable do drawe unto them the mindes and consent of the herers, they beinge therwith either perswaded, meued, or to delectation induced. Also euery man is nat an oratour that can write an epistle or a flatering ora- tion in latin: where of the laste, (as god helpe me,) is to moche used. For a right oratour may nat be without a moche better furniture. Tulli saienge that to him be- longeth the explicating or unfoldinge of sen- tence, with a great estimation in gyuing counsaile concerninge maters of great im- portaunce, also to him appei'taineth the steringe and quickning of people languis- shinge or dispeiringe, and to moderate them that be rasshe and unbridled. Wherfore noble autours do affirme that, in the firste infancie of the worlde, men wandring like beastes in woddes and on mountaines, re- gar din ge neither the religion due unto god. nor the office pertaining unto man, ordred all thing by bodily strength: untill Mer- curius (as Plato supposeth) or some other man holpen by sapience and eloquence, by some apt or propre oration, assembled them to geder and perswaded to them what com- modite was in mutual conuersation and hon- est maners. But yet Cornelius Tacitus de- scribeth an oratour to be of more excellent qualities, saynge that, an oratour is he that can or may sijeke or raison in euery ques- tion sufficiently elegantly : and to persuade proprely, accordyng to the dignitie of the thyng that is spoken of, the oportunitie of time, and pleasure of them that be herers. Tulli, before him, affirmed that, a man may nat be an oratour heaped with praise, but if he haue gotten the knowlege of all thynges and artes of greatest importaunce. And howe shall an oratour speake of that thynge that he hath nat lerned ? And bicause there may be nothynge but it may happen to come in praise or dispraise, in consultation or iugement, in accusation or defence : ther- fore an oratour, by others instruction per- fectly furnisshed, may, in euery mater and lernynge, commende or dispraise, exhorte or dissuade, accuse or defende eloquently, as occasion hapneth. Wherfore in as moche as in an oratour is required to be a heape of all maner of lernyng: whiehe of some is called the worlde of science, of other the circle of doctrine, whiehe is in one worde of ■greke Encyclopedia: therfore at this day may be founden but a very few oratours. For they that come in message from princes be, for honour, named nowe oratours, if they be in any degre of worshyp : onely poore men hauyng equall or more of lernyng beyng called messagers. Also they whiehe do onely teache rhetorike, whiehe is the science wherby is taught an artifyciall fourme of speykng, wherin is the power to persuade, moue, and delyte, or by that science onely do speke or write, without any adminieula- tion ^ of other sciences, ought to be named rhetoriciens, deelamatours, artificiall spekers, (named in Greeke Logodedali), or any other name than oratours. Semblably they that make verses, expressynge therby none other lernynge but the craft of versifyeng, be nat of auncient writers named poetes, but onely called versifyers. For the name of a poete, wherat nowe, (specially in this realme,) men haue suche indignation, that they use onely poetes and poetry in the contempte of elo- 1 prop, support 46 THE GEEAT TRADITION quence, was in auneient tyme in hygh esti- mation : in so moche that all wysdome was supposed to be therin included, and i^oetry was the first philosoiDhy that euer was knowen: wherby men from their ehildhode were brought to the raison howe to lyue well, lernynge therby nat onely maners and naturall affections, lout also the wonderfull werkes of nature, mixting serious mater with thynges that Avere pleasaunt : as it shall be manifest to them that shall be so fortu- nate to rede the noble warkes of Plato and Aristotle, wherin he shall fynde the autoritie of poetes frequently alleged: ye and that more is, in poetes was supposed to be science mistieall and inspired, and therfore in latine they were called Vates, which worde signifyeth as moche as prophetes. And therfore Tulli in his Tusculane questyons supposeth that a poete can nat abundantly expresse verses sufficient and complete, or that his eloquence may flowe without labour wordes wel sounyng and plentuouse, withoiit celestiall instinetion, whiche is also by Plato ratified. "The Eank^Is but the Guinea's Stamp" sir thomas elyot [From The Boke of the Governour, 1534] Nowe it is to be feared that where maies- tie approeheth to excesse, and the mynde is obsessed with inordinate glorie, lest pride, of al vices most horrible, shuld sodainely entre and take prisoner the harte of a gen- tilman called to autoritie. Wherf ore in as moche as that pestilence corruptethe all sences, and makethe them incurable by any persuation or doctrine, therfore suche per- sones from their adolesceneie (which is the age nexte to the state of man) oughte to be persuaded and taughte the true knowlege of very nobilitie in f ourme f olowing or like. Fyrst, that in the begynnyng, whan pri- uate possessions and dignitie were gyuen by the consent of the people, who than had all thinge in commune, and equalitie in degree and condition, undoubtedly they gaue the one and the other to him at whose vertue they meruailed, and by whose labour and industrie they received a commune benefite, as of a commune father that with equall affection loued them. And that promptitude or redinesse in employinge that benefite was than named in engiisshe gentilnesse, as it was in latine henignitas, and in other tonges after a semblable signification, and the per- sones were called gentilmen, more for the remembraunce of their vertue and benefite, than for discrepance of astates. Also it fortuned by the prouidence of god that of those good men Avere engendred good chil- dren, who beinge brought up in vertue, and perceiuinge the cause of the aduauncement of their progenitours, endeuoured them selfes by imitation of vertue, to be equall to them in honour and autoritie ; by good emu- lation they retained stille the fauour and reuerence of people. And for the good- nesse that proceded of suche generation the state of them was called in greke Eugenia, whiche signifiethe good kinde or lignage, but in a more briefe maner it was after called nobilitie, and the persones noble, whiche signifieth excellent, and in the analo- gie or signification it is more ample than gentill, for it eontaineth as well all that whiche is in gentilnesse, as also the honour or dignitie therefore received, whiche be so annexed the one to the other that they can nat be seperate. It wold be more oner declared that where vertue ioyned with great possessions or dig- nitie hath longe continued in the bloode or house of a gentilman, as it were an inherit- aunee, there nobilitie is mooste shewed, and these noble men be most to be honored ; for as moche as eontinuaunce in all thinge that is good hath euer preeminence in praise and comparison. But yet shall it be necessary to aduertise those persones, that do tliinke that nobilitie may in no wyse be but onely where men can auaunte them of auneient lignage, an auneient robe, or great posses- sions, at this daye very noble men do sup- pose to be moche errour and f olye. Wherof there is a f amiliare example, whiche we beare euer with us, for the bloode in our bodies beinge in youthe warme, pure, and lustie, it is the occasion of beautie, whiche is euery where commended and loued; but if in age it be putrified, it leseth his praise. And the g'outes, carbuncles, kankers, lepries, and other lyke sores and sickenesses, whiche do procede of bloode corrupted, be to all men detestable. And this persuasion to any gentilman, in whom is apte disposition to very nobilitie, wyll be sufficient to withdrawe hym from suche vice, wherby he maye empayre his owne estimation, and the good renoume of his amicetours. If he haue an auneient robe lefte by his auncetor, let him consider that if the first THE EENAISSANCE 47 owner were of more vertue than he is that suecedeth, the robe beinge worne, it min- issheth his praise to them whiche knewe or haue herde of the vertue of him that firste owed it. If he that weareth it be vieiouse, it more deteeteth howe moehe he is unworthy to weare it, the remembraunee of his noble auncetour makynge men to abhorre the re- proche gyuen by an iuell sueeessoiir. If the firste owner were nat vertuouse, hit eon- demneth him that weareth it of moehe fol- ishenesse, to glorie in a thinge of so base estimation, whiche lacking beautie or glosse, can be none ornament to hym that weareth it, nor honorable remembrance to hym that first owed it. But nowe to confirme by true histories, that aecordynge as I late affirmed, nobilitie is nat onely in dignitie, auncient lignage, nor great reuenues, landes, or possessions. Lete yonge gentilmen haue often times tolde to them, and (as it is vulgarely spoken) layde in their lappes, how Numa Pompilius was taken from husbandry, whiche he exer- cised, and was made kynge of Romanes by election of the people. What caused it sup- pose you but his wisedome and vertue f whiche in hym was very nobilitie, and that nobilitie broughte hym to dignitie. And if that were nat nobilitie, the Romanes were meruailousely abused, that after the dethe of Romulus their kynge, they hauynge amonge them a hundred senatours, whom Romulus did sette in autoritie, and also the blode roiall, and olde gentilmen of the Sa- bynes, who, by the procurement of the wiues of the Romanes, beinge their doughters, in- habited the citie of Rome, they wolde nat of some of them electe a kynge, rather than aduance a ploughman and stranger to that ftutoritie. Quintius hauyng but xxx acres of lande, and beinge ploughman therof, the Senate and people of Rome sent a messager to shewe him that they had chosen him to be dictator, whiche was at that time the highest dignitie amonge the Romanes, 'and. for thre monethes had autoritie roiall. Quintius herynge the message, lette his ploughe stande, and wente in to the citie and pre- pared his hoste againe the Samnites, and vainquisshed them valiauntly. And that done, he surrendred his office, and beinge discharged of the dignitie, he repaired agayne to his ploughe, and applied it dili- gently. I wolde demaunde nowe, if nobilitie were only in the dignitie, or in his prowesse, whiche he shewed agayne his enemies'? If it were only in his dignitie, it therwith cessed, and he was (as I mought say) eft- sones unnoble; and than was his prowesse unrewarded, whiche was the chief e and origi- nall cause of that dignitie : whiche were in- congruent and without reason. If it were in his prowesse, prowesse consistynge of valiant courage and martiall policie, if they styll remaine in the persone, he may neuer be without nobilitie, whiche is the commenda- tion, and as it were, the surname of vertue. The two Romanes called bothe Deeii, were of the base astate of the people, and nat of the great blode of the Romanes, yet for the preseruation of their eountray they auowed to die, as it were in a satisfaction for all their eountray. And so with valiant hartes they perced the hoste of their enemies, and valiuntly fightynge, they died there honor- ably, and by their example gaue suehe au- dacitie and courage to the residue of the Romanes, that they employed so their strengthe agayne their enemies, that with litle more losse they optained victoria. Ought nat these two Romanes, whiche by their deth gaue occasion of victorie, be called noble? I suppose no man that knoweth what reason is will denie it. More ouer, we haue in this realme coynes which be called nobles; as longe as they be seene to be golde, they be so called. But if they be counterfaicted, and made in brasse, coper, or other vile metal, who for the print only calleth them nobles'? Wherby it ap- pereth that the estimation is in the metall, and nat in the printe or figure. And in a horse or good grehounde we prayse that we se in them, and nat the beautie or goodnesse of their progenie. Whiche proueth that in estemyng of money and catell we be ladde by wysedome, and in approuynge of man, to whom beastis and money do serue, we be only induced by custome. Thus I conclude that nobilitie is nat after the vulgare opinion of men, but is only the prayse and surname of vertue; whiche the lenger it continueth in a name or lignage, the more is nobilitie extolled and meruailed at. Of Virtuous and Gentle Discipline edmund spenser [The Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, setting forth the purpose of The Faerie Queene] Sir, knowing how doubtfully all Allego- ries may be construed, and this booke of 48 THE GEEAT TEADITION mine, which I have entituled the Faery Queene, being a continued Allegory, or darke conceit, I haue thought good, as well for avoyding of gealous opinions and mis- constructions, as also for your better light in reading thereof, (being so by you com- manded,) to discover unto you tHe general intention and meaning, which in the whole course thereof I have fashioned without ex- pressing of any particular purposes, or by accidents, therein occasioned. The generall end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline: Which for that I conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historicall fiction, the which the most part of men de- light to read, rather for variety of matter then for profite of the ensample. I chose the historye of Kmg Arthure, as most fitte for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many mens former workes, and also furthest from the daunger of envy, and suspition of present time. In which I have followed all the antique Poets historicall; first Homer'e, who in the Persons of Aga- memnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governour and a vertuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis; then Virgil, whose like intention was to doe in the person of Aeneas: after him Ariosto comprised them both- in his Orlando: and lately Tasso dissevered them againe, and formed both parts in two persons, namely that part which they in Philosophy call Eihice, or vertues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo ; the other named Politiee in his Godfredo. By ensample of which excel- lente Poets, I labour to pourtraict in Ar- thure, before he was king, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private morall vertues, as Aristotle hath devised; the which is the purpose of these first twelve bookes : which if I finde to be well accepted, I may be perhaps eneoraged to frame the other part of polliticke vertues in his per- son, after that hee came to be king. To some, I know, this Methode will seeme displeasaunt, which had rather have good dis- cipline delivered plainly in way of precepts, or sermoned at large, as they use, then thus clowdily enwrapped in Ar.egoricall devises. But such, me seeme, should be satisfide with the use of these dayes, seeing all things iae- counted by their showes, and nothing es- teemed of, that is not delightfull and pleas- ing to commune senee. For this cause is Xenophon preferred before Plato, for that the one, in the exquisite depth of his judge- ment, formed a Commune welth, such as it should be; but the other in the person of Cyrus, and the Persians, fashioned a gov- ernement, such as might best be : So much more profitable and gratious is doctrine by ensample, then by rule. So have I laboured to doe in the person of Arthure : whome I conceive, after his long education by Timon, to whom he was by Merlin delivered to be brought up, so soone as he was borne of the Lady Igrayne, to have seene in a dream or vision the Faery Queen, with whose excel- lent beauty ravished, he awaking resolved to seeke her out; and so being by Merlin armed, and by Timon throughly instructed, he went to seeke her forth in Faerye land. In that Faei-y Queene I meane glory in my generall intention, but in my particular I conceive the most~excellent and glorious per- son of our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faery land. And yet, in some places els, I doe otherwise shadow h«r. For considering she beareth two persons, the one of a most royall Queene or Empresse, the other of a most vertuous and beautifutl Lady, this latter part in some places I doe expresse in Belphoebe, fashioning her name according to your owne excellent conceipt of Cynthia, (Phoebe and Cynthia being both names of Diana). So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette forth magnificence in particular; which vertue, for that (accord- ing to Aristotle and the rest) it is the per- fection of all the rest, and conteineth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I m.ention the deedes of Arthure applyable to that vertue, which I write of in that booke. But of the xii. other vertues, I make xii. other knights the patrones, for the more va- riety of the history : Of which these three bookes eontayn three. The first of the knight of the Rederosse, in whome I expresse Holynes : The seconde of Sir Guyon, in whome I sette forth Tem- peraunce : The third of Britomartis, a Lady Knight, in whome I picture Chastity. But, because the beginning of the whole worke seemeth abrui3te, and as depending upon other antecedents, it needs that ye know the occasion of these three knights seuerall ad- ventures. For the Methode of a Poet his- torical is not such, as of an Historiographer. For an Historiographer discourseth of af- fayres orderly as they were donne, account- ing as well the times as the actions; but a Poet thrusteth into the middest, even where it most coneerneth him, and there recours- THE EENAISSANCE 49 ing to the thinges forepaste, and divining of thinges to come, maketh a pleasing Anal- ysis of all. The beginning therefore of my history, if it were to be told by an Historiographer should be the twelfth booke, which is the last; where I devise that the Faery Queene kept her Annuall feaste xii. dayes; uppon which xii. severall dayes, the occasions of the xii. severall adventures hapned, which, being undertaken by xii. ■ severall knights, are m these xii. books severally handled and discoursed. The first was this. In the be- ginning of the feast, there presented him selfe a tall elownishe younge man, who fall- ing before the Queene of Faries, desired a boone (as the manner then was) which dur- ing that feast she might not refuse; which was that hee might have the atchievement of any adventure, which during that feaste should happen: that being graunted, he rested him on the floore, unfitte through his rusticity for a better place. Soone after entred a faire Ladye in mourning weedes, riding on a white Asse, with a dwarfe be- hind her leading a warlike steed, that bore the Armes of a knight, and his speare in the dwarfes hand. Shee, falling before the Queene of Faeries, eomplayned that her father and mother, an ancient King and Queene, had bene by an huge dragon many years shut up in a brasen Castle, who thence suffred them not to yssew; and therefore be- sought the Faery Queene to assygne her some one of her knights to take on him that exployt. Presently that clownish person, upstarting, desired that adventure : whereat the Queene much wondering, and the Lady much gainesajdng, yet he earnestly impor- tuned his desire. In the end the Lady told him, that imlesse that armour which she brought would serve him (that is, the ar- mour of a Christian man specified by Saint Paul, vi. Ephes.) that he could not succeed in that enterprise; which being forthwith put upon him, with dewe furnitures there- unto, he seemed the goodliest man in al that company, and was well liked of the Lady. And eftesoones taking on him knighthood, and momiting on that straunge Courser, he went forth with her on that adventure : where beginneth the first booke, viz. A gentle knight was pricking on the playne. &c. The second day ther came in a Palmer, bearing an Infant with bloody hands, whose Parents he complained to have bene slayn by an Enchaunteresse called Acrasia; and therfore craved of the Faery Queene, to ap- point him some knight to perfprme that adventure; which being assigned to Sir Guyon, he presently went forth with that same Palmer : which is the beginning of the second booke, and the whole subject thereof. The third day there came in a Groome, who comiDlained before the Faery Queene, that a vile Enchaunter, called Busirane, had in hand a most faire Lady, called Amoretta, whom he kejit in most grievous torment, be- cause she would not yield him the pleasure of her body. Whereupon Sir Scudamour, the lover of that Lady, presently tooke on him that adventure. But being vnable to perfoi^me it by reason of the hard Enehaunt- ments, after long sorrow, in the end met with BritomartiSj who succoured him, and reskewed his loue. But by occasion hereof many other ad- ventures are intermedled; but rather as Ac- cidents then intendments : As the love of Britomart, the overthrow of Marinell, the misery of Florimell, the vertuousnes of Bel- j)hoebe, the lasciviousness of Hellenora, and many the like. Thus much. Sir, I have briefly overronne to direct your understanding to the wel- head of the History ; that from thence gath- ering the whole intention of the conceit, ye may as irt a handfull gripe al the discourse, "which otherwise may happily seeme tedious and confused. So, humbly craving the con- tinuance of your honorable favour towards me, and th' eternall establishment of your happines, I humbly take leave. 23. lanuary 15S9, Yours most humbly aifectionate, Ed. Spenser. "The Brave Courtier" edmund spe.nser [A portrait of Sir Philip Sidney, from Mother Hubherds Tale] Yet the brave Courtier, in whose beauteous thought Kegard of honour harbours more than ought. Doth loath such base condition, to backbite Anies good name for envie or despite : He stands on tearmes of honourable minde, Ne will be carried with the common winde Of Courts inconstant mutabiliti'e, Ne after everie tattling fable flie; 50 THE GEEAT TEADITION But heares and sees the follies of the rest, And thereof gathers for himselfe the best. He will not creepe, nor crouche with f ained face, But walkes upright with comely stedfast pace. And unto all doth yeeld due curtesie; But not with kissed hand belowe the knee, As that same Ajiish crue is wont to doo : For he disdaines himselfe t' embase theretoo. He hates fowle leasings, and vile flatterie, Two filthie blots in noble gentrie; And lothefull idlenes he doth detest. The canker worme of everie gentle brest; The which to banish with f aire exercise Of knightly f eates, he daylie doth devise : Now menaging the mouthes of stubborne steedes. Now practising the proofe of warlike deedes, Now his bright armes assaying, now his speare, Now the nigh aymed ring away to beare. At other times he casts to sew the chace Of swift wilde beasts, or runne on foot a race, T' enlarge his breath, (large breath in armes most needfuU) Or els by wrestling to wex strong and heed- full. Or his stiffe armes to stretch with Eughen bowe. And manly legs, still passing too and fro, Without a gowned beast him fast beside, A vaine ensample of the Persian pride ; Who, after he had wonne th' Assyrian foe. Did ever after seorne on foote to goe. Thus when this Courtly Gentleman with toyle Himselfe hath wearied, he doth recoyle Unto his rest, and there with sweete delight Of Musicks skill revives his toyled spright; Or els with Loves, and Ladies gentle sports. The joy of youth, himselfe he recomforts; Or lastly, when the bodie list to pause, His minde unto the Muses he withdrawes: Sweete Ladie Muses, Ladies of delight, Delights of life, and ornaments of light ! With whom he close confers with wise dis- course. Of Natures workes, of heavens continuall course. Of forreine lands, of people different. Of kingdomes change, of divers gouvern- ment, Of dreadful! battailes of renowmed Knights] With which he kindleth his ambitious sprights To like desire and praise of noble fame, The onely upshot whereto he doth ayme: For all his minde on honour fixed is, To which he levels all his purposis, And in his Prhices service spends his dayes, Not so much for to gaine, or for to raise Himselfe to high degree, as for his grace, And in his liking to winne worthie place, Through due deserts and comely carriage, In whatso please employ his personage. That may be matter meete to gaine him praise : For he is fit to use in all 'assayes, Whether for Armes and warlike amenaunce, Or else for wise and civill governaunce. For he is praetiz'd well in polieie, And thereto doth his Courting most applie : To learne the enterdeale of Princes strange, To marke th' intent of Counsells, and the change Of states, and eke of private men somewhile, Supplanted by fine f alshood and f aire guile ; Of all the which he gathereth what is fit T' enrich the storehouse of his powerful! wit. Which through wise speaches and grave con- ference He daylie eekes, and brings to excellence. Such is the rightf ull Courtier in his kinds. Counsels of Experience ^ francis bacon [From Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral, published 1597, 1612, 1625] 1. Of Truth "What is truth?" said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief, affecting free- will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain dis- coursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth ; nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor: but 1 Bacon says of the Essays : "I have endeavored to make them not vulgar, but of a nature whereof a man shall find much in experience and little In Jbooks, so as they are neither repetitions nor fancies." THE EENAISSANCE 51 a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Gre- cians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies: where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum ^ because it filleth the imagina- tion, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the pres- ence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense ; the last was the light of reason ; and his Sabbath work, ever since, is the illu- mination of his spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos ; then he breathed light into the face of man ; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet, that beautified the sect that Avas otherwise in- ferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well, "It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea ; a pleas- ure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below ; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see * devil's wine the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below" ; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move m charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. To pass from theological and philosoph- ical truth to the truth of civil business, it will be acknowledged, even by those that practice it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature, and that mix- ture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it; for these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious; and therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge. "If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards man." For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men : it being foretold, that when Christ cometh, "he shall not find faith upon the earth." 2. Of Travel Travel in the younger sort is a part of education ; in the elder a part of experience. He that traveleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel. That young- men travel under some tutor or grave serv- ant, I allow well; so that he be such a one that hath the language, and hath been in the country before ; whereby he may be able to tell them what things are worthy to be seen m the country where they go, what ac- quaintances they are to seek, what exer- cises or discipline the place yieldeth. For else young men shall go hooded, and look abroad little. It is a strange thing, that in sea voyages, where there is nothing to be seen but sky and sea, men should make diaries, but in land travel, wherein so much is to be observed, for the most part they omit it : as if chance were fitter to be reg- istered than observation. Let diaries there- fore be brought in use. The things to be 52 THE GEEAT TRADITION seen and observed are : the courts of princes, specially when they give audience to ambas- sadors : the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes : and so of consistories ec- clesiastic: the churches and monasteries, with the monuments which are therein ex- tant: the walls and fortifications of cities and towns, and so the havens and harbors : antiquities and rviins ; libraries, colleges, dis- putations, and lectures, where any are ; ship- ping and navies: houses, and gardens of state and pleasure near great cities; ar- mories, • arsenals, -magazines, exchanges, burses, warehouses; exercises of horseman- ship, fencing, training of soldiers and the like; comedies, such whereunto the better sort of persons do resort ; treasuries of jew- els and robes, cabinets and rarities; and to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places where they go. After all which, the tutors or servants ought to make diligent inquiry. As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such shows, men need not to be put in mind of them; yet they are not to be neglected. If you will have a young man to put his travel into a little room, and in short time to gather much, this you must do : first, as was said, he must have some entrance into the language before he goeth. Then he must have such a servant, or tutor, as know- eth the country, as was likewise said. Let him carry with him also some card or book describing the country where he traveleth, which will be a good key to his inquiry. Let him keep also a diary. Let him not stay long in one city or town ; more or less as the place deserveth, but not long : nay, when he stayeth in one city or town, let him change his lodging from one end and part of the town to another, which is a great adamant of acquaintance. Let him seques- ter himself from the company of his coun- trymen, and diet in such places where tliere is good company of the nation where he traveleth. Let him, upon his removes from one place to another, procure recommenda- tion to some person of quality residing in the place whither he removeth, that he may use his favor in those things he desireth to see or know. Thus he may abridge his travel with much profit. As for the acquaintance which is to be sought in travel, that which is most of all profitable is acquaintance with the secre- taries and employed men of ambassadors; for so in traveling in one country, he shall suck the experience of many. Let him also ; see and visit eminent persons in all kinds, which are of great name' abroad; that he may be able to tell how the life agreeth with the fame. For quarrels, they are with' care and discretion to be avoided: they are commonly for mistresses, healths, place, and words. And let a man beware how he keep- eth company with choleric and quarrelsome persons; for they will engage him into their own quarrels. When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him, but maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquaintance which are of most worth. And let his travel appear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture ; and in his discourse, let him be rather ad- vised in his answers than forward to tell stories;. and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners, for those of foreign parts ; but only prick in some flow- ers of that he hath learned abroad, into the customs of his own country. 3. Of Studies Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is i,n privateness and retiring; for ornament is in discourse ; and for ability is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels and the plots and marshaling of affairs come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for orna- ment is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are per- fected by experience. For natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them. For they teach not their own use; but that is a wis- dom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted ; nor to find talk and discourse ; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested — that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with dili- gence and attention. Some books also may THE EENAISSANCE 53 be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, con- ference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And therefore if a man write little he had need have a great memory; if he confer little he had need have a present wit ; and if he read little he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise, jjoets witty, the mathematics subtle, natural philosophy deep, moral grave, logic and rhetoric able to contend, Abeunt studia in mores?- Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies, like as diseases of the body may have appropri- ate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walking for the stomach, riding for the head, and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathemat- ics, for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again; if his wit be not apt to disting-uish or find differences, let him study the school- men, for they are cymini sectores; - if he be not 'apt to beat over matters and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyer's cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special re- ceipt. 4. Of Nature in Men Nature is often hidden, sometimes over- come, seldom extinguished. Force maketh nature more violent in the return ; doctrine and discourse maketh nature less impor- tune ; but custom only doth alter and subdue nature. He that seeketh victory over his nature, let him not set himself too great nor too small tasks; for the first will make him de- jected by often failing, and the second will make him a small proeeeder, though by often prevailings. And, at the first, let him prac- tice with helps, as SAvimmers do with blad- ders or rushes; but after a time, let him practice with disadvantages, as dancers do with thick shoes ; for it breeds great perfec- tion if the practice he harder than the use. Where nature is mighty, and therefore the victory hard, the degrees had need be, first to stay and arrest nature in time (like to him that would say over the four-and- 1 Studies develop into habits. 2 Hair-splitters. twenty letters when he was angry) ; then to go less in quantity (as if one should, in for- bearing wine, come from drinking healths to a draught at a meal) ; and, lastly, to dis- continue altogether. But if a man have the fortitude and resolution to enfranchise him- self at once, that is the best: Optimus ille animi vindex Icsdentia pectus Vincula qui rupit, dedoluitque semel? Neither is the ancient rule amiss, to bend nature as a wand, to a contrary extreme, whereby to set it right; understanding it where the contrary extreme is no vice. Let not a man force a habit upon himself with a perpetual continuance ; but with some intermission. For both the pause re- inforceth the new onset; and if a man that is not perfect be ever in practice, he shall as well practice his errors as his abilities, and induce one habit of both : and there is no means to help this but by seasonable in- termissions. But let not a man trust his victory over his nature too far; 'for nature will lay buried a great time, and yet revive upon the occasion or temptation. Like as it was with iEsop's damsel, turned from a cat to a woman, who sat very demurely at the board's end till a mouse ran before her. Therefore, let a man either avoid the occa- sion altogether, or put himself often to it, that he may be little moved with it. A man's nature is best perceived in pri- vateness; for there is no affectation: in passion, for that putteth a man out of his precepts; and in a new case or experiment, for there custom leaveth him. They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations; otherwise they may say, Multum incola fuit anima mea,- when they converse in those things they do not affect. In studies, whatsoever a man com- mandeth upon himself, let him set hours for it; but whatsoever is agreeable to his nature, let him take no care for any set times : for his thoughts will fly to it of them- selves, so as the spaces of other business or studies will suffice. A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other. 5. Of Great Place Men in Great Place are thrice servants; servants of the Sovereign or State, servants 1 "He is the best vindicator of his mind, who breaks the chains that gall his breast and at the same moment ceases to grieve." 2 "My soul has long been a sojourner." 54 THE GREAT TRADITION of fame, and servants of business. So as they have no freedom, neither in their per- sons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to- lose liberty: or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man's self. The rising unto place is laborious ; and by pains men come to greater pains : and it is some- times base; and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery and the regress is either a downfall or at least an eelii^se, which is a melancholy thing. Cum non sis qui fueris, non esse cur velis vivere^ Nay, retire men cannot when they would, neither will they when it were reason, but are impatient of privateness, even in age and sickness, which require the shadow; like old townsmen, that will be still sitting at their street door, though thereby they offer age to scorn. Certainly great persons had need to borrow other men's opinions to think themselves happy. For if they judge by their own feeling, they cannot find it ; but if they think with themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would fain be as they are, then they are happy as it were by report, when, perhaps, they find the contrary within. For they are the first that find their own griefs, though they be the last that find their own faults. Certainly, men in great fortunes are stran- gers to themselves, and while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no time to tend their health, either of body or mind. Illi mors gravis incubat, qui notus nimis omni- bus, ignotus m.oritur sibi.^ In place there is license to do good and evil, whereof the latter is a curse; for in evil, the best condition is not to will, the second not to can. But power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring. For good thoughts, though God accept them, yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and commanding ground. Merit and good works is the end of man's motion, and conscience of the same is the accom- plishment of man's rest. For if a man can be a partaker of God's theater, he shall like- wise be partaker of God's rest. Et conversus Deus, ut aspiceret opera quce fecerunt ma- nus sucB, vidit quod omnia essent bona nimis; ^ and then the Sabbath. 1 "Since you are not what you were, there is no reason why you should wish to live." 2 "Death presses heavily upon him who dies un- known to himself, though known to all others." 2 Gen. i. 31. In the discharge of thy place set before thee the best examples; for imitation is a globe of precepts. And after a time set before thee thine own example, and exam- ine thyself strictly whether thou didst not best at first. Neglect not also the examples of those that have carried themselves ill in the same place ; not to set off thyself by taxing their memory, but to direct thyself what to avoid. Reform, therefore, without bravery, or scandal of former times and persons : but yet set it down to thyself, as well to create good precedents as to follow them. Reduce things to the first institution, and observe wherein and how they have de- generated : but yet ask counsel of both times ; of the ancient time, what is best ; and of the latter time, what is fittest. Seek to make thy course regular, that men may know be- forehand what they may expect ; but be not too positive and peremptory, and express thyself well when thou digressest from thy rule. Preserve the right of thy place, but stir not questions of jurisdiction; and rather assume thy right in silence and de facto than voice it with claims and chal- lenges. Preserve likewise the rights of in- ferior places, and think it more honor to direct in chief than to be busy in all. Em- brace and invite helps and advices touch- ing the execution of thy place; and do not drive away such as bring thee information, as meddlers, but accept of them in good part. The vices of authority are chiefly four: delays, corruption, roughness, and facility. For delays: give easy access; keep times Sappointed; go through with that which is in hand, and interlace not business but of necessity. For corruption : do not only bind thine own hands or thy servants' hands from taking, but bind the hands of suitors also from offering. For integrity used doth the one; but integrity professed, and with a manifest detestation of bribery, doth the other. And avoid not only the fault but the suspicion. Whosoever is found varia- ble and changeth manifestly without mani- fest cause, giveth suspicion of corruption. Therefore always when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, and declare it, together with the reasons that move thee to change; and do not think to steal it. A servant or a favorite, if he be inward, and no other apparent cause of es- teem, is commonly thought but a by-way to close corruption. For roughness; it is a needless cause of discontent : severity breed- THE EENAISSANCE 55 eth fear, but roughness breedeth hate. Even reproofs from authority ought to be grave, and not taunting. As for facility, it is worse than bribery. For bribes come but now and then; but if importunity or idle respects lead a man, he shall never be with- out. As Solomon saith, To respect persons is not good, for such a man loill transgress for a piece of bread. It is most true that was anciently spoken, A place shoiccth the man. And it showeth some to the better, and some to the worse. Omnium consensu, capax im.perii, nisi imper- asset, saith Tacitus of Galba,^ but of Ves- pasian he saith. Solus imperantium Vespa- sianus mutatus in melius.^ Though the one was meant of sufficiency, the other of man- ners and affection. It is an assured sign of a worthy and generous spirit, whom honor amends. For honor is, or should be, the place of virtue : and as in nature things move violently to their place and calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm. All rising to great place is by a winding stair; and if there be factions, it is good to side a man's self whilst he is in the rising, and to balance himself when he is placed. Use the memory of thy predecessor fairly and tenderly; for if thou dost not, it is a debt will surely be paid when thou art gone. If thou have colleagues, respect them; and rather call them when they look not for it, than exclude them when they have reason to look to be called. Be not too sensible or too remembering of thy place in conversa- tion and private answers to suitors; but let it rather be said. When he sits in place he is another man. 6. Of Dispatch Affected dispatch is one of the most dan- gerous things to business that can be. It is like that which the physicians call prediges- tion, or hasty digestion, which is sure to fill the body full of crudities and secret seeds of diseases. Therefore measure not dispatch by the times of sitting, but by the advance- ment of the business. And as in races, it is not the large stride, or high lift, that makes , the speed, so in business, the keeping close to the matter, and not taking of it too much at once, procureth dispatch. It is the care 1 Had he never reigned he would always have been thought worthy to have been Emperor. 2 Vespasian was the only one of the Roman Em- perors who was Improved by wearing the Imperial purple. of some, only to come off speedily for the time, or to contrive some false periods of business, because they may seem men of dispatch ; but it is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another by cutting off; and business so handled at several sittings or meetings goeth commonly backward and for- ward in an unsteady manner. I knew a wise man that had it for a byword, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, "Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner." On the other side, true dispatch is a rich thing; for time is the measure of business, as money is of wares ; and business is bought at a dear hand where there is small dis- patch. The Spartans and Spaniards have been noted to be of small dispatch: Mi venga la muerte de Spagna, "Let my death come from Spain," for then it will be sure to be long in coming. Give good hearing to those that give the first information in business; and rather direct them in the beginning than interrupt them in the continuance of their speeches; for he that is put out of his own order will go forward and backward, and be more tedious while he waits upon his memory, than he could have been if he had gone on in his own course. But sometimes it is seen that the moderator is more troublesome than the actor. Iterations are commonly loss of time ; but there is no such gain of time as to iterate often the state of the question ; for it chas- eth away many a frivolous speech as it is coming forth. Long and curious speeches are as fit for dispatch as a robe or mantle with a long train is for a race. Prefaces, and passages, and excusations, and other speeches of reference to the person are great wastes of time; and though they seem to proceed of modesty, they are bravery. Yet beware of being too material when there is any impediment or obstruction in men's wills; for pre-oceupation of mind ever re- quireth preface of speech, like a fomenta- tion to make the unguent enter. Above all things, order and distribution and singling out of parts is the life of dis- patch, so as the distribution be not too subtle ; for he that doth not divide will never enter well into business, and he that divid- eth too much will never come out of it clearly. To choose time is to save time; and an unseasonable motion is but beating the air. There be three parts of business — the preparation, the debate or examination, and the perfection; whereof, if you look for 56 THE GEEAT TEADITION dispatch, let the middle only be the work of many, and the first and last the work of few. The proceeding upon somewhat con- ceived in writnig doth for the most part fa- cilitate dispatch; for though it should be wholly rejected, yet that negative is more pregnant of direction than an indefinite, as ashes are more generative than dust. The Service of Learning to the State francis bacon [From The Advancement of Learning, 1605] 1. In Praise of Learning And as for the disgraces which Learning receiveth from Politiques, they be of this nature; that Learning doth soften men's minds, and makes them more unapt for the honor and exercise of arms; that it doth mar and pervert men's dispositions for mat- ter of government and policy, in making them too curious and irresolute by variety of reading, or too peremptory or positive by strictness of rules and axioms, or too im- moderate and overweening by reason of the greatness of examples, or too incompatible and differing from the times by reason of the dissimilitude of examples; or at least, that it doth divert men's travails from action and business, and bringeth them to a love of leisure and privateness ; and that it doth bring into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst every man is more ready to argue than to obey and execute. Out of this con- ceit, Cato, surnamed the Censor, one of the wisest men indeed that ever lived, when Carneades the philosopher came in em- bassage to Rome, and that the young men of Rome began to flock about him, being allured with the sweetness and majesty of his eloquence and learning, gave counsel in open senate that they should give him his dispatch with all speed, lest he should infect and enchant the minds and affections of the youth, and at unawares bring in an altera- tion of the manners and customs of the state. Out of the same conceit or humor did Virgil, turning his pen to the advantage of his country, and the disadvantage of his own profession, make a kind of separation be- tween policy and government, and between arts and sciences, in the verses so much renowned, attributing and challenging the one to the Romans and leaving and yielding the other to the Grecians : Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, me- mento, Hse tibi erunt artes, etc. So likewise we see that Anytus, the ac- cuser of Socrates, laid it as an article of charge and accusation against him, that he did, with the variety and power of his dis- courses and disputations, withdraw young men from due reverence to the laws and cus- toms of their country, and that he did pro- fess a dangerous and pernicious science, which was, to make the worse matter seem the better, and to suppress truth by force of eloquence and speech. But these, and the like imputations, have rather a countenance of gravity than any ground of justice : for experience doth war- rant, that both in persons and in times, there hath been a meeting and concurrence in Learning and Arms, flourishing and excell- ing in the same men and the same ages. For, as for men, there cannot be a better nor the like instance, as of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar the Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle's scholar in philosophy, and the other was Cicero's jrival in eloquence : or if any man had rather call for scholars that were great generals, than generals that were great scholars, let him take Epaminondas the Theban, or Xenophon the Athenian ; whereof the one was the first that abated the power of Sparta, and the other was the first that made way to the overthrow of the monarchy of Persia. And this concurrence is yet more visible in times than in persons, by how much an age is a greater object than a man. For both in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Graecia, and Rome, the same times that are most renowned for arms, are likewise most admired for learn- ing, so that the greatest authors and philoso- phers, and the greatest captains and gov- ernors have lived in the same ages. Neither can it otherwise be : for as in man the ripe- ness of strength of the body and mind Cometh much about an age, save that the strength of the body cometh the more early : so in states Arms and Learning, whereof the one correspondeth to the body, the other to the soul of man, have a concurrence or near sequence in times. And for matter of Policy and Govern- ment, that learning should rather hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing very improba- ble : we see it is accounted an ei'ror to com- mit a natural body to empiric physicians, THE EENAISSANCE 57 wMeh commonly have a few pleasing receipts whereupon they are confident and adventurous, but know neither the causes of diseases, nor the complexions of patients, nor peril of accidents, nor the true method of cures : we see it is a like error to rely upon advocates or lawyers, which are only . men of practice and not grounded in their books, who are many times easily surprised when matter falleth out besides their ex- perience, to the prejudice of the causes they handle : so by like reason it cannot be but a matter of doubtful consequence if states be managed by empiric Statesmen, not well mingled with men grounded in learning. But contrariwise, it is almost without instance contradictory that ever any government was disastrous that was in the hands of learned governors. For howsoever it hath been ordinary with politic men to extenuate and disable learned men by the names of Pedantes; yet in the records of time it ap- peareth, in many particulars, that the gov- ernments of princes in minority (notwith- standing the infinite disadvantage of that kind of state) have nevertheless excelled the government of princes of mature age, even for that reason which they seek to traduce, which is, that by that occasion the state hath been in the hands of Pedantes; for so was the state of Rome for the first five years, which are so much magnified, during the minority of Nero, in the hands of Seneca, a Pedanti; so it was again, for ten years' space or more, during the minority of Gordianus the younger, with great applause and contentation in the hands of Misitheus, a Pedanti: so was it before that, in the minority of Alexander Severus, in like hap- piness, in hands not much unlike, by reason of the rule of the women, who were aided by the teachers and preceptors. Nay, let a man look into the government of the bishops of Rome, as, by name, into the government of Pius Quintus, and Sextus Quintus, in our times, who were both at their entrance es- teemed but as pedantical friars, and he shall find that such popes do greater things, and proceed upon truer principles of estate, than those which have ascended to the papacy from an education and breeding in affairs of estate and courts of princes; for although men bred in learning are perhaps to seek in points of convenience and ac- commodating for the present, which the Italians call Ragioni di stato, whereof the same Pius Quintus could not hear spoken with patience, terming them inventions against religion and the moral virtues; yet on the other side, to recomj^ense that, they are perfect in those same plain grounds of religion, justice, honor, and moral virtue, which if they be well and watchfully pur- sued, there will be seldom use of those other, no more than of physic in a sound or well dieted body. Neither can the expe- rience of one man's life furnish exami3les and precedents for the events of one man's life : for, as it haiDi^eneth sometimes that the grandchild, or other descendant, re- sembleth the ancestors more than the son ; so many times occurrences of present times may sort better with ancient examples than with those of the latter or immediate times.; and lastly, the wit of one man can no more countervail learning than one man's means can hold way with a common purse. And as for those particular seducements, or indispositions of the mind for policy and government, which Learning is pretended to insinuate; if it be granted that any such thing be, it must be remembered withal, that Learning ministereth in every of them greater strength of medicine or remedy than it offereth cause of indisposition or in- firmity. For if by a secret operation it make men perplexed and irresolute, on the other side by plain precept it teacheth them when and upon what ground to resolve ; yea, and how to carry things in susjoense without prejudice, till they resolve; if it make men positive and regular, it teacheth them what things are in their nature demonstrative, and what are conjectural, and as well the use of distinctions and exceptions, as the latitude of principles and rules. If it mislead by disproportion or dissimilitude of examples, it teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors of comparisons, and all the. cautions of application ; so that in all these it doth rectify more effectually than it can pervert. And these medicines it conveyeth into men's minds much more forcibly by the quickness and penetration of examples. For let a man look into the errors of Clement the seventh, so lively de- scribed by Guicciardine, who served under him, or into the errors of Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in his Epistles to Atticus, and he will fly apace from being irresolute. Let him look into the errors of Phoeion, and he will beware how he be ob- stinate or inflexible. Let him but read the fable of Ixion, and it will hold him from 58 THE GEEAT TEADITION being vaporous or imaginative. Let him look into the errors of Cato the second, and he will never be one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to the present world. And for the conceit that Learning should dispose men to leisure and privateness, and make men slothful; it were a strange thing if that which aecustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation should in- duce slothf ulness : whereas contrariwise it may be truly affirmed, that no kind of men love business for itself but those that are learned ; for other persons love it for profit, as a hireling, that loves the work for the wages; or for honor, as because it beareth them up in the eyes of men, and refresheth their reputation, which otherwise would wear; or because it putteth them in mind of their fortune, and giveth them occasion to pleasure and displeasure; or because it exerciseth some faculty wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth them in good humor and pleasing conceits towards them- selves; or because it advanceth any other their ends. So that, as it is said of untrue valors, that some men's valors are in the eyes of them that look on; so such men's industries are in the eyes of others, or at least in regard of their own designments : only learned men love business as an action according to nature, as agreeable to health of mind as exercise is to health of body, taking pleasure in the action itself, and not in the purchase : for that of all men they are the most indefatigable, if it be towards any business which can hold or detain their mind. And that Learning should take up too much time or leisure; I answer, the most active or busy man that hath been or can be, hath, no question, many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the times and re- turns of business (except he be either tedi- ous and of no dispatch, or lightly and un- worthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be better done by othets) : and then the question is but how these spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent ; whether in pleasures or in studies; as was well an- swered by Demosthenes to his adversary ^schines, that was a man given to pleasure, and told him, That his orations did smell of the lamp: Indeed (said Demosthenes) there is a great difference between the things that you and I do hy lamp-light. So as no man need doubt that learning will ex- pulse business, but rather it will keep and defend the possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which otherwise at unawares may enter to the prejudice of both. Again for that other conceit that Learn- ing should undermine the reverence of laws and government, it is assuredly a mere de- pravation and calumny, without all shadow of truth. For to say that a blind custom of obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and understood, it is to affirm, that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a light. And it is without all controversy, that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, maniable, and pliant to government ; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart, and mutinous: and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes It taketh away the wildness and barbar- ism and fierceness of men's minds. ... It taketh away all levity, temerity, and inso- leney, by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and to accept of nothing but exam- ined and tried. It taketh away vain admi- ration of anything, which is the root of all weakness : for all things are admired either because they are new, or because they are great. For novelty, no man that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly, but will find that printed in his heart Nil novi super terram. Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain, and adviseth well of the motion. And for magnitude, as Alexander the Great, after that he was used to great armies, and the great conquests of the spacious prov- inces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece, of some fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage or a fort, or some walled town at the most, he said. It seemed to him that he was adver- tised of the Battle of the Frogs and the Mice, that the old tales went of. So cer- tainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls ex- cept,) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to-and-fro a little heap of dust. It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death, or THE EENAISSANCE 59 adverse fortune; which is one of the great- est impediments of virtue, and imperfec- tions of manners. For if a man's mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of the mortality and eorrui^tible nature of things, he will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman weeping for her jjitcher of earth that was broken; and went forth the next day and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead, and thereupon said : Heri vidi fra- gilem frangi, hodie vidi mortalem mori. . . . Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning man excelleth man m that wherein man excelleth beasts ; that by learn- ing man aseendeth to the heavens and their motions, where in body he cannot come, and the like; let us conclude with the dignity and excellency of knowledge and learning in that whereunto man's nature doth most aspire, which is, immortality or continu- ance : for to this tendeth generation, and raising of houses and families ; to this tend buildings, foundations, and monuments; to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame, and celebration, and in effect the strength of all other human desires. We see then how far the monuments of wit and learnmg are more durable than the monuments of power or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time, infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished? It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alex- ander, Caesar; no, nor of the kings or great personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but leese of the life and truth. But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Nei- ther are they fitly to be called images, be- cause they generate still, and east their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and caus- ing infinite actions and opinions in succeed- ing ages: so that, if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consoeiateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions the one of the other? Nay further, we see some of the philosophers which were least divine, and most immersed in the senses, and denied generally the immortality of the soul, yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of man could act and per- form without the organs of the body, they thought might remain after death, which were only those of the understanding, and not of the affection : so immortal and incor- ruptible a thing did knowledge seem unto them to be. But we, that know by divine revelation that not only the understanding but the affections purified, not only the spirit but the body changed, shall be advanced to immortality, do disclaim in these rudiments of the senses. 2. Some Defects in Learning Another error is an impatience of doubt and haste to assertion without due and ma- ture suspension of judgment. For the two v/ays of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients; the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable ; the other rough and troublesome in the en- trance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation ; if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. Another error is in the manner of the tradition and delivery of knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and peremp- tory, and not ingenuous and faithful ; in a sort as may be soonest believed, and not easiliest examined. It is true, that in com- pendious treatises for practice that form is not to be disallowed : but in the true han- dling of knowledge, men ought not to fall either on the one side into the vein of Vel- leius the Epicurean : Nil tarn metuens, quam ne dubitare aliqua de re videretur; nor on the other side into Socrates his ironical doubting of all things; but to propound things sincerely with more or less assevera- tion, as they stand in a man's own judgment proved more or less. Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to themselves, whereunto they bend their endeavors ; for whereas the more constant and devote kind of profes- sors of any science ought to propound to themselves to make some additions to their science, they convert their labors to aspire to certain second prizes : as to be a profound interpreter or commenter, to be a sharp champion or defender, to be a methodical compounder or abridger; and so the patri- 60 THE GEEAT TRADITION mony of knowledge cometh to be sometimes improved, but seldom augmented. But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowl- edge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to en- tertain their minds with variety and de- light; sometimes for ornament and reputa- tion; and sometimes to enable them to vic- tory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true accoiint of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a tarrasse, for a wander- ing and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator and the relief 'of man's estate. But this is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly con- joined and united together than they have been; a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action : howbeit, I do not mean, when I speak of use and action, that end before-mentioned of the applying of knowledge to lucre and pro- fession; for I am not ignorant how much that diverteth -and interrupteth the prose- cution and advancement of knowledge, like unto the golden ball thrown before Ata- lanta, which while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up, the race is hindered; Deelinat eursus, aurumque volubile toUit. ^Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to call philosophy down from heaven to converse upon the earth ; that is to leave natural philosophy aside, and to ap- ply knowledge only to manners and policy. But as both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and benefit of man; so the end ought to be, from both philosophies to separate and reject vain speculations, and whatsoever is empty and void, and to preserve and augment what- soever is solid and fruitful : that knowledge may not be as a courtesan, for pleasure and vanity only, or as a bondwoman, to acquire and gain to her master's use; but as a spouse, for generation, fruit, and com- fort Amongst so many great foundations of colleges in Europe, I find it strange that they are all dedicated to professions, and none left free to arts and sciences at large. For if men judge that learning should be referred to action, they judge well; but in this they fall into the error described in the ancient fable, in which the other parts of the body did suppose the stomach had been idle, because it neither performed the office of motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense, as the head doth; but yet, notwith- standing, it is the stomach that digesteth and distributeth to all the rest : so if any man think philosophy and universality to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all professions are from thence served and sup- plied. And this I take to be a great cause that hath hindered the progression of learn- ing, because these fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage. Eor if you will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is not anything you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the earth and putting new mould about the roots that must work it. Neither is it to be forgotten, that this dedicating of foun- dations and dotations to professory learn- ing hath not only had a malign aspect and influence upon the growth of sciences, but hath also been prejudicial to states and governments. For hence it proceedeth that princes find a solitude in regard of able men to serve them in causes of state, be- cause there is no education collegiate which is free; where such as were so disposed might give themselves to histories, modern languages, books of policy and civil dis- course, and other the like enablements unto service of estate. 3. Of the Architecture of Fortune The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent opinion, that of those things which consist by nature nothing can be changed by custom ; using for example, that if a stone be thrown ten thousand times up, it will not learn to ascend; and that by often seeing or hearing, we do not leai'n to see or hear the better. For though this principle be true in things wherein nature is peremptory (the reason whereof we can- not now stand to discuss), yet it is other- THE EENAISSANCE 61 wise in things wherein nature admitteth a latitude. For he might see that a strait glove Avill come more easily on with use; and that a wand will by use bend other- wise than it grew; and that by use of the voice we speak louder and stronger; and that by use of enduring heat or cold, we endure it the better, and the like: which latter sort have a nearer resemblance unto that subject of manners he handleth, than those instances which he allegeth. But al- loAving his conclusion, that virtues and vices consist in habit, he ought so much the more to have taught the manner of superinducing that habit: for there be many precepts of the wise ordering the exercises of the mind, as there is of ordering the exercises of the body ; whereof we will recite a few. The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the first either too high a strain, or too weak: for if too high, in a' diffident nature you discourage, in a confident na- ture you breed an opinion of facility, and so a sloth; and in all natures you breed a 'farther expectation than can hold out, and so an insatisf action in the end : if too weak on the other side, you may not look to per- form and overcome any great task. Another precept is, to practice all things chiefly at two several times, the one when the mind is best disposed, the other when it is worst disposed; that by the one you may gain a great step, by the other you may work out the knots and stonds of the mind, and make the middle times the more easy and pleasant. Another precept is, that which Aristotle mentioneth by the way, which is to bear ever towards the contrary extreme of that whereunto we are by nature inclined; like unto the rowing against the stream, or mak- ing a wand straight by bending him. con- trary to his natural crookedness. Another precept is, that the mind is brought to anything better, and with more sweetness and happiness, if that where- unto you pretend be not first in the inten- tion, but tanquam aliud agendo, because of the natural hatred of the mind against ne- cessity and constraint. Many other axioms there are touching the managing of exercise and custom ; which being so conducted doth prove indeed another nature ; but being gov- erned by chance doth commonly prove but an ape of nature, and bringing forth that which is lame and counterfeit But there is a kind of culture of the mind. that seemeth yet more accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon tlws ground ; that the minds of all men are at some times in a state more perfect, and at other times in a state more depraved. The purpose therefore of this practice is to fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and to obliterate and take forth the evil. The fixing of the good hath been practiced by two means, vows or constant resolutions, and observances or exercises; which are not to be regarded so much in themselves, as because they keep the mind in continual obedience. The obliteration of the evil hath been practiced by two means, some kind of redemjotion or expiation of that which is past, and an inception or account de novo, for the time to come. But this part seemeth sacred and religious, and justly; for all good moral philosophy, as was said, is but a handmaid to religion. Wherefore we will conclude with that last point, which is of all other means the most compendious and summary, and again, the most noble and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate; which is the electing and propounding unto a man's self good and virtuous ends of his life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within his compass to attain. For if these two things be supposed, that a man set before him honest and good ends, and again, that he be resolute, constant, and true unto them; it will follow that he shall mould himself into all virtue at once. And this indeed is like the work of nature; whereas the other course is like the work of the hand. For as when a carver makes an image, he shapes only that part whereupon he worketh, (as if he be upon the face, that part which shall be the body is but a rude stone still, till such time as he comes to it;) but, contrariwise, when nature makes a flower or living creature, she formeth rudi- ments of all the parts at one time: so in obtaining virtue by habit, while a man practieeth temperance, he doth not profit much to fortitude, nor the like : but when he dedicateth and applieth himself to good ends, look, what virtue soever the pursuit and passage towards those ends doth com- mend unto him, he is invested of a prece- dent disposition to conform himself there- unto Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted argument to teach men how to raise and make their fortune ; a doctrine 62 THE GEEAT TRADITION wherein every man perchance will be ready to yield himself a disciple, till he see the difficulty; for fortune layeth as heavy im- positions as virtue; and it is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politique, as to be truly moral. But the handling hereof coneerneth learning greatly, both in honor and in substance: in honor, because prag- matical men may not go away with an opin- ion that learning is like a lark, that can mount, and sing, and please herself, and nothing else ; but may know that she holdeth as well of the hawk, that can soar aloft, and can also descend and strike upon the prey : in substance, because it is the perfect law of inquiry of truth, that nothing be in the globe of matter, which should not be likewise in the globe of crystal, or form; that is, that there be not any thing in being and action, which should not be drawn and collected into contemplation and doctrine. Neither doth learning admire or esteem of this architecture of fortune, otherAvise than as of an inferior work : for no man's fortune can be an end worthy of his being; and many times the worthiest men do abandon their fortune willingly for better respects : but nevertheless fortune, as an organ of virtue and merit, deserveth the considera- tion Another precept of this architecture of fortune is, to accustom our minds to judge of the proportion or value of things, as they conduce and are material to our par- ticular ends: and that to do substantially, and not superficially. For we shall find the logical part, as I may term it, of some men's minds good, but the mathematical part erroneous ; that is, they can well judge of consequences, but not of proportions and comparisons, preferring things of show and sense before things of substance and effect. So some fall in love with access to princes, others with popular fame and ap- plause, supposing they are things of great purchase : when in many cases they are but matters of envy, peril, and impediment. So some measure things according to the labor and difficulty, or assiduity, which are spent about them; and think, if they be ever moving, that they must needs advance and proceed ; as Csesar saith in a despising man- ner of Cato the second, when he describeth how laborious and indefatigable he was to no great purpose; Hcec omnia magno studio agehat. So in most things men are ready to abuse themselves in thinking the great- est means to be best, when it should be the fittest. As for the true marshalling of men's pur- suits towards their fortune, as they are more or less material, I hold them to stand thus : first the amendment of their own minds. For the remove of the impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune, than the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of the mind. In the second place, I set down wealth and means ; which I know most men would have placed first, because of the general use which it beareth towards all variety of oc- casions. But that opinion I may condemn with like reason as Machiavel doth that other, that moneys were the sinews of the wars; whereas, saith he, the true sinews of the wars are the sinews of men's arms, that is, a valiant, populous, and military nation : and he voucheth aptly the authority of Solon, who, when Croesus showed him his treasury of gold, said to him, that if another came that had better iron, he would be master of his gold. In like manner it may be truly affirmed, that it is not moneys that are the sinews of fortune, but it is the sinews and steel of men's minds, wit, courage, audacity, resolu- tion, temper, industry, and the like. In the third place I set down reputation, be- cause of the peremptory tides and currents it hath ; which, if they be not taken in their due time, are seldom recovered, it being extreme hard to play an after game of repu- tation. And lastly, I place honor, which is more easily won by any of the other three, much more by all, than any of them can be purchased by honor. To conclude this pre- cept, as there is order and priority in mat- ter, so is there in time, the preposterous placing whereof is one of the commonest errors : while men fly to their ends when they should intend their beginnings, and do not take things in order of time as they come on, but marshal them according to greatness, and not according to instance; not observing the good precept, Quod nunc instat agamus. 4. This Third Period of Time Thus have I concluded this portion of learning touching civil knowledge ; and with civil knowledge have concluded human phil- osophy; and with human philosophy, phil- osophy in general. And being now at some pause, looking back into that I have passed THE EENAISSANCE 63 through, this writing seemeth to me, si nun- quam fallit imago, as far as man can judge of his o^yn work, not much better than that noise or sound which musicians make while they are tuning their instruments : which is nothing pleasant to hear, but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter afterwards : so have I been content to tune the instru- ments of the Muses, that they may play that have better hands. And surely, when I set before me the condition of these times, in which learning hath made her third visita- tion or circuit in all the qualities thereof — as the excellency and vivacity of the wits of this age; the noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of ancient writers; the art of printing, which communicateth books to men of all fortunes; the openness of the world by navigation, which hath dis- closed multitudes of experiments, and a mass of natural history; the leisure where- with these times abound, not employing men so generally in civil business, as the states of Grsecia did, in respect of their popu- larity, and the state of Rome, in respect of the greatness of their monarchy ; the present disposition of these times at this instant to peace; the consumption of all that ever can be said in controversies of religion, Avhich have so much diverted men from other sci- ences; the perfection of your Majesty's learning, which as a Phoenix may call whole vollies of wits to follow you; and the in- separable propriety tf time, which is ever moi'e and more to disclose truth — ^I cannot but be raised to this persuasion that this third period of time will far surpass that of the Grecian and Roman learning: only if men will know their own strength, and their own weakness both ; and take one from the other, light of invention, and not fire of contradiction ; and esteem of the inquisition of truth as of an enterprise, and not as of a quality or ornament; and employ wit and magnificence to things of worth and excellency, and not to things vulgar and of pojDular estimation. IV. IDEAS OF THE STATE The Imaginary Commonv^ealth op Utopia ^ sir thomas more 1. Thomas Blare to Peter Giles, of Antwerp I am almoste ashamed, righte wellbeloved Peter Giles, to send unto you this boke of the Utopian commen wealth, welniegh after a yeres space, whiehe I am sure you looked for within a moneth and a halfe. And no marveil. For you knewe well ynough that I was alreadye disbourdened of all the la- boure and studye belongynge to the inven- tion in this worke, and that I had no nede at al to trouble my braines about the dis- position, or conveiaunce of the matter : and therfore had herein nothing els to do, but only to rehearse those thinges, whiehe you and I together hard maister Raphael tel and declare. Wherefore there was no cause why I shuld study to set forth the matter with eloquence : forasmuch as his talke could not be fine and eloquent, beynge firste ^ The word means "nowhere." The selections are taken from the English translation. 1551. The first edition, in Latin, appeared in 1516, not studied for, but suddein and unpre- meditate, and then, as you know, of a man better sene in the Greke language, then in the latin tonge. And my writynge, the neigher it should approche to his homely plaine, and simple speche, somuche the niegher shuld it go to the trueth : which is the onelye marke, whereunto I do and ought to directe all my travail and study herin. I graunte and confesse, frende Peter, my- selfe dispharged of so muche laboure, bav- in ge all these thinges ready done to my hande, that almooste there was nothinge left for me to do. Elles either the inven- tion, or the disposition of this matter myghte have required of a witte neither base, neither at al unlearned, both some time and leasure, and also some studie. But if it were requisite, and necessarie, that the matter shoulde also have been wrytten elo- quentlie, and not alone truelye : of a suere- tie that thynge coulde I have perfourmed by no tyme nor studye. But now seynge all these cares, stayes, and lettes were taken awaye, wherein elles so muche laboure and studye shoulde have bene employed, and that there remayned no other thynge for me to do, but onelye to write playnelie the mat- 64 THE GREAT TRADITION ter as I hard it spoken: that in deede was a thynge lighte and easye to be done. How- beit to the dispatehynge of thys so lytle busynesse, my other cares and troubles did leave almost lesse then no leasure. Whiles 1 doo dayelie bestowe my time aboute lawe matters: some to pleade, some to heare, some as an arbitratoure with myne awarde to determine, some as an umpier or a Judge, with my sentence finallye to discusse. Whiles I go one waye to see and visite my f rende : another waye about myne owne privat af- faires. Whiles I spende almost al the day abrode emonges other, and the residue at home among . mine owne : I leave to my self, I meane to my booke no time. For when I am come home, I muste eommen with my wife, chatte with my children, and talke wyth my servauntes. All the whiche thinges I recken and accompte amonge businesse, forasmuche as they muste of necessitie be done : and done muste they nedes be, one- lesse a man wyll be straunger in his owne house. And in any wyse a man muste so fashyon and order hys conditions, and so appoint and dispose him selfe, that he be merie, jocunde, and pleasaunt amonge them, whom eyther nature hathe provided, or chaunce hath made, or he hym selfe hath chosen to be the felowes, and companyons, of hys life: so that with to muche gentle behavioure and familiaritie, he do not marre them, and by to muche sufferaunce of his servauntes, make them his maysters. Emonge these thynges now rehearsed, steal- eth awaye the daye, the moneth, the yeare. When do I write then? And all this while have I spoken no worde of slepe, neyther yet of meate, which emong a great number doth wast no lesse tyme then doeth slepe, wherein almoste halfe the life tyme of man crepeth awaye. I therefore do wynne and get onelye that tyme, whiche I steale from slepe and meate. Whiche tyme because it is very litle, and yet somwhat it is, ther- fore have I ones at the laste, thoughe it be longe first, finished Utopia, and have sent it to you, f rende Peter, to reade and peruse : to the intente that yf anye thynge have escaped me, you might put me in remem- braunce of it. For thoughe in this behalfe I do not greatly e mistruste my selfe (whiche woulde God I were somwhat in wit and learninge, as- 1 am not all of the worste and dullest memorye) yet have I not so great truste and confidence in it, that I thinke nothinge eoulde fall out of my mynde. For John Clement my boye, who as you know was there presente with us, whome I suf- fer to be awaye frome no talke, wherein maye be any profyte or goodnes (for oute of this yonge bladed and new shotte up corne, whiche hathe»alreadye begon to spring up both in Latin and Greke learnyng, I loke for plentifull increase at length of goodly rype grayne) he I saye hathe broughte me into a greate doubte. For whereas Hythlodaye (onelesse my memorye fayle me) sayde that the bridge of Amau- rote, whyche goethe over the river of Anyder is fyve hundreth paseis, that is to saye, halfe a myle in lengthe: my John sayeth that two hundred of those paseis muste be plucked away, for that the ryver conteyneth there not above three hundreth paseis in breadthe, I praye you hartelye call the mat- ter to youre remembraunce. For yf you agree wyth hym, I also wyll saye as you saye, and confesse myselfe deeeaved. But if you cannot remember the thing, then surelye I wyll write as I have done and as myne owne remembraunce serveth me. For as I wyll take good hede, that there be in my booke nothing false, so yf there be anye thynge doubtefuU, I wyll rather tell a lye, then make a lie: because I had rather be good, then wilie. Howbeit thys matter maye easelye be remedied, yf you wyll take the paynes to aske the question of Raphael him selfe by woorde of mouthe, if he be nowe with you, or elles by youre letters. Whiche you muste nedes do for another doubte also, that hathe chauneed, throughe whose faulte I cannot tel: whether through mine, or yours, or Raphaels. For neyther we re- membred to enquire of him, nor he to tel us in what part of the newe world Utopia is situate. The whiche thinge, I had rather have spent no small somme of money, then that it should thus have escaped us; as well for that I am ashamed to be ignoraunt in what sea that ylande standeth, wherof I write so long a treatise, as also because there be with us eerten men, and especiallie one vertuous and godly man, and a pro- fessour of divinitie, who is excedynge de- sierous to go unto Utopia : not for a vayne and curious desyre to see newes, but to the intente he maye further and increase cure religion, whiche is there alreadye luckelye begonne. And that he maye the better ac- eomplyshe and perfourme this hys good intente, he is mynded to procure that he maye be sente thether by the hieghe THE KENAISSANCE 65 Byshoppe: yea, and that he himselfe may be made Bishoppe of Utopia, beynge noth- ynge scrupulous herein, that he muste ob- teyne this Byshopricke with suete. For he counteth that a godly suete, which proeed- eth not of the desire of honoure or lucre, but onelie of a godlie zeale. Wherfore I moste earnestly desire you, frende Peter, to talke with Hythlodaye, yf you can, face to face, or els to wryte youre letters to hym, and so to woorke in thys matter, that in this my booke there maye neyther anye thinge be founde, whyche is untrue, neyther any thinge be lacking, whiche is true. And I thynke verelye it shal be well done, that you shewe unto him the book it selfe. For yf I have myssed or fayled in anye poynte, or if anye faulte have escaped me, no man can so Avell eorrecte and amende it, as he can: and yet that can he not do, oneles he peruse and reade over my booke written. Moreover by this meanes shall you pereeave, whether he be well wyllynge and content, that I shoulde undertake to put this woorke in writyng. For if he be mynded to publyshe and put forth his owne laboures, and travayles himselfe, per- chaunee he woulde be lothe, and so woulde I also, that in publishynge the Utopiane weale publyque, I shoulde prevent him, and take frome him the flower and grace of the noveltie of this his historie. Howbeit, to saye the verye trueth, I am not yet fullye determined with my selfe, whether I will put forth my booke or no. For the natures of men be so divers, the phantasies of some so waywarde, their myndes so unkynde, their judgementes so eorrupte, that they which leade a merie and a joeounde lyfe, folowynge theyr owne sensuall pleasures and carnall lustes, maybe seme to be in a muehe better state or case, then they that vexe and unquiete themselves with cares and studie for the puttinge forthe and publish- ynge of some thynge, that maye be either prof ett or pleastire to others : whiche others nevertheles will disdainfully, scorne- fuUy, and unkindly aecepte the same. The- moost part of al be unlearned. And a greate number hathe learning in contempte. The rude and barbarous alloweth nothing, but that which is verie barabrous in dede. If it be one that hath a little smacke of learnynge, he rejecteth as homely geare and commen ware, whatsoever is not stuffed full of olde moughteaten termes, and that be worne out of use. Some there be that have pleasure onelye in olde rustic antiquities. And some onelie in their owne doynges. One is so sowre, so crabbed, and so unpleas- aunte, that he can awaye with no myrthe nor sporte. An other is so narrowe be- twene the shulders, that he can beare no jests nor tauntes. Some seli poore soules be so afearde that at everye snappishe woorde their nose shall be bitten of, that they stande in no lesse drede of everye quicke and sharpe woorde, then he that is bitten of a madde dogge feareth water. Some be so mutable and waverynge, that every houre they be in a newe mynde, sayinge one thinge syttinge and an other thynge standynge. An other sorte sytteth upon their alle- bencheis, and there amonge their cuppes they geve judgement of the wittes of writers, and with greate authoritie they condempne even as pleaseth them, everye writer accordynge to his writing, in moste spitefull maner, mockynge, lowtinge, and flowtinge them; beyng them selves in the meane season sauffe, and as sayeth the proverbe, oute of all daunger of gonne- shotte. For why, they be so snugge and smothe, that they have not so much as one hearre of an honeste man, whereby one may take holde of them. There be moreover some so unkynde and ungentle, that thoughe they take great pleasure, and delectation in the worke, yet for all that, they can not fynde in their hertes to love the Author therof, nor to af orde him a good woorde : beynge much like uncourteous, un- thankfull, and chourlish gestes, whiche when they have with good and daintie meates well fylled theire bellyes, departe home, gevyng no thankes to the feaste maker. Go your wayes now, and make a costlye feaste at youre owne charges for gestes so dayntie mouthed, so divers in taste, and besides that of so unkynde and un- thankfullnatures. But nevertheles (frende Peter) doo, I pray you, with Hithloday, as I willed you before. And as for this mat- ter I shall be at my libertie, afterwardes to take newe advisement. Howbeit, seeyng I have taken great paynes and laboure in writyng the matter, if it may stande with his mynde and pleasure, I wyll as touch- yng the edition of publishyng of the booke.; followe the eounsell and advise of my frendes, and speciallye yours. Thus fare you well right hertely beloved frende Peter, with your gentle wife: and love me as you have ever done, for I love you better then ever I dyd. 66 THE GEEAT TEADITION 2. England Through Utopian Eyes I in the meanetime (for so my busines laye) wente streighte thence to Antwerpe. Whiles I was there abidynge, often times amonge other, but whiehe to me was more welcome then annye other, clyd visite me one Peter Giles, a Gitisen of Antwerpe, a man there in his countrey of honest repu- tation, and also preferred to high promo- tions, worthy truly of the hyghest. For it is hard to say, whether the young man be in learnyng, or in honestye more excellent. For he is bothe of wonderfull vertuous con- ditions, and also singularly wel learned, and towardes all sortes of people excedyng gen- tyll : but towardes his f rendes so kynde herted, so lovyng, so faithfull, so trustye, and of so earnest affection, that it were verye harde in any place to fynde a man, that with him in all poyntes of frendshippe maye be compared. No man can be more lowlye or courteous. No man useth lease simulation or dissimulation, in no man is more prudent simplicitie. Besides this, he is in his talke and communication so merye and pleasaunte, yea and that withoute harme, that throughe his gentyll intertayne- ment, and his sweete and delectable com- munication, in me was greatly abated and diminished the fervente desyre, that I had to see my native countrey, my wyfe and my chyldren, whom then I dyd muche longe and covete to see, because that at that time I had been more then iiii. Monethes from them. Upon a certayne daye when I hadde herde the divine service in our Ladies Churche, which is the fayrest, the most gorgeous and curious Churche of buyldyng in all the Gitie, and also most frequented of people, and the service beynge doone, was readye to go home to my lodgynge, I chaunced to espye this foresayde Peter talkynge with a certayne Straunger, a man well stricken in age, with a blacke sonne- burned face, a longe bearde, and a cloke cast homly about his shoulders, whqme by his favoure and apparell furthwith I judged to bee a mariner. But the sayde Peter seyng me, came unto me and saluted me. And as I was aboute to answere him : see you this man, sayth he (and therewith he poynted to the man, that I sawe hym talk- ynge with before) I was mynded, quod he, to brynge him strayghte home to you. He should have ben very welcome to me, sayd I,- for your sake. . Nay (quod he) for his owne sake, if you knewe him : for there is no man thys day livyng, that can tell you of so manye straunge and unknown peoples, and Countreyes, as this man can. And I know wel that you be very desirous to heare of such newes. Then I conjectured not farre a misse (quod I) for even at the first syght I judged him to be a mariner. Naye (quod he) there ye were greatly de- ceyved : he hath sailed in deede, not as the mariner Palinure, but as the experte and prudent prince Ulisses : yea, rather as the auncient and sage Philosopher Plato. For this same Raphaell Hythlodaye (for this is his name) is very well lerned in the Latine tongue : but prof ounde and excellent in the Greke language. Wherein he ever bestowed more studye then in the Latine, bycause he had geven himselfe wholy to the study of Philosophy. Wherof he knew that ther is nothyng extante in Latine, that is to anye purpose, savynge a fewe of Senecaes, and Gieeroes dooynges. His patrimonye that he was borne unto, he lefte to his brethren (for he is a Portugall borne) and for the desire that he had to see, and knowe the farre Gountreyes of the worlde, he joyned himselfe in company Avith Amerike Vespuce, and in the iii. last voyages of those iiii. that be nowe in printe and abrode in every mannes handes, he continued styll in his company, savyng that in the last voyage he came not home agayne with him. For he made suche meanes and shift, what by in- tretaunce, and what by importune sute, that he gotte licence of mayster Americke (though it were sore against his wyll) to be one of the xxiiii whiehe in the ende of the last voyage were left in the countrey of Gulike. He was therefore lefte behynde for hys mynde sake, as one that tooke more thoughte and care for travailyng, then dyenge: havyng customably in his moiith these saiynges. He that hathe no grave, is covered with the skye : and, the way to heaven out of all places is of like length and distaunce. Which fantasy of his (if God had not ben his better frende) he had surely bought full deare. But after the departynge of Mayster Vespu.ce, when he had travailed thorough and aboute many Gountreyes with v. of his companions Gu- likianes, at the last by merveylous chaunce he arrived in Taprobane, from whence he went to Galiquit, where he chaunced to fynde certayne of hys Gountreye shippes, wherein he retourned agayne into his Goun- treye, nothynge lesse then looked for. All this when Peter hadde tolde me: I THE EENAISSANCE 67 thanked him for his gentle kindnesses that he had vouchsafed to brynge me to the speaehe of that man, whose com- munication he thoughte shoulde be to me pleasaunte and acceptable. And there- with I tourned me to RajDhaell. And when wee hadde haylsed eche other, and had spoken these commune woordes, that bee customablye spoken at the first meting, and acquaintaunee of straungers, we went thence to my house, and there in my gar- daine upon a bench covered with greene torves, we satte downe talkyng together. There he tolde us, how that after the de- partjmg of Vespuce, he and his fellowes that taried behynde in Gulicke, began by litle and litle, throughe fayre and gentle speaehe, to wynne the love and favoure of the people of that eountreye, insomuche that within shorte space, they dyd dwell amonges them, not only harmless, but also occupiyng with them verye familiarly. He tolde us also, that they were in high repu- tation and favour with a certayne great man (whose name and Countreye is nowe quite out of my remembraunee) which of his mere liberalitie dyd beare the costes and charges of him and his fyve companions. And besides that gave theim a trustye guyde to conducte them in their journey (which by water was in botes, and by land in wagons) and to brynge theim to other Princes with verye frendlye commendations. Thus after manye dayes journeys, he sayd, they founde townes and Cities and weale publiques, full of people, governed by good and holsome lawes. For under the line equinoctiall, and on bothe sydes of the same, as farre as the Sonne doth extende his course, lyeth (quod he) great and wyde desertes and wilder- nesses, parched, burned, and dryed up with continuall and intolerable heate. All thynges bee hideous, terrible, lothesome, and unpleasaunt to beholde: All thynges out of fassyon and comelinesse, inhabited withe wylde Beastes and Serpentes, or at the leaste wyse, with people, that be no lesse savage, wylde, and noysome then the verye beastes theim selves be. But a little farther beyonde that, all thynges beginne by litle and lytle to waxe pleasaunte. The ayre softe,' temperate, and gentle. The grounde covered with grene grasse. Lesse wildnesse in the beastes. At the last shall ye come agayne to people, cities and townes wherein is continuall entercourse and occupiyng of merchaundise and chatfare, not only among themselves and* with theire Borderers, but also with Merchauntes of farre Countreyes, bothe by lande and water. There I had oc- casion (sayd he) to go to many countreyes on every syde. For there was no shippe ready to any voyage or journey, but I and my fellowes were into it very gladly re- ceyved. The shippes that thei founde first were made playn, fiatte and broade in the botome, trough wise. The sayles were made of great russhes, or of wickers, and in some places of lether. Afterwarde thei founde shippes with ridged kyeles, and sayles of eanvasse, yea, and shortly after, havying all thynges lyke oures. The shipmen also very experte and cunnynge, bothe in the sea and in the wether. But he said that he founde great favoure and frendship amonge them, for teachynge them the f eate and the use of the lode stone. Whiche to them before that time was unknowne. And therf ore they were wonte to be verye timerous and fear- full upon the sea. Nor to venter upon it, but only in the somer time. But nowe they have suehe a confidence in that stone, that they f eare not stormy winter : in so dooynge farther from care then daunger. In so muche, that it is greatly to be doubted, lest that thyng, throughe their owne folish hardi- nesse, shall tourne them to evyll and harme, which at the first was supposed shoulde be to them good and commodious. But what he tolde us that he sawe in everye countreye where he came, it were very longe to de- clare. Neither it is my purpose at this time to make rehersall tlierof. But peradventure in an other place I wyll speake of it, chiefly suche thynges as shall be profitable too bee knowen, as in speciall be those decrees and ordinaunces, that he marked to be well and wittely provided and enacted amonge suche peoples, as do live together in a civile policye and good ordre. For of suche thynges dyd wee buselye enquire and de- maunde of him, and he likewise very will- ingly tolde us of the same. But as for mon- sters, byeause they be no newes, of them we were nothyng inquisitive. For nothyng is more easye to bee founde, then bee bark- ynge Seyllaes, ravenying Celenes, and Les- trigones devourers of people, and suche lyke great, and incredible monsters. But to fynde Citisens ruled by good and holsome lawes, that is an exceding rare, and harde thyng. But as he marked many fonde, and folisshe lawes in those newe founde landes, so he rehersed divers actes, and constitu- tions, whereby these oure Cities, Nations, Countreis, and Kyngdomes may take ex- 68 THE GREAT TRADITION ample to amende their faultes, enormities and errours. Wlierof in another place (as I sayde) I wyll intreate. Now at this time I am determined to reherse onely that he tolde us of the maners, customes, lawes, and ordinaunces of the Utopians. But first I wyll repete oure former communication by thoccasion, and (as I might saye) the drifte wherof, he was brought into the mention of that weale publique. For, when Raphael had very prudentlye touched divers thyngs that be amisse, some here and some there, yea, very many on bothe partes; and againe had spoken of suehe wise lawes and i^rudente decrees, as be established and used, bothe here amonge us and also there amonge theym, as a man so perfecte, and exjaerte in the lawes, and eustomes of every severall Countrey, as though into what place soever he came geastwise, there he had ledde al his life: then Peter muche mervailynge at the man: Surely maister Raphael (quod he) I wondre greatly, why you gette you not into some kinges courte. Tor I -am sure there is no Prince livyng, that wold not be very glad of you, as a man not only hable highly to delite him with your pro- founde learnyng, and this your knowledge of countreis, and peoples, but also mete to instructe him with examples, and helpe him with counsell. And thus doyng, you shall bryng your selfe in a verye good case, and also be of habilitie to helpe all your frendes and kinsfolke. As coneernyng my frendes and kynsfolke (quod he) I passe not greatly for them. For I thinke I have suffteiently doone my parte towardes them akeady. For these thynges, that other men doo not departe from, untyl they be olde and sycke, yea, whiche they be then verye lothe to leave, when they canne no longer keepe, those very same thynges dyd I beyng not only lustye, and in good helth, but also in the floure of my youth, divide among my frendes and kynsfolkes. Which I thynke with this my liberalitie ought to holde them contented, and not to require nor to loke that besydes this, I shoulcle for their sakes geve myselfe in bondage unto kinges. Nay, God forbyd that (quod Peter) it is notte my mynde that you shoulde be in bondage to kynges, but as a retainour to them at yoiir pleasure. Whiche surely I thinke is the nighest waye that you can devise howe to bestowe your time frutefuUy, not onlye for the private commoditie of your frendes and for the generall proflte of all sortes of people, but also for thad- vauncement of your self to a much welthier state and condition, then you be nowe in. To a welthier condition (quod Raphael) by that meanes, that my mynde standeth eleane agaynst ? Now I lyve at libertie after myne owne mynde and pleasure, whiche I thynke verye fewe of these great states and pieres of realmes can saye. Yea, and there be ynow of them that sue for great mens frendeshippes : and therfore thinke it no great hurte, if they have not me, nor iii. or iiii. suche other as I am. Well, I perceive playnly frende Raphael (quod I) that you be desirous neither of richesse, nor of power. And truly I have in no lesse reverence and estimation a man of your mynde, then anye of theim all that bee so high in power and authoritie. But you shall doo as it becom- eth you: yea, and accordyng to this wis- dome, to this high and free courage of yours, if you can finde in your herte so to ap- poynt and dispose your selfe, that you mai applye your witte and diligence to the profile of the weale publique, thoughe it be somewhat to youre owne payne and hyn- draunce. And this shall you never so wel doe, nor wyth so greate proffitte perfourme, as yf you be of some gi'eate princes counsel, and put into his heade (as I double not but you wyl) honeste opinions, and vertuous persuasions. For from the prince, as from a perpetual wel sprynge, commethe amonge the people the floode of al that is good or evell. But in you is so perfitte lernynge, that withoute anye experience, and agayne so greate experience, that wythoute anye lernynge you maye well be any kinges coun- sellour. You be twyse deceaved maister More (quod he) fyrste in me, and agayne in the thinge it selfe. For neither is in me the habilitye that you force upon me, and yf it wer never so much, yet in disquieting myne owne quietnes I should nothing fur- ther the weale publique. For first of all, the moste parte of all princes have more delyte in v/arlike matters and f eates of chiv- alrie (the knowlege wherof I neither have nor desire) than in the good f eates of peace; and employe muche more study, how by right or by wrong to enlarge their domin- ions, than howe wel, and peaceablie to rule, and governe that they have alredie. More- over, they that be counsellours to kinges, every one of them eyther is of him selfe so wise in dede, that he nedeth not, or elles he thinketh himself so wise, that he wil not allowe another mans counsel, saving THE EENAISSANCE 69 that they do shamefully and flatteringly geve assent to the fond and folishe say- inges of eerteyn great men. Whose favours, bicause they be in high authoritie with their prince, by assentation and fiatterie they labour to obteyne. And verily it is nat- urally geven to all men to esteme their owne inventions best. So both the Raven and the Ape thineke their owne yonge ones fairest. Then if a man in such a company, where some disdayne and have despite at other mens inventions, and some counte their owne best, if among suche menne (I say) a man should bringe furth any thinge, that he hath redde done in tymes paste, or that he hath sene done in other places ; there the hearers fare as though the whole existima- tion of their wisdome were in jeoperdye to be overthrowen, and that ever after thei shoulde be counted for verye diserdes,^ un- les they could in other mens inventions pycke out matter to reprehend, and find fault at. If all other poore helpes fayle, then this is their extreame refuge. These thinges (say they) pleased our foi'efathers and auncestours: wolde God we coulde be so wise as thei were : and as though thei had wittely concluded the matter, and with this answere stopped every mans mouth, thei sitte downe againe. As who should sai, it were a very daungerous matter, if a man in any pointe should be fovinde wiser then his forefathers were. And yet bee we eon- tent to suffre the best and wittiest of their decrees to lye unexecuted : but if in any thing a better ordre might have ben taken, then by them was, there we take fast holde, findyng therin many faultes. Manye tymes have I chaunced upon such proude, leude, overthwarte andwaywarde judgementes,yea, and once in England: I prai you Syr (quod I) have you ben in our countrey? Yea for- soth (quod he) and there I taried for the space of iiii. or v. monethes together, not longe after the insurrection, that the Wes- terne English men made agaynst their kyng, which by their owne miserable and pitiful slaughter was suppressed and ended. In the meane season I was muehe bounde and beholdynge to the righte reverende father, John Morton, Archebishop and Cardinal of Canterbury, and at that time also lorde Chauncelloure of Englande : a man, Mayster Peter, (for Mayster More knoweth already that I wyll saye) not more honourable for his authoritie, then for his prudence and vertue. He was of a meane stature, and 1 dolts though stricken in age, yet bare he his bodye upright. In his face did shine- such an amiable reverence, as was pleasaunte to be- holde, Gentill in communication, yet earnest, and sage. He had great delite manye times with roughe speache to his sewters, to prove, but withoute harme, what prompte witte and what bolde spirite were in every man. In the which, as in a vertue much agreinge with his nature, so that therewith were not joyned impudency, he toke greate delecta- tyon. And the same person, as apte and mete to have an administratyon in the weale publique, he dyd lovingly embrace. In his speche he was fyne, eloquent, and pytthye. In the lawe he had profunde knowledge, in witte he was incomparable, and in memory wonderful excellente. These qualityes, which in hym were by nature singular, he by learnynge and use had made perfecte. The kynge put muehe truste in his counsel, the weale publyque also in a maner leaned unto hym, when I Avas there. For even in the chiefe of his youth he was taken from schole into the eourte, and there passed all his tyme in much trouble and busines, beyng continually tumbled and tossed in the waves of dyvers mysf ortunes and adversities. And so by many and greate daungers he lerned the experience of the worlde, whiehe so beinge learned can not easely be forgotten. It chaunced on a certayne daye, when I sate at his table, there was also a certayne laye man cunnynge in the lawes of youre Realme. Who, I can not tell wherof takynge occasion, began diligently and earnestly to prayse that strayte and rygorous justice, which at that tyme was there executed upon f ellones, who, as he sayde, were for the moste parte xx. hanged together upon one gallowes. And, seyng so fewe escaped punyshement, he sayde he coulde not chuse, but greatly won- der and marvel, howe and by what evil lucke it shold so come to passe, that theves never- theles were in every place so ryife and so rancke. Naye, Syr, quod I (for I durst boldely speake my minde before the Cardi- nal) marvel nothinge here at: for this punyshment of theves passeth the limites of Justice, and is also very hurtefull to the weale publique. For it is to extreame and cruel a punishment for thefte, and yet not sufficient to refrayne and withhold men from thefte. For simple thefte is not so great an offense, that it owght to be punished with death. Neither ther is any punishment so horrible, that it can kepe them from stealynge, which have no other craft, wherby 70 THE GEEAT TEADITION to get their living. Therfore in this poynte, not you onlye, but also the most part of the world, be like evyll scholemaisters, which be readyer to beate, then to teaehe, their scholers. For great and horrible punish- mentes be appointed for theves, whereas much rather provision should have ben made, that there were some meanes, whereby they myght get their livyng, so that no man shoulde be dryven to this extreme neeessitie, firste to steale, and then to dye. Yes (quod he) this matter is wel ynough provided for already. There be handy craftes, there is husbandrye to gette their livynge by, if they would not willingly be nought. Nay, quod I, you shall not skape so : for first of all, I wyll speake nothynge of them, that come home oute of the warres, maymed and lame, as not longe ago, oute of Blackeheath fielde, and a litell before that, out of the warres in Fraunce: suche, I saye, as put their lives in jeoperdye for the weale publiques or the kynges sake, and by reason of weakenesse and lamenesse be not hable to oceupye their olde craftes, and be to aged to lerne new : of them I wyll speake nothing, forasmuch as warres have their ordinarie recourse. But let us considre those thinges that chaunce daily before our eyes. First there is a great numbre of gentlemen, which can not be con- tent to live idle themselves, lyke dorres, of that whiche other have laboured for : their tenauntes I meane, whom they polle and shave to the quicke, by reisyng their rentes (for this onlye poynte of frugalitie do they use, men els through their lavasse and prodigall spendynge, hable to brynge theym- selfes to verye beggerye) these gentlemen, I say, do not only live in idlenesse them- selves, but also carrye about with them at their tailes a great flocke or traine of idle and loyterynge servyngmen, which never learned any craft wherby to gette their livynges. These men as sone as their mayster is dead, or be sicke themselfes, be incontinent thrust out of dores. For gentle- men hadde rather keepe idle persones, then sicke men, and many times the dead mans heyre is not hable to mainteine so great a house, and kepe so many serving men as his father dyd. Then in the meane season they that be thus destitute of service, either starve for honger, or manfullye playe the theves. For what would you have them to do? When they have wandred abrode so longe, untyl they have worne thredebare their apparell, and also appaired their helth, then gentlemen because of their pale and sickely faces, and patched cotes, will not take them into service. And husbandmen dare not set them a worke : Knowynge wel ynoughe that he is nothing mete to doe trewe and faythful service to a poore man wyth a spade and a mattoke for small wages and hard fare, whyehe beynge deyntely and tenderly pampered up in ydilnes and pleas- ure, was wont with a sworde and a buckler by hys syde to jette through the strete with a bragginge loke, and to thynke hym selfe to good to be anye mans mate. Naye by saynt Mary sir (quod the lawier) not so. For this kinde of men muste we make moste of. For in them as men of stowter stomackes, bolder spirites, and manlyer courages then handycraftes men and plowe- men be, doth consiste the whole powre, strength and puissaunce of oure army, when we muste fight in battayle. Forsothe, sir, as well you myghte saye (quod I) that for warres sake you muste cheryshe theves. For surely you shall never lacke theves, whyles you have them. No, nor theves be not the most false and faynt harted soldiers, nor souldiours be not the cowardleste theves : so wel thees ii. craftes agree together. But this faulte, though it be much used amonge you, yet is it not peculiar to you only, but corn- men also almoste to all nations. Yet Fraunce besides this is troubled and infected with a much sorer plage. The whole royalme is fylled and besieged with hiered souldiours in peace tyme (yf that bee peace) whyehe be brought in under the same colour and pre- tense, that hath persuaded you to kepe these ydell servynge men. For thies wyse fooles and verye archedoltes thought the wealthe of the whole countrey herin to consist, if there were ever in a redinesse a stronge and sure garrison, specially of old practised souldiours, for they put no trust at all in men unexercised. And therfore they must be forced to seke for warre, to the ende thei may ever have practised souldiours and cun- nyng mansleiers, lest that (as it is pretely sayde of Salust) their handes and their mindes through idlenes or lacke of exercise, should waxe dul. But howe pernitious and pestilente a thyng it is to maintayne suche beastes, the Frenche men, by their owne harmes have learned, and the examples of the Romaynes, Carthaginiens, Syriens, and of manye other countreyes doo manifestly declare. For not onlye the Empire, but also the fleldes and Cities of all these, by divers occasions have been overrunned and de- stroyed of their owne armies before hande THE EENAISSANCE 71 had in a redinesse. Now how unnecessary a thinge this is, hereby it maye appeare: that the Frenehe souldiours, which from their youth have ben practised and inured in f eates of armes, do not cracke nor advaunce themselfes to have very often gotte the up- per hand and maistry of your new made and uni)ractised souldiours. But in this poynte I wyll not use many woordes, leste perchaunce I maj^e seeme to flatter you. No, nor those same handy crafte men of yours in cities, nor yet the rude and up- landish plowmen of the countreye, are not supposed to be greatly affrayde of your gentlemens idle servyngmen, unlesse it be suche as be not of body or stature corre- spondent to their strength and courage, or els whose bolde stomakes be discouraged throughe povertie. Thus you may see, that it is not to be feared lest they shoulde be effeminated, if thei were brought up in good craftes and laboursome woorkes, whereby to gette their livynges, whose stoute and sturdye bodyes (for gentlemen vouchsafe to corrupte and spill none but picked and chosen men) now either by reason of rest and idlenesse be brought to weakenesse : or els by to easy and womanly exercises be made f eble and unhable to endure hardnesse. Truly hoAve so ever the case standeth, thys me thinketh is nothing avayleable to tlae weale publique, for warre sake, which you never have, but when you wyl your self es, to kepe and mainteyn an unnumerable flocke of that sort of men, that be so troublesome and noyous in peace, wherof you ought to have a thowsand times more regarde, then of warre. But yet this is not only the neces- sary cause of stealing. There is an other, whych, as I suppose, is proper and jDeculiar to you Englishmen alone. What is that, quod the Cardinal ? Torsoth my lorde (quod 1) 5'our shepe that were wont to be so meke and tame, and so smal eaters, now, as I heare saye, be become so great devowerers and so wylde, that they eate up, and swal- low downe the very men them selfes. They consume, destroye, and devoure whole fieldes, bowses, and cities. For looke in what partes of the realme doth growe the fynest, and therfore dearest woll, there noblemen, and gentlemen : yea and certeyn Abbottes, holy men no doubt, not contenting them selfes with the yearely revenues and jorofytes, that were wont to grow to theyr forefathers and predecessours of their landes, nor beynge content that they live in rest ai:id pleasure nothinge profiting, yea much noyinge the weale publique : leave no grounde for tillage, thei inclose al into pastures : thei throw doune houses: they plucke downe townes, and leave nothing standynge, but only the churche to be made a shepe-howse. And as thoughe you loste no small quantity of grounde by forests, chases, laundes, and parkes, those good holy men turne all dwell- inge places and all giebeland into desolation and wildernes. Therfore that one covetous and unsatiable cormaraunte and very plage of his natyve contrey maye compasse aboute and inclose many thousand akers of grounde together within one pale or hedge, the hus- bandmen be thrust owte of their owne, or els either by coveyne and fraude, or by vio- lent oppression they be put besydes it, or by wronges and injuries thei be so weried, that they be compelled to sell all: by one meanes therfore or by other, either by hooke or crooke they muste needes departe awaye, poore, selye, wretched soules, men, women, husbands, wives, fatherlesse children, wid- owes, wof uU mothers, with their yonge babes, and their whole houshold smal in substance, and muche in numbre, as husbandrye re- quireth manye handes. Awaye thei trudge, I say, out of their knowen and accustomed houses, fyndynge no place to reste in. All their housholdestuffe, whiche is verye litle woorthe, thoughe it myght well abide the sale : yet beeynge sodainely thruste oute, they be constrayned to sell it for a thing of nought. And when they have wandered abrode tyll that be sjoent, what can they then els doo but steale, and then justly pardy be hanged, or els go about a beg- gyng. And yet then also they be caste in prison as vagaboundes, because they go aboute and worke not : whom no man wyl set a worke, though thei never so willyngiy profre themselves therto. For one Shep- hearde or Heardman is ynoughe to eate up that grounde with cattel, to the oecupiyng wherof aboute husbandiye manye handes were requisite. And this is also the cause why victualles be now in many places dearer. Yea, besides this the price of wolle is so rysen, that poore f olkes, which were wont to worke it, and make cloth therof, be nowe hable to bye none at all. And by thys meanes verye manye be forced to forsake worke, and to geve them selves to idelnesse. For after that so much grounde was in- closed for pasture, an infinite multitude of shepe dyed of the rotte, suche vengeaunee God toke of their inordinate and unsaciable covetousness, sendinge amonge the shepe that 72 THE GREAT TRADITION pestiferous morrein, whiclie mueli more justely shoulde have fallen on the shape- masters owne heades. And though the num- ber of shepe increase never so faste, yet the price f alleth not one myte, because there be so f ewe sellers. Por they be almooste all comen into a fewe riche mennes handes, whome no neade foreeth to sell before they lust, and they lu'ste not before they maye sell as deare as they luste. Now the same cause bringeth in like dearth of the other kindes of cattell, yea and that so much the more, bicause that after fermes plucked downe, and husbandry deeaied, there is no man that passethe for the breadynge of younge stoore. For these riche men brynge not up the yonge ones of greate cattel as they do lambes. But first they bie them abrode verie chepe, and afterward when they be fatted in their pastures, they sell them agayne excedynge deare. And therefore (as I suppose) the whole incommoditie hereof is not yet felte. For yet they make dearth onely in those places, where they sell. But when they shall fetche them away from thence wheare they be bredde faster then they can be broughte up : then shall there also be felte gTeate dearth, stoore beginning there to f aile, where the ware is boughte. Thus the unreasonable covetousnes of a few hath turned that thing to the utter undoing of your ylande, in the whiche thynge the chiefe felicitie of your realme did consist. For this gTeate dearth of victualles causeth men to kepe as litle houses, and as smale hospitalitie as they possible maye, and to put away their servauntes: whether, I pray you, but a beggynge: or elles (whyche these gentell blondes and stoute stomackes wyll sooner set their myndes unto) a stealing? Nowe to amende the matter, to this wretched beg- gerye and miserable povertie is joyned greate wantonnes, importunate superfluitie, and excessive riote. For not only gentle mennes servauntes, but also handicraft men : yea and almooste the ploughmen of the countrey, with al other sortes of people, use muche straunge and proude newefangienes in their apparell, and to muche prodigall riotte and sumptuous fare at their table. Nowe bawdes, queines, whoores, harlottes, strumpettes, brothelhouses, stewes, and yet another stewes, wyne tavernes, ale houses, and tipling houses, with so manye noughtie, lewde, and unlawfull games, as dyce, eardes, tables, tennis, boules, coytes, do not all these sende the haunters of them streyghte a stealynge, when theyr money is gone? Caste oute these pernieyous abhominations, make a lawe, that they, whiche plucked downe fermes, and townes of husbandrie, shal reedifie them, or els yelde and uprender the possession therof to suche as wil go to the cost of buylding them anewe. Suffer not these riche men to bie up al, to ingrosse, and forstalle, and with their monopolie to kepe the market alone as please them. Let not so many be brought up in idelnes, let hus- bandry and tillage be restored, let clothe- workinge be renewed, that ther may be hon- est labours for this idell sort to passe their tyme in profitablye, whiche hitherto either povertie hath caused to be theves, or elles nowe be either vagabondes, or idel serving men, and shortelye wilbe theves. Doubtles onles you finde a remedy for these enormi- ties, you shall in vaine advaunce your selves of executing justice upon fellons. For this justice is more beautiful in apperaunee, and more flourishynge to the shewe, then either juste or profitable. For by suffring your youthe wantonlie and viciously to be brought up, and to be infected, even frome theyr tender age, by litle and litle with vice : then a goddes name to be punished, when they commit the same faultes after being come to mans state, which from their youthe they were ever like to do : In this pointe, I praye you, what other thing do you, then make theves and then punish them ? 3. A Discourse Upon International Rela- tions, Happiness, and Reformers But yet, all this notwithstandinge, I can by no meanes chaunge my mind, but that I must nedes beleve, that you, if you be dis- posed, and can fynde in youre hearte to followe some princes eourte, shall with your good counselles greatlye helpe and further the eommen wealthe. Wherfore there is nothynge more apperteining to youre dewty, that is to saye, to the dewtie of a good man. For where as your Plato judgeth that weale publiques shall by this meanes atteyne per- fecte felicitie, eyther if philosophers be kynges, or elles if kynges geve themselves to the studie of philosophie, how f arre I praye you, shall eommen wealthes then be frome thys felicitie, yf philosophers wyll vouche- saufe to enstruet kinges with their good counsell? They be not so unkinde (quod he) but they woulde giadlye do it, yea, manye have .done it alreadye in bookes that they have put furthe, if kynges and princes would be willynge and readye to folowe THE EENAISSANCE 73 good counsell. But Plato doubtlesse dyd well foresee, oneless kynges themselves woulde applye their mindes to the studye of Philosophie, that elles they woulde never thoroughlye allowe the counsell of Philoso- phers, beynge themselves before even from their tender age infected, and corrupt with perverse, and evill opinions. Whiche thynge Plato hymselfe proved trewe in kinge Dionyse. If I shoulde propose to any kyng wholsome decrees, doynge my endevoure to plucke out of hys mynde the pernicious originall causes of vice and noughtines, thiiike you not that I shoulde fui'thewith either be driven awaye, or elles made a laughyng stocke ? Well suppose I were with the Frenche kynge, and there syttinge in his counsell, whiles in that mooste secrete con- sultation, the kynge him selfe there beynge presente in hys owne i^ersonne, they beate their braynes, and serehe the verye bottomes of their wittes to discusse by what crafte and meanes the kynge maye styl kepe Myl- layne, and drawe to him againe fugitive Naples, and then howe to eonquere the Venetians, and hoAve to bringe under his jurisdiction all Italie, then howe to win the dominion of Plaunders, Brabant, and of all Burgundie : with divers other landes, whose kingdomes he hath longe ago in mind and purpose invaded. Here whiles one counsel- leth to conclude a legue of peace with the Venetians, so longe to endure, as shall be thought mete and expedient for their pur- pose, and to make them also of their coun- sell, yea, and besides that to geve them part of the pray, whiche afterwarde, when they have brought theyr purpose about after their owne myndes, they maye require and elayme againe. Another thinketh best to hiere the Germaynes. Another woulde have the favoure of the SAvyehers wonne with money. Anothers advyse is to appease the puissaunte poAver of the Emperoures majestic wytb golde, as with a moste pleas- aunte, and acceptable sacrifice. Whiles another gyA^eth counsell to make peace wyth the kynge of Arragone, and to restoore unto him hys owne kyngedome of Navarra, as a full assuraunee of peace. Another commeth in with his five egges, and adA^seth to hooke in the kynge of Castell with some hope of affinitie or allyaunce, and to bringe to their parte certeine Pieers of his courte for greate pensions. Whiles they all staye at the ehiefeste doubte of all, what to do in the meane time with Englande, and yet agree all in this to make peace Avith the English- men, and Avith mooste suer and stronge bandes to bynde that Aveake and feable frendeshippe, so that they muste be called frendes, and hadde in suspicion as enemyes. And that therfore the Skottes muste be hadde in a readines, as it were in a standynge, readie at all occasions, in aunters the Englishmen shoulde sturre never so lytle, incontinent to set upon them. And moreover previlie and seeretlye (for openlie it maye not be done by the truce that is taken) privelie therefore I saye to make muche of some Piere of Englande, that is bannished hys countrey, whiche muste cleime title to the crpwne of the realme, and afflrme hym selfe juste inherytoure thereof, that by this subtill meanes they maye holde to them the kinge, in whome elles they have but small truste and affiaunce. Here I saye, where so great and heyghe matters be in consultation, where so manye noble and wyse menne counsell theyr kynge onelie to war-re, here yf I, selie man, shoulde rise up and will them to tourne OA^er the leafe, and learne a neAve lesson, sayinge that my coun- sell is not to medle Avith Italy, but to tarye styll at home, and that the kyngedome of Fraunce alone is almooste greater, then that it maye well be governed of one man : so that the kynge shoulde not nede to studye howe to gette more; and then shoulde pro- pose unto them the decrees of the people that be called the Achoriens, whiche be situate over agaynste the Ilande of Utopia on the south-easte side. These Achoriens ones made Avarre in their kinges quarrell for to gette him another kingdome, Avhiche he laide claime unto, and avauneed hymselfe ryghte inheritoure to the crowne thereof, by the tytle of an olde aliaunee. At the last when they had gotten it, and sawe that they hadde even as muche vexation and trouble in kepynge it, as they had in gettynge it, and that either their newe conquered subjeetes by sundrye occasions were makynge daylye insurrections to rebell against them, or els that other countreis were continuallie with divers inrodes and forragynges invadynge them : so that they were ever fighting either for them, or agaynste them, and never eoulde breake up theyr eampes : Seyng them selves in the meane season pylled and impover- ished : their money caried out of the realme : their own men killed to maintaine the giorye of an other nation : when they had no warre, peace nothynge better then warre, by reason 74 THE GEEAT TEADITlON that their people in war had so inured them- selves to corrupte and wicked maners: that they had taken'a delite and pleasure in rob- binge and stealing: that through man- slaughter they had gathered boldnes to mis- chief e: that their lawes were had in con- tempte, and nothing set by or regarded : that their king beynge troubled with the charge and governaunce of two kingdomes, could not nor was not hable perfeetlie to discharge his office towardes them both : seing againe that all these evelles and troubles were endles : at the laste layde their; heades together, and like faithfull and lov- inge sub jectes gave to their kynge free ehoise and libertie to kepe styll the one of these Iavo kingdomes whether he would : alleginge that he was not hable to kepe both, and that they were mo then might well be governed of half e a king : f orasmuehe as no man woulde be content to take him for his mulettour, that kepeth an other mans moyles besydes his. So this good prince was eonstreyned to be content with his olde kyngedome and toigeve over the newe to one of his frendes. Who shortelye after was violentlie driven out. Furthermore if I shoulde declare unto them, that all this busie preparaunce to warre, wherby so many nations for his sake should be broughte into a troublesome hurleiburley, when all his coffers were emptied, his treas- ures wasted, and his people destroied, should at the length through some mischance be in vaine and to none effect: and that ther- fore it were best for him to content him selfe with his owne kingedome of Fraunce, as his forfathers and predecessours did be- fore him : to make much of it, to enrich it, and to make it as flourisshing as he could, to endevoure him selfe to love his subjeetes, and againe to be beloved of them, willingly to live with them, peaceably to governe them, and with other kyngdomes not to medle, seinge that whiche he hath all reddy is even ynoughe for him, yea and more than he can well turne hym to : this myne advyse, maister More, how thinke you it would be harde and taken? So God helpe me, not vei"y thankefuUy, quod I. Wei, let us precede then, quod he. Suppose that some kyng and his counsel were together whettinge their wittes and devisinge, what subtell crafte they myght invente to enryche the kinge with great treasures of money. First one coun- selleth to rayse and enhaunce the valuation of money when the kinge must paye anye : and agayne to calle downe the value of coyne to lesse then it is worthe, when he muste receive or gather any. For thus great sommes shal be payd wyth a lytyl money, and where lytle is due muclie shal be re- ceaved. Another counselleth to fayne warre, that when under this coloure and pretence the kyng hath gathered greate aboundainice of money, he maye, when it shall please him, make peace with greate solemjanitie and holye ceremonies, to blinde the eyes of the poore communaltie, as taking pitie and com- passion forsothe upon mans blonde, lyke a loving and a mercifull prince. Another put- teth the kynge in remembraunce of certeine olde and moughteeaten lawes, that of longe tyme have not bene put in execution, whych because no man can remembre that they were made, everie man hath transgressed. The fynes of these lawes he counselleth the kynge to require : for there is no waye so proffitable, nor more honorable, as the whyche hathe a shewe and coloure of justice. Another advyseth him to forbidde manye thinges under greate penalties and fines, specially suche thinges as is for the peoples profit not be used, and afterwarde to dispence for money with them, whyche by this prohibition substeyne losse and dam- mage. For by this meanes the favour of the people is wonne, and profile riseth two wayes. First by takinge forfaytes of them whome eovetousnes of gaynes hath brought in daunger of this statute, and also by sellinge privileges and licences, whyche the better that the prince is, forsothe the deerer he selleth them: as one that is lothe to graunte to any private persone anye thinge that is against the proffite of his people. And therefore maye sel none but at an exceding dere pryce. Another giveth the kynge counsel to endaunger unto his grace the judges of the Realme, that he maye have them ever on his side, and that they maye in everye matter despute and reason for the kynges right. Yea and further to call them into his palace and to require them there to argue and discusse his matters in his owne presence. So there shal be no mat- ter of his so openlye wronge and unjuste, wherein one or other of them, either because he wyl have sumthinge to allege and objecte or that he is ashamed to saye that whiche is sayde alreadye, or els to pike a thanke with his prince, wil not fynde some hole open to set a snare in, wherewith to take the contrarie parte in a trippe. Thus whiles the judges cannot agree amonges them selfes, THE EENAISSANCE reasoninge and arguing of that which is playne enough, and bringinge the manifest trewthe in dowte : ■ in the meane season the Kinge maye take a fyt occasion to under- stand the lawe as shal moste make for his advauntage, whereunto all other for shame, or for feare wil agTee. Then the Judges may be bolde to pronounce on the kynges side. For he that geveth sentence for the king, cannot be without a good excuse. For it shal be sufficient for him to have equitie on his part, or the bare wordes of the lawe, or a wrythen and wrested understandinge of the same, or els (whiche with good and just Judges is of greater force then all lawes be) the Kynges indisputable prerogative. To conclude, al the eounsellours agre and eon- sent together with the ryche Crassus, that no abundance of gold can be sufficient for a prince, which muste kepe and maynteyne an armie: furthermore that a kynge, thoughe he would, can do nothinge un justlye. For all that all men have, yea also the men them selfes be all his. And that every man hath so much of his owne, as the kynges gentilnes hath not taken from hym. And that it shal be moste for the kinges ad- vantage, that his subjectes have very lytle or nothinge in their possession, as whose savegarde doth herein consiste, that his people doe not waxe wanton and wealthie through riches and libertie, because where these thinges be, there men be not wonte patiently to obeye harde, unjuste, and un- lawefuU commaundementes ; whereas on the other part neade and povertie doth holde downe and kepe under stowte courages, and maketh them patient perforce, takynge from them bolde and rebellynge stomakes. Here agayne if I shoulde ryse up, and boldelye afiflrme that all these eounselles be to the kinge dishonoure and reproche, whose honoure and safetye is more and rather sup- ported and upholden by the wealth and ryches of his people, then by hys owne treasures: and if I should declare that the eomminaltie chueseth their king for their owne sake, and not for his sake: to the intent, that through his laboure and studie they might al live wealthily sauffe from wronges and injuries : and that therf ore the kynge ought to take more care for the wealthe of his people, then for his owne wealthe, even as the office and dewtie of a shepehearde is in that he is a shepherde, to feede his shepe rather then himselfe. For as towchinge this, that they thinke the defence and mayntenaunee of peace to consiste in the povertie of the people, the thing it selfe sheweth that they be farre out of the waye. For where shal a man finde more wrangling, quarrelling, brawling, and chiding, then among beggers ? Who be more desierous of newe mutations and alterations, then they that be not content with the present state of their lyfe? Or finallye who be bolder stomaked to bringe all in a hurlieburlye (therby trustinge to get some windfal) then they that have nowe nothinge to leese ? And yf any Kyng were so smally regarded, and so lightly estemed, yea so behated of his subjectes, that other wayes he could not kepe them in awe, but onlye by open wronges, by pollinge and shavinge, and by bringinge them to beggerie, sewerly it were better for him to forsake his kingedome, then to holde it by this meanes: whereby though the name of a king be kepte, yet the majestie is lost. For it is againste the dig- nitie of a kynge to have rule over beggers, but rather over ryche and welthie men. Of this mynde was the hardie and couragius Fabrice, when he sayde, that he had rather be a ruler of riche men, then be ryche him- selfe. And verelye one man to live in pleas- ure and wealth, whyles all other wepe and smarte for it, that is the parte, not of a kynge, but of a jayler. To be shorte as he is a folyshe phisition, that cannot cure his patientes disease, onles he caste him in an other syckenes, so he that cannot amend the lives of his subjectes, but be taking from them the wealthe and commoditie of lyf e, he muste nedes graunte that, he knoweth not the feate how to governe men. But let him rather amende his owne lyfe, renounce un- honest pleasures, and forsake pride. For these be the ehiefe vices that cause hym to runne in the contempte or hatred of his people. Let him lyve of hys owne, hurtinge no man. Let him doe cost not above his power. Let him restreyne wyekednes. Let him prevente vices, and take awaye the oc- casions of offenses by well orderynge hys subjectes, and not by sufferynge wiekednes to increase afterward to be punyshed. Let hyTiL not be to hastie in callynge agayne lawes, whyche a custome hathe abrogated: specially suche as have bene longe forgotten, and never lacked nor neaded. And let hym never under the cloke and pretence of trans- gression take suche fynes and forfajrtes, as no Judge wyll suffre a piivate persone to take, as unjuste and ful of gile. Here if I 76 THE GREAT TRADITION should brynge forth before them the lawe of the Maeariens, whiche be not farre dis- taunt from Utopia: whose Kynge the daye of hys coronation is bounde by a solempne othe, that he shall never at anye time have in hys treasure above a thousande pounde of golde or sylver: They saye a verye good kynge, whiche toke more care for the wealthe and commoditye of his countrey, then for thenriehing of him self e, made this lawe to be a stop and barre to kinges from heaping and hording up so muche money as might impoveryshe their people. For* he forsawe that this som of treasure woulde suffice to supporte the kynge in battaile against his owne people, if they shoulde chaunce to rebell: and also to maintein his warres againste the invasions of his forreyn ene- mies, Againe he perceived the same stocke of money to be to title and unsufficient to encourage and enhable him wrongfuUye to take away other mens goodes : whyche was the chiefe cause whie the lawe was made. An other cause was this. He thought that by this provision his people shoulde not laeke money, wherewith to mayneteyne their dayly occupieng and chaffayre. And seynge the kynge could not chewse but laye out and bestowe al that came in above the prescript some of his stocke, he thought he woulde seke no occasions to doe his subjeetes in- juria. Suche a kynge shal be feared of evel men, and loved of good men. These, and suche other informations, yf I shoulde use among men wholye inclined and geven to the contrarye part, how deaffe hearers thinke you shoulde I have 1 Deaffe hearers douteles (quod I). And in good faith no marveyle. And to be iilaine with you, truelye I can not allowe that suche communication shalbe used, or suche counsell geven, as you be suere shall never be regarded nor reeeaved. For how can so straunge informations be profit- able, or how can they be beaten into their headdes, whose myndes be allredye pre- vented : with cleane contrarye persuasions ? This schole philosophie is not unpleasaunte amonge frendes in f amiliare communication, but in the eounselles of kinges, where greate matters be debated and reasoned with glycate authoritye, these thinges have no place. That is it whiche I mente (quod he) when I sayde philosophye hadde no place amonge kinges. In dede (quod I) this schole philosophie hath not: whiche thinketh all thinges mete for every place. But there is an other phil- osophye more civile, whyche knoweth, as ye wolde say, her owne stage, and thereafter orderynge and behavinge hereselfe in the playe that she hathe in hande, playethe her parte aceordingelye with eomlyenes, utter- inge nothinge oute of dewe ordre and fassyon. And this is the philosophye that you muste use. Or els whyles a commodye of Plautus is playinge, and the vyle bonde- men skoffynge and trytfelinge amonge them selfes, yf you shoulde sodenlye come upon the stage in a Philosophers apparrell, and reherse oute of Octavia the place wherein Seneca disputeth with Nero : had it not bene better for you to have played the domme persone, then by rehersynge that, whycli served neither for the tyme nor place, to have made suche a tragycall comedye or gallymalf reye 1 For by bryngynge in other stuffe that nothinge ajoperteynethe to the presente matter, you muste nedes marre and pervert the play that is in hand, thoughe the stuffe that you bringe be muche better. What part soever you have taken upon you, playe that aswel as you can and make the best of it: And doe not therefore disturbe and brynge oute of ordre the whole matter, bycause that an other, whyche is meryer and better cummethe to your remembraunce. So the case standeth in a common wealthe, and so it is in the consultations of Kynges and prynces. Yf evel opinions and noughty per- suasions can not be utterly and quyte plucked out of their hartes, if you can not even as you wolde remedy vices, which use and eustome hath confirmed: yet for this cause you must not leave and forsake the common wealthe : you muste not forsake the shippe in a tempeste, because you can not rule and kepe downe the wyndes. No nor you muste not laboure to dryve into their heades newe and straunge informations, whyche you knowe wel shalbe nothinge re- garded wyth them that be of cleane contrary mindes. But you must with a crafty wile and a subtell trayne studye and endev.oure youre selfe, asmuehe as in you lyethe, to handle the matter wyttelye and handesome- lye for the purpose, and that whyche you can not turne to good, so to order it that it be not verye badde. For it is not possible for al thinges to be well, onles all men were good, Whych I thinke wil not be yet thies good many yeares. 4. Labor in Utopia Husbandrie is a Science common to them all in generall, bothe men and women, where- THE KENAISSANCE 77 in they be all experte and cunning. In this they be all instructed even from their youth : partelie in their scholes with traditions and preceptes, and partlie in the countrey nighe the citie, brought up as it were in j^layinge, not onely beholding the use of it, but by occasion of exercising their bodies practis- ing it also. Besides husbandrie, Avhiche (as I saide) is common to them all, everye one of them learneth one or other several and particular science, as his owne proper erafte. That is most commonly either clothworking in wol or flaxe, or masonrie, or the smithes craft, or the carpenters, science. For there is none other occupation that any number to speake of doth use there. For their gar- mentes, which throughoute all the Ilande be of one fashion (savynge that there is a dif- ference betwene the mans garmente and the womans, betwene the maried and the un- maried) and this one continueth for ever- more unehaunged, semely and comelie to the eye, no lette to the movynge and weldynge of the bodye, also fytte both for wynter and summer: as for these garmentes (I saye) every familie maketh their owne. But of the other f oresaide eraf tes everye man learn- eth one. And not onely the men, but also the women. But the women, as the weaker sort, be put to the easier craftes: as to worke woUe and flaxe. The more laborsome sciences be committed to the men. For the mooste part every man is broughte up in his fathers erafte. For moste commonlye they be naturallie therto bente and inclined. But yf a mans minde stande to anye other, he is by adoption put into a familye of that occupation, which he doth most fantasy. Whome not onely his father, but also the magistrates do diligently loke to, that he be put to a discrete and an honest householder. Yea, and if anye person, when he hath learned one erafte, be desierous to learne also another, he is likewyse suffred and per- mitted. When he hathe learned bothe, he occupieth whether he wyll: onelesse the eitie have more neade of the one then of the other. The chiefe and almooste the onelye offyce of the Syphograuntes is, to see and take hede, that no manne sit idle : but that everye one applye hys owne craft with earnest diligence. And yet for all that, not to be wearied from earlie in the morninge, to late in the evenninge, with eontinuall worke, like labouringe and toylinge beastes. For this is worse then the miserable and wretched condition of bondemen. Whiche nevertheles is almooste everye where the lyfe of worke- men and artificers, saving in Utopia. For they dividynge the daye and the nyghte into xxiiii. juste houres, appointe and assigne onelye sixe of those houres to woorke; iii before noone, upon the whiche they go streighte to diner: and after diner, when they have rested two houres, then they worke iii. houres and upon that they go to supper. Aboute eyghte of the cloke in the eveninge (countinge one of the elocke at the firste houre after noone) they go to bedde : eyght houres they geve to slepe. All the voide time, that is betwene the houres of worke, slepe, and meate, that they be suffered to bestowe, every man as he liketh best him selfe. Not to thintent that they shold mispend this time in riote or slouth- f uln6s : but beynge then licensed from the laboure of their owne occupations, to bestow the time well and thriftelye upon some other science, as shall please them. For it is a solempne custome there, to have lectures daylye early in the morning, where to be presente they onely be constrained that be namelye chosen and appoynted to learninge. Howbeit a greate multitude of every sort of people, both men and women go to heare lectures, some one and some an other, as everye mans nature is inclined. Yet, this notwithstanding, if any man had rather bestowe this time upon his owne occupation, (as it ehauneeth in manye, whose mindes rise not in the contemplation of any science liberall) he is not letted, nor prohibited, but is also ijraysed and commended, as profitable to the common wealthe. After supper they bestow one houre in playe: in summer in their gardens : in winter in their eommen halles: where they dine and suppe. There they exercise themselves in musike, or els in honest- and wholsome communication. Dice- playe, and suehe other f olishe and pernicious games they know not. But they use ij. games not much unlike the chesse. The one is the battell of numbers, wherein one num- bre stealethe awaye another. The other is wherin vices fyghte with vertues, as it were in battel array, or a set fyld. In the which game is verye properlye shewed, bothe the striffe and discorde that vices have amonge themselfes, and agayne theire unitye and Concorde againste vertues : And also what vices be repugnaunt to what vertues : with what powre and strength they assaile them openlye : by what wieles and subtelty they 78 THE GREAT TRADITION assaulte them seeretelye: with what helpe and aide the vertues resists, and overcome the puissaunee of the vices: by what craft they frustrate their purposes : and finally by what sleight or meanes the one get- teth the victory. But here least you be deceaved, one tliinge you muste looke more narrowly upon. For seinge they bestowe but vi. houres in woorke, perchaunee you maye thinke that the laeke of some neces- sarye thinges hereof maye ensewe. But this is nothinge so. For that smal time is not only enough but also to muche for the stoore and abundance of all thinges, that be requisite, either for the necessitie, or commoditie of life. The which thinge you also shall perceave, if you weye and con- sider with your selfes how great a parte of the people in other contreis lyveth ydle. First almost all women, whyche be the half e of the whole numbre : or els if the women be somewhere occupied, there most eommonlye in their steade the men be ydle. Besydes this how greate, and howe ydle a companye is there of preystes, and re- lygious men, as they cal them? put thereto al ryche men, siDeeiallye all landed men, which comonlye be called gentilmen, and noble men. Take into this numbre also theire servauntes : I meane all that flocke of stoute bragging russhe bucklers. Joyne to them also sturdy and valiaunte beggers, elokinge their idle lyfe under the eoloure of some disease or sickenes. And trulye you shal find them much fewer then you thought, by whose labour all these thinges are wrought, that in mens affaires are now daylye used and frequented. Nowe con- syder with youre selfe, of these fewe that doe woorke, how fewe be occupied in neees- sarye woorkes. For where money beareth all the swinge, there many vaayne and su- perfluous occupations must nedes be used, to serve only for ryotous superfluite, and unhonest pleasure. For the same multitude that now is occupied in woork, if they were devided into so fewe occupations as the necessarye use of nature requyreth; in so greate plentye of thinges as then of neces- sity woulde ensue, doubtles the prices wolde be to lytle for the artifycers to mayn- teyne theire livinges. But yf all these, that be nowe busied about unprofitable occu- pations, with all the whole flocke of them that lyve ydellye and slouthfullye, whyche consume and waste everye one of them more of these thinges that come by other mens laboure, then ij. of the workemen themselfes doo: yf all these (I saye) were sette to profytable occupatyons, you ease- lye perceave howe lytle tyme would be enoughe, yea and to muche to stoore us with all thinges that maye be requisite either for necessitie, or for commoditye, yea or for pleasure, so that the same pleasure be trewe and natural. And this in Utopia the thinge it selfe makethe manif este and playne. For there in all the citye, with the whole eon- treye, or sliiere adjoyning to it searselye 500. persons of al the whole numbre of men and women, that be neither to olde, nor to weake to worke, be licensed and distcharged from laboure. Amonge them be the Sipho- grauntes (Avhoe thoughe they be by the lawes exempte and privileged from labour) yet they exempte not themselfes : to the intent that they may the rather by their example provoke other to worke. The same vacation from labour do they also enjoye, to whome the people persuaded by the commendation of the priestes, and secrete election of the Siphograuntes, have geven a perpetual licence from laboure to learninge. But if any one of them prove not aecord- inge to the expectation and hoope of him eonceaved, he is forthwith plucked backe to the company of artificers. And eon- trarye wise, often it ehaunceth that a handi- eraftes man doth so earnestly bestowe his vaeaunte and spare houres in learninge, and throughe diligence so profyteth therin, that he is taken from his handy occupation, and promoted to the company of the learned. Oute of this ordre of the learned be chosen ambassadours, priestes, Tranibores, and finallye the prince him selfe. Whome they in theire olde tonge cal Barzanes, and by a newer name, Adamus. The residewe of the people being neither ydle, nor yet oc- cupied about unprofitable exercises, it may be easely judged in how fewe houres how muche good woorke by them may be doone and dispatched, towardes those thinges that I have spoken of. This commodity they have also above other, that in the most part of necessarye occupations they neade not so much work, as other nations doe. For first of all the buildinge or repayringe of houses asketh everye where so manye mens continual labour, bicause that the un- thrifty heire suffereth the houses that his father buylded in contyneuaunee of tyme to fall in decay. So that which he myghte have upholden wyth lytle eoste, hys sue- THE EENAISSANCE 79 cessoure is eonstreyned to buylde it agayne a newe, to his great charge. Yea manye tymes also the howse that stoode one man in muche moneye, another is of so nyee and soo delyeate a mynde, that he settethe nothinge by it. And it beynge neglected, and therefore shortelye fallynge into ruyne, he buyldethe uiDpe another in an other place with no lesse eoste and chardge. But amonge the Utopians, where all thinges be sett in a good ordre, and the common wealthe in a good staye, it very seldom chaunceth, that they cheuse a newe plotte to buyld an house upon. And they doo not only finde spedy and quicke remedies for present faiiltes: but also preyente them that be like to fall. And by this meanes their houses continewe and laste very longe with litle labour and smal reparations: in so much that this kind of woorkmen somtimes have almost nothinge to doo. But that they be commaunded to hewe timbre at home, and to square and trimme up stones, to the intente that if anye woorke ehaunce, it may the spedelier rise. Now, syr, in theire ap- parell, marke (I praye you) howe few woorkmen they neade. Fyrste of al, whyles they be at woorke, they be covered homely with leather or skinnes, that will last vii. yeares. When they go furthe abrode they caste upon them a eloke, whyeh hydeth the other homelye apparel. These clookes through out the whole Hand be all of one eoloure, and that is the natural colours of the wul. They therefore do not only spend much lesse wuUen clothe then is sjiente in other contreis, but also the same standeth them in muche lesse eoste. But lynen clothe is made with lesse laboure, and is therefore hadde more in use. But in lynen cloth onlye whytenesse, in wuUen only clenlynes is re- garded. As for the smalnesse or finenesse of the threde, that is no thinge passed for. And this is the cause wherfore in other places iiii. or v. clothe gownes of dyvers eoloures, and as manye silke cootes be not enoughe for one man. Yea and yf he be of the delicate and nyse sorte x. be to fewe : whereas there one garmente wyl serve a man mooste commenlye ij. yeares. For whie shoulde he desyre moo? Seinge yf he had them, he should not be the better hapte or covered from colde, neither in his apparel anye whitte the comlyer. Wherefore, seinge they be all exercysed in profitable occupa- tions, and that fewe artificers in the same craftes be sufficiente, this is the cause that plentye of all thinges beinge among them, they doo sometymes bringe forthe an in- numerable companye of people to amend the hyghe wayes, yf anye be broken. Many times also, when they have no suche woorke to be occupied aboute, an open proclamation is made, that they shall bestowe fewer houres in worke. For the magistrates doe not exer- cise theire citizens againste theire willes in. unneadefuU laboures. For whie in the in- stitution of that weale publique, this ende is onelye and chiefely pretended and mynded, that what time maye possibly be spared from the necessarye occupaeions and affayres of the commen wealth, all that the citizeins shoulde withdrawe from the bodely service to the free libertye of the minde, and gar- nisshinge of the same. For herein they sup- pose the felieitye of this liffe to consiste. 5. '^And the Pursuit of Happiness" They dispute of the good qualityes of the sowle, of the body, and of fortune. And whether the name of goodnes maye be ap- plied to all these, or onlye to the endowe- mentes and giftes of the soule. They reason of vertue and pleasure. But the chiefe and principall question is in what thinge, be it one or moe, the felieitye of man consistethe. But in this poynte they seme almooste to muche geven and enclyned to the opinion of them, which def ende pleasure, wherein they determine either all or the ehiefyste parte of mans felieitye to reste. And (whyche is more to bee marveled at) the defense of this soo deyntye and delicate an opinion, they f etche even from their grave, sharpe, bytter, and rygorous religion. For they never dis- pute of felicity or blessednes, but they joins unto the reasons of Philosophye eerteyne principles taken oute of religion : wythoute the whyche to the investigation of trewe felieitye they thynke reason of it self e weake and unperfecte. Those principles be these and such lyke. That the soule is immortal, and by the bountiful goodnes of God ordeined to felicitie. That to our vertues and good deades rewardes be appointed after this life, and to our evel deades punish- mentes. Though these be perteyning to re- ligion, yet they thincke it mete that they shoulde be beleved and graunted by profes of reason. But yf these principles were con- dempned and dysanulled, then without anye delaye they pronounce no man to be so folish, whiche woulde not do all his diligence and endevoure to obteyne pleasure be ryght 80 THE GKEAT TEADITION or wronge, onlye avoydynge this incon- venience, that the lesse pleasure should not be a let or hinderaunce to the bigger : or that he laboured not for that pleasure, whiche would bringe after it displeasure, greefe, and sorrow. For they judge it ex- treame madnes to folowe sharpe and pein- ful vertue, and not only to bannislie the pleasure of life, but also willingly to suffer griefe, without anye hope of profifit thereof ensuinge. For what proffit can there be, if a man, when he hath passed over all his [yf e unpleasauntly, that is to say, miserablye, shall have no rewarde after his death ? But nowe, syr, they thinke not felicitie to reste in all pleasure, but only in that pleasure that is good and houeste, and that hereto as to perfet blessednes our nature is allured and drawen even of vertue, whereto onlye they that be of the contrary opinion do at- tribute felicitie. For they define vertue to be life ordered according to nature, and that we be hereunto ordeined of god. And that he dothe f ollowe the course of nature, which in desiering and refusinge thinges is ruled by reason. Furthermore that reason doth chiefely and principallye kendle in men the love and veneration of the devine majestie. Of whose goodnes it is that we be, and that we be in possibilitie to attayne felicite. And that secondarely it bothe stirrethe and pro- voketh us to leade our lyfe oute of care in joy and mirth, and also moveth us to helpe and further all other in respecte of the societe of nature to obteine and enjoye the same. For there was never man so earnest and paineful a folloAver of vertue and hater of pleasure, that wold so injoyne you laboures, watchinges, and fastinges, but he would also exhort you to ease, lighten, and relieve, to your powre, the lack and misery of others, praysing the same as a dede of ■ humanitie and pitie. Then if it be a poynte of humanitie for man to bring health and comforte to man, and speeiallye (which is a vertue' moste peculiarlye belonging to man) to mitigate and assuage the greife of others, and by takyng from them the sor- owe and hevynes of lyfe, to restore them to joye, that is to saye, to pleasure : whie maye it not then be sayd, that nature doth pro- voke everye man to doo the same to him- self e? For a joyfull lyfe, that is to say, a pleasaunt lyfe is either evel : and if it be so, then thou shouldest not onlye helpe no man therto, but rather, as much as in the lieth, withdrawe all men frome it, as noysome and hurtef ul, or else if thou not only mayste, but also of dewty art bound to procure it to others, why not chiefely to the selfe? To whome thou art bound to shew as much favoure and gentelnes as to other. For when nature biddeth the to be good and gentle to other she commaundeth the not to be cruell and ungentle to the selfe. There- fore even very nature (saye they) pre- scribeth to us a joyful lyfe, that is to say, pleasure as the ende of all oure operations. And they define vertue to be lyfe ordered accordynge to the prescripte of nature. But in that that nature dothe allure and provoke men one to healpe another to lyve merily (which suerly she doth not without a good cause : for no man is so f arre above the lotte of mans state or condicion, that nature dothe carke and care for hym onlye, whiche equallye favourethe all, that be compre- hended under the communion of one shape forme and fassion) verely she commaundeth the to use diligent circumspection, that thou do not so seke for thine owne commodities, that thou procure others incommodities. Wherefore theire opinion is, that not only covenauntes and bargaynes made amonge private men ought to be well and faythe- fullye fulfilled, observed, and kepte, but also commen lawes, whiche either a good prince hath justly publyshed, or els the people neither oppressed with tyrannye, neither deceaved by fraude and gyell, hath by theire common consent constituted and ratifyed, coneerninge the partieion of the commodities of lyfe, that is to say, the matter of pleasure. These lawes not offended, it is wysdome that thou looke to thine own wealthe. And to doe the same for the com- mon wealth is no lesse then thy duetie, if thou bearest any reverent love, or anynaturall zeale and affection to thy native countreye. But to go about to let an other man of his pleasure, whiles thou proeurest thine owne, that is open wrong. Contrary wyse to withdfawe somethinge from the selfe to geve to other, that is a pointe of humanitie and gentilnes : whiche never taketh awaye so muche commoditie, "as it bringethe agayne. For it is recompensed with the retourne of benefytes, and the conscience of the good dede with the remembraunce of the thanke- full love and benevolence of them to whom thou hast done it, doth bringe more pleasure to thy mynde, then that whiche thou hast withholden from thy selfe could have brought to thy bodye. Finallye (which to a godly THE EENAISSANCE 81 disposed and a religious mind is easy to be persuaded) God reeompenseth the gifte of a short and smal pleasure with great and ever- lastinge joye. Therfore-the matter diligently weyede and considered, thus they thinke, that all our actions, and in them the vertues themselfes be referred at the last to pleas- ure, as their ende and felicitie. Pleasure tliey call every motion and state of the bodie or mynde wherin man hath naturally delec- tation. Appetite they joyne to nature, and that not without a good cause. For like as not only the senses, but also right reason coveteth whatsoever is naturally pleasaunt, so that it may be gotten without wrong or injurie, not letting or debarring a greater pleasure, nor causing painful labour, even so those thinges that men by vaine ymagina- tion do f ayne against nature to be pleasaunt (as though it laye in their power to ehaunge the thinges, as they do the names of thinges) al suehe pleasures they beleve to be of so small helpe and furtheraunce to felicitie, that they counte them a great let and hinder- aunce. Because that in whom they have ones taken place, all his mynde they pos- sesse Avith a false opinion of pleasure. So that there is no place left for true and nat- urall delectations. For there be many thinges, which of their owne nature conteyne no pleasauntnes : yea the moste parte of them muche griefe and sorrowe. And yet throughe the perverse and milicyous flicker- inge inticementes of lewde and unhoneste desyres, be taken not only for speeiall and sovereigne pleasures, but also be counted amonge the chiefe causes of life. In this counterfeat kinde of pleasure they put them that I spake of before. Whiche the better gownes they have on, the better men they thinke them selfes. In the which thing they doo twyse erre. For they be no lesse de- ceaved in that they thinke theire gowne the better, than they be, in that they thinke themselfes the better. For if you consider the profitable use of the garmente, whye should wulle of a fyner sponne threde, be thougi better, than the wul of a course sponne threde f Yet they, as though the one did passe the other by nature, and not by their mistakyng, avaunee themselfes, and thinke the price of their owne persones there- by greatly enereased. And therefore the honour, which in a course gowne they durste not have loked for, they require, as it were of dewtie, for theyr fyner gownes sake. And if thev be passed by without reverence, they take it displeasauntly and disdainfullye. And agayne is it not lyke madnes to take a 23ryde in vayne and unprofitable honours'? For what naturall or trewe pleasure doest thou take of an other mans bare hede, or bowed knees'? Will this ease the paine of thy knees, or remedie the phrensie of thy hede'? In this ymage of counterfeite pleas- ure, they be of a marvelous madnesse, whiche for the opinion of nobilitie, rejoyse muche in their owne eonceyte. Because it was their fortune to come of suche auncetoures, whose stocke of longe tyme hathe bene counted ryche (for nowe nobilitie is nothing ellcs) speciallye riche in landes. And though their auneetours left them not one foote of lande, yet they thinke themselves not the lesse noble therfore of one heare. In this number also they counte them that take pleasure and delite (as I said) in gemmes and precious stones, and thynke them- selves almoste goddes, if they chaunce to gette an excellente one, speciallye of that kynde, whiche in that tyme of their own eountre men is had in hyghest estimation. For one kynde of stone kepeth not his pryce styll in all countreis and at all times. Nor they bye them not, but taken out of the golde and bare : no nor so neither, untyll they have made the seller to sweare, that he will warraunte and assure it to be a true stone, and no counterfeit gemme. Suche care they take lest a counterfeite stone should deeeave their eyes in steade of a ryghte stone. But why shouldest thou not take even as muche pleasure in beholdynge a counterfeite stone, whiche thine eye cannot discerne from a righte stone ? They shoulde bothe be of lyke value to thee, even as to the blynde man. What shall I saye of them, that ke23e su23erfluous riches, to take delec- tation only in the beholdinge, and not in the use or occupiynge thereof? Do they take trew pleasure, or elles be thei deceaved with false pleasure"? Or of them that be in a contrarie vice, hidinge the gold whiche they shall never occupye, nor peradventure never se more? And whiles they take care leaste they shall leesQ it, do leese it in dede. For what is it elles, when they hyde it in the ground, takyng it bothe froirie their owne use, and perchaunee frome all other mennes also ? And yet thou, when thou haste hydde thy treasure, as one out of all care, hoppest for joye. The whiche treasure, yf it shoulde chaunce to bee stolen, and thou ignoraunt of the thefte shouldest dye tenne years after: 82 THE GREAT TRADITION all that tenne yeares space that thou lyvedest after thy money was stoolen, what matter was it to thee, whether it hadde bene taken awaye or elles safe as thou lef teste it? Trewlye both wayes like profytte came to thee. 6. The Welfare of All the People Nowe I have declared and described unto you, as truelye as I coulde the fourme and ordre of that commen wealth, which verely in my judgment is not only the beste, but also that which alone of good right maye claime and take upon it the name of a com- men wealth or publique weale. For in other places they speake stil of the commen wealth. But every man procureth his owne private gaine. Here where nothinge is pri- vate, the commen affaires bee earnestlye loked upon. And truely on both partes they have good cause so to do as they do. For in other eountreys who knoweth not that he shall sterve for honger, onles he make some severall provision for himselfe, though the commen wealthe floryshe never so muche in ryches ? And therefore he is compelled even of verye neeessitie to have regarde to him selfe, rather then to the people, that is to saye, to other. Contrarywyse there where all thinges be commen to every man, it is not to be doubted that any man shal lacke anye thinge necessary for his private uses : so that the commen store houses and bernes be suf&cientlye stored. For there nothinge is distributed after a nyggyshe sorte, neither there is anye poore man or begger. And thoughe no man have anye thinge, yet everye man is ryehe. For what can be more riche, then to lyve joyfully and merely, without al griefe and pensif enes : not caring for his owne lyving, nor vexed or troubled with his wifes importunate complayntes, nor dreadynge povertie to his sonne, nor sor- rowyng for his doughters dowrey *? Yea they take no care at all for the lyvyng and wealthe of themselfes and al theirs, of theire wyfes, theire chyldren, theire nephewes, theire childrens chyldren, and all the suc- cession that ever shall followe in theire posteritie. And yet besydes this there is no lesse provision for them that were ones labourers, and be nowe weake and impotent, then for them that do nowe laboure and take payne. Here nowe woulde I see, yf anye man dare bee so bolde as to compare with this equytie, the justice of other nations. Among whom, I forsake God, if I can fynde any signe or token of equitie and justice. For what justice is this, that a ryche golde- smythe, or an usurer, or to bee shorte anye of them, which either doo nothing at all, or els that whyche they doo is such, that it is not very necessary to the common wealth, should have a pleasaunte and a welthie lyvinge, either by Idlenes, or by unneees- sarye busines: when in the meane tyme poore labourers, carters, yronsmythes, car- penters, and plowmen, by so greate and con- tinual toyle, as drawing and bearinge beastes be skant liable to susteine, and againe so necessary toyle, that without it no com- mon wealth were liable to eontinewe and en- dure one yere, should yet get so liarde and poore a lyving, and lyve so wretched and miserable a lyfe, that the state and condi- tion of the labouringe beastes maye seme muche better and welthier? For they be not put to soo eontinuall laboure, nor theire lyvinge is not muche worse, yea to them muche pleasaunter, takynge no thoughte in the meane season for the tyme to come. But these seilye poore wretches be presently tormented with barreyne and unfrutefuU labour. And the remembraunee of theire poore indigent and beggerlye olde age kylleth them up. For theire dayly wages is so lytle, that it will not suffice for the same daye, muche lesse it yeldeth any overplus, that may daylye be layde up for the relyefe of olde age. Is not this an unjust and an unkynde publyque weale, whyche gyveth great fees and rewardes to gentlemen, as they call them, and to goldsmythes, and to suche other, whiche be either ydle persones, or els onlye flatterers, and devysers of vayne pleasures: And of the contrary parte maketh no gentle provision for poore plow- men, coliars, laborers, carters, yronsmythes, and carpenters : without whome no commen wealthe can eontinewe? But after it hath abused the labours of theire lusty and flowring age, at the laste when they be op- pressed with olde age and syckenes, being nedye, poore, and indigent of all thinges, then forgettyng their so manye paynefull watchings, not remembring their so manye and so greate benefltes, recompenseth and acquyteth them moste unkyndly with mysera- ble death. And yet besides this the riche men not only by private fraud but also by commen lawes do every day pluck and snatche awaye from the poore some parte of their daily living. So whereas it semed before unjuste to recompense with un- THE EENAISSANCE 83 kindnes their paynes that have bene bene- ficiall to the publique weale, nowe they have to this their wrong and un juste dealinge (which is yet a muche worse pointe) geven the name of justice, yea and that by force of a lawe. Therfore when I consider and way in my mind all these commen wealthes, which now a dayes any where do flourish, so god helpe me, I can jDerceave nothing but a certein conspiracy of riche men procur- inge theire owne commodities under the name and title of the commen wealth. They invent and devise all meanes and eraftes, first how to kepe safely, without feare of lesing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the worke and laboure of the poore for as litle money as may be. These devises, when the riche men have decreed to be kept and observed under coloure of the comminaltie, that is to saye, also of the pore j^eople, then they be made lawes. But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their unsatiable covetousnes deA'ided among them selves al those thinges, whiehe woulde have sufficed all men, yet how farre be they from the welth and felicitie of the Utopian com- men wealth? Out of the which, in that all the desire of money with the use thereof is utterly secluded and banished, howe greate a heape of cares is cut away ! How gi'eat an occasion of wickednes and mischiefe is plucked up by the rotes ! For who knoweth not, that fraud, theft, ravine, brauling, quarelling, brabling, striffe, chiding, conten- tion, murder, treason, poisoning, which by daily punishmentes are rather revenged then refrained, do dye when money dieth ? And also that feare, grief e, care, labour es and watehinges do perish even the very same moment that money perisheth ? Yea poverty it self e, which only semed to lacke money, if money were gone, it also would decrease and vanishe away. And that you may perceave this more plainly, consider with your self es some barein and unfruteful yeare, wherin manye thousandes of people have starved for honger : I dare be bolde to say, that in the end of that penury so much corne or grain might have bene found in the rich mens bernes, if they had bene searched, as being divided among them whome famine and pestilence then consumed, no man at al should have felt that plague and penuri. So easely might men gette their living, if that same worthye princesse lady money did not alone stop up the waye betwene us and our lyving, which a goddes name was very excellently devised and invented, that by her the way thereto should be opened. I am sewer the ryehe men perceave this, nor they be not ignoraunte how much better it were too lacke noo necessarye thing, then to abunde with overmuehe superfluite : to be ryd oute of innumerable cares and troubles, then to be besieged and encombred with great ryches. And I dowte not that either the respecte of every mans private com- moditie, or els the authority of oure savioure Christe (which for his great wisdom could not but know what were best, and for his inestimable goodnes could not but counsel to that which he knew to be best) wold have brought all the worlde longe agoo into the lawes of this weale publique, if it wer not that one only beast, the princesse and mother of all mischiefe. Pride, doth withstande and let it. She measurethe not wealth and pros- perity by her owne commodities, but by the miserie and incomodities of other, she would not by her good will be made a goddesse, yf there were no wretches left, over whom she might, like a seorneful ladie rule and triumph, over whose miseries her felicities mighte shyne, whose povertie she myghte vexe, tormente, and enerease by gorgiouslye settynge furthe her riehesse. Thys hell- hounde creapeth into mens hartes : and plucketh them backe from entering the right pathe of life, and is so depely roted in mens brestes, that she can not be plucked out. This fourme and fashion of a weale pub- lique, which I would gladly wish unto al nations, I am glad yet that it hath ehaunced to the Utopians, which have folowed those institutions of life, whereby they have laid such foundations of their common wealth, as shal continew and last not only wealthely, but also, as far as mans wit may judge and conjecture, shall endure for ever. For, seyng the chiefe causes of ambition and sedition, with other vices be plucked up by the rootes, and abandoned at home, there can be no jeopardie of domisticall dissention, whiehe alone hathe caste under foote and brought to noughte the well fortefied and stronglie defenced wealthe and riches of many cities. But forasmuch as perfect Con- corde remaineth, and wholsome lawes be executed at home, the envie of al forein princes be not hable to shake or move the empire, though they have many tymes long ago gone about to do it, beyng evermore driven backe. 84 THE GEEAT TRADITION "One Sovereign Governor" sir thomas elyot [From The Boke of the Governour, 1534] That one soueraigne gouernour ought to he in a publike iveale. And what damage hath happened where a multitude hath had equal authorite without any soueraygne. Lyke as to a castell or f ortresse suffisethe one owner or souerayne, and where any mo be of like power and autboritie seldome Cometh the warke to perfection; or beinge all redy made, where the one diligently ouerseeth and the other neglecteth, in that contention all is subuerted and commeth to ruyne. In semblable wyse dothe a publike weale that hath mo chiefe gouernours than one. Example we may take of the grekes, amonge whom in diners cities weare diners fourmes of publyke weales gouerned by multitudes : wherin one was most tolerable where the gouernance and rule was alway permitted to them whiche excelled in vertue, and was in the greke tonge called Aristo-. cratia, in latin Optimorum Potentia, in engiisshe the rule of men of beste disposi- tion, which the Thebanes of longe tyme obserued. An other publique weale was amonge the Atheniensis, where equalitie was of astate amonge the peo^Dle, and only by theyr hoUe consent theyr citie and dominions were gouerned : whiche moughte well be called a monstre with many heedes : nor neuer it was certeyne nor stable : and often tymes they banyssed or 'slewe the beste citezins, whiche by their vertue and wisedome had moste profited to the publike weale. This maner of gouernaunce was called in greke Demo- cratia, in latin Popularis potentia, in engiisshe the rule of the comminaltie. Of these two gouernances none of them may be sufficient. For in the fyrste, whiche con- sisteth of good men, vertue is nat so con- stant in a multitude, but that some, beinge ones in authoritie, be incensed with glorie: some with ambition : other with coueitise and desire of treasure or possessions : wherby they falle iji to contention: and finallye, where any achiuethe the superioritie, the hoUe gouernance is reduced unto a fewe in nombre, whiche fearinge the multitude and their mutabilitie, to the intent to kepe them in drede to rebelle, ruleth by terrour and crueltie, thinking therby to kepe them selfe in suertie: nat withstanding, rancour coarcted and longe detained in a narowe roume, at the last brasteth out with intollera- ble violence, and bryngeth al to confusion. For the power that is practized to the Lurte of many can nat continue. The populare astate, if it any thing do varie from equalitie of substance or estimation, or that the multi- tude of people haue oner moche liberte, of necessite one of these inconueniences muste happen : either tiranny, where he that is to moche in fauour wolde be elevate and suffre none equalite, orels in to the rage of a ecm- munaltie, whiche of all rules is moste to be feared. For lyke as the communes, if they fele some seueritie, they do humbly serue and obaye, so where they imbracinge a licence refuse to be brydled, they flynge and plunge: and if they ones throws downe thejrr gouernour, they ordre euery thynge without iustice, only with vengeance and crueltie : and with incomparable difficultie and unneth by any wysedome be pacified and brought agayne in to ordre. Wherfore un- doubtedly the best and most sure gouer- naunce is by one kynge or prince, whiche ruleth onely for the weale of his people to hym subiecte: and that maner of gouer- naunce is beste approued, and hath longest continued, and is moste auncient. For who can denie but that all thynge in heuen and erthe is gouerned by one god, by one per- petuall ordre, by one prouidence? One Sonne ruleth ouer the day, and one Moone ouer the nyghte; and to descende downe to the erthe, in a litell beest, whiche of all other is moste to be maruayled at, I meane the Bee, is lefte to man by nature, as it semeth, a perpetuall figure of a iuste gouernaunce or rule : who hath amonge them one principall Bee for theyr gouernour, who excelleth all other in greatnes, yet hath he no prieke or stinge, but in hym is more knowlege than in the residue. For if the day f olowyng shall be fayre and drye, and that the bees may issue out of theyr stalles without peryll of rayne or vehement wynde, in the mornyng erely he calleth them, makyng a noyse as it were the sowne of a home or a trumpet; and with that all the residue prepare them to labour, and fleeth abrode, gatheryng nothing but that shall be swete and profitable, all though they sitte often tymes on herbes and other thinges that be venomous and stynkinge. The capitayne hym selfe laboureth nat for his sustinanee, but all the other for hym ; he onely seeth that if any drane or other unprofitable bee entreth in to the hyue, and THE EENAISSANCE 85 consumethe the hony, gathered by other, that he be immediately expelled from that com- pany. And when there is an other nombre of bees encreased, they semblably haue also a capitayne, whiehe be nat suffered to con- tinue with the other. Wherfore this newe company gathered in to a swarme, hauyng their capitayne among them, and enuiron- ynge hym to perserue lijrm from harme, they issue forthe sekyng a newe habitation, whiehe they fynde in some tree, exeej^t with some pleasant noyse they be alured and con- uayed unto an other hyue. 1 suppose who seriously beholdeth this example, and hath any commendable witte, shall therof gather moche matter to the fourmynge of a publike weale. The Garden of the Commonwealth sir thomas eltot [From The Boke of the Governour, 1534] For who commendeth those gardiners that wyll put all their diligence in trymmyng or kepynge delicately one knotte or bedde of herbes, suffryng all the remenaunt of their gardeyne to be subuerted with a great nom- bre of molles,^ and do attende at no tyme for the takynge and destroyinge of them, until the herbis, wherin they haue employed all their labours, be also tourned uppe and perisshed, and the moUes increased in so in- finite nombres that no industry or labour may suffice to consume them, whereby the labour is frustrate and all the gardeine made unprofitable and also unpleasaunt? In this similitude to the gardeyne may be resembled the publike weale, to the gardiners the gouernours and counsailours, to the knottes or beddes sondrye degrees of personages, to the molles vices and sondry enormities. Wherfore the consultation is but of a small effecte wherin the uniuersall astate of the publike weale do nat oecupie the more parte of the tyme, and in that generaltie euery particuler astate be nat diligently ordered. For as TuUi sayeth, they that consulte for parte of the people and neglecte the residue, they brynge in to the citie or countraye a thynge mooste perniciouse, that is to say, sedition and diseorde, whereof it hapnethe that some wyll seeme to fauoure the multi- tude, other be inclined to leene to the beste sorte, fewe do studie for all uniuersallye. Whiehe hath bene the cause that nat onely Athenes, (whiehe TuUi dothe name), but ^ Moles. also the citie and empyre of Rome, with diners other cities and realmes, haue decayed and ben finally brought in extreme desola- tion. Also Plato, in his booke of fortytude, sayeth in the persone of Socrates, Whan so euer a man seketh a thinge for cause of an other thynge, the consultation aught to be alway of that thyng for whose cause the other thing is sought for, and nat of that which is sought for because of the other thynge. And surely wise men do consider that damage often tymes hapneth by abus- inge the due f ourme of consultation : men like euyll Phisitions sekynge for medicynes or they perfectly knowe the sicknesses ; and as euyll marchauntes do utter firste the wares and commodities of straungers, whiles straungers be robbynge of their owne cof ers. Therfore these thinges that I haue re- hersed concernyng consultation ought to be of all men in authoritie substancially pon- dered, and moost vigilauntly obserued, if they intende to be to their publike weale profitable, for the whiehe purpose onely they be called to be gouernours. And this con- clude I to write any more of consultation, whiehe is the last part of morall Sapience, and the begynnyng of sapience politike. Nowe all ye reders that desire to haue your children to be gouernours, or in any other authoritie in the publike Aveale of your eountrey, if ye bringe them up and instruete them in suche fourme as in this boke is de- clared, they shall than seme to all men worthye to be in authoritie, honour, and noblesse, and all that is under their gouer- naunce shall prosjjere and come to perfec- tion. And as a precious stone in a ryche ouche ^ they shall be beholden and wondred at, and after the dethe of their body their soules for their endeuour shall be ineorcpre- hensibly rewarded of the gyuer of wisedome, to whome onely be gyuen eternall glorie. Amen. Some Elizabethan Political Ideas in Shakespeare's Dramas 1. Our Sea-Walled Garden [From Richard II, Act III, scene iv] Langley. The Duke of York's garden Enter the Queen and two Ladies Queen. What sport shall we devise here in this garden, To drive away the heavy thought of care ? 1 Setting. 86 THE GEEAT TEADITION Lady. Madam, we'll play at bowls. Queen. 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs, And that my fortune runs against the bias. Lady. Madam, we'll dance. Queen. My legs .can keep no measure in delight, When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief : Therefore, no dancing, girl; some other "^ sport. Lady. Madam, we'll tell tales. Queen. Of sorrow or of joy? Lady. Of either, madam. Queen. Of neither, girl : For if of joy, being altogether wanting, It doth remember me the more of sorrow ; Or if of grief, being altogether had. It adds more sorrow to my want of joy : For what I have I need not to repeat ; And what I want it boots not to conaplain. Lady. Madam, I'll sing. Queen. 'Tis well that thou hast cause ; But thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep. Lady. I could weep, madam, would it do you good. . Queen. And I could sing, would weeping do me good, And never borrow any tear of thee. Enter a Gardener, and two Servants But stay, here come the gardeners : Let's step into the shadow of these trees. My wretchedness unto a row of pins. They'll talk of state; for every one doth so Against a change ; woe is forerun with woe. [Queen and Ladies retire Gard. Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks, Which, like unruly children, make their sire Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight : Give some supportance to the bending twigs. Go thou, and like an executioner. Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays. That look too lofty in our commonwealth : All must be even in our government. You thus employ'd, I will go root away The noisome weeds, which without profit suck The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers. Serv. Why should we in the compass of a pale Keep law and form and due proportion. Showing, as in a model, our firm estate. When our sea-walled garden, the whole land, Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up, Her fruit-trees all unpruned, her hedges ruin'd, Her knots disorder'd, and her Avholesome herbs Swarming with caterpillars ? Gard. Hold thy peace : He that hath suffer'd this disordered spring Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf : The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter. That seem'd in eating him to hold him up, Are pluek'd up root and all by Bolingbroke, I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green. Serv. What, are they dead ? Gard. Tliey are; and Bolingbroke Hath seized the wasteful king. 0, what pity is it That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land As we this garden ! We at time of year Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit- trees. Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood. With too much riches it confound itself : Had he done so to great and growing men, They might have lived to bear and he to taste Their fruits of duty: superfluous branches We lop away, that bearing boughs may live : Had he done so, himself had borne the crown Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down. Serv. What, think you then the king shall be deposed? Gard. Depress'd he is already, and de- posed 'Tis doubt he will be : letters came last night To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's, That tell black tidings. Queen. 0, I am press'd to death through want of speaking! [Coming forward Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden. How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news? What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee To make a second fall of cursed man ? Why dost thou say King Eichard is de- posed? Darest thou, thou little better thing than earth. Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how, Camest thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch. THE EENAISSANCE 87 Gard. Pardon me, madam : little joy have I To breathe this news ; yet what I say is true. King Richard, he is in the mighty hold Of Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh' d : In your lord's scale is nothing but himself. And some few vanities that make him light ; But in the balance of great Bolingbroke, Besides himself, are all the English peers, And with that odds he weighs King Richard down. Post you to London, and you will find it so ; I speak no more than every one doth know. Queen. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot, Doth not thy embassage belong to me, And am I last that knows it? 0, thou think'st To serve me last, that I may longest keep Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go. To meet at London London's king in woe. What, was I born to this, that my sad look Should grace the triumph of great Boling- broke? Gardener, for telling me these news of woe, Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow ! [Exeunt Queen and Ladies Gard. Poor queen ! so that thy state might be no worse, I would my skill were subject to thy curse. Here did she fall a tear; here in this place I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace: Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen In the remembrance of a weeping queen. 2. Of Divine Bight [From Richard II, Act III, scene ii. The King returns to his realm, having learned of Bolingbroke's rebellion] The coast of Wales. A castle in view Drums: flourish and colors. Enter King Richard^ the Bishop of Carlisle^ AuMERLE^ and Soldiers K. Rich. Barkloughly castle call they this at hand? Aum. Yea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air. After your late tossing on the breaking seas ? K. Rich. Needs must I like it well : I weep for joy To stand upon my kingdom once again. Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand, Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs : As a long-parted mother with her child Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting. So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth, And do thee favors with my royal hands. Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth. Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense ; But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom, And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way. Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet Which with usurping steps do trample thee : •* Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies ; And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower, Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies. Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords : This earth shall have a feeling and these stones Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms. Car. Fear not, my lord : that Power that made you king Hath power to keep you king in spite of all. • The means that heaven yields must be em- braced, And not neglected ; else, if heaven would. And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse, The proffer'd means of succor and redress. Aum. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss; Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security, Grows strong and great in substance and in power. K. Rich. Diseomfortable cousin ! know'st thou not That when the searching eye of heaven is hid Behind the globe, that lights the lower world. Then thieves and robbers range abroad un- seen In murders and in outrage, boldly here : But when from under this terrestrial ball He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines . And darts his light through every guilty hole. Then murders, treasons, and detested sins. The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs. Stand bare and naked, trembling at them- selves ? THE GEEAT TEADITTON So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke, Who all this while hath revel'd in the night Whilst we were wandering with the an- tipodes, Shall see uS rising in our throne, the east, His treasons will sit blushing in his face. Not able to endure the sight of day. But self -affrighted tremble at his sin. Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm off from an anointed king; The breath of worldly men cannot depose The deputy elected by the Lord : Tor every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay A glorious angel : then, if angels fight, Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right. [From Act IV, scene i. The King is deposed] York. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee From plume-pluck'd Richard ; who with will- ing soul Adopts thee heir, and his high scepter yields To the possession of thy royal hand : Ascend his throne, descending now from him; And long live Henry, fourth of that name ! Bolingbroke. In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne. Carlisle. Marry, God forbid ! Worst in this royal presence may I speak. Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth. Would God that any in this noble presence Were enough noble to be upright judge Of noble Richard ! then true noblesse would Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong. What subject can give sentence on his king? And who sits here that is not Richard's sub- ject? Thieves are not judged but they are by to hear. Although apparent guilt be seen in them ; And shall the figure of God's majesty. His captain, steward, deputy-elect. Anointed, crowned, planted many years, Be judged by subject and inferior breath. And he himself not present ? 0, f orf end it, God, That in a Christian climate souls refined Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed ! I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks, Stirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king. My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king. Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king : And if you crown him, let me prophesy: The blood of English shall manure the ground, And future ages groan for this foul act; Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels. And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars Shall kin with kin and kind with kind con- found ; Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls. 0, if you Vaise this house against this house, It will the woefullest division prove That ever fell upon this cursed earth. Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so. Lest child, child's children, cry against you "woe !" Northumberland. Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains. Of capital treason we arrest you here. My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge To keep him safely till his day of trial. May it please you, lords, to grant the com- mons' suit. Boling. Fetch hither Richard, that in common view He may surrender ; so we shall proceed Without suspicion. York. I will be his conduct, {Exit Boling. Lords, you that here are under our arrest. Procure your sureties for your days of answer. Little are we beholding to your love, And little look'd for at your helping hands. Re-enter York, with Richaed, and Offleers bearing the regalia. K. Rich. Alack, why am I sent for to a king. Before I have shook off the regal thoughts Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my limbs. Give sorroAv leave awhile to tutor me To this submission. Yet I well remember The favors of these men: were they not mine ? Did they not sometime cry, "all hail!" to me? THE RENAISSANCE 89 So Judas did to Christ : but he, in twelve, Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none. God save the king ! Will no man say amen? Am I both priest and clerk? Avell then, amen. God save the king ! although I be not he ; And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me. To do what service am I sent for hither? York. To do that office of thine own good Avill Which tired majesty did make thee offer. The resignation of thy state and crown To Henry Bolingbroke. K. Rich. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown; Here, cousin; On this side my hand, and on that side yours. Now is this golden crown like a deep well That owes two buckets, filling one another. The emptier ever dancing in the air. The other down, unseen, and full of water : That bucket down and full of tears am I, Drinking my gi'iefs, whilst you mount up on high. Boling. I thought you had been willing to resign, K. Rich. My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine : You may my glories and my state depose, But not my griefs ; still am I king of those. Boling. Part of your cares you give me with your crown, K. Rich. Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down. My care is loss of care, by old care done ; Your care is gain of care, by new care won: The cares I give I have, though given away ; They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay. Boling. Are you contented to resign the crown ? K. Rich. Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be ; Therefore no no, for I resign to thee. Now mark me, how I will undo myself: I give this heavy weight from off my head And this unwieldy scepter from my hand. The pride of kingly sway from out my heart ; With mine own tears I wash away my balm, With mine OAvn hands I give away my crown, With mine own tongue deny my sacred state. With mine own breath release all duty's rites : All pomp and majesty I do forswear ; My manors, rents, revenues, I forego; My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny: God pardon all oaths that are broke to me! God keejD all vows unbroke that swear to thee! Make me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved. And thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved ! Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit. And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit ! God save King Harry, unking'd Richard says. And send him many years of sunshine days! What more remains? North. No more, but that you read These accusations and these grievous crimes Committed by your person and your fol- lowers Against the state and profit of this land; That, by confessing them, the sou^ls of men May deem that you are worthily deposed. K. Rich. Must I do so? and must I ravel out My Aveaved-up folly? Gentle Northumber- land, If thy offences were upon record. Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop To read a lecture of them ? If thou wouldst, There shouldst thou find one heinous ar- ticle. Containing the deposing of a king And cracking the strong warrant of an oath, Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven : Nay, all of you that stand and look upon. Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait my- self. Though some of you with Pilate wash your hands Showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross. And water cannot wash away your sin. North. My Lord, despatch; read o'er these articles. K. Rich. Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see: And yet salt water blinds them not so much But they can see a sort of traitors here. Nay, if I turn my eyes upon myself, I find myself a traitor with the rest; For I have given here my soul's consent To undeck the pompous body of a king; 90 THE GEEAT TEADITION Made glory base and sovereignty a slave, Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant. North. My lord, — K. Rich. No lord of thine, thou liaught insulting man, Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no title, No, not that name was given me at the font, But 'tis usurped : alack the heavy day. That I have worn so many winters out. And know not now what name to call my- self! that I were a mockery king of snow. Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke, To melt myself away in water-drops ! Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good. And if my word be sterling yet in England, Let it command a mirror hither straight, That it may show me what a face I have. Since it is bankrupt of his majesty. B'oling. Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass. {^Exit an attendant. North. Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come. K. Rich. Fiend, thou torment'st me ere I come to hell ! Baling. Urge it no more, my Lord North- umberland. North. The commons will not then be satisfied. K. Rich. They shall be satisfied: I'll read enough, When I do see the very book indeed Where all my sins are writ, and that's my- self. Re-enter Attendaat, with a glass. Give me the glass, and therein will I read. No deejDer wrinkles yet ? hath sorrow struck So many blows upon this face of mine, And made no deeper wounds? flattering glass. Like to my followers in prosperity. Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face That every day under his household roof Did keep ten thousand men? was this the face That, like the sun, did make beholders wink? Was this the face that faced so many fol- lies. And was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke? A brittle glory shineth in this face : As brittle as the glory is the face; [Dashes the glass against the ground. For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shiv- ers. ' Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport, How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face. Boling. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd The shadow of your face. K. Rich. Say that again. The shadow of my sorrow ! ha ! let's see : 'Tis very true, my grief lies all within; And these external manners of laments Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul ; There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king. For thy great bounty, that not only givest Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon. And then be gone and trouble you no more. Shall I obtain it? Boling. Name it, fair cousin. K. Rich. "Fair cousin"? I am greater than a king: For when I was a king, my flatterers Were then but subjects; being now a sub- ject, I have a king here to my flatterer. Being so great, I have no need to beg. Boling. Yet ask. K. Rich. And shall I have? Boling. You shall. K. Rich. Then give me leave to go. Boling. Whither? K. Rich. Whither you will, so I were from your sights. Boling. Go, some of you convey him to the Tower. K. Rich. 0, good! convey? conveyers are you all. That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall. . [Exeunt King Richard, some Lords, and a Guard. Boling. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves. 3. The Commonwealth of the Bees [From Henry V, Act I, scene ii. Exeter and Canterbury discourse of govern- ment to the King] Exeter. While tliat the armed hand doth fight abroad. THE RENAISSANCE 91 The advised head defends itself at home; For government, though high and low and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, Congreeing in a full and natural close, Like music. Canterbury. Therefore doth heaven di- vide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavor in continual motion; To which is fixed, as an aim or butt. Obedience: for so work the honey-bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king and officers of sorts; Where some, like magistrates, correct at home. Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad. Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings. Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds. Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor; Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold. The civil citizens kneading up the honey, The poor mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate, The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, Delivering o'er to executors pale The lazy yawning drone. I this infer, That many things, having full refer- ence To one consent, may work contrariously : As many arrows, loosed several ways, Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town ; As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea; As many lines close in the dial's center; So may a thousand actions, once afoot, End in one purpose, and be all well borne Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege. Divide your happy England into four; Whereof take you one quarter into France, And you withal shall make all Gallia shake. If we, with thrice such powers left at home. Cannot defend our own doors from the dog, Let us be worried, and our nation lose The name of hardiness and policy. 4. Of ''Degree" [From Troilus and Cressida, Act I^ scene iii.] The Grecian camp. Before Agamemnon's tent. Sennet. Enter Agamemnon_, Nestor, Ulysses^ Menelaus, and others. Agam. Princes, What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks 1 The ample proposition that hope makes In all designs begun on earth below Fails in the promised largeness : checks and disasters Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd,- As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap. Infect the sound pine and divert his grain Tortive and errant from his course of growth. Nor, princes, is it matter new to us That we come short of our suppose so far That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand ; Sith every action that hath gone before, Whereof we have record, trial did draw Bias and thwart, not answering the aim, And that unbodied figure of the thought That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes, Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works. And call them shames? which are indeed nought else But the protracted trials of gTeat Jove To find persistive constancy in men : The fineness of Avhich metal is not found In fortune's love; for then the bold and coward. The wise and fool, the artist and unread. The hard and soft, seem all affined and kin: But, in the wind and tempest of her frown, Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, Puffing at all, winnows the light away; And what hath mass or matter, by itself Lies rich in virtue and unmingled. Nest. With due observance of thy god-- like seat, Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men : the sea being smooth How many shallow bauble boats dare sail Upon her patient breast, making their way With those of nobler bulk! 92 THE GREAT TEADITION But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage The gentle Thetis, and anon behold The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut, Bounding between the two moist elenients, Like Perseus' horse: where then the saucy boat Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now Co-rivall'd greatness f Either to harbor fled, Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so Doth valor's show and valor's worth divide In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks, And flies fled under shade, why, then the thing of courage As roused with rage with rage doth sym- pathize. And with an accent tuned in selfsame key Retorts to chiding fortune. JJlyss. Agamemnon, Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece, Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit. In whom the tempers and the minds of all Should be shut up, hear what Ulysses sjDeaks. Besides the applause and approbation The which, [To Agamemnon'] most mighty for thy place and sway, [To Nestor] And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life I give to both your speeches, which were such As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece Should hold up high in brass, and such again As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver. Should with a bond of air, strong as the axletree On which heaven rides, knit all the Greek- ish ears To his experienced tongue, yet let it please both. Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak. Agam.. Speak, prince of Ithaca; and be't of less expect That matter needless, of importless burden, Divide thy lips, than we are confident, When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws. We shall hear music, wit, and oracle. TJlyss. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down, And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master. But for these instances. The specialty of rule hath been neglected: And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions. When that the general is not like the hive To whom the foragers shall all repair. What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded. The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form. Office, and custom, in all line of order; And therefore is the glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthroned and sphered Amidst the other ; whose medicinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil. And posts, like the commandment of a king. Sans check to good and bad : but when the planets In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents ! what mu- tiny ! What raging of the sea! shaking of earth! Commotion in the winds ! frights, changes, horrors. Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture! 0, when degree is shaked. Which is the ladder to all high designs, Then enterprise is sick! How could com- munities. Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities. Peaceful commerce from dividable shores. The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, scepters, laurels. But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string. And, hark, what discord follows ! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores And make a sop of all this solid globe : Strength should be lord of imbecility. And the rude son should strike his father dead : Force should be right ; or rather, right and wrong, Between whose endless jar justice resides, THE EENAISSANCE 93 Should lose their names, and so should jus- tice too. Then every thing includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power. Must make perforce an universal prey. And last eat up himself. Great Agamem- non, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking. And this neglection of degree it is That by a pace goes backward, with a pur- pose It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd By him one step below, he by the next, That next by him beneath ; so every step, Exampled by the first pace that is sick Of his superior, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation: And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length, Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength. ' Of Government richard hooker [From Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I, 1592] 1. Maintaining Things That Are Established He that goeth about to persuade a mul- titude, that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want at- tentive and favorable hearers ; because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regiment is subject, but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public pro- ceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider. And because such as openly re- prove supposed disorders of state are taken for principal friends to the common bene- fit of all, and for men that carry singular freedom of mind ; under this fair and plausi- ble color whatsoever they utter passeth for good and current. ' That which wanteth in the weight of their speech, is supplied by the aptness of men's minds to accept and believe it. Whereas on the other side, if we maintain things that are established, we have not only to strive with a number of heavy prejudices deeply rooted in the hearts of men, who think that herein we serve the time, and speak in favor of the present state, because thereby we either hold or seek preferment; but also to bear such ex- ceptions as minds so averted beforehand usually take against that which they are loth should be poured into them. Albeit therefore much of that we are to speak in this present caiTse may seem to a number perhaps tedious, perhaps ob- scure, dark, and intricate; (for many talk of the truth, which never sounded the depth from whence it springeth; and therefore when they are led thereunto they are soon weary, as men drawn from those beaten paths wherewith they have been inured;) yet this may not so far prevail as to cut off that which the matter itself requireth, howsoever the nice humor of some be there- with pleased or no. They unto whom we shall seem tedious are in no wise injured by us, because it is in their own hands to spare that labor which they are not willing to endure. And if any complain of obscur- ity, they must consider, that in these mat- ters it Cometh no otherwise to pass than in sundry the works both of art and also of nature, where that which hath greatest^ force in the very things we see is notwith- standing itself oftentimes not seen. The stateliness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we behold them delighteth the eye; but that foundation which beareth up the one, that root which ministereth unto the nourishment and life, is in the bosom of the earth concealed; and if there be at any time occasion to search into it, such labor is then more necessary than pleasant, both to them which undertake it and for the lookers-on. In like manner, the use and benefit of good laws all that live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort, albeit the grounds and first original causes from whence they have sprung be unknown, as to the greatest part of men they are. But when they who withdraw their obedience pretend that the laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious; for better examination of their quality, it behoveth the very foundation and root, the highest well-spring and fountain of them to be discovered. Which because we are not oft- entimes accustomed to do, when we do it the pains we take are more needful a great deal than acceptable, and the matters which we handle seem by reason of newness (till the mind grow better acquainted with them) dark, intricate, and unfamiliar. For as much help whereof as may be in this 94 THE GEEAT TEADITION case, I have endeavored throughout the body of this whole discourse, that every former part might give strength unto all that fol- low, and every later bring some light unto all before. So that if the judgments of men do but hold themselves in suspense as touching these first more general medita- tions, till in order they have perused the rest that ensue; what may seem dark at the first will afterwards be found more plain, even as the later particular decisions will appear I doubt not more strong, when the other have been read before. 2. Of Law in Nature Wherefore to come to the law of nature: albeit thereby we sometimes mean that man- ner of working which God hath set for each created thing to keep; yet forasmuch as those things are termed most properly na- tural agents, which keep the law of their kind unwittingly, as the heavens and ele- ments of the world, which can do no other- wise than they do; and forasmuch as we give unto intellectual natures the name of Voluntary agents, that so we may distin- guish them from the other ; expedient it will be, that we sever the law of nature observed by the one from that which the other is tied unto. Touching the former, their strict keeping of one tenure, statute, and law, is spoken of by all, but hath in it more than men have as yet attained to know, or perhaps ever shall attain, seeing the travail of wading herein is given of God to the sons of men, that perceiving how much the least thing in the world hath in it more than the wisest are able to reach unto, they may by this means learn humility. Moses, in describing the work of creation, attribut- eth speech unto God: "God said. Let there be light : let there be a firmament : let the waters under the heaven be gathered to- gether into one place : let the earth bring forth: let there be lights in the firmament of heaven." Was this only the intent of Moses, to signify^ the infinite greatness of God's power by the easiness of his accom- plishing such effects, without travail, pain, or labor? Surely it seemeth that Moses had herein besides this a further purpose, fiamely, first to teach that God did not work as a necessary but a voluntary agent, in- tending beforehand and decreeing with him- self that which did outwardly proceed from him : secondly, to show that God did then institute a law natural to be observed by creatures, and therefore according to the manner of laws, the institution thereof is described, as being established by solemn injunction. His commanding those things to be which are, and to be in such sort as they are, to keep that tenure and course which they do, importeth the establishment of nature's law. This world's first creation, and the preservation since of things created, what is it but only so far forth a mani- festation by execution, what the eternal law of God is concerning things natural? And as it Cometh to pass in a kingdom rightly ordered, that after a law is once publisbed, it presently takes effect far and wide, all states framing themselves thereunto; even so let us think it fareth in the natural course of the world : since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of his law upon it, heaven and earth have hear- kened unto his voice, and their labor hath been to do his will : He "made a law for the rain" : He gave his "decree unto the sea, that the waters should not pass his command- ment." Now if nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether though it were but for a while the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it might hap- pen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now as a giant doth run his un- wearied course, should as it were through a languishing faintness begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away as chil- dren at the withered breasts of their mother no longer able to yield them relief: what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve? See we not plainly that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world ? 3. Of the Sources of Government But forasmuch as we are not by our- selves sufficient to furnish ourselves with THE EENAISSANCE 95 competent store of things needful for such a life as our nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man; therefore to sup- ply those defects and imperfections which are in us living single and solely by our- selves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and f elloAvship with others. This was the cause of men's uniting themselves at ■ the first in jjolitic Societies, which so- cieties could not be without Government, nor Government without a distinct kind of Law from that which hath been already declared. Two foundations there are which bear up public societies; the one, a natural inclination, whereby all men desire sociable life and fellowship ; the other, • an order ex- pressly or secretly agreed u^^on touching the manner of their union in living to- gether. The latter is that which we call the Law of a Commonweal, the very soul of a politic body, the i^arts whereof are by law animated, held together, and set on work in such actions, as the common good re- quireth. Laws politic, ordained for ex- ternal order and regiment amongst men, are never framed as they should be, unless pre- suming the will of man to be inwardly ob- stinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedi- ence unto the sacred laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man to be in regard of his depraved mind little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly pro- vide notwithstanding so to frame his out- ward actions, that they be no hinderance unto the common good for which societies are instituted : unless they do this, they are not perfect. It resteth therefore that we consider how nature findeth out such laws of government as serve to direct even na- ture depraved to a right end. All men desire to lead in this world a happy life. That life is led most happily, wherein all virtue is exercised without im- pediment or let. The Apostle, in exhorting men to contentment although they have in this world no more than very bare food and raiment, giveth us thereby to understand that those are even the lowest of things necessary; that if we should be strijDped of all those things without which we might possibly be, yet these must be left ; that destitution in these is such an impediment, as till it be removed suffereth not the mind of man to admit any other care. For this cause, first God assigned Adam maintenance of life, and then appointed him a law to observe. For this cause, after men began to grow to a number, the first thing we read they gave themselves unto was the tilling of the earth and the feeding of cat- tle. Having by this means whereon to live, the principal actions of their life afterward are noted by the exercise of their religion. True it is, that the kingdom of God must be the first thing in our purposes and de- sires. But inasmuch as righteous life pre- supposeth life; inasmuch as to live virtu- ously is impossible except we live; there- fore the first impediment, which naturally we endeavor to remove, is penury and want of things without which we cannot live. Unto life many implements are necessary; more, if we seek (as all men naturally do) such a life as hath in it joy, comfort, de- light, and pleasure. To this end we see how quickly sundry arts mechanical were found out, in the very prime of the world. As things of greatest necessity are always first provided for, so things of greatest dignity are most accounted of by all such as judge rightly. Although therefore riches be a thing which every man wisheth, yet no man of judgment can esteem it better to be rich than wise, virtuous, and religious. If we be both or either of these, it is not be- cause we are so born. For into the world we come as empty of the one as of the other, as naked in mind as we are in body. Both which necessities of man had at the first no other helps and suiDplies than only domes- tical; such as that which the Prophet im- plieth, 'saying, "Can a mother forget her child?" such as that which the Apostle mentioned, saying, "He that careth not for his own is worse than an infidel"; such as that concerning Abraham, "Abraham will command his sons and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord." Biit neither that which we learn of our- selves nor that which others teach us can prevail, where wickedness and malice have taken deep root. If therefore when there was but as yet one only family in the world, no means of instruction human or divine could prevent effusion of blood; how could it be chosen but that when families were multiplied and increased ui^on earth, after separation each providing for itself, envy, strife, contention, and violence must grow amongst them? For hath not Nature fur- nished man with wit and valor, as it were with armor, which may be used as well unto extreme evil as good? Yea, were they not used by the rest of the world unto evil ; 96 THE GEEAT TEADITION unto the contrary only by Seth, Enoch, and those few the rest in that line? We all make complaint of the iniquity of our times: not unjustly; for the days are evil. But compare them with those times wherein there were no civil societies, with those times wherein there was as yet no manner of pub- lic regiment established, with those times wherein there were not above eight persons righteous living upon the face of the earth ; and we have surely good cause to think that God hath blessed us exceedingly, and hath made us behold most happy days. To take away all such mutual grievances, injuries, and wrongs, there was no way but only by growing unto composition and agreement amongst themselves, by ordaining some kind of government public, and by yielding themselves subject thereunto; that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govern, by them the peace, tranquillity, and happy estate of the rest might be pro- cured. Men always knew that Avhen force and injury Avas offered they might be de- fenders of themselves ; they knew that how- soever men may seek their own commodity, yet if this were done with injury unto others it was not to be suffered, but by all men and by all good means to be withstood; finally they knew that no man might in rea- son take upon him to detei'mine his own right, and according to his own determin- ation proceed in maintenance thereof, in- asmuch as every man is towards himself and them whom he greatly affecteth partial ; and therefore that strifes and troubles would be endless, except they gave their common consent all to be ordered by some whom they should agree upon : without which con- sent there were no reason that one man should take upon him to be lord or judge over another; because, although there be according to the opinion of some very great and judicious men a kind of natural right in the noble, wise, and virtuous, to govern them which are of servile disposition; nev- ertheless for manifestation of this their right, and men's more peaceable content- ment on both sides, the assent of them who are to be governed seemeth necessary. To fathers within their private families Nature hath given a supreme power; for which cause we see throughout the world even from the foundation thereof, all men have ever been taken as lords and lawful kings in their own houses. Howbeit over a whole grand multitude having no such de- pendency upon any one, and consisting of so many families as every politic society in the world doth, impossible it is that any should have complete lawful power, but by consent of men, or immediate appointment of God; because not having the natural superiority of fathers, their power must needs be either usurped, and then unlawful; or, if lawful, then either granted or con- sented unto by them over whom they ex- ercise the same, else given extraordinarily from God, unto whom all the world is sub- ject. It is no improbable opinion therefore which the arch-philosopher was of, that as the chiefest person in every household was always as it were a king, so when numbers of households joined themselves in civil society together, kings were the first kind of governors amongst them. Which is also (as it seemeth) the reason why the name of Father continued still in them, who of fathers were made rulers ; as also the ancient custom of governors to do as Melchisedec, and being kings to exercise the office of priests, which fathers did at the first, grew perhaps by the same occasion. Howbeit not this the only kind of regi- ment that hath been received in the world. The inconveniences of one kind have caused sundry other to be devised. So that in a word all public regiment of what kind so- ever seemeth evidently to have risen from deliberate advice, consultation, and com- position between men, judging it convenient and behoveful ; there being no impossibility in nature considered by itself, but that men might have lived without any public regi- ment. Howbeit, the corruption of our na- ture being presupposed, we may not deny but that the Law of Nature doth now re- quire of necessity some kind of regiment; so that to bring things unto the first course they were in, and utterly to take away all kind of public government in the world, were apparently to overturn the whole world. The case of man's nature standing there- fore as it doth, some kind of regiment the Law of Nature doth require ; yet the kinds thereof being many. Nature tieth not to any one, but leaveth the choice as a thing arbi- trary. At the first when some certain kind of regiment was once approved, it may be that nothing was then further thought upon for the manner of governing, but all per- mitted unto their wisdom and discretion which were to rule; till by experience they THE EENAISSANCE 97 found this for all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy did indeed but increase the sore which it should have cured. They saw that to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery. This constrained them to come unto laws, wherein all men might see their duties beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. If things be simply good or evil, and withal univer- sally so acknowledged, there needs no new law to be made for such things. The first kind therefore of things appointed by laws human containeth whatsoever being in itself naturally good or evil, is notwithstanding more secret than that it can be discerned by every man's present conceit, without some deeper discourse and judgment. In which discourse because there is difficulty and possibility many Avays to err, unless such things were set down by laws, many would be ignorant of their duties which now are not, and many that know what they should do would nevertheless dissemble it, and to excuse themselves pretend ignorance and simiDlicity, which now they cannot. And because the greatest part of men are such as prefer their own private good be- fore all things, even that good which is sensual before whatsoever is most divine; and for that the labor of doing good, together with the pleasure arising from the con- trary, doth make men for the most part slower to the one and proner to the other, than that duty prescribed th-em by law can prevail sufficiently with them : therefore unto laws that men do make for the bene- fit of men it hath seemed always needful to add rewards, which may more allure unto good than any hardness deterreth from it, and punishments, which may more deter from evil than any sweetness thereto al- lureth. Wherein as the generality is na- tural, virtue rewardable, and vice punish- able; so the particular determination of the reward or punishment belongeth unto them by whom laws are made. Theft is naturally punishable, but the kind of punishment is positive, and such lawful as men shall think with discretion convenient by law to ap- point. In laws, that which is natural bindeth universally, that which is positive not so. To let go those kinds of positive laws which men impose upon themselves, as by vow unto God, contract with men, or such like; somewhat it will make unto our purpose, a little more fully to consider what things are incident unto the making of the posi- tive laws for the government of them that live united in public society. Laws do not only teach what is good, but they enjoin it, they have in them a certain constraining force. And to constrain men unto any thing inconvenient doth seem unreasonable. Most requisite therefore it is that to devise laws which all men shall be forced to obey none but wise men be admitted. Laws are mat- ters of principal consequence; men of com- mon capacity and but ordinary judgment are not able (for how should they?) to discern what things are fittest for each kind and state of regiment. We cannot be ignorant how much our obedience unto laws dependeth upon this point. Let a man though never so justly oppose himself unto them that are disordered in their ways, and what one amongst them commonly doth not stomach at such contradiction, storm at re- proof, and hate such as would reform them ? Notwithstanding even they which brook it worst that men should tell them of their duties, when they are told the same by a law, think very well and reasonably of it. For why? They presume that the law doth speak with all indifferency ; that the law hath no side-respect to their persons; that the law is as it were an oracle proceeded from wisdom and understanding. Howbeit laws do not take their constrain- ing force from the quality of such as de- vise them, but from that power which doth give them the strength of laws. That whidh we spake before concerning the power of government must here be applied unto the power of making laws whereby to govern; which power God hath over all : and by the natural law, whereunto he hath made all subject, the lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men belongeth so proj^erly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind soever ujoon earth to exercise the same of himself, and not either by ex- press commission immediately and person- ally received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny. Laws they are not therefore which pub- lic approbation hath not made so. But ap- probation not only they give who personally declare their assent by voice, sign, or act, but also when others do it in their names 98 THE GEEAT TEADITION by right originally at the least derived from them. As in parliaments, councils, and the like assemblies, although we be not per- sonally ourselves joresent, notwithsanding our assent is by reason of others agents there in our behalf. And what we do by others, no reason but that it should stand as our deed, no less effectually to bind us than if ourselves had done it in person. In many things assent is given, they that give it not imagining they do so, because the manner of their assenting is not ap- parent. As for example, when an qjpso- lute monarch 'commandeth his subjects that which seemeth good in his own discretion, hath not his edict the force of § law whether they approve or dislike it? Again, that which hath been received long sithence and is by custom now established, we keep as a law which we may not transgress ; yet what consent was ever thereunto sought or re- quired at our hands? Of this point therefore we are to note, that sith men naturally have no full and perfect power to conimand whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly with- out our consent we could in such sort be at no man's commandment living. And to be commanded we do consent, when that so- ciety whereof we are part hath at any time before consented, without revoking the same after by the like universal agreement. Wherefore as any man's deed past is good as long as himself continueth; so the act of a public society of men done five hun- dred years sithence standeth as theirs who presently are of the same societies, because corporations are immortal; we were then alive in our predecessors, and they in their successors do live still. Laws therefore hu- man, of what kind soever, are available by consent. 4. Of the Law of Nations Now besides that law which simply con- cerneth men as men, and that which belong- eth unto them as they are men linked with others in some form of politic society, there is a third kind of law which touch eth all such several bodies politic, so far forth as one of them hath public commerce with an- other. And this third is* the Law of Na- tions. Between men and beasts there is no possibility of sociable communion, because the well-spring of that communion is a natural delight which man hath to transfuse from himself into others, and to receive from others into himself especially those things wherein the excellency of his kind doth most consist. The chiefest instrument of human communion therefore is speech, because thereby we impart mutually one to another the conceits of our reasonable un- derstanding. And for that cause seeing beasts are not hereof capable, forasmuch as with them we can use no such conference, they being in degree, although above other creatures on earth to whom nature hath de- nied sense, yet lower than to be sociable com- panions of man to whom nature hath given reason; it is of Adam said that amongst the beasts "he found not for himself any meet companion." Civil society doth more content the nature of man than any pri- vate kind of solitary living, because in so- ciety this good of mutual participation is so much larger than otherwise. Herewith notwithstanding we are not satisfied, but we covet (if it might be) to have a kind of society and fellowship even with all man- kind. Which thing Socrates intending to signify professed himself a citizen, not of this or that commonwealth, but of the world. And an effect of that very natural desire in us (a manifest token that we wish after a sort an universal fellowship with all men) appeareth by the wonderful delight men have, some to visit foreign countries, some to discover nations not heard of in former ages, we all to know the affairs and deal- ings of other people, yea to be in league of amity with them: and this not only for traffic's sake, or to the end that when many are confederated each may make other the more strong, but for such cause also as moved the Queen of Saba to visit Solomon ; and in a word, because "nature doth pre- sume that how many men there are in the world, so many gods as it were there are, or at leastwise such they should be towards men. Touching laws which are to serve men in this behalf; even as those Laws of Reason, which (man retaining his original integrity) had been sufficient to direct each particular person in all his affairs and duties, are not sufficient but require the access of other laws, now that man and his offspring are grown thus corrupt and sinful; again, as those laws of polity and regiment, which would have served men living in public so- ciety together with that harmless disposi- tion which then they should have had, are not able now to serve, when men's iniquity THE RENAISSANCE 99 is so hardly restrained within any tolerable bounds : in like manner, the national laws of natural commerce between societies of that former and better quality might have been other than now, when nations are so prone to offer violence, injury, and wrong. Hereupon hath grown in every of these three kinds that distinction between Primary and Secondary laws; the one grounded upon sincere, the other built upon depraved na- ture. Primary laws of nations are such as concern embassage, such as belong to the courteous entertainment of foreigners and strangers, such as serve for commodi- ous traffic, and the like. Secondary laws in the same kind are such' as this present unquiet world is most familiarly acquainted with; I mean l^ws of arms, which yet are much better known than kept. But what matter the Law of Nations doth contain I omit to search. The strength and virtue of that law is such that no particular nation can lawfully prejudice the same by any their several laws and ordinances, more than a man by his private resolutions the law of the whole commonwealth or state wherein he liveth. For as civil law, being the act of the whole body politic, doth therefore overrule each several part of the same body; so there is no reason that any one commouAvealth of itself should to the prejudice of another annihilate that whereupon the whole world hath agreed. For which cause, the Laeedasmonians for- bidding all access of strangers into their coasts, are in that respect both by Josephus and Theodoret deservedly blamed, as be- ing enemies to that hospitality which for common humanity's sake all the nations on earth should embrace. 5. "Her Voice the Harmony of the World" Thus far therefore we have endeavored in part to open, of what nature and force laws are, according unto their several kinds ; the law which God with himself hath eter- nally set down to follow in his own works; the law which he hath made for his creatures to keep; the law of natural and necessary agents; the law which angels in heaven obey; the law whereunto by the light of reason men find themselves bound in that they are men ; the law which they make by composition for multitudes and politic so- cieties of men to be guided by; the law which belongeth unto each nation; the law that concerneth the fellowship of all; and lastly the law which God himself hath su- pernaturally revealed. It might peradven- ture have been more popular and more plausible to vulgar ears, if this first dis- course had been spent in extolling the force of laws, in showing the great necessity of them when they are good, and in aggra- vating their offence by whom public laws are injuriously traduced. But forasmuch as with such kind of matter the passions of men are rather stirred one way or other, than their knowledge any way set forward unto the trial of that whereof there is doubt made, I have therefore turned aside from that beaten path, and chosen though a less easy yet a more profitable way in regard of the end we propose. Lest therefore any fnan should marvel whereunto all these things tend, the drift and purpose of all is this, even to show in what manner, as every good and perfect gift, so this very gift of good and perfect laws is derived from the Father of lights; to teach men a reason why just and reasonable laws are of so great force, of so great use in the world; and to inform their minds with some method of reducing the laws whereof there is pres- ent controversy unto their first original causes, that so it may be in every particu- lar ordinance, thereby the better discerned, whether the same be reasonable, just, and righteous, or no. Is there any thing which can either be thoroughly understood or soundly judged of, till the very first causes and principles from which originally it springeth be made manifest ? If all parts of knowledge have been thought by wise men to be then most orderly delivered and pro- ceeded in, when they are drawn to their first original; seeing that our whole question concerneth the quality of ecclesiastical laws, let it not seem a labor superfluous that in the entrance thereunto all these several kinds of laws have been consider-ed, inas- much as they all concur as principles, they all have their forcible operations therein, although not all in like apparent and mani- fest manner. By means whereof it cometh to pass that the force which they have is not observed of many. Easier a great deal it is for men by law to be taught what they ought to do, than instructed how to judge as they should do of law : the one being a thing which be- longeth generally unto all, the other such as none but the wiser and more judicious sort 100 THE GEEAT TEADITION can perform. Yea, the wisest are always touching this point the readiest to acknowl- edge, that soundly to judge of a law is the weightiest thing which any man can take upon him. But if we will give judgment of the laws under which we live, first let that law eternal be always before our eyes, as being of principal force and moment to breed in religious minds a dutiful estimation of all laws, the use and benefit whereof we see ; because there can be no doubt but that laws apparently good are (as it were) things copied out of the very tables of that high everlasting law ; even as the book of that law hath said concerning itself, "By me kings reign," and "by me princes decree justice." Not as if men did behold that book and accordingly frame their laws ; but because it worketh in them, because it discovereth and (as it were) readeth itself to the world by them, when the laws which they make are righteous. Furthermore, although we per- ceive not the goodness of laws made, never- theless sitli things in themselves may have that which we peradventure discern not, should not this breed a fear in our hearts how we speak or judge in the worse part concerning that, the unadvised disgrace whereof may be no mean dishonor to Him towards whom we profess all submission and awe? Surely there must be very manifest iniquity in laws, against which we shall be able to justify our contumelious invectives. The chief est root whereof, when we use them without cause, is ignorance how laws inferior are derived from that supreme or highest law Our largeness of speech how men do find out what things reason bindeth them of necessity to observe, and what it guideth them to choose in things which are left as arbitrary; the care we have had to declare the different nature of laws which severally concern all men, from such as belong unto men either civilly or spiritually associated, such as pertain to the fellowship which na- tions, or which Christian nations, have amongst themselves, and in the last place such as concerning every or any of these God himself hath revealed by his Holy Word: all serveth but to make manifest, that as the actions of men are of sundry distinct kinds, so the laws thereof must ac- cordingly be distinguished. There are in men operations, some natural, some rational, some supernatural, some politic, some finally ecclesiastical : which if we measure not each by his own proper law, whereas the things themselves are so different, there will be in our understanding and judgment of them confusion. As that first error showeth, whereon our opposites in this cause have grounded them- selves. For as they rightly maintain that God must be glorified in all things, and that the actions of men cannot tend unto his glory unless they be framed after his law; so it is their error to think that the only law which God hath appointed unto men in that behalf is the sacred Scrij)ture. By that which we work naturally, as when we breathe, sleep, move, we set forth the glory of God as natural agents do, albeit we have no express purpose to make that our end, nor any advised determination therein to fol- low a law, but do that we do (for the most part) not as much as thinking thereon. In reasonable and moral actions another law taketh place ; a law by the observation where- of we glorify God in such sort as no creature else under man is able to do; because other creatures have not judgment to examine the quality of that which is done by them, and therefore in that they do they neither can accuse nor approve themselves. Men do both, as the Apostle teacheth; yea, those men which have no written law of God to show what is good or evil, carry written in their hearts the universal law of mankind, the Law of Reason, whereby they judge as by a rule which God hath given unto all men for that purpose. The law of reason doth somewhat direct men how to honor God as their Creator; but how to glorify God in such sort as is required, to the end he may be an everlasting Savior, this we are taught by divine law, which law both ascertaineth the truth and supplieth unto us the want of that other law. So that in moral actions, divine law helpeth exceedingly the law of reason to guide man's life; but in super- natural it alone guideth. Proceed we further; let us place man in some public society with others, whether civil or spiritual ; and in this case there is no remedy but we must add yet a further law. For although even here likewise the laws of nature and reason be of necessary use, yet somewhat over and besides them is neces- sary, namely human and positive law, to- gether with that law which is of commerce between grand societies, the law of nations, and of nations Christian. For which cause the law of God hath likewise said, "Let THE EENAISSANGE 101 every soul be subject to the higher powers." The public power of all societies is above every soul contained in the same societies. And the principal use of that power is to give laws unto all that are under it ; which laws in such case we must obey, unless there be reason showed which may necessarily en- force that the Law of Reason or of God doth enjoin the contrary. Because except our own jorivate and but probable resolu- tions be by the law of public determinations overruled, we take away all possibility of sociable life in the world. A plainer example whereof than ourselves we cannot have. How Cometh it to pass that we are at this present day so rent with mutual contentions, and that the Church is so much troubled about the polity of the Church ? No doubt if men had been willing to learn how many laws their actions in this life are subject unto, and what the true force of each law is, all these controversies might have died the very day they were first brought forth. It is both commonly said, and truly, that the best men otherwise are not always the best in regard of society. The reason where- of is, for that the law of men's actions is one, if they be respected only as men; and another, when they are considered as parts of a politic body. Many men there are, than whom nothing is more commendable when they are singled; and yet in society with others none less fit to answer the duties which are looked for at their hands. Yea, I am persuaded, that of them with whom in this cause we strive, there are whose betters amongst men would be hardly found, if they did not live amongst men, but in some wil- derness by themselves. The cause of which their disiDosition so unframable unto so- cieties wherein they live, is, for that they discern not aright what place and force these several kinds of laws ought to have in all their actions. Is their question either concerning the regiment of the Church in general, or about conformity between one church and another, or of ceremonies, offices, powers, jurisdictions in our own church? Of all these things they judge by that rule which they frame to themselves with some show of iDrobability, and' what seemeth in that sort convenient, the same they think themselves bound to practice; the same by all means they labor mightily to uphold; whatsoever any law of man to the contrary hath determined they weigh it not. Thus by following the law of private reason, where the law of public should take place, they breed disturbance. . . . Wherefore that here we may briefly end : of Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power: both Angels and men and creatures of what con- dition soever, though each in different 'sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy. Two Counsels on Government FRANCIS BACON [From the Essays] 1. Of Empire It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire, and many things to fear; and yet that commonly is the case of kings, who, being at the highest, want mat- ter of desire, which makes their minds more languishing ; and have many representations of perils and shadows, which makes their minds the less clear. And this is one reason also of that effect which the Scripture speaketh of, "that the kmg's heart is in- scrutable." For multitude of jealousies, and lack of some predominant desire that should marshal and put in order all the rest, mak- eth any man's heart hard to find or sound. Hence it comes, likewise, that princes many times make themselves desires, and set their hearts upon toys: sometimes upon a build- ing, sometimes upon erecting of an order, sometimes upon the advancing of a person, sometimes upon obtaining excellency in some art or feat of the hand, — as Nero for playing on the harp, Domitian for certainty of the hand with the arrow, Commodus for playing at fence, Caracalla for driving chariots, and the like. This seemeth incred- ible unto those that know not the principle, that the mind of man is more cheered and refreshed by profitmg in small things, than by standing at a stay in great. We see also that kings that have been fortunate con- querors in their first years, it being not pos- sible for them to go forward infinitely, but that they must have some check or arrest in their fortunes, turn in their latter years to be superstitious and melancholy; as did Al- exander the Great, Diocletian, and in our 102 THE GEEAT TEADITION memory Charles V., and others ; for he that is used to go forward, and findeth a stop, f alleth out of his own favor, and is not the thing he was. To speak now of the true temper of em- pire, it is a thing rare and hard to keep; for both temper and distemper consist of contraries. But it is one thing to mingle contraries, another to interchange them. The answer of Apollonius to Vespasian is full of excellent instruction, Vespasian asked him, "What was Nero's overthrow?" He answered, "Nero could touch and tune the harp well ; but in government sometimes he used to wind the pins too high, some- times to let them down too low." And cer- tain it is, that nothing destroyeth authority so much as the unequal and untimely inter- change of power pressed too far, and re- laxed too much. This is true, that the wisdom of all these latter times, in princes' affairs, is rather fine deliveries, and shiftings of dangers and mis- chiefs when they are near, than solid and grounded courses to keep them aloof. But this is but to try masteries with fortune. And let men beware how they neglect and suffer matter of trouble to be prepared, for no man can forbid the spark, nor tell whence it may come. The difficulties in princes' business are many and great ; but the great- est difficulty is often in their own mind. For it is common with j)rinces, saith Taci- tus, to will contradictories. "Sunt ple- rumque regum voluntates vehementes, et inter se eontrarige." ^ For it is the solecism of power to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the mean 2. Of Innovations As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all Innovations, which are the births of time. Yet, notwithstand- ing, as those that first bring honor into their family are commonly more worthy than most that succeed, so the first precedent (if it be good) is seldom attained by imitation. For 111, to man's nature as it stands per- verted, hath a natural motion, strongest in continuance; but Good has a forced motion, strongest at first. Surely every medicine is an innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils. For time is the greatest mnovator; and if time of course alters things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end? It is true that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit; and those things Avhich have long gone to- gether are, as it were, confederate with themselves ; whereas new things piece not so well ; but, though they help by their utility, yet they trouble by their inconf ormity. Be- sides, they are like strangers, more admired, and less favored. All this is true, if time stood still; which contrariwise moveth so round that a froward retention of custom is as turbulent a thing as an innovation; and they that reverence too much old times, are but a scorn to the new. It were good, there- fore, that men in their innovations would follow the example of time itself; which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived ; for other- wise, whatsoever is new is unlooked for : and ever it mends some, and pairs others; and he that is holpen takes it for a fortune, and thanks the time; and he that is hurt, for a wrong, and imputeth it to the author. It is good also not to try experiments in States, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident; and well to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation : and lastly, that the novelty, though it be not rejected, yet be held for a suspect ; and, as the Scripture saith, that we make a stand upon the ancient way, and then look about us, and discover what is the straight and right way, and so to walk in it. V Sonnets william shakespeare XV When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, 1 "The desires of kings are generally violent and arbitrary." THE POET'S COMMENT I That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence com- ment ; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and check'd even by the self -same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, THE RENAISSANCE 103 And wear their brave state out of memory; Then the conceit of this inconstant stay Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay, To change your day of youth to sullied night ; And all in war with Time for love of you, As he takes from you, I engraft you new. Let those who ax'e in favor with their stars Of public honor and proud titles boast, Whilst I, whom foi'tune of such triumph bars, Unlook'd for joy in that I honor most. Great princes' favorites their fair leaves spread But as the marigold at the sun's eye, And in themselves their pride lies buried, For at a frown they in their glory die. The painful warrior famoused for fight, After a thousand victories once foil'd, Is from the book of honor razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd: Then happy I, that love and am beloved Where I may not remove nor be removed. XXIX When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd. Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despis- ing, Haply I think on thee, and then my state. Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate ; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. XXX When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought. And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste : Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night. And weep afresh love's long since caneell'd woe. And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight : Then can I grieve at grievances foregone. And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan. Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end. LV Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme ; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry. Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth ; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. LXIV When I have seen by Time's fell hand de- faced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age ; When sometime lofty towers I see down- razed And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore. And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing store with loss and loss with store ; When I have seen such interchange of state. Or state itself confounded to decay ; Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose. 104 THE GREAT TRADITION LXV Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor bound- less sea, But sad mortality o'er-sways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? 0, how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wreckf ul siege of battering days. When rocks impregnable are not so stout. Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays ? fearful meditation ! where, alack. Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid? Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? 0, none, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink my love may still shine bright. LXVI Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,— As, to behold desert a beggar born. And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn. And gilded honor shamefully misplaced. And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted. And right perfection wrongfully disgTaced, And strength by limping sway disabled. And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly doctor-like controlling skill. And simple truth miseall'd simplicity, And ca^ptive good attending captain ill : Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. LXXIII That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold. Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west. Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie. As the death-bed whereon it must expire. Consumed with that which it was nour- ish'd by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong. To love that well which thou must leave ere long. CVII Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come. Can yet the lease of my true love control. Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. The mortal moon hath her ecliiDse endured And the sad augurs mock their own presage ; Ineertainties now crown themselves assured And peace proclaims olives of endless age. Now with the drops of this most balmy time My love looks fresh, and Death to me sub- scribes, Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme. While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes : And thou in this shalt find thy monument, When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. cxvi Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds. Or bends with the remover to remove : 0, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; It is the star to every wandering bark. Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come ; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. CXLVI Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth, [Amidst] these rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease. Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end? Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant';? loss. THE RENAISSANCE 105 And let that pine to aggravate thy store ; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; Within be fed, without be rich no more : So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men. And Death once dying then. dead, there's no more My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is sir edward dyer My mind to me a kingdom is. Such present joys therein I find That it excels all other bliss That earth affords or grows by kind : Though much I want which most would have, Yet still my mind forbids to crave. No princely pomp, no wealthy store, No force to win the victory. No wily wit to salve a sore. No shape to feed a loving eye ; To none of these I yield as thrall : For why? My mind doth serve for all. I see how plenty [surfeits] oft, And hasty climbers soon do fall; I see that those which are aloft Mishap doth threaten most of all; They get with toil, they keep with fear : Such cares my mind could never bear. Content to live, this is my stay ; I seek no more than may suffice; I press to bear no haughty sway; Look, what I lack my mind supplies : Lo, thus I triumph like a king, Content with that my mind doth bring. Some have too much, yet still do crave ; I little have, and seek no more. They are but jDoor,. though much they have, And I am rich with little store : They poor, I lich ; they beg, I give ; They lack, I leave ; they pine, I live. I laugh not at another's loss ; I grudge not at another's pain; No worldly waves my mind can toss; My state at one doth still remain: I fear no foe, I fawn no friend; I loathe not life, nor dread my end. Some weigh their pleasure by their lust, Their wisdom by their rage of will ; Their treasure is their only trust; A cloaked craft their store of skill: But all the pleasure that I find Is to maintain a quiet mind. My wealth is health and perfect ease; My conscience clear my chief defense; I neither seek by bribes to jDlease, Nor by deceit to breed offence : Thus do I live ; thus will I die ; Would all did so as well as I! The Character of a Happy Life SIR henry wotton How happy is he born and taught That serveth not another's will; Whose armor is his honest thought. And simple truth his utmost skill! Whose passions not his masters are ; Whose soul is still prepared for death. Untied unto the world by care Of public fame or private breath; Who envies none that chance doth raise ; Nor vice hath ever understood (How deepest wounds are given by praise!) Nor rules of State, but rules of good; Who hath his life from rumors freed ; Whose conscience is his strong retreat ; Whose state can neither flatterers feed. Nor ruin make oppressors great ; Who God doth late and early pray. More of his grace, than gifts, to lend, And entertains the harmless day With a religious book or friend ! This man is freed from servile bands Of hope to rise or fear to fall ! Lord of himself, though not of lands ; And having nothing, yet hath all ! Death john donne Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art Aot so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost over- throw 106 THE GEEAT TEADITION Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be. Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow; And soonest our best men with thee do go — Rest of their bones and souls' delivery! Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men. And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell ; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then ? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die ! A Pindaric Ode ^ BEN JONSON To the immortal memory and friendship of that noble pair, Sir Lucius Gary and Sir H. Morison The Strophe, or Turn Brave infant of Saguntum, clear Thy coming forth in that great year, When the prodigious Hannibal did crown His rage with razing your immortal town. Thou looking then about. Ere thou wert half got out. Wise child, didst hastily return, And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn. How summ'd a circle didst thou leave man- kind Of deepest lore, could we the center find ! The Antistrophe, or Counter-Turn Did wiser nature draw thee back, From out the horror of that sack; Where shame, faith, honor, and regard of right, Lay trampled on? the deeds of death and night Urged, hurried forth, and hurl'd Upon the affrighted world; Fire, famine, and fell fury met, And all on utmost ruin set : As, could they but life's miseries foresee, No doubt all infants would return like thee. The Epode, or Stand For what is life, if measured by the space. Not by the act"? Or masked man, if valued by his face, Above his fact ? Here's one outlived his peers And told forth fourscore years : He vexed time, and busied the whole state ; Troubled both foes and friends ; But ever to no ends : What did this stirrer but die late? How well at twenty had he fallen or stood ! For three of his four score he did no good. II The Strophe, or Turn He entered well by virtuous parts, Got up, and thrived with honest arts, He purchased friends, and fame, and honors then. And had his noble name advanced with men ; But weary of that flight. He stooped in all men's sight To sordid flatteries, acts of strife, And sunk in that dead sea of life. So deep, as he did then death's waters sup. But that the cork of title buoyed him up. The Antistrophe, or Counter-Turn Alas ! but Morison fell young ! He never fell, — thou f all'st, my tongue. He stood a soldier to the last right end, A perfect patriot and a noble friend; But most, a virtuous son. All offices were done By him, so ample, full, and round. In weight, in measure, number, sound, As, though his age imperfect might appear. His life was of humanity the sphere. The Epode, or Stand Go now, and tell our days summed up with fears, And make them years ; Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage, To swell thine age; Repeat of things a throng, To show thou hast been long, Not lived; for life doth her great actions spell. By what was done and wrought In season, and so brought To light : her measures are, how well THE RENAISSANCE 107 Each syllable answered, and was formed, how fair; These make the lines of life, and that's her air! Ill The Strophe, or Turn It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make men better be ; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear : A lily of a day. Is fairer far, in May, Although it fall and die that night ; It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures life may perfect be. The Antistrophe, or Counter-Turn Call, noble Lucius, then, for wine, And let thy locks with gladness shine; Accept this garland, plant it on thy head. And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead. He leaped the present age, Possest with holy rage. To see that bright eternal day; Of which we priests and poets say Such truths as we expect for happy men ; And there he lives with memory and Ben The Epode, or Stand Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went, Himself, to rest. Or taste a part of that full joy he meant To have exprest. In this bright asterism ; — Where it were friendship's schism, Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry, To separate these twi- Lights, the Dioscuri; And keep the one half from his Harry. But fate doth so alternate the design. Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine, — IV The Strophe, or Turn And shine as you exalted are ; Two names of friendship, but one star : Of hearts the union, and those not by chance Made, or indenture, or leased out t' advance The profits for a time. No pleasures vain did chime. Of rhymes, or riots, at your feasts. Orgies of di'ink, or feigned protests; But simple love of greatness and of good, That knits brave minds and manners more than blood. The Antistrophe, or Counter-Turn This made you first to know the why You liked, tlien after, to a23ply That liking; and approach so one the t'other. Till either grew a portion of the other; Each styled by his end. The copy of his friend. You lived to be the great sir-names And titles by which all made claims Unto the Virtue: nothing perfect done, But as a Gary or a Morison. The Epode, or Stand And such a force the fair example had, As they that saw The good and durst not practice it, were glad That such a law Was left yet to mankind; Where they might read and find Friendship, indeed, was written not in words ; And with the heart, not pen. Of two so early men, Whose lines her rolls were, and records ; Who, ere the first down bloomed on the chin. Had sowed these fruits, and got the har- vest in. His Pilgrimage sir walter raleigh Give me my scallop-shell of quiet. My staff of faith to walk upon, My scrip of joy, immortal diet. My bottle of salvation. My gown of glory, hope's true gage ; And thus I'll take my pilgrimage. Blood must be my body's balmer; No other balm will there be given; Whilst my soul, like a quiet palmer, Traveleth towards the lands of heaven, Over the silver mountains. 108 THE GREAT TEADITION Where spring the nectar fountains. There will I kiss The bowl of bliss ; And drink mine everlasting fill Upon every milken hill. My soul will be a-dry before ; But, after, it will thirst no more. Then by that happy blissful day More peaceful pilgrims I shall see, That have cast off their rags of clay, And walk apparelled fresh like me. I'll take them first. To quench their thirst And taste of nectar suckets, At those clear wells Where sweetness dwells. Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets. And when our bottles and all we Are filled with immortality. Then the blessed paths we'll travel, Strowed with rubies thick as gravel ; Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors. High walls of coral, and pearly bowers. From thence to Heaven's bribeless hall, Where no corrupted voices brawl; No conscience molten into gold; No forged accuser bought or sold; No cause deferred, no vain-spent journey. For there Christ is the King's Attorney, Who pleads for all, without degrees. And he hath angels but no fees. And when the grand twelve million jury Of our sins, with direful fury, Against our souls black verdicts give, Christ pleads his death ; and then we live. Be Thou my speaker, taintless Pleader ! Unblotted Lawyer ! true Proeeeder ! Thou giv'st salvation, even for alms. Not with a bribed lawyer's palms. And this is mine eternal plea To Him that made heaven and earth and sea: That, since my flesh must die so soon, And want a head to dine next noon, Just at the stroke, when my veins start and spread. Set on my soul an everlasting head ! Then am I ready, like a palmer fit, To tread those blest paths; which before I writ. The Last Pages of "The History of the World" sir walter raleigh For the rest, if we seek a reason of the succession and continuance of this bound- less ambition in mortal men, we may add to that which hath been already said, that the kings and princes of the world have al- ways laid before them the actions, but not the ends, of those great ones which pre- ceded them. They are always transported with the glory of the one, but they never mind the misery of the other, till they find the experience in themselves. They neglect the advice of God, while they enjoy life, or hope it; but they follow the counsel of Death upon his first approach. It is he that puts into man all the wisdom of the world, without speaking a word, which Grod, with all the words of his law, promises, or threats, doth not infuse. Death, which hateth and destroyeth man, is believed ; God, which hath made him and loves him, is ahvays deferred; I have considered, saith Solomon, all the works that are under the sun, and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit; but who believes it, till Death tells it us? It was Death, which opening the conscience of Charles the Fifth, made him enjoin his son Philip to restore Navarre ; and king Francis the First of France, to command that jus- tice should be done upon the murderers of the protestants in Merindol and Cabrieres, which till then he neglected. It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself. He tells the proud and in- solent, that they are but abjects, and hum- bles them at the instant, makes them cry, complain, and repent, yea, even to hate their forepast happiness. He takes the account of the rich, and proves him a beggar, a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing but in the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness, and they acknowl- edge it. eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast per- suaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flat- tered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words. Hie jacet ! PURITANS AND KINGS I. THE SOUL AND THE WOELD 1. THE PEOPLE OF A BOOK The Puritan Spirit john richard green [From A Short History of the English People] No greater moral change ever passed over a nation than passed over England during the years which parted the middle of the reign of Elizabeth from the meeting of the Long Parliament. England became the people of a book, and that book was the Bible. It was as yet the one English book which was familiar to every Englishman ; it was read at churches and read at home, and everywhere its words, as they fell on ears which custom had not deadened, kindled a startling enthusiasm. When Bishop Bonner set up the first six Bibles in St. Paul's ''many well-disposed people used much to resort to the hearing thereof, especially when they could get any that had an audible voice to read to them." . . . "One John Porter used sometimes to be occupied in that good- ly exercise, to the edifying of himself as well as others. This Porter was a fresh young man and of a big stature ; and great multi- tudes would resort thither to hear him, be- cause he could read well and had an audible voice." But the "goodly exercise" of read- ers such as Porter was soon superseded by the continued recitation of both Old Testa- ment and New in the public services of the Church ; while the small Geneva Bibles car- ried the Scripture into every home. The popularity of the Bible was owing to other causes besides that of religion. The whole prose literature of England, save the for- gotten tracts of Wyclif , has grown up since the translation of the Scriptures by Tyndale and Coverdale. So far as the nation at large was concerned, no history, no romance, hard- ly any poetry, save the little-known verse of Chaucer, existed in the English tongue 109 when the Bible was ordered to be set up in churches. Sunday after Sunday, day after day, the crowds that gathered round Bon- ner's Bibles in the nave of St. Paul's, or the family group that hung on the words of the Geneva Bible in the devotional exercises at home, were leavened with a new literature. Legend and annal, war-song and psalm. State-roll and biography, the mighty voices of prophets, the parables of Evangelists, stories of mission journeys, of perils by the sea and among the heathen, philosophic ar- guments, apocalyptic visions, all were flung broadcast over minds unoccupied for the most part by any rival learning. The dis- closure of the stores of Greek literature had wrought the revolution of the Renascence. The disclosure of the older mass of Hebrew literature wrought the revolution of the Reformation. But the one revolution was far deeper and wider in its effects than the other. No version could transfer to another tongue the peculiar charm of language which gave their value to the authors of Greece and Rome. Classical letters, therefore, remained in the possession of the learned, that is,_ of the few; and among these, with the excep- tion of Colet and More, or of the pedants who revived a Pagan worship in the gardens of the Florentine Academy, their direct in- fluence was purely intellectual. But the tongue of the Hebrew, the idiom of the Hellenistic Greek, lent themselves with a curious felicity to the purposes of transla- tion. As a mere literary monument, the English version of the Bible remains the noblest example of the English tongue, while its perpetual use made it from the instant of its appearance the standard of our lan- guage. For the moment, however, its lit- erary effect was less than its social. The power of the book over the mass of English- men showed itself in a thousand superficial ways, and in none more conspicuously than 110 THE GREAT TRADITION in the influence it exerted on ordinary speech. It formed, we must repeat, the whole literature which was practically ac- cessible to ordinary Englishmen; and when we recall the number of common phrases which we owe to great authors, the bits of Shakespeare, or Milton, or Dickens, or Thackeray, which unconsciously interweave themselves in our ordinary talk, we shall better understand the strange mosaic of Biblical words and phrases which colored English talk two hundred years ago. The mass of picturesque allusion and illustration which we borrow from a thousand books, our fathers were forced to borrow from one ; and the borrowing was the easier and the more natural that the range of the Hebrew literature fitted it for the expression of every phase of feeling. When Spenser poured forth his warmest love-notes in the "Epithalamion," he adopted the very words of the Psalmist, as he bade the gates open for the entrance of his bride. When Crom- well saw the mists break over the hills of Dunbar, he hailed the sun-burst with the cry of David: "Let God arise, and let his "enemies be scattered. Like as the smoke vanisheth, so shalt thou drive them away!" Even to common minds this familiarity with grand poetic imagery in prophet and apocalypse gave a loftiness and ardor of expression, that with all its tendency to ex- aggeration and bombast we may prefer to the slipshod vulgarisms of today. But far greater than its effect on litera- ture or social phrase was the effect of the Bible on the character of the people at large. Elizabeth might silence or tune the pulpits ; but it was impossible for her to silence or tune the great preachers of justice, and mercy, and truth, who spoke from the book which she had again opened for her people. The whole moral effect which is produced now-a-days by the religious newspaper, the tract, the essay, the lecture, the missionary report, the sermon, was then produced by the Bible alone; and its effect in this way, however dispassionately we examine it, was simply amazing. One dominant influence told on human action : and all the activities that had been called into life by the age that was passing away were seized, concentrated, and steadied to a definite aim by the spirit of religion. The whole temper of the nation felt the change. A new conception of life and of man superseded the old. A new moral and religious impulse spread through every class. Literature reflected the general tendency of the time ; and the dumpy little quartos of controversy and piety, which still crowd our older libraries, drove before them the classical translations and Italian nov- elettes of the age of the Eenascence. "Theology rules there," said Grotius of Eng- land only two years after Elizabeth's death ; and when Casaubon, the last of the great scholars of the sixteenth century, was invited to England by King James, he found both King and people indifferent to pure letters. "There is a great abundance of theologians in England," he says, "all point their studies in that direction." Even a country gentle- man like Colonel Hutchinson felt the theo- logical impulse. "As soon as he had im- proved his natural understanding with the acquisition of learning, the first studies he exercised himself in were the principles of religion." The whole nation became, in fact, a Church. The great problems of life and death, whose questionings found no answer in the higher minds of Shakespeare's day, pressed for an answer not only from noble and scholar but from farmer and shop- keeper in the age that followed him. We must not, indeed, picture the early Puritan as a gloomy fanatic. The religious move- ment had not as yet come into conflict with general culture. With the close of the Eliza- bethan age, indeed, the intellectual freedom which had marked it faded insensibly away : the bold philosophical speculations which Sidney had caught from Bruno, and which had brought on Marlowe and Ralegh the charge of atheism, died like her own re- ligious indifference, with the Queen. But the lighter and. more elegant sides of the Elizabethan culture harmonized well enough with the temper of the Puritan gentleman. The figure of Colonel Hutchinson, one of the Regicides, stands out from his wife's canvas with the grace and tenderness of a portrait by Vandyck. She dwells on the per- sonal beauty which distinguished his youth, on "his teeth even and white as the purest ivory," "his hair of brown, very thickset in his youth, softer than the finest silk, curling with loose great rings at the ends." Serious as was his temper in graver matters, the young squire of Owthorpe was fond of hawking, and piqued himself on his skill in dancing and fence. His artistic taste showed itself in a critical love of "paintings, sculpture, and all liberal arts," as well as in the pleasure he took in his gardens, "in the PURITANS AND KINGS 111 improvement of his grounds, in planting groves and walks and forest trees." If he was "diligent in his examination of the Scriptures," "he had a great love for music, and often diverted himself with a viol, on which he played masterly." We miss, in- deed, the passion of the Elizabethan time, its caprice, its largeness of feeling and sjrmpa- thy, its quick pulse of delight; but, on the other hand, life gained in moral grandeur, in a sense of the dignity of manhood, in orderliness and equable force. The temper of the Puritan gentleman was just, noble, and self -controlled. The larger geniality of the age that had passed away was replaced by an intense tenderness within the nar- rower circle of the home. "He was as kind a father," says Mrs. Hutchinson of her hus- band, "as dear a brother, as good a master, as faithful a friend as the world had." The wilful and lawless passion of the Renascence made way for a manly purity. "Neither in youth nor riper years could the most fair or enticing woman ever draw him into unneces- sary familiarity or dalliance. Wise and virtuous women he loved, and delighted in all pure and holy and unblamable conversa- tion with them, but so as never to excite scandal or temptation. Scurrilous discourse even among men he abhorred; and though he sometimes took pleasure in Avit and mirth," yet that which was mixed with impurity he never could endure." To the Puritan the wilfulness of life, in which the men of the Renascence had reveled, seemed unworthy of life's character and end. His aim was to attain self-command, to be master of him- self, of his thought and speech and acts. A certain gravity and reflectiveness gave its tone to the lightest details of his converse with the world about him. His temper, quick as it might naturally be, was kept under strict control. In his discourse he was ever on his guard against talkativeness or fri- volity, striving to be deliberate in speech and "ranking the words beforehand." His life was orderly and methodical, sparing of diet and of self-indulgence; he rose early, "he never was at any time idle, and hated to see any one else so." The new sobriety and self-restraint marked itself even in his change of dress. The gorgeous colors and jewels of the Renascence disajDpeared. Colonel Hutchinson "left off very early the wearing of anything that was costly, yet in his iDlainest negligent habit appeared very much a gentleman." The loss of color and variety in costume reflected no doubt a cer- tain loss of color and variety in life itself; but it was a loss compensated by solid gains. Greatest among these, perhaps, was the new conception of social equality. Their com- mon calling, their common brotherhood in Christ, annihilated in the mind of the Puri- tans that overpowering sense of social dis- tinctions which characterized the age of Elizabeth. The meanest peasant felt him- self ennobled as a child of God. The proud- est noble recognized a spiritual equality in the poorest "saint." The great social revolu- tion of the Civil Wars and the Protectorate was already felt in the demeanor of gentle- men like Hutchinson. "He had a loving and sweet courtesy to the poorest, and would often employ many spare hours with the commonest soldiers and poorest laborers." "He never disdained the meanest nor flat- tered the greatest." But it was felt even more in the new dignity and self-respect with which the consciousness of their "call- ing" invested the classes beneath the rank of the gentry. Take such a portrait as that which Nehemiah Wallington, a turner in Eastcheap, has left us of a London house- wife, his mother. "She was very loving," he says, "and obedient to her parents, lov- ing and kind to her husband, very tender- hearted to her children, loving all that were godly, much misliking the wicked and pro- fane. She was a pattern of sobriety unto many, very seldom was seen abroad except at church ; when others recreated themselves at holidays and other times, she would take her needle-work and say, 'here is my recrea- tion.' . . . God had given her a preg- nant wit and an excellent memory. She was very ripe and perfect in all stories of the Bible, likewise in all the stories of the Martyrs, and could readily turn to them; she was also perfect and well seen in the English Chronicles, and in the descents of the Kings of England. She lived in holy wedlock with her husband twenty years, wanting but four days." 112 THE GEEAT TRADITION 2. THE CONFLICT IN THE SOUL The Collar george herbert I struck the board, and cried, "No more; I "will abroad ! What ! shall I ever sigh and pine *? My lines and life are free ; free as the road, Loose as the wind, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn Tt) let me blood, and not restore What I have lost with cordial fruit f Sure there was wine Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn Before my tears did drown it ; Is the year only lost to me? Have I no bays to crown it, No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted. All wasted? Not so, my heart, but there is fruit, And thou hast hands. Recover all thy sigh-blown age On double pleasures ; leave thy cold dispute Of what is fit and not; forsake thy cage, Thy rope of sands Which petty thoughts have made; and made to thee Good cable, to enforce and draw, And be thy law. While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. Away! take heed; I will abroad. Call iu thy death's head there, tie up thy fears : He that forbears To suit and serve his need Deserves his load." But as I raved, and grew more fierce and wild At every word, Methought I heard one calling, "Child"; And I replied, "My Lord." Love george herbert Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back. Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in. Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked anything. "A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here" : Love said, "You shall be he." "I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear, I cannot look on Thee !" Love took my hand and smiling did reply, "Who made the eyes but I ?" "Truth, Lord; but I have marred them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve." "And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?" "My dear, then I will serve." "You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat." So I did sit and eat. Virtue george herbert Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky ! The dew shall weep thy fall tonight; For thou must die. Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye. Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie. My music shows ye have your closes. And all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal. Then chie.'^y lives. The Retreat henry vaughan Happy those early days, when I Shined in my angel-infancy ! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race. Or taught my soul to fancy aught But a white, celestial thought; When yet I had not walked above A mile or two from my first love. PUEITANS AND KINGS 113 And looking- back, at that short space, Could see a glimpse of his bright face; When on some gilded cloud or flower My gazing soul would dwell an hour, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity; Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound. Or had the black art to dispense, A several sin to every sense. But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness. 0, how I long to travel back. And tread again that ancient track. That I might once more reach that plain. Where first I left my glorious train ; From whence the enlightened spirit sees That shady city .of palm trees. But ah ! my soul with too much stay Is drunk, and staggers in the way ! Some men a forward motion love. But I by backward steps would move; And when this dust falls to the urn. In that state I came, return. The World henry vaughan I saw Eternity the other night. Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright ; And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, _ years, Driv'n by the spheres Like a vast shadoAV moved; in which the Avorld And all her train were hurled. The doting- lover in his quaintest strain Did there complain ; Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights, Wit's four delights, With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure ; Yet his dear treasure, All scattered lay, while he his eyes did pour Upon a flower. The darksome statesman, hung with weights and woe, Like a thick midnight-fog, moved there so slow, He did not stay, nor go ; Condemning thoughts, like sad eclipses, scowl Upon his soul. And clouds of crying witnesses without Pursued him with one shout. Yet digged the mole, and lest his ways be found. Worked under ground. Where he did clutch his prey; but one did see That policy; Churches and altars fed him; perjuries Were gnats and flies; It rained about him blood and tears, but he Drank them as free. The fearful miser on a heap of rust Sat pining all his life there, did scarce trust His own hands with the dust. Yet would not place one piece above, but lives In fear of thieves. Thousands there were as frantic as himself, And hugged each one his pelf ; The downright epicure placed heaven in sense. And scorned pretence; While others, slipt into a wide excess, Said little less; The weaker sort, slight, trivial wares en- slave. Who think them brave; And poor, despised Truth sat counting by Their victory. Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing, And sing and Aveep, soared up into the ring ; But most Avould use no wing. fools, said I, thus to prefer dark night Before true light! To live in grots and caves, and hate the day Because it shoAvs the Avay, The Avay, which from this dead and dark iabode Leads up to God; A way where you might tread the sun, and be More bright than he! But, as I did their madness so discuss. One Avhispered thus : "This ring the Bridegroom did for none provide. But for his bride." Behind the Veil HENRY A'AUGHAN They are all gone into the world of light ! And I alone sit lingering here ; Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear. It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, Like stars upon some gloomy grove. 114 THE GEEAT TEADITION Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest, After the sun's remove. I see them walking in an air of glory, Whose light doth trample on my days : My days, which are at best but dull and hoary. Mere glimmering and decays. holy Hope! and high Humility, High as the heavens above ! These are your walks, and you have showed them me. To kindle my cold love. Dear, beauteous Death ! the jewel of the just. Shining nowhere, but in the dark, What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, Could man outlook that mark ! He that hath found some fledged bird's nest, may know At first sight if the bird be flown ; But what fair well or grove he sings in now. That is to him unknown. And yet as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul, when man doth sleep, So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes. And into glory peep. If a star were confined mto a tomb. The captive flames must needs burn there ; But when the hand that locked her up, gives room. She'll shine through all the sphere. Father of eternal life, and all Created glories under Thee, Eesume Thy spirit from this world of thrall Into true liberty. Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill My perspective still as they pass; Or else remove me hence unto that hill. Where I shall need no glass. The Fight with Apollyon john bunyan [From The Pilgrim's Progress, 1678] But now, in this Valley of Humiliation, poor Christian was hard put to it; for he had gone but a little way before he espied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him : his name is Apollyon. Then did Chris- tian begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back or to stand his ground. But he considered again that he had no armor for his back, and therefore thought that to turn the back to him might give him the greater advantage with ease to pierce him with his darts. Therefore he re- solved to venture and stand his ground ; for, thought he, had I no more in mine eye than , the saving of my life, 'twould be the best , way to stand. So he went on, and Apollyon met him. Now the monster was hideous to behold : he was clothed with scales like a fish (and they are his pride) ; he had wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, and out of his belly came fire and smoke; and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion. When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus began to question with him. Apol. Whence come you? and whither are you bound? Chr. I am come from the City of De- struction, which is the place of all evil, and am going to the City of Zion. Apol. By this I perceive thou art one of my subjects; for all that country is mine, and I am the prince and god of it. How is it then that thou hast run away from thy king? Were it not that I hope thou mayest do me more service, I would strike thee now at one blow to the ground. Chr. I was born indeed in your domin- ions, but your service was hard, and your wages such as a man could not live on ; for the wages of sin is death. Therefore when I was come to years, I did as other consid- erate persons do, look out, if perhaps I might mend myself. [Apollyon now tries in vain to reclaim Christian, who refuses, say- ing that henceforth he owes allegiance only to the Prince.] Apol. I am an enemy to this Prince; I hate his person, his laws, and people ; I am come out on purpose to withstand thee. Chr. Apollyon, beware what you do, for I am in the King's highway, the way of holiness ; therefore take heed to yourself. Apol. Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter. Prepare thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den that thou shalt go no further; here will I spill thy soul. And with that he threw a flaming dart at his breast; but Christian had a shield in his hand, with which he caught it, and so prevented the danger of that. PURITANS AND KINGS 115 Then did Christian draw, for he saw 'twas time to bestir him; and ApoUyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as hail; by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do to avoid it, ApoUyon wounded him in his head, his hand, and foot. This made Christian give a little back ; ApoUyon therefore followed his work amain, and Christian again took courage, and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent; for you must know that Christian, by reason of his wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker. Then ApoUyon, espying his opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian, and wrestling with him, gave him a dreadful fall; and with that Christian's sword flew out of his hand. Then said ApoUyon, I am sure of thee now; and with that he had al- most pressed him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life. But as God would have it, while ApoUyon was fetching of his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian nimbly reached out his hand for his sword, and caught it, saying, Rejoice not against me, mine enemy ! when I fall I shall arise ; and with that gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back, as one that had received his mortal wound. Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying. Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us. And with that ApoUyon spread forth his dragon's wings, and sped him away, that Christian for a season saw him no more. In this combat no man can imagine, un- less he had seen and heard as I did, wliat yelling and hideous roaring ApoUyon made all the time of the fight; — ^lie spake like a dragon; and on the other side, what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded ApoUyon with his two-edged sword; then indeed he did smile and look upward. But 'twas the dreadfuUest fight that ever I saw. So when the battle was over, Christian said, I will here give thanks to Him that hath delivered me out of the mouth of the lion, to Him that did help me against Apol- lyon. And so he did, saying, Great Beelzebub, the Captain of this fiend, Design'd my ruin; therefore to this end He sent him harness'd out ; and he with rage That hellish was, did fiercely me engage: But blessed Michael helped me, and I By dint of sword did quickly make him fly. Therefore to Him let me give lasting praise. And thank and bless His holy name always. Then there came to him a hand with some of the leaves of the Tree of Life, the which Christian took and applied to the wounds that he had received in the battle, and was healed immediately. He also sat down in that place to eat bread, and to drink of the bottle that was given him a little before : so being refreshed, he addressed himself to his journey, with his swoi'd drawn in his hand; for he said, I know not but some other enemy may be at hand. But he met with no other atfront from ApoUyon quite through this valley. Vanity Fair john buntan [From The Pilgrim's Progress] Then I saw in my dream, that when they were got out of the wilderness, they pres- ently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity. And at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair; it is kept all the year long; it beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where 'tis kept is lighter than Vanity; and lalso be- cause all that is there sold, or that cometh thither, is Vanity. As is the saying of the wise, "All that cometh is Vanity." This fair is no new-erected business, but a thing of ancient standing ; I will show you the original of it. Almost five thousand years agone, there were pilgrims walking to the celestial city, as these two honest persons are ; and Beelze- bub, ApoUyon, and Legion, with their com- panions, perceiving by the path that the pilgrims made, that their way to the city lay through this town of Vanity, they contrived here to set up a fair; a fair wherein should be sold all sorts of Vanity, and that it should last all the year long: therefore at this fair are all such merchandise sold, as houses, lands, trades, places, honors, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts, as lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not. And moreover, at this fair there is at all times to be seen juggling, cheats, games. 116 THE GREAT TRADITION plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of all sorts. Here are to be seen too, and that for nothing, thefts, murders, adulteries, false- swearers, and that of a blood-red color. And as in other fairs of less moment there are the several rows and streets under their proper names, where such and such wares are vended, so here likewise you have the projDer places, roAVS, streets, (viz., countries and kingdoms) where the wares of this fair are soonest to be found : Here is the Britain Row, the French Eow, the Italian Row, the Spanish Row, the German Row, where sev- eral sorts of vanities are to be sold. Now, as I said, the way to the celestial city lies just through this town where this lusty fair is kept; and he that will go to the city, and yet not go through this town, must needs go out of the world. The Prince of Princes himself, when here, went through this town to his own country, and that upon a fair-day too; yea, and as I think, it was Beelzebub, the chief lord of this fair, that invited him to buy of his vanities : yea, would have made him lord of the fair, would he but have done him reverence as he went through the town. Yea, because he was such a person of honor, Beelzebub had him from street to street, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a little time, that he might (if possible) allure that Blessed One to cheapen and buy some of his vani- ties ; but he had no mind to the merchandise, and therefore left the town, without laying out so much as one farthing upon these van- ities. This fair therefore is an ancient thing, of long standing and a very great fair. Now these pilgrims, as I said, must needs go through this fair. Well, so they did ; but behold, even as they entered into the fair, all the people in the fair were moved, and the town itself as it were in a hubbub about them; and that for several reasons: for First : The pilgTims were clothed with such kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment of -any that traded in that fair. The people therefore of the fair made a great gazing upon them : some said they were fools, some they were bedlams, and some they are outlandish-men. Secondly: And as they wondered at their apparel, so they did likewise at their speech ; for few could understand what they said: they naturally sjDoke the language _ of Canaan but they that kept the fair were the men of this world ; so that from one end of the fair to the other they seemed bar- barians each to the other. Thirdly: But that which did not a lit- tle amuse the merchandisers was, that these pilgrims set very light by all their wares; they cared not so much as to look upon them ; and if they called upon them to buy, they would put their fingers in their ears, and cry, ''Turn away mine eyes from be- holding vanity," and look upwards, signi- fying that their trade and traf&e was in Heaven. One chanced, mockingly, beholding the carriages of the men, to say unto them, "What will ye buy?" But they, looking gravely upon him, answered, ''We buy the Truth." At that there was an occasion taken to despise the men the more; some mocking, some taunting, some speaking re- proachfully, and some calling upon others to smite them. At last things came to a hubbub and a great stir in the fair, inso- much that all order was confounded. Now was word presently brought to the great one of the fair, who quickly came down and deputed some of his most trusty friends to take those men into examination, about whom the fair was almost overturned. So the men were brought to examination; and they that sat upon them, asked them whence they came, whither they went, and what they did there in such an unusual garb? The men told them that they were pilgrims and strangers in the world, and that they were going to their own country, which was the heavenly Jerusalem; and that they had given no occasion to the men of the town, nor yet to the merchandisers, thus to abuse them, and to let them in their journey, ex- cept it was for that, when one asked them what they would buy, they said they would buy the truth. But they that were ap- pointed to examine them did not believe them to be any other than bedlams and mad, or else such as came to put all things into a confusion in the fair. Therefore they took them and beat them, and besmeared them with dirt, and then put them into tlie cage, that they might be made a spectacle to all the men of the fair. There there- fore they lay for some time, and were made the objects of any man's sport, or malice, or revenge, the great one of the fair laugh- ing still at all that befell them. But the men being patient, and not rendering rail- ing for railing, but contrariwise blessing, and giving good words for bad, and kind- ness for injuries done, some men in the PUEITANS AND KINGS 117 fair that were more observing, and less prejudiced than the rest, began to check and blame the baser sort for their continual abuses done by them to the men ; they there- fore in angry manner let fly at them again, counting them as bad as the men in the cage, and telling them that they seemed confederates, and should be made partakers of their misfortunes. The other replied, that for aught they could see, the men were quiet, and sober, and intended nobody any harm ; and that there were many that traded in their fair that were more worthy to be put into the cage, yea, and pillory too, than were the men that they had abused. Thus, after divers words had passed on both sides, (the men behaving themselves all the while very wisely and soberly be- fore them) they fell to some blows among themselves, and did harm one to another. Then were these two poor men brought before their examiners again, and there charged as being guilty of the late hubbub that had been in the fair. So they beat them pitifully and hanged irons upon them, and led them in chains up and down the fair, for an example and a terror to others, lest any should speak in their behalf, or join themselves unto them. But Christian and Faithful behaved themselves yet more wisely, and received the ignominy and shame that were cast upon them, with so much meekness and patience, that it won to their side (though but a few in comparison of the rest) several of the men in the fair. This put the other party yet into a greater rage, insomuch that they concluded the death of these two men. Wherefore they threatened, that the cage, nor irons should serve their turn, but that they should die,* for the abuse they had done, and for de- luding the men of the fair. Then were they remanded to the cage again, until further order should be taken with them. So they put them in, and made their feet fast in the stocks. Here also they called again to mind what they had heard from their faithful friend Evangelist, and were the more confirmed in their way and sufferings, by what he told them would happen to them. They also now comforted each other, that whose lot it was to suffer, even he should have the best of it; therefore each man secretly wished that he might have that preferment : but committing themselves to the All-wise dispose of Him that ruleth all things, with much content they abode in the condition in which they were, until they should be otherwise disposed of. 3. CARPE DIEM : ROBERT HERRICK [From Hesperides and Noble Numbers, 1648] CoRiNNA^s Going a-Maying Get up, get up for shame, the blooming- morn Upon her wings presents the god unshorn. See how Aurora throws her fair Fresh-quilted colors through the air : Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see The dew bespangling herb and tree. Each flower has wept and bow'd toward the east Above an hour since : yet you not dress'd ; Nay ! not so much as out of bed 1 When all the birds have matins said And sung their thankful hymns, 'tis sin. Nay, profanation, to keep in, Whenas a thousand virgins on this day Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May. Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green. And sweet as Flora. Take no care For jewels for your gown or hair: Fear not ; the leaves will strew Gems in abundance upon you : Besides, the childhood of the day has kept, Against you come, some orient pearls un- wept; Come and receive them while the light Hangs 'on the dew-locks of the night^ And Titan on the eastern hill Retires himself, or else stands still Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying: Few beads are best when once we go a-May- ing. Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, mark How each fleld turns a street, each street a park Made green and trimm'd with trees; see how Devotion gives each house a bough Or branch: each porch, each door ere this 118 THE GEEAT TRADITION An ark, a tabernacle is, Made U23 of white-thorn, neatly interwove; As if here were those cooler shades of love. Can such delights be in the street And open fields and we not see't? Come, we'll abroad; and let's obey The proclamation made for May: And sin no more, as we have done, by staying ;_ e-But, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying. There's not a budding boy or girl this day But is got up, and gone to bring in May. A deal of youth, ere this, is come Back, and with white-thorn laden home. Some have dispatched their cakes and cream Before that we have left to dream : And some have wept, and woo'd, and plighted troth. And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth : Many a green-gown has been given; Many a kiss, both odd and even : Many a glance too has been sent From out the eye, love's firmament; Many a jest told of the key's betraying This night, and locks pick'd, yet we're hot a-Maying. Come, let us go while we are in our prime; And take the harmless folly of the time. We shall grow old apace, and die Before we know our liberty. Our life is short, and our days run As fast away as does the sun; And, as a vapor or a drop of rain. Once lost, can ne'er be found again, So when or yovi or I are made A fable, song, or fleeting shade. All love, all liking, all delight Lies drowned with us in endless night. Then while time serves, and we are but de- caying. Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying. To THE ViRGINS;, TO MakE MuCH OF Time Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today. Tomorrow will be dying. The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he's a-getting, The sooner will his race be run. And nearer he's to setting. That age is best which is the first. When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time, And while ye may, go marry; Tor, having lost but once your prime. You may forever tarry. To Daffodils Pair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early rising sun Has not attained his noon. Stay, stay. Until the hasting day Has run But to the even-song; And, having prayed together, we Will go with you along. • We have short time to stay, as ^ ou. We have as short a spring; As quick a growth to meet decay. As you, or anything. We die As your hours do, and dry Away, Like to the summer's rain; Or as the pearls of morning's dew, Ne'er to be found again. A Thanksgiving to God for His House Lord, thou hast given me a cell Wherein to dwell, A little house, whose humble roof Is weather-proof. Under the spars of which I lie Both soft and dry; Where thou, my chamber for to ward, Hast- set a guard Of harmless thoughts to watch and keep Me, while I sleep. Low is my porch, as is my fate. Both void of state; And yet the threshold of my door Is worn by th' poor. Who thither come and freely get Good words, or meat. Like as my parlor,, so my hall And kitchen's small; A little buttery, and therein A little bin, Which keeps my little loaf of bread Unchipped, unflead; PURITANS AND KINGS 119 Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar Make me a fire, Close by whose living coal I sit, And glow like it. Lord, I confess, too, when I dine, The pulse is thine. And all those other bits that be There placed by thee; The worts, the purslain, and the mess Of water-cress. Which of thy kindness thou hast sent ; And my content Makes those, and my beloved beet. To be more sweet. 'Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth With guiltless mirth. And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink. Spiced to the brink. Lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand That soils my land, And giv'st me, for my bushel sown, Twice ten for one; Thou mak'st my teeming hen to lay Her egg each day ; Besides my healthful ewes to bear Me twins each year; The while the conduits of my kine Run cream, for wine. All these, and better thou dost send Me, to this end. That I should render, for my part, A thankful heart, Which, fired with incense, I resign, As wholly thine; But the acceptance, that must be, My Christ, by thee. To Keep a True Lent Is this a fast, to keep The larder lean. And clean From fat of veals and sheep" Is it to quit the dish Of flesh, yet still To fill The platter high with fish? Is it to fast an hour. Or ragg'd to go. Or show A downcast look, and sour"? No; 'tis a fast, to dole Thy sheaf of wheat And meat Unto the hungry soul. It is to fast from strife. From old debate. And hate; To circumcise thy life. To show a heart grief -rent; To starve thy sin. Not bin; And that's to keep thy Lent. 11. FAITH AND FEEEDOM: JOHN MILTON 1. THE MAKER OF AN HEROIC POEM Himself a True Poem [From An Apology for Smectymnuus, 1642] Nor blame it, readers, in those years to propose to themselves such a reward as the noblest dispositions above other things in this life have sometimes preferred; whereof not to be sensible when good and fair in one person meet argues both a gross and shallow judgment, and withal an un- gentle and swainish breast. For by the firm settling of these persuasions, I became, to my best memory, so much a proficient, that if I found those authors anywhere speaking unworthy things of themselves, or unchaste of those names which before they had extolled ; this effect it wrought with me, from that time forward their art I still ap- plauded, but the men I deplored ; and above them all, preferred the two famous renown- ers of Beatrice and Laura, who never write but honor of them to whom they devote their verse, displaying sublime and pure thoughts, without transgression. And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this oiDinion, that he who would not be frus- trate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honorablest things ; not pre- suming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praiseworthy. . . . 120 THE GREAT TEADITION Next, (for hear me out now, readers,) that I may tell ye whither my younger feet wandered; I betook me among those lofty fables and romances, which recount in sol- emn cantos the deeds of knighthood founded by our victorious kings, and from hence had in renown over all Christendom. There I read it -in the oath of every knight, that he should defend to the expense of his best blood, or of his life, if it so befell him, the honor and chastity of virgin or matron; from whence even then I learned what a noble virtue chastity sure must be, to the defence of which so many worthies, by such a dear adventure of themselves, had sworn. And if I found in the story afterward, any of them, by word or deed, breaking that oath, I judged it the same fault of the poet, as that which is attributed to Homer, to have written indecent things of the gods. Only this my mind gave me, that every free and gentle spirit, without that oath, ought to be born a knight, nor needed to expect the gilt spur, or the laying of a sword upon his shoulder to stir him tip both by his counsel and his arms, to secure and protect the weakness of any attempted chastity. . . . Thus, from the laureat fraternity of poets, riper years and the ceaseless round of study and reading led me to the shady spaces of philosophy; but chiefly to the divine volumes of Plato, and his equal Xenophon: where, if I should tell ye what I learnt of chastity and love, I mean that which is truly so, whose charming cup is only virtue, which she bears in her hand to those who are worthy; (the rest are cheated with a thick intoxicating potion, which a certain sorceress, 'the abuser of love's name, carries about;) and how the first and chiefest office of love begins and ends in the soul, producing those happy twins of her divine generation, knowledge and virtue. [From A Letter to Diodati, 1637] But that you may indulge any excess of menace I must inform you, that I cannot help loving you such as you are; for what- ever the Deity may have bestowed upon me in other respects, he has certainly inspired me, if any ever were inspired, with a pas- sion for the good and fair. Nor did Ceres, according to the fable, ever seek her daugh- ter Proserpine with such unceasing solici- tude, as I have sought this perfect model of the beautiful in all the forms and ap- pearances of things. I am wont day and night to continue my search, and I follow in the way in which you go before. Hence, I feel an irresistible impulse to cultivate - the friendship of him who, despising the prejudices and false conceptions of the vulgar, dares to think, to speak, and to be that which the highest wisdom has in every age taught to be the best. But if my dis- position or my destiny were such that I could without any conflict or any toil emerge to the highest pitch of distinction and of praise, there would nevertheless be no pro- hibition, either human or divine, against my constantly cherishing and revering those who have either obtained the same degree of glory, or are successfully laboring to ob- tain it. But now I am sure that you wish me to gratify your curiosity, and to let you know what I have been doing, or am medi- tating to do. Hear me, my Diodati, and suffer me for a moment to speak without blushing in a more lofty strain. Do you ask what I am meditating? By the help of Heaven, an immortality of fame. L' Allegro Hence, loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn, 'Mongst horrid shapes and shrieks and sights unholy ! Find out some uncouth cell, ^ Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings. And the night-raven sings; There under ebon shades and low-browed rocks, As ragged as thy locks. In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell, i*' But come, thou Goddess fair and free, In heaven yclept Euphrosyne, And by men heart-easing Mirth; Whom lovely Venus, at a birth, With two sister Graces more, ^^ To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore ; Or whether (as some sager sing) The frolic wind that breathes the spring. Zephyr, with Aurora playing. As he met her once a-Maying, 20 There on beds of violets blue And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Filled her with thee, a daughter fair. So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee ^^ PURITANS AND KINGS 121 Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, Nods and becks and wreathed smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek. And love to live in dimple sleek ; 30 Sport that wrinkled Care derides. And Laughter holding both his sides. Come, and trip it as you go, On the light fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee ^^ The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty; And if I give thee honor due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew. To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free: ^^ To hear the lark begin his flight. And singing, startle the dull night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise; Then to come in spite of sorrow, 45 And at my window bid good-morrow, Through the sweet-briar or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine; While the cock, with lively din. Scatters the rear of darkness thin, ^ And to the stack, or the barn-dooi*. Stoutly struts his dames before : Oft listening how the hounds and horn Cheer ly rouse the slumbering morn. From the side of some hoar hill, ^^ Through the high wood echoing shrill: Sometime walking, not unseen. By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, Right against the eastern gate Where the great sun begins his state, ^^ Robed in flames and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight; While the plowman, near at hand. Whistles o'er the furrowed land. And the milkmaid singeth blithe, ^^ And the mower whets his scythe. And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale. Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures Whilst the landskip round it measures; ^^ Russet lawns and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do stray; Mountains on whose barren breast The laboring clouds do often rest; Meadows trim with daisies pied, "^5 Shallow brooks and rivers wide; Towers and battlements it sees Bosomed high in tufted trees. Where perhaps some beauty lies. The cynosure of neighboring eyes. ^® Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes From betwixt two aged oaks, 85 Where Corydon and Thyi'sis met Are at their savory dinner set Of herbs and other country messes, Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses ; And then in haste her boAvei' she leaves, With Thestylis to bind the sheaves ; Or, if the earlier season lead. To the tanned haycock in the mead. 90 Sometimes, with secure delight. The upland hamlets will invite. When the merry bells ring round. And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth and many a maid ^5 Dancing in the chequered shade; And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holiday, 'Till the livelong daylight fail: Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, lOO With stories told of many a feat. How faery Mab the junkets eat. She was pinched and pulled, she said; And he, by friar's lantern led. Tells how the drudging goblin sweat 105 To earn his cream-bowl duly set. When in one night, ere glimpse of morn. His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-laborers could not end; Then lies him down, the lubber fiend, HO And, stretched out all the chimney's length. Basks at the fire his hairy strength. And crop-full out of doors he flings, Ere the first cock his matin rings. Thus done the -tales, to bed they creep, HS By whispering winds soon lulled asleep. Towered cities please us then. And the busy hum of men, Where throngs of knights and barons bold. In weeds of peace high triumphs hold, 120 With store of ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit or arms, while both contend To win her grace whom all commend. There let Hymen oft appear 125 In saffron robe, with taper clear. And pomp and feast and revelry. With mask and antique pageantry ; Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream. 130 Then to the well-trod stage anon. If Jonson's learned sock be on. Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child. Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever, against eating cares, 135 ' Lap me in soft Lydian airs. Married to immortal verse. Such as the meeting soul may pierce. In notes with many a winding bout 122 THE GREAT TRADITION 150 Of linked sweetness long drawn out, • ^^ With wanton heed and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus' self may heave his head 1^° From golden slumber on a bed Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear Such strains as would have won the ear Of Pluto to have quite set free His half -regained Eurydiee. These delights if thou canst give, Mirth, with thee I mean to live. Il Penseroso Hence, vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly without father bred ! How little you bested. Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys ! Dwell in some idle brain, ^ And fancies fond with gaudy shapes pos- sess, As thick and numberless As the gay motes that people the sun- beams. Or likest hovering dreams. The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. ^^ But hail, thou Goddess sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy ! Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human .sight. And therefore to our weaker view ^^ O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue ; Black, but such as in esteem Prince Memnon's sister might beseem. Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove To set her beauty's praise above 20 The sea nymphs, and their powers offended. Yet thou art higher far descended : Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore To solitary Saturn bore; His daughter she (in Saturn's reign 25 Such mixture was not held a stain). Oft in glimmering bowers and glades He met her, and in secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove. Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. ^^ Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure. Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain. Flowing with majestic train. And sable stole of cyjDress lawn ^^ Over thy decent shoulders drawn. Come, but keep thy wonted state. With even step, and musing gait. And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes: ^o There, held in holy passion still, Forget thyself to marble, till With a sad leaden downward cast Thou fix them on the earth as fast. And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet, ''^ Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet. And hears the Muses in a ring Aye round about Jove's altar sing; And add to these retired Leisure, That in trim gardens takes his pleasure; 50 But first, and chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing. Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, ^5 'Less Philomel will deign a song. In her sweetest, saddest plight. Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustomed oak: 6o Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly. Most musical, most melancholy ! Thee, ehauntress, oft the woods among, I woo to hear thy even-song; And missing thee, I walk unseen ^^ On the dry smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandei-ing moon, Biding near her highest noon. Like one that had been led as"tray Through the heaven's wide pathless way, ''''' And oft, as if her head she bowed. Stooping through a fleecy cloud. Oft on a plat of rising ground, I hear the far-off curfew sound, Over some wide-watered shore, '^^ Swinging slow with sullen roar ; Or if the air will not permit. Some still removed place will fit. Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, ^o Far from all resort of mirth. Save the cricket on the hearth. Or the bellman's drowsy charm To bless the doors from nightly harm. Or let my lamp at midnight hour ^^ Be seen in some high lonely tower. Where I may oft out-watch the Bear, With thrice-great Hermes ; or unsphere The spirit of Plato, to unfold What worlds or what vast regions hold ^o The immortal mind that hath forsook Her mansion in J:his fleshly nook; And of those demons that are found In fire, air, fiood, or underground. Whose power hath a true consent ^ PUEITANS AND KINGS 123 100 105 With planet or with element. Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptered pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line. Or the tale of Troy divine. Or what (though rare) of later age Ennobled hath the buskined stage. But, sad Virgin ! that thy power Might raise Musseus from his bower; Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek, And made Hell grant what love did seek ; Or call up him that left half -told The story of Cambuscan bold, no Of Camball, and of Algarsife, And who had Canaee to wife, That owned the virtuous ring and glass. And of the wondrous horse of brass On which the Tartar king did ride; i^^ And if aught else great bards beside In sage and solemn tunes have sung, Of tourneys, and of trophies hung. Of forests, and enchantments drear. Where more is meant than meets the ear. 120 Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, Till civil-suited Morn appear, Not tricked and frounced as she was wont With the Attic boy to hunt, But kerchieft in a comely cloud, 125 While rocking winds are jDiping loud. Or ushered with a shower still. When the gust hath blown his fill. Ending on the rustling leaves. With minute-drops from off the eaves. i^o And when the sun begins to fling His flaring beams, me. Goddess, bring To ai'ched walks of twilight groves. And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves. Of pine, or monumental oak, 135 Where the rude axe with heaved stroke Was never heard the nymphs to daunt. Or fright them from their hallowed haunt. There in close covert by some brook. Where no profaner eye may look, i^o Hide me from day's garish eye. While the bee with honeyed thigh. That at her flowery work doth sing. And the waters murmuring. With such consort as they keep, 1^5 Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep; And let some strange mysterious dream Wave at his wings in airy stream Of lively portraiture displayed. Softly on my eyelids laid; 150 And as I wake, sweet music breathe Above, about, or underneath, Sent by some spirit to mortals good, Or the unseen Genius of the wood. But let my due feet never fail 155 To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high embowed roof, With antique pillars massy proof. And storied windows richly dight. Casting a dim religious light. 16*^ There let the pealing organ blow. To the full-voiced quire below. In service high and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear. Dissolve me into ecstasies, 165 And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. And may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage. The hairy gown, and mossy cell. Where I may sit and rightly spell I'^o Of eveiy star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew. Till old experience do attain To something like proiDhetic strain. These pleasures. Melancholy, give, 175 And I with thee will choose to live. Lycidas Yet once more, ye laurels, and once more, Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. B Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear Compels me to disturb your season due; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew 10 Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear. Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well 15 That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring ; Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. Hence with denial vain and coy excuse; So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favor my destined urn, 20 And as he passes turn, And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud. For Ave were nursed upon the self -same hill, 124 THE GREAT TRADITION Fed the same floek, by fountain, shade, and rill; Together both, ere the high lawns ap- peared 2^ Under the opening eyelids of the morn, We drove a-field, and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sulti'y horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft till the star that rose at evening- bright 30 Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, Tempered to the oaten flute; Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long; And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. ^6 But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone, ■ Now thou art gone, and never must return ! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves. With wild thyme and the gadding vine o ergrown, ^" And 'all their echoes, mourn. The willows and the hazel copses green Shall now no more be seen. Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. As killing as the canker to the rose, ^^ Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze. Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, When first the white-thorn blows; Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. Where were ye. Nymphs, when the re- morseless deep ^^ Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas ? For neither were ye playing on the steep Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie. Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high. Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream. • ^^ Ay me, I fondly dream ! Had ye been there — for what could that have done? What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore. The Muse herself, for her enchanting son, Whom universal nature did lament, ^^ When by the rout that made the hideous roar His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the. swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore ? Alas ! what boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade, ^5 And strictly meditate the thankless Muse 1 Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neasra's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise '^'^ (That last inflrniity of noble mind) To scorn delights and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon Avhen we hope to find. And think to burst out into sudden blaze. Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, '^^ And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise," Phcebus replied, and touched my trembling ears : "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies; 80 But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; As he pronounces lastly on each deed. Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." fountain Arethuse, and thou honored flood, 85 Smooth-sliding Mineius, crowned with vocal reeds. That strain I heard was of a higher mood : But now my oat proceeds, And listens to the herald of the sea, That came in Neptune's plea. ^^ He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds. What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain ? And questioned every gust of rugged wings That blows from off each beaked jpromon- tory : They knew not of his story; ^^ And sage Hippotade's their answer larings. That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed ; The air was calm, and on the level brine Sleek Panope with all her sisters played. It was that fatal and perfidious bark, ^^o PUEITANS AND KINGS 125 Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge. Inwrought with figures dim and on the edge ^^^ Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. "Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dear- est pledge?" Last came, and last did go, The pilot of the Galilean lake; Two massy keys he bore of metals twain 11^ (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain). He shook his mitred locks, and stern be- spake : "How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, .Enow of such as for their bellies' sake, Creep and intrude and climb into the fold! 115 Of other care they little reckoning make Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest. Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least 120 That to the faithful herdman's art belongs ! What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw ; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 125 But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said. But that two-handed engine at the door l^^ Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more." Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells and -flowerets of a thousand hues. 1^ Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades and wanton winds and gushing brooks, 145 On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks, Throw hither all your quaint enameled eyes, That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers, i^** And purple all the ground with vernal flow- ers. Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies. The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet. The glowing violet. The musk-rose, and the well-attired wood- bine. With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head. And every flower that sad embroidery wears ; Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, 150 To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. For so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false sur- mise. Ay me, whilst thee the shores and sound- ing seas Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled; 155 Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world ; Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, 160 Where the great vision of the guarded mount Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold. Look homeward. Angel, now, and melt with ruth; And ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth. Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, 1^5 For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor; So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head. And tricks his beams, and with new span- gled ore 1^*^ Flames in the forehead of the morning sky ; So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high. Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves. Where, other groves and other streams along. With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, i'^5 And hears the unexpressive nuptial song. 126 THE GEEAT TEADITION In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. There entertain him all the Saints above, In solemn troops and sweet societies, That sing, and singing in their glory move, 180 And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. Now, Lyeidas, the shepherds weep no more ; Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore, In thy large recompense, and shalt be good To all that wander in that perilous flood. 1^5 Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray; He touched the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay : And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, 190 And now was dropt into the western bay. At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue : ' Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new. On His Having Arrived at the Age or Twenty-three How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year ! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth That I to manhood am arinved so near; And inward ripeness doth much less ap- pear, That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th. Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow. It shall be still in strictest measure even To that same lot, however mean 'or high. Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven; All is, if I have- grace to use it so. As ever in my gTeat Task-Master's eye. On His Blindness When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true aeeoimt, lest he returning chide; "Doth God exact day-labor, light de- nied f ' I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly : thousands at his bidding speed, And. post o'er land and ocean without rest ; They also serve who only stand and wait." To Cyriack Skinner Cyriaek, this three years' day these eyes, though clear To outward view, of blemish or of spot. Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun or moon or star throughout the year. Or man or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied In Liberty's defense, my noble task, Of which all Europe talks from side to side. This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask Content, though blind, had I no better guide. Of Darkness Visible [From The Second Defense^ 1654] Nor was I ever prompted to such ex- ertions by the influence of ambition, by the lust of lucre or of praise; it was only by the conviction of duty and the feeling of patriotism, a disinterested passion for the extension of civil and religious liberty. Thus, therefore, when I was publicly so- licited to write a reply to the Defense of the royal cause, when I had to contend with the pressure of sickness, and with the apprehension of soon losing the sight of my remaining eye, and when my medical attendants clearly announced that if I did engage in the work it would be irreparably PUEITANS AND KINGS 127 lost, their premonitions caused no iiesi- tation and inspired no dismay. I would not have listened to the voice even of Esculapius himself from the shrine of Epidauris, in preference to the sugges- tions of the heavenly monitor within my breast; my resolution was unshaken, though the alternative was either the loss of my sight, or the aesertion of my duty : and I called to mind those two destinies, which the oracle of Delphi announced to the son of Thetis: "Two fates may lead me to the realms of night. If staying here, around Troy's wall I fight. To my dear home no more must I return; But lastmg glory will adorn my urn. But, if I withdraw from the martial strife. Short is my fame, but long will be my life." I considered that many had purchased a less good by a greater evil, the need of glory by the loss of life: but that I might procure great good by little suffering; that though I am blind, I might still discharge the most honorable duties, the performance of which, as it is something more durable than glory, ought to be, an object of supe- rior admiration and esteem; I resolved, therefore, to make the short interval of sight, which was left me to enjoy, as bene- ficial as possible to the public interest. Thus it is clear by what motives I was gov- erned in the measures which I took, and the losses which I sustained. Let then the calumniators of the divine goodness cease to revile, or make me the object of their superstitious imaginations. Let them con- sider, that my situation, such as it is^ is neither an object of my shame or my re- gret, that my resolutions are too firm to be shaken, that I am not depressed by any sense of the divine displeasure ; that, on the other hand, in the most momentous periods, I have had full experience of the divine favor and protection; and that, in the sol- ace and the strength which have been in- fused into me from above, I have been enabled to do the will of God; that I may oftener think on what he has bestowed, than on what he has withheld; that, in short, I am unwilling to exchange my conscious- ness of rectitude with that of any other per- son ; and that I feel the recollection a treas- ured store of tranquillity and delight. But, if the choice were necessary, I would, sir, prefer my blindness to yours; yours is a cloud spread over the mind, which darkens both the light of reason and of conscience; mine keeps from my view only the coloi'ed surfaces of things, while it leaves me at liberty to contemplate the beauty and sta- bility of virtue and of truth. How many things are there besides which I would not willingly see; how many which I must see against my will; and how few which I feel any anxiety to see ! There is, as the apostle has remarked, a way to strength through weakness. Let me then be the most feeble creature alive, as long as that feeble- ness serves to invigorate the energies of my rational and immortal spirit; as long as in that obscurity, in which I am enveloped, the light of the divine presence more clearly shines, then, in proportion as I am weak, I shall be invincibly strong; and in propor- tion as I am blind, I shall more clearly see. ! that I may thus be perfected by feeble- ness, and irradiated by obscurity ! Of Celestial Light [From Paradise Lost, III, 1-55] Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first- born ! Or of the Eternal coeternal beam May I express thee unblamed? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity — dwelt then in thee. Bright effluence of bright essence increate! Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun, Before the Heavens, thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest The rising World of waters dark and deep. Won from the void and formless Infinite ! Thee I revisit now Avith bolder wing, Escaped the Stygian Pool, though long de- tained In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight. Through utter and through middle Darkness borne. With other notes than to the Orphean lyre I sung of Chaos and eternal Night, Taught by the Heavenly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to re-aseend, Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou Eevisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain 128 THE GREAT TRADITION To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; So thick a drop serene liath quenched their orbs, Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath. That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit : nor sometimes forget Those other two equaled with me in fate, So were I equaled with them in renown. Blind Thamyris and blind Mseonides, And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old: Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid. Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair, Presented with a universal blank Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased. And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. So much the rather thou. Celestial Light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powei'S Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight. The Poet's Service to the State [From Reason of Church Government, 1641] After I had for my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and care of my father, (whom God recompense!) been exercised to the tongues, and some sciences, as my age would suffer, by sundry masters and teach- ers, both at home and at the schools, it was found that whether aught was imposed me by them that had the overlooking, or be- taken to of mine own choice in English, or other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly by this latter, the style, by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live. But much latelier in the private academies of Italy, whither I was favored to resort, perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory, composed at under twenty or thereabout, (for the manner is, that every one must give some proof of his wit and reading there,) met with acceptance above what was looked for; and other things, which I had shifted in scarcity of books and conveniences to patch up amongst them, were received with written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward to bestow on men of this side the Alps; I began thus far to assent both to them and divers of my friends here at home, and not less to an inward prompting which now grew daily upon me, that by labor and intense study, (which I take to be my portion in this life,) joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might per- haps leave something so written to after- times, as they should ' not willingly let it die. . . . Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem too profuse to give any certain account of what the mind at home, in the spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting; whether th'at epic form whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other two of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and the book of Job a brief model : or whether the rules of Aristotle herein are strictly to be kept, or nature to be followed, which in them that know art, and use judgment, is no transgression, but an enriching of art : and lastly, what king or knight, before the conquest, might be chosen in whom to lay the jDattern of a Christian hero. . . . These abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some (though most abuse) in every nation; and are of power, beside the office of a pulpit, to inbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility, to allay the perturba- tions of the mind, and set the affections in right tune; to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrought with his providence in his church ; to sing victorious agonies of martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs of just and jdIous nations, doing valiantly through faith against the en- emies of Christ; to deplore the general re- PUEITANS AND KINGS 129 lapses of kingdoms and states from justice land God's true worship. Lastly, whatso- ever in religion is holy and sublime, in vir- tue amiable or grave, whatsoever hath pas- sion or admiration in all the changes of that which is called fortune from without, or the wily subtleties and refluxes of man's thoughts from within; all these things with a solid and treatable smoothness to paint out and describe. Teaching over the whole book of sanctity and virtue, through all the in- stances of example, with such delight to those especially of soft and delicious tem- per, who will not so much as look upon truth herself, unless they see her elegantly dressed; that whereas the paths of honesty and good life appear now rugged and diffi- cult, though they be indeed easy and pleas- ant, they will then appear to all men both easy and pleasant, though they were rugged and difficult indeed. And what a benefit this would be to our youth and gentry, may 'be soon guessed by what we know of the corruption and bane which they suck in daily from the writings and interludes of libidinous and ignorant poetasters, who having scarce ever heard of that which is the main consistence of a true poem, the choice of such persons as they ought to in- troduce, and what is moral and decent to each one; do for the most part lay up vi- cious principles in sweet pills to be swal- lowed down, and make the taste of virtuous documents harsh and sour. But because the spirit of man cannot demean itself lively in this body, without some recreating intermission of labor and serious things, it were happy for the eom- rsonwealth, if our magistrates, as in those famous governments of old, would take into their care, not only the deciding of our contentious lawcases and brawls, but the managing of our public sports and festival pastimes; that they might be, not such as were authorized a while smce, the provoca- tions of drunkenness and lust, but such as may inure and harden our bodies by martial exercises to all warlike skill and perform- ance; and may civilize, adorn, and make discreet our minds by the learned and affa- ble meeting of frequent academies, and the procurement of wise and artful recitations, sweetened with eloquent and graceful en- ticements to the love and practice of justice, temperance, and fortitude, instructing and bettering the nation at all opportunities, that the call of wisdom and virtue may be heard everywhere, as Solomon saith : "She crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets, in the top of high places, in the chief concourse, and in the opening of the gates." Whether this may not be, not only in pulpits, but after another persuasive method, at set and solemn paneguries, in theaters, porches, or what other place or way may win most upon the people to re- ceive at once both recreation and instruc- tion, let them in authority consult. The thing which I had to say, and those intentions which have lived within me ever since I could conceive myself anything worth to my country, I return to crave excuse that urgent reason hath plucked from me, by an abortive and foredated dis- coveiy. And the accomplishment of them lies not but in a power above man's to promise; but that none hath by more stu- dious ways endeavored, and with more un- wearied spirit that none shall, that I dare almost aver of myself, as far as life and free leisure will extend; and that the land had once enfranchised herself from this impertinent yoke of prelaty, under whose inquisitorious and tyrannical duncery no free and splendid wit can flourish. Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the pay- ment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapors of wine; like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases: to this must be added indus- trious and select reading, steady observa- tion, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs ; till Avhich in some measure be compassed, at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loth to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges that I can give them. Although it nothing content me to have disclosed thus much beforehand, but that I trust hereby to make it manifest with what small willingness I endure to in- terrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and leave a calm and pleasant soli- tariness, fed with cheerful and confident thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of 130 THE GEEAT TEADITION noises and hoarse disputes, put from behold- ing the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies, to come into the dim reflection of hol- low antiquities sold by the seeming bulk, and Ihere be fain to club quotations with men whose learning and belief lies in mar- ginal stuffings, who, when they have, like good sumpters, laid ye down their horse- loads of citations and fathers at your door, with a rhapsody of who and who were bish- ops here or there, ye may take o& their paeksaddles, their day's work is done. Fallen ok Evil Days [From Paradise Lost, VII, 1-39] Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name If rightly thou art called, whose voice di- vine Following, above the Olympian hill I soar, Above the flight of Pegasean wing! The meaningv not the name, I call ; for thou Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top Of old Olympus dwell' st; but, heavenly- born, Before the hills appeared or fountain flowed. Thou with Eternal Wisdom didst converse, Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased With thy celestial song. Up led by thee. Into the Heaven of Heavens 1 have pre- sumed. An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air. Thy tempering. With like safety guided down. Return me to my native element ; Lest, from this flying steed unreined (as once Bellerophon, though from a lower clime) Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall, Erroneous there to wander and forlorn. Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound Within the visible Diurnal Sphere. Standing on Earth, not rapt above the pole, More safe I sing with mortal voice, un- changed To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days. On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues. In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, And solitude; yet not alone, while thou Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when Morn Purples the East. Still govern thou my song, Urania, and fit audience find, though few. But drive far off the barbarous dissonance Of Bacchus and his revelers, the race Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears To rapture, till the savage clamor drowned Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend Her son. So fail not thou who thee im- plores; For thou art heavenly, she an empty dream. [From Samson Agonistes^ But, chief of all, loss of sight, of thee I most complain ! Blind among enemies ! worse than chains. Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age ! Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct. And all her various objects of delight Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased. Inferior to the vilest now become Of man or worm, the vilest here excel me: They creep, yet see ; I, dark in light, exposed To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong. Within doors, or without, still as a fool. In power of others, never in my own — Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon. Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse Without all hope of day ! first-created beam, and thou great Word, "Let there be light, and light was over all," Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree? The Sun to me is dark And silent as the Moon, When she deserts the night, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. Since light so necessary is to life. And almost life itself, if it be true That light is in the soul, She all in every part, why was the sight To such a tender ball as the eye confined. So obvious and so easy to be quenched. And not, as feeling, through all parts dif- fused. PUEITANS AND KINGS 131 That she might look at will through every pore ? Then had I not been thus exiled from light, As in the land of darkness, yet in light, To live a life half dead, a living death, And buried; but, yet more miserable! Myself my sepulcher, a moving grave; Buried, yet not exempt. By privilege of death and burial. From worst of other evils, pains, and wrongs ; But made hereby obnoxious more To all the miseries of life, Life in captivity Among inhuman foes. "Servant of God^ Well Done!" [From Paradise Lost, VI, 29-37] ''Servant of God, well done! Well hast thou fought The better fight, who single hast maintained Against revolted multitudes the cause Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms, And for the testimony of truth hast borne Universal reproach, far worse to bear Than violence; for this was all thy care — To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds Judged thee perverse." 2. THE POEM Paradise Lost^ Book I Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing, Heavenly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth Rose out of Chaos : or, if Sion hill ^^ Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God, I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song. That with no middle flight intendsito soar Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. And chiefly Thou, Spirit, that dost prefer Before all temples the upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first Wast present, and, with mighty wings out- spread, ^ Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss, And mad'st it pregnant : what in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the highth of this great argument I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. Say first — for Heaven hides nothing from Thy view, Nor the deep tract of Hell — say first what cause Moved our grand parents, in that happy state, Favored of Heaven so highly, to fall off 30 From their Creator, and transgi-ess his will For one restraint, lords of the world besides. Who first seduced them to that foul revolt? The infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile, Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived The mother of mankind, what time his pride Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equaled the Most High, 40 If he opposed ; and with ambitious aim Against the throne and monarchy of God Raised impious war in Heaven, and battle proud, With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition ; there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms. Nine times the space that measures day and night ^^ To mortal men, he with his horrid crew Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf. Confounded, though immortal. But his doom Reserved him to mor-e wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes. That witnessed huge affliction and dismay, 132 THE GEEAT TRADITION Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate. At once, as far as Angels ken, he views The dismal situation waste and wild : ^o A dungeon horrible on all sides round As one great furnace flamed ; yet from those flames No light ; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all; but torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed. Such place Eternal Justice had prepared '^^ For those rebellious; here their prison ordained In utter darkness, and their portion set. As far removed from God and light of Heaven As from the center thrice to the utmost pole. Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell ! There the companions of his fall, o'er- whelmed With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire, He soon discerns; and, weltering by his side, One next himself in power, and next in crime, Long after known in Palestine, and named ^^ Beelzebub. To w^hom the Arch-Enemy, And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words Breaking the horrid silence, thus began: — "If thou beest he— but Oh how fallen! how changed From him, who in the happy realms of light, Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine Myriads, though bright ! — if he whom mutual league. United thoughts and counsels, equal hope And hazard in the glorious enterprise, Joined with me once, now misery hath joined In equal ruin — into what pit thou seest ^i From what highth fallen: so much the stronger proved He with his thunder : and till then who knew The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those, Nor what the potent Victor in his rage Can else inflict, do I repent, or change, Though changed in outward luster, that fixed mind, And high disdain from sense of injured merit, That with the Mightiest raised me to con- tend, And to the fierce contention brought along i^o Innumerable force of Spirits armed, That durst dislike his reign, and, me pre- ferring. His utmost power with adverse power opposed In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven, And shook his throne. What though the field be lost? All is not lost : the unconquerable will. And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield, And what is else not to be overcome. That glory never shall his wrath or might i^*^ Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace With suppliant knee, and deify his power Who, from the terror of this arm, so late Doubted his empire — that were low indeed ; That were an ignominy and shame beneath This downfall ; since by fate the strength of gods And this empyreal substance cannot fail ; Since, through experience of this great event, In arms not worse, in foresight much ad- vanced, We may with more successful hope resolve ^"'^ To wage by force or guile eternal war, Irreconcilable to our grand Foe, Who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven." So spake the apostate Angel, though in pain. Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair; And him thus answered soon his bold com- peer : — "0 Prince! Chief of many throned powers That led the embattled. Seraphim to war Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds ^^o Fearless, endangered Heaven's perpetual King, And put to proof his high supremacy. Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate ! Too well I see and rue the dire event That with sad overthrow and foul defeat Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host In horrible destruction laid thus low. As far as gods and heavenly essences Can perish : for the mind and spirit remains Invincible, and vie:or soon returns, i^*^ PUEITANS AND KINGS 133 Though all our glory extinct, and happy state Here swallowed up in endless misery. But what if he our Conqueror (whom I now Of force believe almighty, since no less Than such could have o'erpowered such force as ours) Have left us this our spirit and strength entire, Strongly to suffer and support our pains. That we may so suffice his vengeful ire. Or do him mightier service as his thralls By right of war, whate'er his business be, '^^^ Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire, Or do his errands in the gloomy Deep ? What can it then avail, though yet we feel Strength undiminished, or eternal being To undergo eternal punishment?" Whereto with speedy words the Arch- Fiend replied: — ''Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable, Doing or suffering : but of this be sure — To do aught good never will be our task, But ever to do ill our sole delight, ^^^ As being the contrary to his high will Whom we resist. If then his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labor must be to pervert that end. And out of good still to find means of evil ; Which ofttimes may succeed so as perhaps Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb His inmost counsels from their destined aim. But see ! the angry Victor hath recalled His ministers of vengeance and pursuit 1''*' Back to the gates of Heaven ; the sulphurous hail. Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid The fiery surge that from the precipice Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder. Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep. Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe. Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, The seat of desolation, void of light, 1^1 Save what the glimmering of these livid flames Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend From off the tossing of these fiery waves ; There rest, if any rest can harbor there ; And, reassembling our afflicted powers, Consult how we may henceforth most offend Our Enemy, our own loss how repair, How overcome this dire calamity, What reinforcement we may gain from hope, If not what resolution from despair." i^l Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate, With head uplift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blazed; his other parts be- sides, Prone on the flood, extended long and large. Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monstrous size, Titanian, or Earth-born, that warred on Jove, Briareos or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast 200 Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream. Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam, The i^ilot of some small night-foundered skiff Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, With fixed anchor in his scaly rind, Moors by his side under the lee, while night Invests the sea, and wished morn delays. So stretched out huge in length the Arch- Fiend lay, 209 Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence Had risen or heaved his head, but that the will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs, That with reiterated crimes he might Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Evil to others, and enraged might see How all his malice served but to bring forth Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shewn On Man by him seduced ; but on himself 219 Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured. Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature ; on each hand the flames Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and, rolled In billows, leave i' the midst a horrid vale. Then with exjDanded wings he steers his flight Aloft, incumbent on the duslvy air. That felt unusual weight; till on dry land He lights — if it were land that ever burned With solid, as the lake with liquid fire. And such appeared in hue, as when the force Of subterranean wind transports a hill 231 Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side 134 THE GEEAT TRADITION Of thundering ^tna, wKose combustible And fueled entrails thence conceiving fire, Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds. And leave a singed bottom all involved With stench and smoke : such resting found the sole Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate, Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood As gods, and by their own recovered strength, 240 Not by the sufferance of supernal power. "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime," Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat That we must change for Heaven? this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be it so, since he Who now is sovran can dispose and bid What shall be right : farthest from him is best, Whom reason hath equaled, force hath made supreme Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields, Where joy forever dwells ! Hail, horrors ! hail, 250 Infernal world ! and thou, prof oundest Hell, Receive thy new possessor, one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same. And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made gi-eater? Here at least We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence : 260 Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell : Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. But wherefore let we then our faithful friends, The associates and co-partners of our loss. Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool, And call them not to share with us their part In this unhappy mansion, or once more With rallied arms to try what may be yet Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?" 270 So Satan spake ; and him Beelzebub Thus answered: — "Leader of those armies bright Which but the Omnipotent none could have foiled, If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge Of hope in fears and dangers — heard so oft In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge Of battle when it raged, in all assaults Their surest signal — they will soon resume New courage and revive, though now they lie Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire, As we erewhile, astounded and amazed : 28i No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth !" He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend Was moving toward the shore ; his ponderous shield. Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, Behind him cast. The broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At evening from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, 290 Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe. His spear — to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great ammiral, were but a wand — He walked with, to support uneasy steps Over the burning marie, not like those steps On Heaven's azure ; and the torrid clime Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire. Nathless he so endured, till on the beach Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called 300 His legions. Angel forms, who lay entranced. Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew Busiris and his Memphian chivalry. While with perfidious hatred they pursued The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld From the safe shore their floating carcases ^^^ And broken chariot-wheels : so thick be- strown, Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood. Under amazement of their hideous change. He called so loud that all the hollow deep Of Hell resounded : — "Princes, Potentates, Warriors, the Flower of Heaven — once yours, now lost, If such astonishment as this can seize ■ Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place After the toil of battle to repose Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find ^20 PURITANS AND KINGS 135 To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven *? Or in this abject posture have ye sworn To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates dis- cern The advantage, and descending tread us down Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf? Awake, arise, or be forever fallen !" 330 They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch. On duty sleeping found by whom they dread. Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake. Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day. Waved round the coast, up called a pitchy cloud 340 Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind. That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like night, and darkened all the land of Nile: So numberless were those bad Angels seen Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell, 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires ; Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear Of their great Sultan waving to direct Their course, in even balance down they light On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain : 350 A multitude like which the populous North Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons Came like a deluge on the South, and spread Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands. Forthwith, from every squadron and each band. The heads and leaders thither haste where stood Their great Commander ; godlike shapes, and forms Excelling human, princely Dignities, And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones ; 360 Though of their names in Heavenly records now Be no memorial, blotted out and rased By their rebellion from the Books of Life. Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve Got them new names, till, wandering o'er the Earth, Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man. By falsities and lies the greatest part Of mankind they corrupted to forsake God their Creator, and the invisible Glory of him that made them, to transform Oft to the image of a brute, adorned 371 With gay religions full of pomp and gold. And devils to adore for deities : Then were they known to me by various names, And various idols through the heathen world. Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last. Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch, At their great Emperor's call, as next in worth Came singly where he stood on the bare strand, While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof. 380 The chief were those who, from the pit of Hell Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst fix Their seats, long after, next the seat of God, Their altars by his altar, gods adored Among the nations round, and durst abide Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned Between the Cherubim ; yea, often placed Within his sanctuary itself their shrines, Abominations ; and with cursed things His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned, 390 And with their darkness durst affront his light. First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears. Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, Their children's cries unheard that passed through fire To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain, In Argob and in Basan, to the stream Of utmost Anion. Nor content with such Audacious neighborhood, the wisest heart ■*00 Of Solomon he led by fraud to build His temple right against the temple of God On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell. 136 THE GREAT TRADITION Next Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons, From Aroar to Nebo and the wild Of southmost Abarim ; in Hesebon And Horonaim, Seon^s realm, beyond The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,'*!^ And Eleale to the Asphaltic pool; Peor his other name, when he enticed Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile, To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe. Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate, Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell. With these came they who, from the border- ing flood Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts ^20 Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names Of Baalim and Ashtaroth — those male. These feminine. For Spirits, when they please, Can either sex assume, or both; so soft And uncompounded is their essence pure. Not tied or manacled with joint or limb. Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones. Like cumbrous flesh ; but, in what shape they choose, Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure. Can execute their aery purposes, ^^ And works of love or enmity fulfil. For those the race of Israel oft forsook Their living Strength, and unfrequented left His righteous altar, Jsowing lowly down To bestial gods ; for which their heads as low Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear Of despicable foes. With these in troop Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called Astarte, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns ; To whose bright image nightly by the moon 440 Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs ; In Sion also not unsung, where stood Her temple on the offensive mountain, built By that uxorious king whose heart, though large. Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind. Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day. While smooth Adonis from his native rock "^^O Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded : the love-tale Infected Sion's daughters with like heat, Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led. His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah. Next came one Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge, ^60 Where he fell flat, and shamed his worship- ers: Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man And downward fish ; yet had his temple high Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon, And Aecaron and Gaza's frontier bounds. Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams. He also against the house of God was bold : A leper once he lost, and gained a king, 471 Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew God's altar to disparage and displace For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn His odious offerings, and adore the gods Whom he had vanquished. After these ap- peared A crew who, under names of old renown, Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train. With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek ^80 Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape The infection, when their borrowed gold composed The calf in Oreb, and tlie rebel king Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan, Likening his Maker to the grazed ox — Jehovah, Avho, in one night, when he passed From Egypt marching, equaled with one stroke Both her first-born and all her bleating gods. Belial came last, than whom a Spirit more lewd 490 Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love Vice for itself. To him no temple stood Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he In tei pies and at altars, when the priest Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who filled With lust and violence the house of God? In courts and palaces he also reigns, And in luxurious cities, where the noise Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers. And injury and outrage; and when night ^^o Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons PUEITANS AND KINGS 137 Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine. Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night In Gibeah, when the hospitable door Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape. These were the prime in order and in might ; The rest were long to tell, though far re- nowned The Ionian gods — of Javan's issue held Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth, Their boasted jDarents; — Titan, Heaven's first-born, 5io With his enormous brood, and birthright seized By younger Saturn ; he from mightier Jove, His own and Rhea's son, like measure found ; So Jove usurping reigned. These, first in Crete And Ida known, thence on the snowy top Of cold Olympus ruled the middle air, Their highest Heaven; or on the Delphian cliff. Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds Of Doric land ; or who with Saturn old Fled over Adria to the Hesperian fields, ^20 And o'er the Celtic roamed the utmost isles. All these and more came flocking ; but with looks Downcast and damp, yet such wherein ap- peared Obscure some glimpse of joy, to have found their Chief Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost In loss itself; which on his countenance east Like doubtful hue. But he, his wonted pride Soon recollecting, with high words that bore Semblance of worth, not substance, gently raised Their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears : 530 Then straight commands that at the warlike sound Of trumpets loud and clarions, be upreared His mighty standard. That proud honor claimed Azazel as his right, a Cherub tall : Who forthwith from the glittering staff un- furled The imiDerial ensign, which, full high ad- vanced. Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind. With gems and golden luster rich emblazed. Seraphic arms and trophies ; all the while Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds : 540 At which the universal host up-sent A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night. All in a moment through the gloom were seen Ten thousand banners rise into the air, With orient colors waving ; with them rose A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms Appeared, and serried shields in thick array Of dejDth immeasurable. Anon they move In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood 550 Of flutes and soft recorders — such as raised To highth of noblest temper heroes old Arming to battle, and instead of rage Deliberate valor breathed, firm and unmoved With dread of death to flight or foul retreat ; Nor wanting power to mitigate and SAvage, With solemn touches, troubled thoughts, and chase Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain From mortal or immortal minds. Thus they, Breathing united force with fixed thought, 560 Moved on in silence to soft pipes that charmed Their painful steps o'er the burnt soil; and now Advanced in view they stand, a horrid front Of dreadful length and dazzling arms, in guise Of warriors old, with ordered sjDear and shield, Awaiting what command their mighty Chief Had to impose. He through the armed files Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse The whole battalion views — their order due, Their visages and stature as of gods ; 570 Their number last he sums. And now his heart Distends with pride, and hardening in his ' strength Glories ; for never, since created man. Met such embodied force as, named with these. Could merit more than that small infantry Warred on by cranes : though all the giant brood Of Phlegra with the heroic race were joined That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side Mixed with auxiliar gods ; and what resounds In fable or romance of Uther's son, 580 Begirt with British and Armoric knights ; And all who since, baptized or infidel. Jousted in Aspramont, or Montalban, Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond; 138 THE GREAT TRADITION Or whom Biserta sent from Afrie shore When Charlemain with all his peerage fell By Fontarabbia. Thus far these beyond Compare of mortal prowess, yet observed Their dread commander. He, above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent, ^90 Stood like a tower ; his form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appeared Less than Archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured: as when the sun new- risen Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon. In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations,' and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet shone Above them all the Archangel; but his face 600 Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride Waiting revenge. Cruel his eye, but cast Signs of remorse and passion, to behold The fellows of his crime, the followers rather (Far other once beheld in bliss), condemned Forever now to have their lot in pain ; Millions of Spirits for his fault amerced Of Heaven, and from eternal splendors flung 610 For his revolt ; yet faithful how they stood. Their glory withered : as, when Heaven's fire Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines. With singed top their stately growth, though bare. Stands on the blasted heath. He now pre- pared To speak ; whereat their doubled ranks they bend From wing to wing, and half enclose him round With all his peers : attention held them mute. Thrice he assayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn, Tears, such as Angels weep, burst forth : at last 620 Words interwove with sighs found out their way : — "0 myriads of immortal Spirits ! Pow- ers Matchless, but with the Almighty ! — and that strife Was not inglorious, though the event was dire, As this place testifies, and this dire change. Hateful to utter. But what power of mind. Foreseeing or presaging, from the depth Of knowledge past or present, could have feared How such united force of gods, how such As stood like these, could ever know repulse ? For who can yet believe, though after loss, 631 That all these puissant legions, whose exile Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to reaseend. Self -raised, and repossess their native seat? For me, be witness all the host of Heaven, If counsels different, or danger shunned By me, have lost our hopes. But he who reigns Monarch in Heaven, till then as one secure Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute. Consent or custom, and his regal state 640 Put forth at full, but still his strength con- cealed ; Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall. Henceforth his might we know, and know our own So as not either to provoke, or dread New war provoked. Our better part remains To work in close design, by fraud or guile. What force effected not ; that he no less At length from us may find, who overcomes By force hath overcome but half his foe. Space may produce new worlds ; whereof so rife 650 There went a fame in Heaven that he ere long Intended to create, and therein plant A generation whom his choice regard Should favor equal to the Sons of Heaven. Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps Our first eruption : thither or elsewhere ; For this infernal pit shall never hold Celestial Si3irits in bondage, nor the Abyss Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts, Full counsel must mature. Peace is de- spaired, ' 660 For who can think svibmission ? War, then, war Open or understood, must be resolved." He spake; and, to confirm his words, out-flew Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs Of mighty Cherubim ; the sudden blaze Far round illumined Hell. Highly they raged Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms PUEITANS AND KINGS 139 Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war, Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven. There stood a hill not far, whose grisly top _ 670 Belched fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire Shone with a glossy scurf, undoubted sign That in liis womb was hid metallic ore, The work of sulphur. Thither, winged with speed, A numerous brigad hastened : as when bands Of pioneers, with spade and pickaxe armed, Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field. Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on, Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell From Heaven, for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts ^^^ Were always downward bent, admixing more The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold. Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed In vision beatific. By him first Men also, and by his suggestion taught. Ransacked the Center, and with impious hands Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew Opened into the hill a spacious wound. And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire ^^^ That riches grow in Hell ; that soil may best Deserve the precious bane. And here let those Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell Of Babel, and the works of Memphian kings. Learn how their greatest monuments of fame. And strength, and art, are easily outdone By Spirits reprobate, and in an hour What in an age they, with incessant toil And hands innumerable, scarce perform. Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared, '^^^ That underneath had veins of liquid fire Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude With wondrous art founded the massy ore. Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion dross. A third as soon had formed within the ground A various mold, and from the boiling cells By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook: As in an organ, from one blast of wind, 720 To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes. Anon out of the earth a fabric huge ™ Rose like an exhalation, with the sound Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet — Built like a temple, where pilasters round Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid With golden architrave ; nor did there want Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven : The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon, Nor great Alcairo, such magnificence Equaled in all their glories, to enshrine Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove In wealth and luxury. The ascending pile Stood fixed her stately highth, and straight the doors. Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide Within, her ample spaces o'er the smooth And level pavement : from the arched I'oof , Pendent by subtle magic, many a row Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light As from a sky. The hasty multitude '^^^ Admiring entered, and the work some praise, And some the architect. His hand was known In Heaven by many a towered structure high. Where sceptered Angels held their residence, And sat as Princes, whom the supreme King Exalted to such power, and gave to rule. Each in his hierarchy, the Orders bright. Nor was his name unheard or unadored In ancient Greece ; and in Ausonian land Men called him Mulciber ; and how he fell "^40 From Heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o'er the crystal battlements : from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day; and with the setting sun Droi^t from the zenith, like a falling star, On Lemnos, the JEgsean isle. Thus they relate, Erring; for he with this rebellious rout Fell long before ; nor aught availed him now To have built in Heaven high towers; nor did he scape By all his engines, but was headlong sent '^^^ With his industrious crew to build in Hell. Meanwhile the winged heralds, by com- mand Of sovran power, with awful ceremony And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim 140 THE GEEAT TEADITION A solemn council forthwith to be held At Pandemonium, the high capital Of Satan and his peers. Their summons cal|ed From every band and squared regiment By place or choice the worthiest; they anon With hundreds and with thousands trooping came "^60 Attended, All access was thronged; the gates And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall (Though like a covered field, where cham- pions bold Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan's chair Defied the best of Panim chivalry To mortal combat, or career with lance) Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air, Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees In spring-time, when the Sun with Taurus rides, Pour forth their populous youth about the hive 770 In clusters; they among fresh deAvs and flowers Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank, The suburb of their straw-built citadel. New rubbed Avith balm, expatiate and confer Their state-affairs. So thick the aery crowd Swarmed and were straitened; till, the sig- nal given. Behold a wonder; they but now who seemed In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons. Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room Throng numberless, like that pygmean race Beyond the Indian mount ; or faery elves, "^^i Whose midnight revels, by a forest-side Or fountain, some belated peasant sees. Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth Wheels her pale course ; they, on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music ehai'm his ear; At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds. Thus incorporeal Spirits to smallest forms Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large, 790 Though without number still, amidst the hall Of that infernal court. But far within. And in their own dimensions like themselves. The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim In close recess and secret conclave sat, A thousand demi-gods on golden seats. Frequent and full. After short silence then, And summons read, the great consult bagan. Book II' High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat, by merit raised To that bad eminence; and, from despair Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue Vain war with Heaven ; and, by success un- taught. His proud imaginations thus displayed : — lo "Powers and Dominions, Deities of Heaven ! For since no deep within her gulf can hold Immortal vigor, though oppressed and fallen, I give not Heaven for lost: from this de- scent Celestial Virtues rising will appear More glorious and more dread than from no fall. And trust themselves to fear no second fate. Me though just right, and the fixed laws of Heaven, Did first create your leader, next, free choice, With what besides, in council or in fight, 20 Hath been achieved of merit, yet this loss. Thus far at least recovered, hath much more Established in a safe, unenvied throne, Yielded with full consent. The happier state In Heaven, which follows dignity, might draw Envy from each inferior; but who here Will envy whom the highest place exposes Foremost to stand against the Thunderer's aim Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share Of endless pain? Where there is then no good 30 For which to strive, no strife can grow up there From faction; for none sure will claim in Hell Precedence, none whose portion is so small Of present pain that with ambitious mind Will covet more. With this advantage then To union, and firm faith, and fii"m accord. More than can be in Heaven, we now return PURITANS AND KINGS 141 To claim our just inheritance of old, Surer to prosper than prosperity Could have assured us; and by what best way, . ^^ Whether of open war or covert guile, We now debate ; who can advise may speak." He ceased; and next him Moloch, scep- tered king, Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest Spirit That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by de- spair. His trust was with the Eternal to be deemed Equal in strength, and rather than be less Cared not to be at all ; with that care lost Went all his fear : of God, or Hell, or worse. He recked not, and these words thereafter spake : — ^^ "My sentence is for open war. Of wiles, More unexpert, I boast not : them let those Contrive who need, or when they need; not now. For while they sit contriving, shall the rest — Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait The signal to ascend — sit lingering here. Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling- place Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame. The prison of his tyranny who reigns By our delay ? No ! let us rather choose, ^^ Armed with Hell-flames and fury, all at once O'er Heaven's high towers to force resistless way. Turning our tortures into horrid arms Against the Torturer ; when to meet the noise Of his almighty engine he shall hear Infernal thunder, and for lightning see Black fire and horror shot with equal rage Among his Angels, and his throne itself Mixed with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire. His own invented torments. But perhaps ™ The way seems difficult and steep to scale With upright Aving against a higher foe. Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench Of that forgetful lake benumb not still. That in our proper motion we ascend Up to our native seat; descent and fall To us is adverse. Who but felt of late. When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear Insulting, and pursued us through the deep, With what compulsion and laborious flight ^^ We sunk thus low ? The ascent is easy then ; The event is feared ! Should we again pro- voke Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find To our destruction — if there be in Hell Fear to be worse destroyed ! What can be worse Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned In this abhorred deep to utter woe ; Where pain of unextinguishable fire Must exercise us, without hope of end. The vassals of his anger, when the scourge ^^ Inexoi'ably, and the torturing hour. Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus. We should be quite abolished, and expire. What fear we then? what doubt we to in- cense His utmost ire ? which, to the highth enraged. Will either quite consume us, and reduce To nothing this essential — happier far Than miserable to have eternal being! — Or if our substance be indeed divine. And cannot cease to be, we are at worst ^^^ On this side nothing ; and by proof we feel Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven, And with perpetual inroads to alarm. Though inaccessible, his fatal throne : Which, if not victory, is yet revenge." He ended frowning, and his look de- nounced Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous To less than gods. On the other side up rose Belial, in act more gTacef ul and humane ; A fairer person lost not Heaven ; he seemed For dignity composed, and high exploit. ^^^ But all was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse ap- pear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low; To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds Timorous and slothful; yet he pleased the ear: And with persuasive accent thus began : — "I should be much for open war, Peers, As not behind in hate, if what was urged 120 Main reason to persuade immediate war Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast Oniinous conjecture on the whole success; When he who most excels in fact of arms. In what he counsels and in what excels Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair And utter dissolution, as the scope Of all his aim, after some dire revenge. First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled With armed watch, that render all access ^30 142 THE GREAT TRADITION 140 Impregnable: oft on the bordering deep Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing Scout far and wide into the realm of Night, Scorning surprise. Or could we break our way By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise With blackest insurrection, to confound Heaven's purest light, yet our great Enemy, All incorruptible, would on his throne Sit unpolluted, and the ethereal mold, Incapable of stain, would soon expel Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire, Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope Is flat despair: we must exasperate The Almighty Victor to spend all his rage; And that must end us, that must be our cure — To be no more. Sad cure ! for who would lose. Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity. To perish rather, swallowed up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated Night, ^^ Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows, Let this be good, whether our angry foe Can give it, or will ever ? How he can Is doubtful ; that he never will is sure. Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire. Belike through impotence, or unaware. To give his enemies their wish, and end Them in his anger, whom his anger saves To punish endless? 'Wherefore cease we then?' Say they who counsel war ; 'we are decreed, Reserved, and destined to eternal woe: ^^o Whatever doing, what can we suffer more. What can we suffer worse?' Is this then worst. Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in ai'ms? What when we fled amain, pursued and struck With Heaven's afflicting thunder, and be- sought The Deep to shelter us? This Hell then seemed A refuge from those wounds. Or when we lay Chained on the burning lake ? That sure was worse. What if the breath that kindled those grim fires, 1^0 Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage. And plunge us ii> the flames ; or from above Should intermitted vengeance arm again His red right hand to plague us? What if all Her stores were opened, and this firmament Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire. Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall One day upon our heads ; while we perhaps Designing or exhorting glorious war. Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled, i^o Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey Of racking whirlwinds, or forever sunk Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains; There to converse with everlasting groans, Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved. Ages of hopeless end ! This would be worse. War therefore, open or concealed, alike My voice dissuades: for what can force or guile With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye Views all things at one view? He from Heaven's highth ^^ All these our motions vain sees and derides ; Not more almighty to resist our might Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles. Shall we then live thus vile, the race of Heaven Thus trampled, thus expelled to suffer here Chains and these torments? Better these than worse. By my advice ; since fate inevitable Subdues us, and omnipotent decree. The Victor's will. To suffer, as to do, Our strength is equal, nor the law unjust ^00 That so ordains : this was at first resolved. If we were wise, against so great a foe Contending, and so doubtful what might fall. I laugh, when those who at the spear are bold And venturous, if that fail them, shrink, and fear What yet they know must follow — to endure Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain. The sentence of their conqueror. This is now Our doom ; which if we can sustain and bear. Our Supreme Foe in time may much remit 2io His anger, and perhaps, thus far removed. Not mind us not offending, satisfied With what is punished; whence these rag- ing fires Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames. Our purer essence then will overcome Their noxious vapor, or, inured, not feel; PUEITANS AND KINGS 143 Or, changed at length, and to the place conformed In temper and in nature, will receive Familiar the fierce heat; and, void of pain, This horror will grow mild, this darkness light; 220 Besides what hope the never-ending flight Of future days may bring, what chance, what change Worth waiting, — since our present lot ap- pears For happy though but ill, for ill not worst. If we procure not to ourselves more woe." Thus Belial, with words clottied in rea- son's garb, Counselled ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth. Not peace; and after him thus Mammon spake : — "Either to disenthrone the King of Heaven We war, if war be best, or to regain 230 Our own right lost. Him to unthrone we then May hope, when evei'lasting Fate shall yield To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife. The former, vain to hope, argues as vain The latter; for what place can be for us Within Heaven's bound, unless Heaven's Lord Supreme We overpower? Suppose he should relent. And publish grace to all, on promise made Of new subjection; with what eyes could we Stand in his presence, humble, and re- ceive 240 Strict laws imposed, to celebrate his throne With warbled hymns, and to his Godhead sing Forced Halleluiahs ; while he lordly sits Our envied sovran, and his altar breathes Ambrosial odors and ambrosial flowers, Our servile offerings? This must be our task In Heaven, this our delight. How weari- some Eternity so spent in worship paid To whom we hate ! Let us not then pur- sue — By force impossible, by leave obtained 250 Unacceptable — though in Heaven, our state Of splendid vassalage; but rather seek Our own good from ourselves, and from our own Live to ourselves, though in this vast recess, Free, and to none accountable, preferring Hard liberty before the easy yoke Of servile pomp. Our greatness will ap- pear Then most conspicuous, when great things of small. Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse. We can ci'eate, and in what place soe'er 260 Thrive under evil, and work ease out of pain Through labor and endurance. This deep world Of darkness do we dread? How oft amidst Thick clouds and dark doth Heaven's all- ruling Sire Choose to reside, his glory unobscured, . And with the majesty of darkness round Covers his throne, from whence deep thun- ders roar, Mustering their rage, and Heaven resembles Hell! As he our darkness, cannot we his light Imitate when we please? This desert soil 270 Wants not her hidden luster, gems, and gold ; Nor want we skill or art, from whence to raise Magnificence; and what can Heaven show more? Our torments also may in length of time Become our elements, these piercing fires As soft as now severe, our temper changed Into their temper; which must needs re- move The sensible of pain. All things invite To peaceful counsels, and the settled state Of order, how in safety best we may 280 Compose our present evils, with regard Of what we are and wliere, dismissing quite All thoughts of war. Ye have what I ad- vise." He scarce had finished, when such mur- mur filled The assembly, as when hollow rocks retain The sound of blustering winds, which all night long Had roused the sea, now with hoarse ca- dence lull Seafaring men o'erwatched, whose bark by chance. Or pinnace, anchors in a craggy bay After the tempest: such applause was heard 290 As Mammon ended, and his sentence pleased, Advising peace; for such another field They dreaded worse than Hell; so much the fear Of thunder and the sword of Michael 144 THE GEEAT TKADITION Wrought still within them; and no less de- si'^e To found this nether empire, which might rise, By policy, and long process of time, In emulation opposite to Heaven. Which when Beelzebub perceived, than whom, Satan except, none higher sat, with grave ^^^ Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed A pillar of state ; deep on his front engraven Deliberation sat and public care; And princely counsel in his face yet shone. Majestic, though in ruin. Sage he stood. With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look Drew audience and attention still as night Or summer's noontide air, while thus he spake : — - "Thrones and Imperial Powers, Offspring of Heaven, 310 Ethereal Virtues ! or these titles now Must we renounce, and changing style, be called Princes of Hell? for so the popular vote Inclines^here to continue, and build up here A growing empire; doubtless! while we dream, And know not that the King of Heaven hath doomed This place our dungeon — not our safe re- treat Beyond his potent arm, to live exempt From Heaven's high jurisdiction, in new league Banded against his throne, but to remain ^20 In strictest bondage, though thus far re- moved. Under the inevitable curb, reserved His captive multitude. For he, be sure. In highth or depth, still first and last will reign Sole king, and of his kingdom lose no part By our revolt, but over Hell extend His empire, and with iron scepter rule Us here, as with his golden those in Heaven. What sit we then projecting peace and war 1 War hath determined us, and foiled with loss 330 Irreparable ; terms of peace yet none Vouchsafed or sought; for what peace will be given To us enslaved, but custody severe. And stripes, and arbitrary punishment Inflicted? and what peace can we return. But, to our power, hostility, and hate. Untamed reluctance, and revenge, though slow, Yet ever plotting how the Conqueror least May reap his conquest, and may least re- joice' In doing what we most in suffering feel ? 340 Nor will occasion want, nor shall we need With dangerous expedition to invade Heaven, whose high walls fear no assault or siege. Or ambush from the Deep. What if we find Some easier enterprise? There is a place (If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven Err not), another World, the happy seat Of some new race called Man, about this time To be created like to us, though less In power and excellence, but favored more 350 Of him who rules above; so was his will Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath That shook Heaven's whole circumference, confirmed. Thither let us bend all our thoughts, to learn What creatures there inhabit, of what mold Or substance, how endued, and what their power, And where their weakness : how attempted best, By force or subtlety. Though Heaven be shut, And Heaven's high Arbitrator sit secure In his own strength, this place may lie ex- posed, 360 The utmost border of his kingdom, left To their defence who hold it ; here, perhaps, Some advantageous act may be achieved By sudden onset : either with Hell-fire To waste his whole creation, or possess All as our own, and drive, as we were driven, The puny habitants ; or if not drive. Seduce them to our party, that their God May prove their foe, and with repenting hand Abolish his own works. This would sur- pass 370 Common revenge, and interrupt his joy In our confusion, and our joy upraise In his disturbance ; when his darling sons. Hurled headlong to partake with us, shall curse Their frail original, and faded bliss — Faded so soon ! Advise if this be worth PUEITANS AND KINGS 145 Attempting, or to sit in darkness here Hatching vain empires." Thus Beelzebub Pleaded his devilish counsel, first devised By Satan, and in part proposed; for whence ^^^ But from the author of all ill, could spring So deep a malice, to confound the race Of mankind in one root, and Earth with Hell To mingle and involve, done all to spite The great Creator? But their spite still serves His glory to augment. The bold design Pleased highly those Infernal States, and joy Sparkled in all their eyes; with full assent They vote: whereat his speech he thus re- news : — ''Well have ye judged, well ended long debate, ^^ Synod of gods ! and, like to what ye are, Great things resolved; which from the Ioav- est deep Will once more lift us up, in spite of fate. Nearer our ancient seat — perhaps in view Of those bright confines, whence, with neigh- boring arms And opportune excursion, we may chance Re-enter Heaven ; or else in some mild zone Dwell not unvisited of Heaven's fair light. Secure, and at the brightening orient beam Purge off this gloom; the soft delicious air, 400 To heal the scar of these corrosive fires, Shall breathe her balm. But first, whom shall we send In search of this new world? whom shall we find Sufficient? who shall tempt with wandering feet The dark, unbottomed, infinite Abyss, And through the palpable obscure find out His uncouth way, or spread his aery flight. Upborne with indefatigable wings Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive The happy isle? What strength, what art, can then 4lo Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe Through the strict senteries and stations thick Of Angels watching round? Here he had need All circumsi3eetion, and we now no less Choice in our suffrage; for on whom we send. The weight of all, and our last hope, relies." This said, he sat ; and expectation held His look suspense, awaiting who appeared To second, or oppose, or undertake The perilous attemjDt ; but all sat mute, 420 Pondering the danger with deep thoughts; and each In other's countenance read his own dismay, Astonished. None among the choice and prime Of those Heaven-warring champions could be found So hardy as to profiler or accept. Alone, the dreadful voyage; till at last Satan, whom now transcendent glory raised Above his fellows, with monarchal pride Conscious of highest worth, unmoved thus spake : — "0 Progeny of Heaven! Empyreal Thrones ! 431 With reason hath deep silence and demur Seized us, though undismayed. Long is the way And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light; Our prison strong, this huge convex of fire. Outrageous to devour, immures us round Ninefold; and gates of burning adamant, Barred over us, prohibit all egress. These passed, if any pass, the void pro- found Of unessential Night receives him next, Wide-gaping, and with utter loss of be- ing 440 Threatens him, plunged in that abortive gulf. If thence he scape, into whatever world. Or unknown region, what remains him less Than unknown dangers and as hard escape? But I should ill become this throne, Peers, And this imperial sovranty, adorned With splendor, armed with power, if aught proposed And judged of public moment, in the shape Of difficulty or danger, could deter Me from attempting. Wherefore do I a«:- sume 450 These royalties, and not refuse to reign. Refusing to accept as great a share Of hazard as of honor, due alike To him who reigns, and so much to him due Of hazard more, as he above the rest High honored sits? Go therefore, mighty Powers, Terror of Heaven, though fallen ; intend at home While here shall be our home, what best may ease The present misery, and render Hell 146 THE GEEAT TEADITION More tolerable ; if there be cure or charm ^60 To respite, or deceive, or slack the pain Of this ill mansion ; intermit no watch Against a wakeful foe, Avhile I abroad Through all the coasts of dark destruction seek Deliverance for us all : this enterprise None shall partake with nie." Thus saying, rose The Monarch, and prevented all reply; Prudent, lest, from his resolution raised. Others among the chief might offer now (Certain to be refused) what erst they feared, 470 And, so refused, might in opinion stand His rivals, winning cheap the high repute Which he through hazard huge must earn. But they Dreaded not more the adventure than his voice Forbidding ; and at once with him they rose. Their rising all at once was as the sound Of thunder heard remote. Towards him they bend With awful reverence prone; and as a god Extol him equal to the Highest in Heaven. Nor failed they to express how much they praised "^^^ That for the general safety he despised His own ; for neither do the Spirits damned Lose all their virtue, — lest bad men should boast Their specious deeds on Earth, which glory excites, Or close ambition varnished o'er with zeal. Thus, they their doubtful consultations dark Ended, rejoicing in their matchless Chief; As when from mountain-tops the dusky clouds Ascending, .vhile the North-wind sleeps, o'er-spread Heaven's cheerful face, the louring ele- ment ^^^ Scowls o'er the darkened landskip snow or shower ; If chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet Extend his evening beam, the fields revive. The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings. O shame to men ! Devil with devil damned Firm concord holds; men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope Of heavenly grace; and, God proclaiming peace. Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife ^^^ Among themselves, and levy cruel wars, Wasting the Earth, each other to destroy : As if (which might induce us to accord) Man had not hellish foes enow besides. That day and night for his destruction wait ! The Stygian council thus dissolved; and forth In order came the grand Infernal Peers; Midst came their mighty Paramount, and seemed Alone the antagonist of Heaven, nor less Than Hell's dread Emperor, with pomp su- preme, 510 And god-like imitated state ; him round A globe of fiery Seraphim enclosed With bright emblazonry, and horrent arms, Then of their session ended they bid cry With trumpet's regal sound the great re- sult: Toward the four winds four speedy Cheru- bim Put to their mouths the sounding alehymy, By herald's voice explained; the hollow Abyss Heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell With deafening shout returned them loud acclaim. ^^^ Thence more at ease their minds, and some- what raised By false jDresumptuous hope, the ranged powers Disband; and, wandering, each his several way Pursues, as inclination or sad choice Leads him perplexed, where he may likeli- est find Truce to his restless thoughts, and enter- tain The irksome hours, till his great Chief re- turn. 3. LIBERTY AND DISCIPLINE [From Areopagitica, 1644] The Virtue of Books I deny not but that it is of greatest con- cernment in the church and commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves, as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest jus- tice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain PUEITANS AND KINGS 147 a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they. are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living- intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth: and being- sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's im- age; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a bur- den to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, em- balmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. It is true, no age can restore a life, whereof, perhaps, there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise against the liv- ing labors of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, some- times a martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, where- of the execution ends not in the slayjiig of an elemental life, but strikes at the ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself; slays an immortality rather than a life. ... Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably ; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hard- ly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed upon Psyche as an in- cessarit labor to cull oiut, and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. It was from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowl- edge of good and evil, as two twins cleav- ing together, leaped fortii into the world. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil: that is to say, of knowing good by.eviL As therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowl- edge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distin- guish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true warfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered vir- tue, unexercised and uubreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not inno- cence into the world, we bi-ing impurity much rather ; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That vir- tue therefore which is but a youngluag in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her follow- ers and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure ; her w^hiteness is but an excremental whiteness; which was the reason why our sage and serious poet Spenser, (whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas,) describing true temperance under the person of Guyon, brings him in with his palmer through the cave of Mammon, and the bower of earthly bliss, that he might see and know, and yet abstain. Smce therefore the knowledge and sur- vey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity, than by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all manner of rea- son? And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read. Of Restraints For if they fell upon one kind of strict- ness, unless their care were equal to regulate all other things of like aptness to corrupt the mind, that single endeavor they knew would be but a fond labor.; to shut and fortify one gate against corruption, and be necessitated to leave others round about wid^ open. If we think to regulate print- ing, therelay to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and Doric. There must be licens- ing dancers, that no gesture, motion, or de- portment be taught our youth, but what by their allowance shall be thought honest ; for such Plato was provided of. It will ask more than the work of twenty licensers to examine all the lutes, the violins, and the guitars in every house; they must not be suffered to prattle as they do, but must be 148 THE GEEAT TEADITION licensed what they may say. And who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whis- per softness in chambers'? The windows also, and the balconies, must be thought on ; these are shrewd books, with dangerous frontispieces, set to sale: who shall pro- hibit them, shall twenty licensers? The villages also must have their visitors to in- quire what lectures the bagpipe and the rebec reads, even to the ballatry and the gamut of every municipal fiddler; for these are the countryman's Areadias, and his Montemayors. Next, what more national corruption, for which England hears ill abroad, than house- hold gluttony'? Who shall be the rectors of our daily rioting? And what shall be done to inhibit the multitudes that fre- quent those houses where drunkenness is sold and harbored? Our garments also should be referred to the licensing of some more sober workmasters, to see them cut into a less wanton garb. Who shall regu- late all the mixed conversation of our youth, male and female together, as is the fashion of this country? Who shall still appoint what shall be discoursed, what presumed, and no further? Lastly, who shall forbid and separate all idle resort, all evil com- pany? These things will be, and must be; but how they shall be least hurtful, how least enticing, herein consists the grave and gov- erning wisdom of a state. To sequester out of the world into At- lantic and Utopian politics, which never can be drawn into iise, will not mend our condi- tion; but to ordain wisely as in this world of evil, in the midst whereof God hath placed us unavoidably. Nor is it Plato's licensing of books will do this, which neces- sarily pulls along with it so many other kinds of licensing, as will make us all both ridiculous and weary, and yet frustrate; but those unwritten, or at least unconstraining laws of virtuous education, religious and civil nurture, which Plato there mentions, as the bonds and ligaments of the common- wealth, the pillars an.d the sustainers of evei'y written statute; these they be, which will bear chief sway in such matters as these, when all licensing will be easily eluded. Impunity and remissness for cer- tain are th^ bane of a commonwealth; but here the greiat art lies, to discern in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work. If every action which is good or evil in man at ripe years were to be under pit- tance, prescription, and compulsion, what were virtue but a name, what praise could be then due to well doing, what gramercy to be sober, just, or continent? Many there be that complain of divine Providence for suffering Adam to trans- gress. Foolish tongues! when God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions. We ourselves esteem not of that obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force; God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking object ever almost in his eyes; herein consisted his merit, here- in the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence. Wherefore did he create passions within us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue? They are not skilful considerers of human things who imagine to remove sin by remov- ing the matter of sin; for, besides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing, though some part of it may for a time be withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from all, in such a universal thing as books are; and when this is done, yet the siri remains entire. Though ye take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet one jewel left, ye cannot bereave him of his covetousness. Banish all objects of lust, shut up all youth into the severest discipline that can be exercised in any hermitage, ye cannot make them chaste that came not thither so : such great care and wisdom is required to the right managing of this point. Suppose we could expel sin by this means ; look how much ye thus expel of sin, so much we expel of virtue : for the matter of them both is the same : remove that, and ye remove them both alike. This justifies the high providence of God, who, though he commands us temperance, justice, conti- nence, yet pours out before us even to a profuseness all desirable things, and gives us minds that can wander beyond all limit and satiety. Why should we then affect a rigor contrary to the manner of God and of nature, by abridging or scanting those means, which books freely permitted are, both to the trial of virtue and the exercise of truth? Liberty of Thought I lastly proceed from the no good it ^ can do, to the manifest hurt it causes, in be- ^ i. e., requiring a license for the publication of books. PURITANS AND KINGS 149 ing first the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offered to learning and to learned men. It was the complaint and lamentation of prelates, upon every least of a motion to remove pluralities, and dis- tribute more equally church revenues, that then all learning would be forever dashed and discouraged. But as for that opinion, I never found cause to think that the tenth part of learning stood or fell with the clergy: nor could I ever but hold it for a sordid and unworthy speech of any church- man, who had a competency left him. If therefore ye be loath to dishearten utterly and discontent, not the mercenary crew of false pretenders to learning, but the free and ingenious sort of such as evidently were born to study and love learning for itself, not for lucre, or any other end, but the service of God and of truth, and perhaps that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose pub- lished labors advance the good of mankind, then know, that so far to distrust the judgment and the honesty of one who hath but a common repute in learning, and never yet offended, as' not to count him fit to print his mind without a tutor and examiner, lest he should drop a schism or something of corruption, is the greatest displeasure and indignity to a free and knowing spirit that can be put upon him. What advantage is it to a man, over it is to be a boy at school, if we have only es- caped ther ferula, to come under the fescue of an imprimatur? If serious and elabo- rate writings, as if they were no more than the theme of a grammar-lad under his ped- agogue,- must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a temporizing and extem- porizing licenser? He who is not trusted with his ovi^n actions, his drift not being known to be evil, and standing to the hazard of law and penalty, has no greater argu- ment to thmk himself reputed in the com- monwealth wherein he was born for other than a fool or a foreigner. When a man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason and deliberation to assist him; he searches, meditates, is industrious, and likely consults and confers with his judi- cious friends ; after all whie"h done, he takes himself to be informed in what he writes, as well as any that wrote before him; if in this, the most consvimmate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no industry, no former proof of his abitties, can bring him to that state of maturity, as not to be still mistrusted and suspected, unless he carry all his considerate diligence, all his mid- night watchings and expense of Palladian oil, to the hasty view of an unleisured licen- ser, perhaps much his younger, perhaps far his inferior in judgment, perhaps one who never knew the labor of bookwriting; and if he be not repulsed, or slighted, must ap- pear in print like a puny with his guardian, and his censor's hand on the back of his title to be his bail and surety, that he is no idiot or seducer; it cannot be but a dishonor and derogation to the author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity of learning. And what if the author shall be one so copious of fancy as to have many things well worth the adding come into his mind after licensing, while the book is yet under the press, which not seldom happens to the best and diligentest writers; and that per- haps a dozen times in one book. The printer dares not go beyond his licensed copy ; so often then must the author trudge to his leave-giver, that those his new inser- tions may be viewed; and many a jaunt will be made, ere found, or found at leisure ; meanwhile either the press must stand still, which is no small damage, or the author* lose his aecuratest thoughts, and send the book forth worse than he had made it, which to a diligent writer is the greatest melancholy and vexation that can befall. And how can a man teach with authority, which is the life of teaching; how can he be a doctor in his book, as he ought to be, or else had better be silent, whenas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tui- tion, under the correction of his patriarchal licenser, to blot or alter what precisely ac- cords not with the hide-bound humor which he calls his judgment? When every acute reader, upon the first sight of a pedantic license, will be ready with these like words to ding the book a quoit's distance from him : "I hate a pupil teacher ; I endure not an instructor that comes to me under the wardship of an overseeing fist. I know nothing of the licenser, but that I have his own hand here for his arrogance ; who shall warrant me his judgment?" "The state, sir," replies the stationer; but has a quick return: "The state shall be my governors, but not my critics; they may be mistaken in the choice of a licenser, as easily as this licenser may be mistaken in an author. This is some common stuff" : and he might add from Sir Francis Bacon, that "such 150 THE GEEAT TEADITION authorized books are but the language of the times." For though a licenser should happen to be judicious more than ordinary, which will be a great jeopardy of the next succession, yet his very office and his com- mission enjoins him to let pass nothing but what is vulgarly received already. A Heretic in the Truth Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and complex- ion. Truth is compared in scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believes things only because his pas- tor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy. There is not any bur- den that some would giadlier post off to another than the charge and care of their religion. There be, v;ho knows not that there be? of protestants and professors, who live and die in as errant and implicit faith as any lay papist of Loretto. A wealthy man, addicted to his pleasure and to his profits, finds religion to be a traf- fic so entangled, and of so many piddling- accounts, that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade. What should he dof Fain he would have the name to be religious, fain he would bear up with his neighbors in that. What does he therefore, but resolves to give over toiling, and to find himself out some fac- tor, to whose care and credit he may com- mit the whole managing of his religious af- fairs; some divine of note and estimation that must be. To him he adheres, resigns the whole warehouse of his religion, with all the locks and keys, into his custody ; and indeed makes the very person of that man his religion; esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say his religion is now no more within himself, but is became a dividual moveable, and goes and comes near him, according as that good man frequents the house. He entei'tains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him ; his religion comes home at night, prays, is liberally supped, and sumptuously laid to sleep ; rises, is saluted, and after the malm- sey, or some well-spiced bruage, and better breakfasted than He whose morning appe- tite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and Jerusalem, his re- ligion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop trading all day without his religion. Another sort there be, who when they hear that all things shall be ordered, all things regulated and settled; nothing writ- ten but what passes through the custom- house of certain publicans that have the tonnaging and poundaging of all free-spo- ken truth, will straight give themselves up into your hands, make them and cut them out what religion ye please : there be de- lights, there be recreations and jolly pas- times, that will fetch the day about from sun to sun, and rock the tedious year as in a delightful dream. What need they tor- ture their heads with that which others have taken so strictly and so unalterably into their own purveying? These are the fruits which a dull ease and cessation of our knowledge will bring forth among the peo- ple. How goodly, and how to be wished were such an obedient unanimity as this! What a fine conformity would it starch us all into ! Doubtless a staunch and solid piece of framework as any January could freeze together. Liberty the Nurse of All Great Wits Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on : but when he ascended and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Ti-uth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, lords and commons, nor ever shall do, till her Mas- ter's second coming; he shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mold them into an immortal feature of loveli- ness and perfection. Suffer not these licens- ing prohibitions to stand at every place of opportunity forbidding and disturbing them that continue seeking, that continue to PUEITANS AND KINGS 151 do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyred saint. We boast our light; but if we look not wisely on the sun itself, it smites us into darkness. Who can discern those planets that are oft combust, and those stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the sun, until the opposite motion of their orbs bring them to such a place in the firmament, where they may be seen evening or morning? The light which we have gained was given us, not to be ever star- ing on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a priest, the unmi- tering of a bishop, and the removing him from off the presbyterian shoulders, that will make us a happy nation; no, if other things as great in the church, and in the rule of life both economical and political, be not looked into and reformed, we have looked so long upon the blaze that Zuinglius and Cal- vin have beaconed up to us that we are stark blind. There be who perpetually complain of schisms and sects, and make it such a calam- ity that any man dissents from their max- ims. It is their own pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing, who neither will hear with meekness, nor can convince, yet all must be sujjpressed which is not found in their Syntagma. They are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and permit not others to unite those dissevered pieces, which are yet want- ing to the body of truth. To be still search- ing what we know not, by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we find it (for all her body is homogeneal, and pro- portional), this is the golden rule in theol- ogy as well as in arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony in 'a church ; not the forced and outAvard union of cold and neu- tral and inwardly divided minds. Lords and commons of England ! con- sider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors : a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit; acute to invent, subtile and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human ca- pacity can soar to. Therefore the studies of learning in her deepest sciences have been so ancient, and so eminent among us, that writers of good antiquity and able judgment have been persuaded that even the school of Pythagoras and the Persian wisdom took beginning from the old philos- ophy of this island. And that wise and civil Roman, Julius Agricola, who governed once here for Caesar, preferred the natural wits of Britain before the labored studies of the French. Nor is it for nothing that the grave and frugal Transylvaniaii sends out yearly from as far as the mountainous borders of Rus- sia, and beyond the Hercynian wilderness, not their youth, but their staid men, to learn our language and our theological arts. Yet that which is above all this, the favor and the love of Heaven, we have great argu- ment to think in a peculiar manner propi- tious and propending towards us. Why else was this nation chosen before any other, that out of her, as out of Sion, should be proclaimed and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of reformation to all Europe? And had it not been the obstinate perverseness of our prelates against the divine and admirable spirit of Wickliffe, to suppress him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohe- mian Husse and Jerome, no, nor the name of Luther or of Calvin, had been ever known : the glory of reforming all our neighbors had been completely ours. But now, as our obdurate clergy have with vio- lence demeaned the matter, we are become hitherto the latest and the backwardest scholars of whom God offered to have made us the teachers. Now once again by all concurrence of signs, and by the general instinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and solemnly express their thoughts, God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in his church, even to the reforming of reforma- tion itself; what does he then but to reveal himself to his servants, and as his manner is, first to his Englishmen'? I say, as his manner is, first to us, though we mark not the method of his counsels, and are un- worthy. Behold now, this vast city, a city of refuge, the mansion-house of liberty, en- compassed and surrounded with his pro- tection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers working, to fash- ion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defense of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, re- volving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convin cement. 152 THE GEEAT TRADITION What could a man require more from a nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge? What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful laborers, to make a knowing peo- ple, a nation of prophets, of sages, and of worthies ? We reckon more than five months yet to the harvest; there need not be five weeks, had we but eyes to lift up, the fields are white already. Where there is much desii'e to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opin- ions; for opinion in good men is but knowl- edge in the making. Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding which God hath stirred up in this city. What soipe lament of we rather should rejoice at, should rather praise this pious foiTvardness among men, to reassume the ill-deputed care of their re- ligion into their own hands again. A lit- tle generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity might win all these diligences to join and unite into one general and brotherly search after truth ; could we but forego this prelat- ical tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and pre- cepts of. men. I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger should come among us, wise to discern the mold and temper of a people, and how to govern it, observing the high hopes and aims, the diligent alacrity of our extended thoughts and reasonings in the pursuance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out as Pyrrhus did, ad- miring the Roman docility and courage, "If such were my Epirots, I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted to rbake a church or kingdom happy." Yet these are the men cried out against for schismatics and sectaries, as if, while the tem- ple of the Lord was building, some cutting, some squaring the marble, others hewing the cedars, there should be a sort of irra- tional men, who could not consider there must be many schisms and many dissec- tions made in the quarry and in the timber ere the house of God can be built. And when every stone is laid artfully together, it cannot be united into a continuity, it can but be contiguous in this world : neither can every piece of the building be of one form; nay, rather the perfection consists in this, that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportional, arises the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure. Let us therefore be more considerate builders, more wise in spiritual architec- ture, when great reformation is expected. Tor now the time seems come, . whereia Moses, the great prophet, may sit in heaven rejoicing to see that memorable and glo- rious wish of his fulfilled, when not only our seventy elders, but all the Lord's peo- ple, are become prophets. No marvel then though some men, and some good men too perhaps, but young in goodness, as Joshua then w^as, envy them. They fret, and out of their own weakness are in agony, lest these divisions and subdivisions will undo us. The adversary again applauds, and waits the hour : when they have branched themselves out, saith he, small enough into parties and partitions, then will be our time. Fool ! he sees not the firm root, out of which we all grow, though into branches; nor will beware, until he see our small divided man- iples cutting through at every angle of his ill-united and unwieldy brigade. And that we are to hope better of all these supposed sects and schisms, and that we shall not need that solicitude, honest perhaps, though overtimorous, of them that vex i*i this be- half, but shall laugh in the end at those malicious applauders of our differences, I have these reasons to persuade me. First, when a city shall be as it were be- sieged and blocked about, her navigable river infested, inroads and incursions rdund, defiance and battle oft rumored to be marching up, even to her walls and suburb trenches; that then the people, or the greater part, more than at other times, wholly taken up with the study of high- est and most important matters to be reformed, should be disputing, reason- ing, reading, inventing, discoursing, even to a rarity and admiration, things not be- fore discoursed or written of, argues first a singular good will, contentedness, and confidence in your prudent foresight, and safe government, lords and commons; and from thence derives itself to a gallant bra- very and well-grounded contempt of their enemies, as if there were no small number of as great spirits among us, as his was who, when Rome was nigh besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, bought that piece of ground at no cheap rate whereon Hannibal . himself encamped his own regi- ment. Next, it is a lively and cheerful presage PUEITANS AND KINGS 153 of our happy success and victory. For as in a body when the blood is fresh, the spir- its pure and vigorous, not only to vital but to rational faculties, and those in the acutest and the pertest ojDerations of wit and sub- tlety, it argues in what good plight and con- stitution the body is; so when the cheerful- ness of the people is so sprightly up, as that it has not only wherewith to guard well its 'own freedom and safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of contro: ersy and new invention, it betokens us not degenerated, nor drooping to a fatal decay, by casting otf the old and wrinkled skin of corruption to outlive these pangs, and wax young again, entering the glorious ways of truth and prosperous vir- tue, destined to beconae great and honorable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam ; purging and unseal- ing her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance ; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms. What should ye do then, should ye sup- press all this flowery crop of knowledge and new light sprung up and yet springing daily in this city"? Should ye set an oli- garchy of twenty engrossers over it, to bring a famine upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is meas- ured to us by their bushel? Believe it, lords and commons ! they who counsel ye to such a suppressing, do as good as bid ye suppress yourselves; and I will soon show how. If it be desired to know the imme- diate cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot be assigned a truer than your own mild, and free, and humane government ; it is the liberty, lords and com- mons, which your own valorous and happy counsels have purchased us; liberty which is the nurse of all great wits : this is that which hath rarified and enlightened our spirits like the influence of heaven ; this is that which hath enfranchised, enlarged, and lined up our apprehensions degrees above themselves. Ye cannot make us now less capable, less knowing, less eagerly pursuing of the truth, unless ye first make yourselves, | that made us so, less the lovers, less the founders of our true liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, and slavish, as ye found us; but you then must first be- come that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have freed us. That our hearts are now more capacious, our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and exactest things, is the issue of your own virtue propagated in us; ye can- not suppress that unless ye reinforce an abrogated and merciless law, that fathers may dispatch at will their own children. Aiid who shall then stick closest to ye and excite others? Not he who takes up arms for coat and conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt. Although I dispraise not the de- fence of just immunities, yet I love my peace better, if that were all. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all lib- erties. Of Discipline [From B,eason of Church Government, 1641] There is not that thing in the world of more grave and urgent importance through- out the whole life of man, than is disci- pline. What need I instance ? He that hath read with judgment of nations and com- monwealths, of cities and camps, of peace and war, sea and k.nd, will readily agree that the flourishing and decaying of all civil societies, all the moments and turnings of human occasions are moved to and fro as upon the axle of discipline. So that whatsoever power or sway in mortal things weaker men have attributed to fortune, 1 durst with more confidence (the honor of Divine Providence ever saved) ascribe either to the vigor or the slackness of dis- cipline. Nor is there any sociable perfec- tion in this life, civil or sacred, that can be above discipline; but she is that which with her musical cords preserves and holds all the parts thereof together. Hence in those perfect armies of Cyrus in Xenophon, and Scipio in the Roman stories, the excellence of military skill was esteemed, not by the not needing, but by the readiest submitting to the edicts of their commander. And cer- tainly discipline is not only the removal of disorder; but if any visible shape can be given to divine things, the very visible shape and image of virtue, whereby she is not only 154 THE GEEAT TRADITION seen in the regular gestures and motions of her heavenly paces as she walks, but also makes the harmony of her voice audible to mortal ears. Britain the Home of True Liberty [From the Second Defense, 1654] Who is there, who does not identify the honor of his country with his own? And what can conduce more to the beauty or glory of one's country, than the recovery, not only of its civil but its religious lib- erty? And what nation or state ever ob- tained both, by more successful or more val- orous exertion? For fortitude is seen re- sjDlendent, not only in the field of battle and amid the clash of arms, but displays its energy under every difficulty and against every assailant. Those Greeks and Romans who are the objects of our admiration em- ployed hardly any other virtue in the extir- pation of tyrants, than that love of liberty which made them prompt in seizing the sword, and gave them strength to use it. With facility they accomplished the under- taking, amid the general shout of praise and joy; nor did they engage in the attempt so much as an enterprise of perilous and doubtful issue, as in a contest the most glorious in which virtue could be signalized ; which infallibly led to present recompense; which bound their brows with wreaths of laurel, and consigned their memories to im- mortal fame. For as yet, tyrants were not beheld with a supersitious reverence ; as yet they were not regarded with tenderness and complacency, as the vicegerents or depu- ties of Christ, as they have suddenly pro- fessed to be ; as yet the vulgai', stupefied by the subtle casuistry of the priest, had not degenerated into a state of barbarism, more gross than that which disgraces the most senseless natives of Hindostan. For these make mischievous demons, whose malice they cannot resist, the objects of their re- ligious adoration : while those elevate im- potent tyrants, m order to shield them from destruction, into the rank of gods; and, to their own cost, consecrate the pests of the human race. But against this dark array of long-received opinions, superstitions, oblo- quy, and fears, which some dread even more than the enemy himself, the English had to contend; and all this, under the light of better information, and favored by an im- pulse from above, they overcame with such singular enthusiasm and bravery, that, great as were the numbers engaged in the contest, the grandeur of conception, and loftiness of spirit which were universally displayed, merited for each individual more than a mediocrity of fame; and Britain, which was formerly styled the hot-bed of tyranny, will hereafter deserve to be cele- brated for endless ages, as a soil most genial to the growth of liberty. During the mighty struggle, no anarchy, no licentious- ness was seen; no illusions of glory, no extravagant emulation of the ancients in- flamed them with a thirst for ideal liberty; but the rectitude of their lives, and the sobriety of their habits, taught them the only true and safe road to real liberty; and they took up arms only to defend the sanctity of the laws and the rights of eon- science. Relying on the divine assistance, they used every honorable exertion to break the yoke of slavery. 4. THE STATE The Masterpiece of a Politician [From Reformation in England, 1641] It is a work good and prudent to be able to guide one man ; of larger extended vir- tue to order well one house; but to govern a nation piously and justly, which only is to say happily, is for a spirit of the great- est size, and divinest mettle. And certainly of no less a mind, nor of less excellence in another way, were they who by writing laid the solid and true foundations of this sci- ence, which being of greatest importance to the life of man, yet there is no art that hath been more cankered in her principles, more soiled and slubbered with aphorism- ing pedantry, than the art of policy; and that most, where a man would think should least be, in Christian commonwealths. They teach not, that to govern well, is to train up a nation in true wisdom and virtue, and that which springs from thence, magnanim- ity, (take heed of that,) and that which is our beginning, regeneration, and happiest end, likeness to God, which in one word we call godliness; and that this is the true flourishing of a land. Other things foltow as the shadow does the substance : to teach thus were mere pulpitry to them. This is the niiiaster piece of a modern poll- PUEITANS AND KINGS 155 tieian, how to qualify and mold the suffer- ance and subjection of the people to the length of that foot that is to tread on their necks ; how rapine may serve itself with the fair and honorable pretences of public good; how the puny law may be brought under the wardship and control of lust and will : in which attempt if they fall short, then must a superficial color of reputation by all means, direct or indirect, be gotten to wash over the unsightly bruise of honor. To make men governable in this manner, their precepts mainly tend to break a na- tional sjoirit and courage, by countenancing open riot, luxury, and ignorance, till hav- ing thus disfigured and made men beneath men, as Juno ni the fable of lo, they de- liver up the poor transformed heifer of the commonwealth to be stung and vexed with the breese and goad of oppression, under the custody of some Argus with a hundred eyes of jealousy. To be plainer, sir, how to solder, how to stop a leak, how to keep up the floating- carcase of a crazy and diseased monarchy or state, betwixt wind and water, swimming still upon her own dead lees, that now is the deep design of a politician. Alas, sir! a commonwealth ought to be but as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth and stature of an honest man, as big and compact in virtue as in body; for look what the grounds and causes are of single happiness to one man, the same ye shall find them to a whole state. The Source of Power [From Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, 1648-9] No man who knows aught can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free, being the image and resemblance of God himself, and were by privilege above all the creatures born to command, and not to obey; and that they lived so, till from the root of Adam's transgression falling among themselves to do wrong and violence, and foreseeing that such courses must needs tend to the destruction of them all, they agreed by common league to bind each other from mutual injury, and jointly to defend themselves against any that give disturbance or opposition to such agreement. Hence came cities, towns, and commonwealths. And because no faith in all was found suf- ficiently binding, they saw it needful to ordain some authority that might restrain by force and punishment what was violated against peace and common right. This authority and power of self-defense and preservation being originally and nat- urally in every one of them, and unitedly in them all; for ease, for order, and lest each man should be his own partial judge, they communicated and derived either to one, whom for the eminence of his wisdom and integrity they chose above the rest, or to more than one, whom they thought of equal deserving : the first was called a king ; the other, magistrates : not to be their lords and masters, (though afterward those names in some places were given voluntarily to such as have been authors of inestimable good to the people,) but to be their deputies and commissioners, to execute by virtue of their intrusted power that justice, which else every man by the bond of nature and of covenant must have executed for himself and for one another. And to him that shall consider well, why among free persons one man by civil right should bear authority and jurisdiction over another, no other end or reason can be imaginable. These for a while governed well, and with much equity decided all things at their own arbitrament; till the temptation of such a power, left absolute in their hands, per- verted them at length to injustice and par- tiality. Then did they, who now by trial had found the danger and inconveniences of committing arbitrary power to any, in- vent laws, either framed or consented to by all, that should confine and limit the author- ity of whom they chose to govern them: that so man, of whose failing they had proof, might no more rule over them, but law and reason, abstracted as much as might be from personal errors and frailties. "While, as the magistrate was set above the people, so the law was set above the magistrate." When this would not serve, but that the law was either not executed, or misapplied, they were constrained from that time, the only remedy left them, to put conditions and take oaths from all kings and magistrates at their first instalment, to do impartial justice by law: who, upon those terms and no other, received allegi- ance from the people, that is to say, bond or covenant to obey them in execution of those laws which they, the people, had them- selves made or assented to. And this oft- times with express warning, that if the king or magistrate proved unfaithful to his trust, the people would be disengaged. 156 THE GREAT TRADITION They added also counselors and parliaments, not to be only at his beck, but, with him or without him, at set times, or at all times, when any danger threatened, to have care of the public safety. It bemg thus manifest that the power of kings and magistrates is nothing else but what is only derivative, transferred, and committed to them in trust from the people to the common good of them all, in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be taken from them, without a vio- lation of their natural birthright; and see- ing that from hence Aristotle, and the best of political writers, have defined a king, "him who governs to the good and profit of his people, and not for his own ends"; it follows from necessary causes that the titles of sovereign lord, natural lord, and the like, are either arrogancies or flatteries, not admitted by emperors and kings of best note, and disliked by the church both of Jews (Isa. xxvi, 13) and ancient Christians, as appears by TertuUian and others. Al- though generally the people of Asia, and with them the Jews also, especially since the time they chose a king against the ad- vice and counsel of God, are noted by wise authors much inclinable to slavery. Secondly, that to say, as is usual, the king hath as good right to his crown and dignity as any man to his inheritance, is to make the subject no better than the king's slave, his chattel, or his possession that may be bought and sold : and doubtless, if heredi- tary title were sufficiently inquired, the best foundation of it would be found but either in courtesy or convenience. But suppose it to be of right hereditary, what can be more just and legal, if a subject for certain crimes be to forfeit by law from himself and posterity all his inheritance to the king, than that a king, for crimes pro- portional, should forefeit all his title and inheritance to the people? Unless the peo- ple must be thought created all for him, he not for them, and they all in one body in- ferior to him single; which were a kmd of treason against the dignity of mankind to affirm. Thirdly, it follows, that to say kings are accountable to none but God, is the over- turning of all law and government. For if they may refuse to give account, then all covenants made with them at coronation, all oaths are in vain, and mere mockeries; all laws which they swear to keep, made to no purpose; for if the king fear not God, (as how many of them do not,) we hold then our lives and estates by the tenure of his mere grace and mercy, as from a god, not a mortal magistrate; a position that none but court-parasites or men besotted would maintam ! Aristotle, therefore, whom we commonly allow for one of the best interpreters of nature and morality, writes in the fourth of his Politics, chap, x, that ''monarchy unaccountable is the worst sort of tyranny; and least of all to be endured by free-born men." . . . It follows, .lastly, that since the king or magistrate holds his authority of the peo- ple, both originally and naturally for their good, in the first place, and not his own, then may the people, as oft as they shall judge it for the best, either choose him or reject him, retain him or depose him, though no tyrant, merely by the liberty and right of free-born men to be governed as seems to them best. This, though it cannot but stand with plain reason, shall be made good also by Scripture (Deut. xvii, 14) : "When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the na- tions above me." These words confirm us that the right of choosing, yea of changing their own government, is by the grant of God himself in the people. Op Justice [From EikonoklasteSy 1649] It happened once, as we find in Esdras and Josephus, authors not less believed than any under sacred, to be a great and solemn debate in the court of Darius, what thing was to be counted strongest of all other. He that could resolve this, in re- ward of his excellent wisdom, should be clad in purple, drink in gold, sleep on a bed of gold, and sit next Darius. None but they, doubtless, who were reputed wise, had the question propounded to them ; who after some respite given them by the king to con- sider, in full assembly of all his lords and gravest counselors, returned severally what they thought. The first held that wine was strongest ; another, that the king was strong- est; but Zorobabel, prince of the cap- tive Jews, and heir to the crown of Judah, being one of them, proved women to be stronger than the king, for that he himself had seen a concubine take his crown from off his head to set it upon her own-; and PUEITANS AND KINGS 157 others beside him have likewise seen the like feat done, and not in jest. Yet he proved on, and it was so yielded by the king himself, and all his sages, that neither wine, nor women, nor the king, but truth of all other things was the strongest. For me, though neither asked, nor in a nation that gives such rewards to wisdom, I shall pronounce my sentence somewhat different from Zorobabel; and shall defend that either truth and justice are all one, (for truth is but justice in our knowledge, and justice is but truth in our practice;) and he indeed so explains himself, in say- ing that with truth is no accepting of per- sons, which is the property of justice, or else if there be any odds, that justice, though not stronger than truth, yet by her office, is to put forth and exhibit more strength in the affairs of mankind. For truth is properly no more than contempla- tion ; and her utmost efficiency is but teach- ing: but justice in her very essence is all strength and activity ; and hath a sword put into her hand, to use against all violence and ojopression on the earth. She it is most truly, who accepts no person, and exempts none from the severity of her stroke. She never suffers injury to prevail, but when falsehood first prevails over truth; and that also is a kind of justice done on them who are so deluded. Though wicked kings and tyrants counterfeit her sword, as some did that buckler fabled to fall from heaven into the capitol, yet she* communicates her power to none but such as, like herself, are just, or at least will do justice. For it were extreme partiality and justice, the fiat denial and overthrow of herself, to put her OAvn authentic sword into the hand of an unjust and wicked man, or so far to accept and exalt one mortal person above his equals, that he alone shall have the punishing of all other men transgressing, and not receive like punishment from men, when he himself shall be found the highest transgressor. We may conclude, therefore, that justice, above all other things, is and ought to be the strongest; she is the strength, the king- dom, the power, and majesty of all ages. Truth herself would subscribe to this, though Darius and all the monarehs of the world should deny. And if by sentence thus written it were my happiness to set free the minds of Englishmen from longing to return poorly under that captivity of kings from which the strength and supreme sword of justice hath delivered them, I shall have done a work not much inferior to that of Zorobabel; who, by well-praising and extolling the force of truth, in that contem- plative strength conquered Darius, and freed his country and the people of God from the captivity of Babylon. Which I shall yet not despair to do, if they in this land whose minds are yet captive be but as ingenuous to acknowledge the strength and supremacy of justice, as that heathen king was to confess the strength of truth : or let them but, as he did, grant that, and they will soon perceive that truth resigns all her outward strength to justice : justice therefore must needs be strongest, both in her own, and in the strength of truth. But if a king may do among men whatsoever is his will and pleasure, and notwithstanding be unaccountable to men, then, contrary to the magnified wisdom of Zorobabel, neither truth nor justice, but the king, is strongest of all other things, which that Persian monarch himself, in the midst of all his l^ride and glory, durst not assume. A Free Commonwealth [From A Ready and Easy Way to Estab- lish a Free Commonwealth, 1660] The whole freedom of man consists either in spiritual or civil liberty. As for spirit- ual, who can be at rest, who can enjoy any- thing in this world with contentment, who hath not liberty to serve God, and to save his own soul, according to the best light v/hieh God hath planted in him to that pur- pose, by the reading of his revealed will, and the guidance of his Holy Spirit? That this is best pleasing to God, and that the whole protestant church allows no supreme judge or rule in matters of religion, but the Scriptures; and these to be interpreted by the Scriptures themselves, which necessarily infers liberty of conscience, I have hereto- fore proved at large in another treatise; and might yet further, by the public dec- larations, confessions, and admonitions of whole churches and states, obvious in all histories since the reformation. . . . The other part of our freedom consists in the civil rights and advancements of every person according to his merit : the enjoyment of those never more certain, and the access to these never more open than in a free commonwealth. Both which, in my opinion, may be best and soonest obtained 158 THE GEEAT TRADITION if every county in the land were made a kind of subordinate commonalty or com- monwealth, and one chief town or more, according as the shire is in circuit, made cities, if they be not so called already; where the nobility and chief gentry, from a proportionable compass of territory an- nexed to each city, may build houses or palaces befitting their quality; may bear part in the government, make their own judicial laws, or use those that are, and ex- ecute them by their own elected judicatures and judges without appeal, in all things of civil government between man and man. So they shall have justice in their own hands, law executed fully and finally in their own counties and precincts, long wished and spoken of but never yet obtained. They shall have none then to blame but them- selves, if it be not well administered; and fewer laws to expect or fear from the su- preme authority; or to those that shall be made, of any great concernment to public liberty, they may, without much trouble in these commonalties, or in more general as- semblies called to their cities from the whole territory on such occasion, declare and pub- lish their assent or dissent by deputies, with- in a time limited, sent to the grand council ; yet so as this their judgment declared shall submit to the greater number of other coun- ties or commonalties, and not avail them to any exemption of themselves or refusal of agreement with the rest, as it may in any of the United Provinces, being sover- eign within itself, ofttimes to the great dis- advantage of that miion. In these emj^loyments they may, much better than they do now, exercise and fit themselves till their lot fall to be chosen into the grand council, according as their worth and merit shall be taken notice of by the people. As for controversies that shall happen between men of several counties, they may repair, as they do now, to the capital city, or any other more commodious, indifferent place, and equal judges. And this I find to have been practiced in the old Athenian commonwealth, reputed the first and ancientest place of civility in all Greece; that they had in their several cit- ies a peculiar, in Athens a common govern- ment, and their right as it befell them to the administration of both. They should have here also schools and academies at their own choice, wherein their children may be bred up in their own sight to all learning and noble education; not in grammar only, but in all liberal arts and exercises. This would soon spread much more knowledge and civility, yea, religion, through all parts of the land, by communi- cating the natural heat of government and culture more distributively to all extreme parts, which now lie numb and neglected; would soon make the whole nation more in- dustrious, more ingenious at home, more potent, more honorable abroad. To this a free commonwealth will easily assent; nay, the parliament hath had already some such thing in design; for of all governments a commonwealth aims most to make the peo- ple flourishing, virtuous, noble, and high spirited. Monarchs will never permit ; whose aim is to make the people wealthy in- deed iDcrhaps, and well fleeced, for their own shearing, and the supply of regal prodigal- ity; but otherwise softest, basest, viciousest, servilest, easiest to be kept under. And not only in fleece, but in mind also sheepishest ; and will have all the benches of judicature annexed to the throne, as a gift of royal grace, that we have justice done us ; whenas nothing can be more essential to the freedom of a people than to have the administration of justice and all public ornaments in their own election and within their own bounds, without long traveling or depending upon remote places to obtain their right or any civil accomplishment, so it be not supreme but subordinate to the general power and union of the whole republic. In which happy" firmness as in the par- ticular above-mentioned we shall also far ex- ceed the United Provinces, by having not as they, (to the retarding and distracting oft- times of their counsels or urgentest occa- sions,) many sovereignties united in one commonwealth, but many commonwealths under one united and intrusted sovereignty. And when we have our forces by sea and land either of a faithful army or a settled militia in our own hands, to the firm estab- lishing of a free commonwealth, public ac- counts under our own inspection, general laws, and taxes, with their causes in our own domestic suffrages, judicial laws, offices, and ornaments at home in our own ordering and administration, all distinction of lords and commoners, that may any way divide or sever the public interest, removed ; whiat can a perpetual senate have then, wherein to grow corrupt, wherein to en- croach upon us, or usurp? Or if they do, wherein to be formidable? Yet if all this avail not to remove the fear or envy of a PUEITANS AND KINGS 159 perpetual sitting, it may be easily provided to change a third part of them yearly, or every two or three years, as was above men- tioned; or that it be at those times in the people's choice, whether they will change them, or renew their power, as they shalL find cause. 5. FOES OF THE STATE On the Detraction Which Followed UPON My Writing Certain Treatises A book was writ of late called Tetrachor- don. And woven close, both matter, form, and style ; _ The subject new : it walked the town a while, Numbering good intellects; now seldom pored on. Cries the stall-reader, "Bless us ! what a word on A title-page is this !" ; and some in file Stand spelling false, while one might walk to Mile- End Green. Why, is it harder, sirs, than Gordon, Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp"? Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp. Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheek, Hated not learning worse than toad or asp, When thou taught'st Cambridge and King Edward Greek. On the Same I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs By the known rules of ancient liberty. When straight a barbarous noise environs me Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs; As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs Railed at Latona's twin-bom progeny, Which after held the sun and moon in fee. But this is got by easting pearl to hogs, That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, And still revolt when truth would set them free. License they mean when they cry lib- erty; For who loves that must first be wise and good: But from that mark how far they rove we see, For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood. On the Nev^ Forcers op Conscience under the long parliament Because you have thrown off your Prelate Lord, And with stiff vows renounced his Lit- urgy, To seize the widowed whore Plurality From them whose sin ye envied, not ab- horred, Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword To force our consciences that Christ set free. And ride us with a Classic Hierarchy, Taught ye by mere A.S. and Ruther- ford? Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent. Would have been held in high esteem with Paul Must now be named and printed heretics By shallow Edwards and Scotch What-d'ye- eall! But we do hope to find out all your tricks. Your plots and packing, worse than those of Trent, That so the Parliament May with their wholesome and preventive shears Clip your phylacteries, though baulk your ears. And succor our just fears, When they shall read this clearly in your charge : New Presbyter is but old Priest, writ large. On THE Lord General Fairfax Fairfax, whose name in arms through Eu- rope rings, Filling each mouth with envy or with praise. And all her jealous monarchs with amaze, And rumors loud that daunt remotest kings, Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings Victory home, though new rebellions raise 160 THE GEEAT TRADITION Their Hydra heads, and the false North displays Her broken league to imp their serpent wings. yet a nobler task awaits thy hand (For what can war but endless war still breed?) Till truth and right from violence be freed, And public faith cleared from the shameful brand Of public fraud. In vain doth Valor bleed, While Avarice and Rapine share the land. To THE Lord General Cromwell Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud Not of war only, but detractions rude. Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plowed. And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud Hast reared God's trophies, and his work pursued. While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued. And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud. And Worcester's laureate wreath : yet much remains To conquer still ; peace hath her victories No less renowned than war : new foes arise. Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains. Help us to save free conscience from the paw Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw. 6. THE INTERNATIONAL MIND On the Late Massacre in Piedmont Avenge, Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old. When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones. Forget not : in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way. Early may fly the Babylonian woe. The Nation's Protest (Piedmont)' To the Most Serene and Potent Prince, Louis, King of France. ' "An emphatic State-Letter ; which Oliver Cromwell meant, and John Milton thought and wrote into words ; not unworthy to be read." — Carlyle. Most Serene and Potent King, Most Close Friend and Ally, — Your Majesty may recollect that during the negotiations be- tween us for the renewing of our League (which many advantages to both nations, and much damage to their common enemies, resulting therefrom, now testify to have been wisely done), there fell out that mis- erable slaughter of the people of the val- leys; whose cause, on all sides deserted, and trodden down, we, with the utmost earnest- ness and pity, recommended to your mercy and protection. Nor do we think your Majesty, for your own part, has been want- ing in an office so pious and indeed so hu- man, in so far as either by authority or favor you might have influence with the Duke of Savoy : we certainly, and many other Princes and States, by embassies, by letters, by entreaties directed hither, have not been wanting. After that most sanguinary massacre, which spared no age nor either sex, there was at last a peace given; or rather, under the specious name of peace, a certain more disguised hostility. The terms of peace were settled in your town of Pignerol: hard terms; but such as these poor people, indigent and wretched, after suffering all manner of cruelties and atrocities, might gladly acquiesce in; if only, hard and un- just as the bargain is, it were adhered to. It is not adhered to : those terms are broken ; the purport of every one of them is, by PUEITANS AND KINGS 161 false interpretation and various subter- fuges, eluded and violated. Many of these people are ejected from their old habita- tions; their native religion is prohibited to many : new taxes are exacted ; a new for- tress has been built over them, out of which soldiers frequently sallying plunder or kill whomsoever they meet. Moreover, new forces have of late been privily got ready against them; and such as follov/ the Eomish religion are directed to withdraw from among them Avithm a limited time : so that everything seems now again to point toward the extermination of all among these unhappy ]3eople, whom the former massacre had left. Which now, Most Christian King, I beseech and obtest thee, by thy right-hand which pledged a league and friendship with us, by the sacred honor of that title of Most Christian, — permit not to be done : nor let such license of savagery, I do not say to any Prince (for indeed no cruelty like this could come into the mind of any Prince, much less into the tender years of that young Prince, or into the woman's heart of his mother), but to those accursed assassins, be given. Who while they pro- fess themselves the servants and imitators of Christ our Savior, who came into this world that He might save sinners, abuse His most merciful name and commandments to the cruelest slaughterings. Snatch, thou who art able, and who in such an elevation art worthy to be able, these poor suppliants of thine from the hands of murderers, who, lately drunk Avith blood, are again athirst for it, and think convenient to turn the discredit of their own cruelty upon their Prince's score. Suffer not either thy titles and the environs of thy kingdom to be soiled with that discredit, or the peaceable gospel of Christ by that cruelty, in thy reign. Remember that these very people became subjects of thy ancestor, Henry, most friendly to Protestants; when Lesdi- g'uieres victoriously pursued him of Savoy across the Alps, through those same valleys, where indeed the most commodious pass to Italy is. The instrument of their paction and surrender is yet extant in the public acts of your kingdom : in which this among other things is specified and provided against, that these people of the valleys should not thereafter be delivered over to anyone except on the same conditions un- der which thy invincible ancestor had re- ceived them into fealty. This promised protection they now implore; promise of thy ancestor they now, from thee the grand- son, suppliantly demand. To be thine rather than his whose they now are, if by any means of exchange it could be done, they would wish and prefer: if that may not be, thine at least by succor, by com- miseration, and deliverance. There are likewise reasons of state which might give inducement not to reject these people of the valleys flying for shelter to tliee : but I would not have thee, so great a King as thou art, be moved to the defense of the unfortunate by other reasons than the promise of thy ancestors, and thy own piety and royal benignity and greatness of mind. So shall the praise and fame of this most worthy action be unmixed and clear; and thyself shalt find the Father of Mercy, and His Son Christ the King, whose name and doctrine thou shalt have vindicated, the more favorable to thee, and propitious through the course of life. May the Almighty, for His own glory, for the safety of so many most innocent Christian men, and for your true honor, dispose your Majesty to this determination. Your Majesty's most friendly Oliver Protector of the Commonwealth of England. Westminster^ 26th May, 1658. (Translated from the Latin of Milton by Thomas Carlyle.) England and America [From Of Reformation in England, 1641] But to return whence was digressed : see- ing that the throne of a king, as the wise king Solomon often remembers us, "is es- tablished in justice," which is the universal justice that Aristotle so much praises, con- taining in it all other virtues, it may assure us that the fall of prelacy, whose actions are so far distant from justice, cannot shake the least fringe that borders the royal can- opy ; but that their standing doth continual- ly oppose and lay battery to regal safety, shall by that which follows easily appear. Amongst many secondary and accessory causes that support monarchy, these are not of least reckoning, though common to all other states; the love of the subjects, the multitude and valor of the people, and store of treasure. In all these things hath the kingdom been of late sore Aveakened, and chiefly by the prelates. First, let any man 162 THE GREAT TRADITION consider, that if any prince shall suffer under him a commission of authority to be exercised, till all the land gi'oan and cry out, as against a whip of scorpions, whether this be not likely to lessen and keel the af- fections of the subject. Next, what num- bers of faithful and freeborn Englishmen, and good Christians, have been constrained to forsake their dearest home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean, and the savage deserts of America, could hide and shelter from the fury of the bishops'? 0, sir, if we could but see the shape of our dear mother England, as poets are wont to give a personal form to what they please, how would she appear, think ye, but in a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head, and tears abundantly flow- ing from her eyes, to behold so many of her children exposed at once, and thrust from things of dearest necessity, because their conscience could not assent to things which the bishops thought indifferent? What more binding than conscience"? ".Vhat more free than indiffereney ? Cruel then must that indifferency needs be, that shall violate the strict necessity of conscience; merciless and inhuman that free choice and liberty that shall break asunder the bonds of re- ligion! Let the astrologer be dismayed at the portentous blaze of comets, and impres- sions m the air, as foretelling troubles and changes to states : I shall believe there can- not be a more ill-boding sign to a nation (God turn the omen from us!) than when the inhabitants, to avoid insufferable griev- ances at home, are enforced by heaps to for- sake their native country. The Brotherhood of Man [From Tenure 0/ S^iw^s/1649] Who knows not that there is a mutual bond of amity and brotherhood between man and man over all the world, neither is it the English sea that can sever us from that duty and relation : a straiter bond yet there is between fellow-subjects, neighbors, and friends. . . . Nor is it distance of place that makes enmity, but enmity that makes distance. He, therefore, that keeps peace with me, near or remote, of whatso- ever nation, is to me, as far as all civil and human offices, an Englishman and a neigh- bor. . . . This is gospel, and this was ever law among equals. III. THE BEGINNINGS OF FREE GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA The Pilgrims and Their Compact william bradford [From the History of Plymouth Plan- tation.] Of their departure from Leyden, and other things there about, with their arrival at Southampton, where they all met to- gether, and took in their provisions. At length, after much travail and these debates, all things were got ready and pro- vided. A small ship was bought and fitted in Holland which was intended as to serve to help to transport them, so to stay in the country, and attend upon fishing and such other affairs as might be for the good and benefit of the colony when they came there. Another was hired at London, of burden about 9. score; and all other things got in readiness. So being ready to depart, they had a day of solemn humiliation, their pas- tor taking his text from Ezra 8.21. And there at the river, by Ahava, I proclaimed a fast that we might humble ourselves be- fore our God, and seek of him a right way for us, and for our children, and for all our substance. Upon which he spent a good part of the day very profitably, and suit- able to their present occasion. The rest of the time was spent in pouring out prayers to the Lord with great fervency mixed with abundance of tears. And the time being eome that they must depart, they were accompanied with most of their brethren out of the city, unto a town sundry miles off called Delfes Haven, where the ships lay ready to receive them. So they left that goodly and pleasant city, which had been their resting place, near 12 years ; but they knew they were pilgrims and looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits. When they came to the place they found the ship and all things ready. And such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry also came from Amsterdam to see them shipped and to take their leave of them. That night was spent with little sleep by the most, but with friendly enter- tainment and Christian discourse, and other PUEITANS AND KINGS 163 real expressions of true Christian love. The next day the wind being fair they went aboard, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful jDarting; To see what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them, what tears did rush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each heart ; that sun- dry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the quay as spectators, could not refrain from tears. Yet comfortable and sweet it was to see such lively and true expressions of dear and unf ained love. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away that were thus loath to depart, their reverend pastor falling down on his knees (and they all with him,) with watery cheeks com- mended them with most fervent prayers to the Lord and his blessing. And then with mutual embraces and many tears, they took their leaves one of another; which proved to be the last leave to many of them. Thus hoisting sail, with a prosperous wind they came in short time to Southampton, where they found the bigger shij) come from London, lying ready with all the rest of their company. After a joyful welcome, and mutual congratulations, with other friendly entertainments, they fell to parley about their business, how to dispatch with the best expedition; as also with their agents, about the alteration of the condi- tions. Mr, Carver pleaded he was employed here at Hampton and knew not well what the other had done at London. Mr. Cush- man answered he nad done nothing but what he was urged to partly by the grounds of equity and more esi^ecially by necessity, otherwise all had been dashed and many undone. And in the beginning he acquaint- ed his fellow agents herewith, who con- sented unto him, and left it to him to execute, and to receive the money at Lon- don, and send it down to them at Hampton, where they made the provisions ; the which he accordingly did, though it was against his mind, and some of the merchants, that they were there made. And for giving them notice at Leyden of this change, he could not well in regard of the short- ness of the time; again, he knew it would trouble them and hinder the business, which was already delayed overlong in regard of the season of the year, which he feared they would find to their cost. But these things gave not content at present. Mr. Weston, likewise, came up from London to see them dispatched and to have the conditions eon- firmed ; but they refused, and answered him, that he knew right well that these were not according to the first agreement, neither could they yield to them without the eon- sent of the rest that were behind and in- deed they had special charge when they came away, from the chief of those that were behind, not to do it. At which he was much offended, and told them they must then look to stand on their own legs. So he returned in displeasure, and this was the first ground of discontent between them. And whereas they wanted well near £100 to clear things at their going away, he would not take order to disburse a penny, but let them shift as they could. So they were forced to sell off some of their provisions to stop this gap which was some 3. or 4. score firkins of butter, which commodity they might best spare, having provided too large a quantity of that kind. The Compact of the Pilgrims The rest of this History (if God gives me life, and opportunity) I shall, for brevity's sake, handle by way of Annals, noting only the heads of principal things, and pas- sages as they fell in order of time, and may seem to be profitable to know, or to make use of. And this may be as the second Book. The Remainder of Anno: 1620 I shall a little return back and begin with a combination made by them before they came ashore, being the first foundation of their government in this place; occasioned partly by the discontented mutinous and speeches that some of the strangers amongst them had let fall from them in the ship — That when they came ashore they would use their own liberty; for none had power to command them, the jDatent they had be- ing for Virginia, and not for New England, which belonged to another Government, with which the Virginia Company had nothing to do. And partly that such an act by them done (this their condition considered) might be as firm as any patent, and in some respects more siire. The form was as followeth. In y^ name of God, Amen. We whose names are vnderwritten, the loyall subjects of our dread soueraigne Lord, King James, by y® grace of God, of great Britaine, Franc, & Ireland king, defender of y® faith, &c. 164 THE GEEAT TEADITION Haueing vndertaken, for y® glorie of God, and advaucemeute of y^ christian faith and honour of our king & countrie, a voyage to plant y^ first eolonie in y^ Northerne parts of Virginia. Doe by these presents solemnly & mutualy in y*^ presence of God, and one of another, couenant, & combine our selues togeather into a Ciuill body politick, for our better ordering, & preseruation & further- ance of y"^ ends aforesaid; and by Vertue hearof to enaete, constitute, and frame, such just & equall lawes, ordinances, Acts, con- stitutions, & of&ees, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete & eonuenient for y*^ generall good of y® Colonie, vnto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witnes whereof we haue here- vnder subscribed our names at Cap-Codd y®. 11. of Nouember, in y"^ year of y^ raigne of our soueraigne Lord, King James, of England, France, & Ireland y^ eighteenth, and of Scotland y^ fiftie fourth. An° : Dom. 1620. The First Promotion of Learning edward johnson [From A Wonder-Working Providence, 1654] Toward the latter end of this summer (1635) came over the learned, reverend, and judicious Mr. Henry Dunster, before whose coming the Lord was pleased to provide a patron for erecting a college, as you have formerly heard, his provident hand being now no less powerful in pointing out with his unerring finger a president abundantly fitted, this his servant, and sent him over for to manage the work. And as in all the other passages of this history the Wonder- working Providence of Sion's Saviour hath appeared, so more especially in this work, the fountains of learning being in a great measure stopped in our. native country at this time, so that the SAveet waters of Shilo's streams must ordinarily pass into the churches through the stinking channel of prelaticai pride, beside all the filth that the fountains themselves were daily encumbered withal, insomuch that the Lord turned aside often from them, and refused the breath- ings of his blessed Spirit among them, which caused Satan (in these latter days of his transformation into an angel of light) to make it a means to persuade people from the use of learning altogether, that so in the next generation they might be destitute of such helps as the Lord hath been pleased hitherto to make use of, as chief means for the conversion of his people and building them up in the holy faith, as also for break- ing down the Kingdom of Antichrist. And verily had not the Lord been pleased to fur- nish New England with means for the at- tainment of learning, the work would have been carried on very heavily, and the hearts of godly parents would have vanished away with heaviness for their poor children, whom they must have left in a desolate wilderness, destitute of the means of grace. It being a work (in the apprehension of all whose capacity could reach to the great sums of money the edifice of a mean col- lege would cost) past the reach of a poor pilgrim people, who had expended the great- est part of their estates on a long voyage, traveling into foreign countries being un- l^rofitable to any that have undertaken it, although it were but with their necessary attendance, whereas this people were forced to travel with wives, children, and servants ; besides they considered the treble charge of building in this new po^oulated desert, in re- gard of all kind of workmanship, knowing likewise, that young students could make up a poor progress in learning, by looking on the bare walls of their chambers, and that Diogenes would have the better of them by far, in making use of a tun to lodge in ; not being ignorant also, that many people in this age are out of conceit with learning, and that although they were not among a people who counted ignorance the mother of devotion, yet were the greater part of the people wholly devoted to the plow (but to speak uprightly, hunger is sharp, and the head will retain little learning, if the heart be not refreshed in some competent measure with food, although the gross va- pors of a glutted stomach are the bane of a bright understanding, and brings barren- ness to the brain). But how to have both go on together, as yet they know not. Amidst all these difficulties, it was thought meet learning should plead for itself, and (as many other men of good rank and qual- ity in this barren desert) plot out a way to live. Hereupon all those who had tasted the sweet wine of Wisdom's drawing, and fed on the dainties of knowledge, began to set their wits at work, and verily as the whole progress of this work had a farther dependency than on the present-eyed means, PUEITANS AND KINGS 165 so at this time chiefly the end being firmly fixed on a sure foundation, namely, the glory of God and good of all his elect peojjle the world throughout, in vindicating the truths of Christ and promoting his glorious King- dom, who is now taking the heathen for his inheritance and the utmost ends of the earth for his possession, means they know there are, many thousand uneyed of mortal man, which every day's Providence brings forth. Upon these resolutions, to work they go, and with thankful acknowledgment readily take up all lawful means as they come to hand. For place they fix their eye upon New-Town, which to tell their posterity whence they came, is now named Cam- bridge. And withal to make the whole world understand that spiritual learning was the thing they chiefly desired, to sanctify the other and make the whole lump holy, and that learning being set upon its right ob- ject might not contend for error instead of truth, they chose this place, being then un- der the orthodox and soul-flourishing minis- try of Mr. Thomas Shepard, of whom it may be said, without any wrong to others, the Lord of his Ministry hath saved many a hundred soul. The situation of this Col- lege is very pleasant, at the end of a spacious plain, more like a bowling-green than a wilderness, near a fair navigable river, environed with many neighboring towns of note, being so near, that their houses join with her suburbs. The build- ing thought by some to be too gorgeous for a wilderness, and yet too mean in others' apprehensions for a college, it is at present enlarging by purchase of the neighbor houses. It hath the conveniences of a fair hall, comfortable studies, and a good library, given by the liberal hand of some magis- trates and ministers, with others. The chief gift towards the founding of this college was by Mr. John Harvard, a reverend minister ; the country, being very weak in their pub- lic treasury, expended about £500 towards it, and for the maintenance thereof, gave the yearly revenue of a ferry passage between Boston and Charles-Town, the which amounts to about £40 or £50 per annum. The commissioners of the four united col- onies also taking into consideration of what common concernment this work would be, not only to the whole plantations in general, but also to all our English Nation, they en- deavored to stir up all the people in the sev- eral colonies to make a yearly contribution toward it, which by some is observed, but by the most very much neglected. The govern- ment hath endeavored to grant them all the privileges fit for a college, and accordingly the Governor and magistrates, together with the President of the College for the time be- ing, have a continual care of ordering all matters for the good of the whole. This college hath brought forth and nurst up very hopeful plants, to the supplying some churches here, as the gracious and godly Mr. Wilson, son to the grave and zealous servant of Christ, Mr. John Wilson ; this young man is pastor to the Church of Christ at Dorchester; as also Mr. Buckly, son to the reverend Mr. Buckly, of Con- cord; as also a second son of his, whom our native country hath now at present help in the ministry, and the other is over a people of Christ in one of these Colonies, and if I mistake not, England hath I hope not only this young man of New England nurturing up in learning, but many more, as Mr. Sam. and Nathaniel Mathers, Mr. Wells, Mr. Downing, Mr. Barnard, Mr. Al- lin, Mr. Brewster, Mr. William Ames, Mr. Jones. Another of the first-fruits of this college is employed in these western parts' in Mevis, one of the Summer Islands; besides these" named, some help hath been had from hence in the study of physic, as also the godly Mr. Sam. Danforth, who hath not only studied divinity, but also astronomy; he put forth many almanacs, and is now called to the office of a teaching elder in the Church of Christ at Roxbury, who was one of the fellows of this College. The number of students is much increased of late, so that the present year, 1651, on the twelfth of the sixth month, ten of them took the de- gree of Bachelors of Art, among whom the Sea-born son of Mr. John Cotton was one. . . . The May-Pole of Merry Mount ^ nathaniel hawthorne [From Twice Told Tales, 1837] Bright were the days at Merry Mount, when the May-Pole was the banner staff of that gay colony ! They who reared it, 1 This story illustrates the conflict between Puritan severity and the older spirit of Merry England, as it appeared on American soil. The colony at Merry Mount was established in 1622 and was dispersed by Miles Standish in 1628. With the point of view of the unfortunate Merry Mount revelers, compare the poetry of Herrick.. 166 THE GREAT TRADITION should their banner be triumphant, were to pour sunshine over New England's rugged hills, and scatter flower-seeds throughout the soil. Jollity and gloom were contend- ing for an empire. Midsummer eve had come, bringing deep verdure to the forest, and roses in her lap, of a more vivid hue than the tender buds of Spring. But May, or her mirthful spiiit, dwelt all the year round at Merry Mount, sporting with the summer months, and revelling with Autumn, and basking in the glow of Winter's fire- side. Through a world of toil and care she flitted with a dream-like smile, and came hither to find a home among the lightsome hearts of Merry Mount. Never had the May-Pole been so gayly decked as at sunset on midsummer eve. This venerated emblem was a pine-tree, which had preserved the slender grace of youth, while it equaled the loftiest height of the old wood monarehs. From its top streamed a silken banner, colored like the rainbow. Down nearly to the ground, the pole was dressed with birchen boughs, and others of the liveliest green, and some with silvery leaves fastened by ribbons that flut- tered in fantastic knots of twenty dif- ferent colors, but no sad ones. Garden flowers and blossoms of the wilderness laughed gladly forth amid the verdure, so fresh and dewy that they must have grown by magic on that happy pine-tree. Where this green and flowery splendor ter- minated, the shaft of the May-Pole was stained with the seven brilliant hues of the banner at its top. On the lowest green bough hung an abundant wreath of roses, some that had been gathered in the sunniest spots of the forest, and others, of still richer blush, which the colonists had reared from English seed. people of the Golden Age, the chief of your husbandry was to raise flowers ! But what was the wild throng that stood hand in hand about the May -Pole ? It could not be that the fauns and nymphs, when driven from their classic groves and homes of ancient fable, had sought refuge, as all the persecuted did, in the fresh woods of the West. These were Gothic monsters, though perhaps of Grecian ancestry. On the shoulders of a comely youth uprose the head and branching antlers of a stag; a second, human in all other points, had the grim visage of a wolf; a third, still with the trunk and limbs of a mortal man, showed the beard and horns of a venerable he-goat. There was the likeness of a bear erect, brute in all but his hind legs, which were adorned with pink silk stockings. And here again, almost as wondrous, stood a real bear of the dark forest, lending each of his fore-paws to the grasp of a human hand, and as ready for the dance as any in that circle. His inferior nature rose half-way, to meet his companions as they stooped. Other faces wore the similitude of man or woman, but distorted or extravagant, with red noses pendulous before their mouths, which seemed of awful depth, and stretched from ear to ear in an eternal fit of laughter. Here might be seen the Salvage Man, well known in heraldry, hairy as a baboon, and girdled with green leaves. By his side, a nobler figure, but still a counterfeit, ap- peared an Indian hunter, with feathery crest and wampum belt. Many of this strange company wore foolscaps, and had little bells appended to their garments, tinkling with a silvery sound, responsive to the inaudible music of their gleesome spirits. Some youths and maidens were of soberer garb, yet well maintained their places in the ir- regular throng, by the expression of wild revelry upon their features. Such were the colonists of Merry Mount, as they stood in the broad smile of sunset, round their venerated May-Pole. Had a wanderer, bewildered in the mel- ancholy forest, heard their mirth, and stolen a half-atfrighted glance, he might have fan- cied them the crew of Comus, some al- ready transformed to brutes, some midway between man and beast, and the others rioting in the flow of tipsy jollity that foreran the change. But a band of Puri- tans, who watched the scene, invisible them- selves, compared the masques to those dev- ils and ruined souls with whom their su- perstition peopled the black wilderness. Within the ring of monsters appeared the two airiest forms that had ever trodden on any more solid footing than a purple and golden cloud. One was a youth in glisten- ing apparel, with a scarf of the rainbow pattern crosswise on his breast. His right hand held a gilded stai¥, the ensign of high dignity among the revelers, and his left grasped the slender flngers of a fair maiden, not less gaily decorated than himself. Bright roses glowed in contrast with the dark and glossy curls of each, and were scattered round their feet, or had sprung up spon- PURITANS AND KINGS 167 taneously there. Behind this lightsome couple, so close to the May-Pole that its boughs shaded his jovial face, stood the figure of an English priest, canonically dressed, yet decked with flowers, in heathen fashion, and wearing a ehaplet of the na- tive vine-leaves. By the riot of his rolling eye, and the pagan decorations of his holy garb, he seemed the wildest monster there, and the very Comus of the crew. "Votaries of the May-Pole," cried the flower-decked priest, "merrily, all day long, have the- woods echoed to your mirth. But be this your merriest hour, my hearts ! Lo, here stand the Lord and Lady of the May, whom I, a clerk of Oxford, and high priest of Merry Mount, am presently to join in holy matrimony. Up with your nimble spirits, ye morrice-dancers, green men, and _ glee-maidens, bears and wolves, and horned gentlemen ! Come ; a chorus now, rich with the old mirth of Merry England, and the wilder glee of this fresh forest; and then a dance, to show the youthful pair what life is made of, and how airily they should go through it! All ye that love the May- Pole, lend your voices to the nuptial song of the Lord and Lady of the May!" This wedlock was more serious than most affairs of Merry Mount, where jest and delusion, trick and fantasy, kept up a con- tinual carnival. The Lord and Lady of the May, though their titles must be laid down at sunset, were really and truly to be part- ners for the dance of life, beginning the measure that same bright eve. The wreath of roses, that hung from the lowest green bough of the May-Pole, had been twined for them, and would be thrown over both their heads, in symbol of their flowery union. When the priest had spoken, there- fore, a riotous uproar burst from the rout of monstrous figures. "Begin you the stave, reverend Sir," cried they all; "and never did the woods ring to such a merry peal, as we of the May-Pole shall send up !" Immediately a prelude of pipe, cithern, and viol, touched with practiced minstrelsy, began to play from a neighboring thicket, in such a mirthful cadence that the boughs of the May-Pole quivered to the sound. But the May Lord, he of the gilded staff, chancing to look into his Lady's eyes, was wonder-struck at the almost pensive glance that met his own. "Edith, sweet Lady of the May," whis- pered he, reproachfully, "is yon wreath of roses a garland to hang above our graves, that you look so sad? Edith, this is our golden time ! Tarnish it not by any pensive shadow of the mind; for it may be that nothing of futurity will be brighter than the mere remembrance of what is now pass- ing." "That was the very thought that sad- dened me; How came it in your mind too?" said Edith, in a still lower tone than he; for it was high treason to be sad at Merry Mount. "Therefore do I sigh amid this festive music. And besides, dear Ed- gar, I struggle as with a dream, and fancy that these shapes of our jovial friends are visionary, and their mirth unreal, and that we are no true Lord and Lady of the May. What is the mystery in my heart?" Just then, as if a spell had loosened them, down came a little shower of withering rose- leaves from the May-Pole. Alas, for the young lovers ! No sooner had their hearts glowed with real passion, than they were sensible of something vague and unsubstan- tial in their former pleasures, and felt a dreary presentiment of inevitable change. From the moment that they truly loved, they had subjected themselves to earth's doom of care and sorrow, and troubled joy, and had no more a home at Merry Mount. That was Edith's mystery. Now leave we the priest to marry them, and the masquers to sport round the May-Pole, till the last sunbeam be withdrawn from its summit, and the shadows of the forest mingle gloom- ily in the dance. Meanwhile, we may dis- cover who these gay people were. Two hundred years ago, and more, the Old World and its inhabitants became mu- tually weary of each other. Men voyaged by thousands to the West; some to barter glass beads, and such like jewels, for the furs of the Indian hunter; some to conquer virgin empii es ; and one stern band to pray. But none of these motives had much weight with the colonists of Merry Mount. Their leaders were men who had sported so long with life, that when Thought and Wisdom came, even these unwelcome guests were led astray by the crowd of vanities which they should have put to flight. Erring Thought and perverted Wisdom were made to put on masques, and play the fool. The men of whom we speak, after losing the heart's fresh gaiety, imagined a wild phil- osophy of pleasure, and came hither to act 168 THE GREAT TRADITION out their latest day-dream. They gathered followers from all that giddy tribe, whose whole life is like the festal days of soberer men. In their train were minstrels, not un- known in London streets; wandering play- ers, whose theaters had been the halls of noblemen; mummers, rope dancers, and mountebanks, who would long be missed at wakes, church ales, and fairs; in a word, mirth-makers of every sort, such as abounded in that age, but now began to be discountenanced by the rapid growth of Puritanism. Light had their footsteps been on land, and as lightly they came across the sea. Many had been maddened by their previous troubles into a gay despair ; others were as madly gay in the flush of youth, like the May Lord and his Lady; but whatever might be the quality of their mirth, old and young were gay at Merry Mount. The young deemed themselves happy. The elder spirits, if they knew that mirth was but the counterfeit of happiness, yet followed the false shadow wilfully, because at least her garments glittered brightest. Sworn triflers of a lifetime, they would not venture among the sober truths of life, not even to be truly blest. All the hereditary pastimes of old Eng- land were transplanted hither. The King of Christmas was duly crowned, and the Lord of Misrule bore potent sway. On the eve of Saint John, they felled whole acres of the forest to make bonfires, and danced by the blaze all night, crowned with gar- lands, and throwing flowers into the flame. At harvest-time, though their crop was of the smallest, they made an image with the sheaves of Lidian corn, and wreathed it with autumnal garlands, and bore it home triumphantly. But what chiefly character- ized the colonists of Merry Mount was their veneration for the May-Pole. It has made their true history a poet's tale. Spring decked the hallowed emblem with young blossoms and fresh green boughs; Summer brought roses of the deepest blush, and the perfected foliage of the forest. Autumn en- riched it with that red and yellow gorgeous- ness, which converts each wildwood leaf into a painted flower; and Winter silvered it with sleet, and hung it round with icicles, till it flashed in the cold sunshine, itself a frozen sunbeam. Thus each alternate sea- son did homage to the May-Pole, and paid it a tribute of its own richest splendor. Its votaries danced round it once, at least, in every month; sometimes they called it their religion, or their altar; but always, it was the banner staff of Merry Mount. Unfortunately, there were men in the New World of a sterner faith than these May-Pole worshipers. Not far from Merry Mount was a settlement of Puritans, most dismal wretches, who said their prayers before daylight, and then wrought in the forest or the cornfield till evening made it prayer-time again. Their weapons were al- ways at hand, to shoot down the straggling savage. When they met in conclave, it was never to keep up the old English mirth, but to hear sermons three hours long, or to proclaim bounties on the heads of wolves and the scalps of Indians. Their festivals were fast-days, and their chief pastime the singing of psalms. Woe to the youth or maiden who did but dream of a dance! The selectman nodded to the constable ; and there sat the light-heeled reprobate in the stocks; or if he danced, it was round the whipping- post, which might be termed the Puritan May-Pole. A party of these grim Puritans, toiling through the difficult woods, each with a horse-load of iron armor to burthen his footsteps, would sometimes draw near the sunny precincts of Merry Mount. There were the silken colonists, sporting round their May-Pole; perhaps teaching a bear to dance, or striving to communicate their mirth to the grave Indian ; or masquerading in the skins of deer and wolves, which they had hunted for that especial purpose. Often, the whole colony were playing at blindman's buff, magistrates and all with their eyes bandaged, except a single scape- goat, whom the blinded sinners pursued by the tinkling of the bells at his garments. Once, it is said, they were seen following a flower-decked corpse, with merriment and festive music, to his grave. But did the dead man laugh? In their quietest times, they sang ballads and told tales, for the edification of their pious visitors; or per- plexed them with juggling tricks; or grinned at them through horse-collars; and when sport itself grew wearisome, they made game of their own stupidity, and began a yawning match. At the very least of these enormities, the men of iron shook their heads and frowned so darkly, that the revelers looked up, imagining that a momentary cloud had overcast the sunshine, which was to be perpetual there. On the other hand, the PUEITANS AND KINGS 169 Puritans affirmed, that, when a psalm was pealing from their place of worship, the echo which the forest sent them back seemed often like the chorus of a jolly catch, closing with a roar of laughter. Who but the fiend, and his bond-slaves, the crew of Merry Mount, had thus disturbed them? In due time, a feud arose, stern and bitter on one side, and as serious on the other as anything could be among such light si3irits as had sworn allegiance to the May-Pole. The future complexion of New England was in- volved in this important quarrel. Should the grizzly saints establish their jurisdiction over the gay sinners, then would their spirits darken all the clime, and make it a land of clouded visages, of hard toil, of sermon and psalm forever. But should the banner-staff ^ of Merry Mount be fortunate, sunshine would break upon the hills, and flowers would beautify the forest, and late posterity do homage to the May-Pole. After these authentic passages from his- tory, we return to the nuptials of the Lord and Lady of the May. Alas! we have de- layed too long, and must darken our tale too suddenly. As we glance again at the May- Pole, a solitary sunbeam is fading from the summit, and leaves only a faint, golden tinge, blended with the hues of the rainbow banner. Even that dim light is now with- drawn, relinquishing the whole domain of Merry Mount to the evening gloom, which has rushed so instantaneously from the black surrounding woods. But some of these black shadows have rushed forth in human shape. Yes; with the setting sun, the last day of mirth had passed from Merry Mount. The --ring of gay masquers was disordered and broken; the stag lowered his antlers in dis- may; the wolf grew weaker than a lamb; the bells of the morrice-dancers tinkled with tremulous affright. The Puritans had played a characteristic part in the May-Pole mum- meries. Their darksome figures were inter- mixed with the wild shapes of their foes, and made the scene a picture of the moment, when waking thoughts start up amid the scattered fantasies of a dream. The leader of the hostile party stood in the center of the circle, while the rout of monsters cowered around him, like evil spirits in the presence of a dread magician. No fantastic foolery could look him in the face. So stern was the energy of his aspect, that the whole man, visage, frame, and soul, seemed wrought of iron, gifted with life and thought, yet all of one substance with his head-i3iece and breast-plate. It Avas the Puritan of Puri- tans ; it was Endicott himself ! "Stand off, priest of Baal!" said he, with a grim frown, and laying no reverent hand upon the surplice. "I know thee. Black- stone ! ^ Thou art the man, who couldst not abide the rule even of thine own corrupted church, and hast come hither to preach iniquity, and to give example of it in thy life. But now shall it be seen that the Lord hath sanctified this wilderness for his peculiar people. Woe unto them that would defile it! And first, for this flower- decked abomination, the altar of thy wor- ship !" And with his keen sword Endicott as- saulted the hallow^ed May-Pole. Nor long did it resist his arm. It groaned with a dis- mal sound ; it showered leaves and rosebuds upon the remorseless enthusiast ; and finally, with all its green boughs, and ribbons, and flowers, symbolic of departed pleasures, down fell the banner-staff of Merry Mount. As it sank, tradition says, the evening sky grew darker, and the woods threw forth a more somber shadow. ''There," . cried Endicott, looking tri- umjDhantly on his work,— -''there lies the only May-Pole in New England ! The thought is strong within me, that, by its fall, is shad- OAved forth the fate of light and idle mirth- makers, amongst us and our posterity. Amen ! saith John Endicott." "Amen!" echoed his followers. But the votaries of the May-Pole gave one groan for their idol. At the sound, the Puritan leader glanced at the crew of Comus, each a figure of broad mirth, yet, at this moment, strangely exjDressive of sorrow and dismay. "Valiant captain," quoth Peter Palfrey, the Ancient of the band, "what order shall be taken Avith the prisoners?" "I thought not to repent me of cutting down a May-Pole," replied Endicott, "yet now I could find in my heart to plant it again, and giA^e each of these bestial pa- gans one other dance round their idol. It Avould have served rarely for a whipping- post !" 1 Did Governor Endicott speak less positively^ Ave should suspect a mistake here. The Rev. Mr. Blackstone, though an eccentric, is not known to have been an immoral man. We rather doubt his identit.v with the priest of Merry Mount. — [Au- thor's Note.] 170 THE GREAT TRADITION "But there are pine trees enow," suggested the lieutenant. "True, good Ancient," said the leader. "Wherefore, bind the heathen crew, and bestow on them a small matter of stripes apiece, as earnest of our future justice. Set some of the rogues in the stocks to rest themselves, so soon as Providence shall bring us to one of our own well-ordered settle- ments, where such accommodations may be found. Further penalties, such as branding and cropping of ears, shall be thought of hereafter." "How many stripes for the priest?" in- quired Ancient Palfrey. "None as yet," answered Endicott, bend- ing his iron frown ujDon the culprit. "It must be for the Great and General Court to determine whether stripes and long impris- onment, and other grievous penalty, may atone for his transgressions. Let him look to himself! For such as violate our civil order, it may be permitted us to show mercy. But woe to the wretch that troubleth our religion !" "And this dancing bear," resumed the officer. "Must he share the stripes of his fellows?" "Shoot him through the head!" said the energetic Puritan. "I suspect witchcraft in the beast." "Here be a couple of shining ones," con- tinued Peter Palfrey, pointing his weapon at the Lord and Lady of the May. "They seem to be of high station among these misdoers. Methinks their dignity will not be fitted with less than a double share of stripes." Endicott rested on his sword, and closely surveyed the dress and aspect of the hapless pair. There they stood, pale, downcast, and apprehensive. Yet there was an air of mutual sujjport, and of pure affection, seek- ing aid and giving it, that showed them to be man and wife, with the sanction of a priest upon their love. The youth, in the peril of the moment, had dropped his gilded staff, and thrown his arm about the Lady of the May, who leaned against his breast, too lightly to burden him, but with weight enough to express that their destinies were linked together, for good or evil. They looked first at each other, and then into the grim captain's face. There they stood, in the first hour of wedlock, while the idle pleasures of which their companions were the emblems, had given place to the sternest cares of life, personified by the dark Puri- tans. But never had their youthful beauty seemed so pure and high, as when its glow was chastened by adversity. "Youth," said Endicott, "ye stand in an evil case, thou and thy maiden wife. Make ready presently; for I am minded that ye shall both have a token to remember your wedding-day !" "Stern man," cried the May Lord, "how can I move thee ? Were the means at hand, I would resist to the death. Being power- less, I entreat ! Do with me as thou wilt, but let Edith go untouched !" "Not so," rejalied the immitigable zealot. "We are not wont to show an idle courtesy to that sex, which requireth the stricter dis- cipline. What sayest thou, maid? Shall thy silken bridegroom suffer thy share of the penalty, besides his own?" "Be it death," said Edith, "and lay it all on me !" Truly, as Endicott had said, the poor lovers stood in a woeful case. Their foes were triumphant, their friends captive and abased, their home desolate, the benighted wilderness around them, and a rigorous destiny, in the shape of the Puritan leader, their only guide. Yet the deepening twi- light could not altogether conceal that the iron man was softened; he smiled at the fair spectacle of early love; he almost sighed for the inevitable blight of early hopes. "The troubles of life have come hastily on this young couple," observed Endicott. "We will see how they comport themselves under their present trials, ere we burthen them with gi'eater. If, among the spoil, there be any garments of a more decent fashion, let them be put upon this May Lord and his Lady, instead of their glistening vanities. Look to it, some of you." "And shall not the youth's hair be cut?" asked Peter Palfrey, looking with abhorrence at the love-lock and long glossy curls of the young man. "Crop it forthwith, and that in the true pumpkin-shell fashion," answered the cap- tain. "Then bring them along with us, but more gently than their fellows. There be qualities in the youth, which may make him valiant to fight, and sober to toil, and pious to pray ; and in the maiden, that may fit her to become a mother in our Israel, bringing up babes in better nurture than her own hath been. Nor think ye, young ones, that PUEITANS AND KINGS 171 they* are i'ae happiest, even in our lifetime of a moment, who misspend it in dancing round a May-Pole !" And Endicott, the severest Puritan of all who laid the rock-foundation of New Eng- land, lifted the wreath of roses from the ruin of the May-Pole, and threw it, with his own gauntleted hand, over the heads of the Lord and Lady of the May. It was a deed of prophecy. As the moral gloom of the world overjDowers all systematic gaiety, even so was their home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest. They returned to it no more. But, as their fiowery garland was wreathed of the brightest roses that had grown there, so, in the tie that united them, were intertwined all the purest and best of their early joys. They went heavenward, supporting each other along the difficult path which it was their lot to tread, and never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities of Merry Mount. IV. COMMONWEALTH AND EESTOEATION The Triumphs of the Commonv^ealth oliver cromwell [From a Speech at the Opening of the Lit- tle Parliament, July 4, 1653] We have not thought it amiss a little to remind you of that series of providences wherein the Lord hath appeared, dispensing wonderful things to these nations from the beginning of our troubles to this very day. If I should look much backward, we might remind you of the state of affairs as they were before the Short, that is the last. Parliament, in what posture the things of this nation then stood : but they do so well, I presume, occur to all your memories and knowledge, that I shall not need to look so far backward. Nor yet to those hostile oc- casions which arose between the King that was and the Parliament that then followed. And indeed, should I begin much later, the things that would fall very necessarily be- fore you, would rather be for a history than for a verbal discourse at this present. But thus far we may look back. You very well know it pleased God much about the midst of this War, to win now the forces of this nation; and to put them into the hands of other men of other principles than those that did engage at the tirst. By what ways and means that was brought about, would ask more time than is allotted me to mind you of it. Indeed, there are stories that do recite those transactions and give you narratives of matters of fact; but those things wherein the life and power of them lay; those strange windings and turn- ings of Providence; those very great ap- pearances of God, in crossing and thwart- ing the purposes of men, that He might raise up a poor and contemptible company of men, neither versed in military affairs, nor having much natural propensity to them, into wonderful success — ! Simply by their owning a principle of godliness and religion ; which so soon as it came to be owned, and the state of affairs put upon the foot of that account, how God blessed them, fur- thering all undertakings, yet using the most improbable and the most contemptible and despicable means, is very well known to you. Why the several successes and issues have been, is not fit to mention at this time neither: — though I confess I thought to have enlarged myself upon that subject; forasmuch as considering the works of God, and the operations of His hands, is a prin- cipal part of our duty ; and a great encour- agement to the strengthening of our hands and of our faith, for that which is behmd. And among other ends which those marvel- ous dispenfedtions have been given us for, that's a principal end which ought to be minded by us. Certainly in this revolution of affairs, as the issue of those successes which God was pleased to give to the army, and to the authority that then stood, there were very great things brought about; — besides those dints that came upon the nations and places where the war itself was, very great things in civil matters, too. As first, the bringing of offenders to justice, — and the greatest of them. Bringing of the state of this gov- ernment to the name of a Commonwealth. Searching and sifting of all persons and places. The King removed, and brought to justice; and many great ones with him. The House of Peers laid aside. The House of Commons itself, the representative of the People of England, winnowed, sifted, and brought to a handful; as you very well re- member. And truly God would not rest there : — 172 THE GEEAT TEADITION for, by the way, although it's fit for us to ascribe our failings and miscarriages to ourselves, yet the gioriousness of the work may well be attributed to God Himself, and may be called His sixange work. You re- member well that at the change of the gov- ernment there was not an end of our trou- bles, although in that year were such high things transacted as indeed made it to be the most memorable year that this nation ever saw. So many insurrections, invasions, secret designs, open and public attempts, all quashed in so short a time, and this by the very signal appearance of God Himself ; which I hope, we shall never forget ! — You know also, as I said before, that, as the first eifect of that memorable year of 1648 was to lay a foundation, by bringing of- fenders to punishment, so it brought us likewise to the change of government : — although it were worth the time, perhaps, if one had time, to speak of the carriage of some m places of trust, in most eminent places of trust, which was such as would have frustrated us of the hopes of all our undertakings. I mean by the closure of the treaty that was endeavored with the King ; whereby they would have put into his hands all that we had engaged for, and all our se- curity should have been a little piece of paper! That thing going off, you very well know how it kept this nation still in broils by sea and land. And yet what God wrought in Ireland and Scotland you like- wise know; until He had finished those troubles, upon the matter, by His marvel- ous salvation wrought at Worcester. I confess to you that I am very much troubled in my own spirit that the neces- sity of affairs requires I should be so short in those things : because, as I told you, this is the leanest part of the transactions, this mere historical narrative of them ; there being in eveiy particular; in the King's first going from the Parliament, in the pull- ing down of the Bishops, the House of Peers, in every step towards that change of the government, — I say there is not any one of these things, thus removed and reformed, but hath an evident print of Providence set upon it, so that he who runs may read it. I am sorry I have not an opportunity to be more particular on these points, which I principally designed, this day; thereby to stir up your hearts and mine to gratitude and confidence. . . Indeed I have but one more word to say to you; though in that perhaps I shall show my weakness : it's by way of encourage- ment to go in this work. And give me leave to begin thus. I confess I never looked to see such a day as this, it may be nor you neither, when Jesus Christ should be so owned as He is, this day, in this work. Jesus Christ is owned this day by the call of you; and you own Him by your willing- ness to appear for Him. And you mani- fest this, as far as poor creatures may do, to be a day of the power of Christ. 1 know you well remember that Scripture, "He makes His people willing in the day of His power." God manifests this to be the day of the power of Christ; having, through so much blood, and so much trial as hath been upon these nations, made this to be one of the great issues thereof : To have His people called to the supreme Au- thority. He makes this to be the greatest mercy, next to His own Son. God hath owned His Son; and He hath owned you, and made you own Him. I confess I never looked to have seen such a day ; I did not. — Perhaps you are not known by face to one another; indeed I am confident you are strangers, coming from all parts of the na- tion as you do : but we shall tell you that indeed we have not allowed ourselves the choice of one person in whom we had not this good hope. That there was in him faith in Jesus Christ, and love to all His people and saints. Thus God hath owned you in the eyes of the world; and thus, by coming hither, you own Him : and, as it is in Isaiah, xliii. 21, — it's an high expression ; and look to your own hearts whether, now or hereafter, God shall apply it to you: "This People, saith God, I have formed for myself, that they may show forth my praise." I say, it's a memorable j)assage; and, I hope, not un- fitly applied: the Lord apply it to each of your hearts ! I shall not descant upon the words ; they are plain : indeed you are as like the forming of God as ever people were. If a man should tender a book to you to swear you upon, I dare appeal to all your consciences, neither directly nor indi- rectly did you seek for your coming hither. You have been passive in coming hither; being called, — and indeed that's an active work, — though not on your part ! "This people have I formed" : consider the cir- cumstances by which you are called hither; through what strivings, through what blood you are come hither, — where neither you nor I, nor no man living, three months ago, PUEITANS AND KINGS 173 had any thought to have seen such a com- pany taking upon them, or rather being called to take, the supreme authority of this nation ! Therefore, own your call ! Indeed, I think it may be truly said that there never was a supreme authority con- sisting of such a body, above one-hundred- and-forty, I believe; never such a body, that came into the supreme authority be- fore, under such a notion as this, in such a way of owning God, and being owned by Him. And therefore I may also say, never such a people so formed, for such a pur- pose, were thus called before. Peace Hath Its Victories oliver cromvpell [From a Speech Delivered at the Opening of Parliament, January 20, 1657-8] If this be the condition of your affairs abroad, I pray a little consider what is the estate of your affairs at home. And if both these considerations, of home affairs and foreign, have but this effect, "to get a consideration among you, a due and just consideration, — let God move your hearts for the answering of anything that shall be due unto the nation, as He shall please ! And I hope I shall not be* solicitous; I shall look up to Him who hath been my God and my guide hitherto. I say, I beseech you looking to your own affairs at home, how they stand ! I am per- suaded you are all, I apprehend you are all, honest and worthy good men; and that there is not a man of you but would desire to be found a good patriot. I know you would ! We are apt to boast sometimes that we are Englishmen : and truly it is no shame for us that we are Englishmen; — but it is a motive to us to do like English- men, and seek the real good of this nation, and the interest of it. But, I beseech you, what is our case at home? I profess 1 do not well know where to begin on this head, or where to end, I do not. But I must needs, say, let a man begin where he will, he shall hardly be out of that drift I am speaking to you upon. We are as full of calamities, and of divisions among us in respect of the spirits of men, as we could well be, — though, through a wonderful, ad- mirable, and never to be sufficiently ad- mired providence of God, still in peace! And the fighting we have had, and the suc- cess we have had — yea, we that are here, we are an astonishment to the Avorld! And take us in that temper we are in, or rather in that distemper, it is the greatest miracle that ever befell the sons of men, that we are got again to peace. And whoever shall seek to break it,' God Almighty root that man out of this nation! And he will do it, let the pretences be what they may! Peace-breakers, do they consider what it is they are driving towards ? They should do it! He that eonsidereth not the woman with child, — the sucking children of this na- tion that know not the right hand from the left, of whom, for ought I know, it may be said this city is as full as Nineveh was said to be: — he that eonsidereth not these, and the fruit that is like to come of the bodies of those now living added to these; he that eonsidereth not these, must have the heart of a Cain; who was marked, and made to be an enemy of all men, and all men enemies to him! For the wrath and justice of God will prosecute such a man to his grave, if not to Hell ! I say, look on this nation ; look on it ! Consider what are the varieties of interest in this nation, — if they be worthy the name of interests. If God did not hinder, it would all but make up one confusion. We should find there would be but one Cain in England, if God did not restrain ! We should have another more bloody Civil War than ever we had in England. For, I beseech you, what is the general spirit of this nation? Is it not that each sect of people, — if I may call them sects, whether sects upon a religious account or ujDon a civil account — is not this nation miserable in that respect? What is that which possesseth every sect? What is it? That every sect may be uppermost! That every sort of men may get the power into their hands, and they would use it well ; — that every sect may get the power into their hands ! It were a happy thing if the nation would be content with rule. Content with rule, if it were but in civil things, and with those that would rule worst; — because misrule is better than no rule; and an ill government, a bad government, is better than none ! — Neither is this all : but we have an appetite to variety; to be not only making wounds, but widening those already made. As if you should see one making wounds in a man's side, and eager only to be groping and groveling with his fingers in those wounds! This is what such men would be 174 THE GEEAT TRADITION at; this is the spirit of those who would trample on men's liberties in spiritual re- spects. They will be making wounds, and rending and tearing, and making them wider than they were. Is not this the ease"? Doth there want anything — I speak not of sects in an ill. sense; but the nation is hugely made up of them, — and what is the want that prevents these things from being done to the uttermost, but that men have more anger than strength? They have not power to attain their ends. There wants nothing else. And, I beseech you, judge what such a company of men, of these sects, are doing, while they are contesting one with another! They are contesting in the midst of a generation of men ; contest- ing in the midst of these all united. What must be the issue of such a thing as this? So stands it; it is so. And do but judge what proofs have been made of the spirits of these men. Summoning men to take up arms ; and exhorting men, each sort of them, to fight for their notions ; each sort thinking they are to try it out by the sword ; and every sort thinking that they are truly under the banner of Christ, if they but come in, and bind themselves in such a project. Now do but judge what a hard condition this poor nation is in. This is the state and condition we are in. Judge, I say, what a hard condition this poor nation is in, and the cause of God is in, — amidst such a party of men as the cavaliers are, and their participants! Not only with respect to what these are like to do of themselves: but some of these, yea some of these, they care not who carry the goal : some of these have invited the Spaniard himself to carry on the cavalier cause. And this is true. This and many other things that are not fit to be suggested unto you; because so we should betray the inter- est of our intelligence. I say, this is your condition! What is your defense? What hindereth the irruption of all this upon you, to your utter destruction? Truly, that you have an army in these parts,- — in Scot- land, in England, and Ireland. Take them away tomorrow, would not all these inter- ests run into one another? — I know you are rational, prudent men. Have you any fame or model of things that would satisfy the minds of men, if this be not the fame, this whicli you are now called together upon and engaged in, — I mean, the two Houses of Parliament and myself? What hinders this nation from being an Aceldama, a field of blood, if this doth not? It is, without doubt, this: give the glory to God; for without this, it would prove as great a plague as all that hath been spoken of. It is this, without doubt, that keeps this na- tion in peace and quietness. — And what is the case of your army withal? A poor un- paid army; the soldiers going barefoot at this time, in this city, this weather! And yet a peaceable people, these soldiers; seek- ing to serve you with their lives; judging their pains and hazards and all well be- stowed. In obeying their officers and serv- ing you, to keep the peace of these nations ! Yea, he must be a man with a heart as hard as the weather who hath not a due sense of this! An Appeal for Unity oliver cromwell [From a Speech Before Parliament, Janu- ary 25, 1658] And now having said this, I have dis- charged my duty to God and to you, in making this demonstration, — and I profess, not as a rhetorician ! My business was to prove the verity of the designs from abroad; and the still unsatisfied spirits of the Cavaliers at home, — who from the be- ginning of our peace to this day have not been wanting to do what they could to kindle a fire at home in the midst of us. And I say, if be so, the truth, — I pray God affect your hearts with a due sense of it ! And give you heart and one mind to carry on this work for which we are met together ! If these things be so, — should you meet to- morrow, and accord in all things tending to your preservation and your rights and liberties, really it will be feared there is too much time elapsed already for your de- livering yourselves from those dangers that hang upon you. We have had now six years of peace, and have had an interruption of ten years war. We have seen and heard and felt the evils of war; and now God hath given us a new taste of the benefits of peace. Have you not had such a peace in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and there is not a man to lift up his finger to put you into distemper? Is not this a mighty blessing from the Lord of Heaven? Shall we now be prodigal of time? Should any man, shall we, listen to delusions, to break and interrupt this peace? PURITANS AND KINGS 175 There is not any man that has been true to this cause, as I believe you have been all, who can look for anything but the greatest rending and persecution that ever was in this world ! I wonder how it can enter into the heart of man to undervalue these things ; to slight peace and the gospel, the greatest mercy of God. We have peace and the gospel ! Let us have one heart and soul ; one mind to maintain the honest and just rights of this nation ; — not to pretend to them, to the destruction of our peace, to the destruction of the nation ! Really, pretend that we will, if you run into another flood of blood and war, the sinews of the nation being wasted by the last, it must sink and perish utterly, I beseech you, and charge you in the name and presence of God, and as before Him, be sensible of these things and lay them to heart! You have a day of fasting coming on. I beseech God touch your hearts and open your ears to this truth; and that you may be as deaf as adders to stop your ears to all dissension ! and may look upon them who would sow dissension, whoever they may be, as Paul saith to the Church of Corinth, as I re- member: "Mark such as cause divisions and offenses, and would disturb you from that foundation of Peace you are upon, un- der any pretense whatsoever!" I shall conclude with this. I was free, the last time of our meeting to tell you I would discourse with a psalm; and I did it. I am not ashamed of it at any time, especially when I meet with men of such consideration as you. There you have one verse which I forgot. "I will hear what God the Lord will speak : for He will speak Peace unto his people and to His saints; but let them not turn again to folly." Dis- sension, division, destruction, in a poor na- tion under a civil war, — having all the ef- fects of a civil war upon it ! Indeed if we return again to folly, let ' every man consider. If it be not like turning to de- struction f If God shall unite your hearts and bless you, and give you the blessing of union and love one to another; and tread- down everything that riseth up in your hearts and tendeth to deceive your own souls with pretenses of this thing or that, as we have been saying, and not prefer the keeping of peace, that we may see the fruit of righteousness in them that love peace and embrace peace, — it will be said of this poor nation, Actum est de Anglia, It is all over with England ! But I trust God will never leave it to such a spirit. And while I live, and am able, I shall be ready to stand and fall with you, in this seemingly promising union which God hath wrought among you, which I Ijope neither the pride nor envy of them shall be able to make void. I have taken my oath to govern according to the laws that are now made; and trust I shall fully answer it. And know I sought not this place. I speak it before God, Angels, and Men : I DID NOT. You sought me for it, you brought me to it, and I took my oath to be faithful to the interest of these na- tions, to be faithful to the government. All those things were implied, in my eye, in the oath to be faithful to this government upon which we have now met. And I trust, by the grace of God, as I have taken my oath to serve this Commonwealth on such an account, I shall, — I must ! — see it done according to articles of Government. That every just interest may be preserved; that a godly ministry may be upheld, and not affronted by seducing and seduced spirits; that all men may be preserved in their just rights, whether civil or spiritual. Upon this account did I take oath, and swear to this government! And so having declared my heart and mind to you in this, I have nothing more to say, but to pray, God Al- mighty bless you. The Restoration samuel pepys [From the Diary'] March 16, 1660. To Westminster Hall, where I heard how the Parliament had this day dissolved themselves, and did pass very cheerfully through the Hall, and the Speak- er without his Mace. The whole Hall was joyful thereat, as well as themselves, and now they begin to talk loud of the king. Tonight I am told, that yesterday, about five o'clock in the afternoon, one came with a ladder to the Great Exchange, and wiped with a brush the inscription that was on King Charles, and that there was a great bonfire made in the Exchange, and people called out, "God bless King Charles the Second." May 2. Mr. Donne from London, with letter that tells us the welcome news of the Parliament's votes yesterday, which shall be remembered for the happiest May-day that 176 THE GREAT TRADITION hath been many a year to England. The King's letter was read in the House, where- in he submits himself and all things to them, as to an Act of Oblivion to all, unless they shall please to except any, as to the confirming of the sales of the King's and Church lands, if they see good. The House, upon reading the letter, ordered 50,000 lbs. to be forthwith provided to send to His Majesty for his present supply; and a committee chosen to return an answer of thanks to his Majesty for his gracious let- ter; and that the letter be kept among the records of the Parliament; and in all this not so much as one No. So that Luke Rob- inson himself stood up, and made a re- cantation for what he had done, and prom- ises to be a loyal subject to his Prince for the time to come. The City of London have put out a Declaration, wherein they do dis- claim their owning any other Government but that of a King, Lords, and Commons. Thanks were given by the House to Sir John Greenville, one of the bedchamber to the King, who brought the letter, and they continued bare all the time it was reading. Upon notice from the Lords to the Com- mons, of their desire that the Commons would join with them in their vote for King, Lords, and Commons; the Commons did concur, and voted that all books what- ever that are out against the Government of Kings, Lords, and Commons, should be brought into the House and burned. Great joy all yesterday at London, and at night more bonfires than ever, and ringing' of bells, and drinkmg of the King-'s health upon their knees in the streets, which me- thinks is a little too much. May 15. In the afternoon my Lord called me on purpose to show me his fine clothes which are now come hither, and indeed are very rich as gold and silver can make them, only his sword he and I do not like. In the afternoon my Lord and I walked to- gether in the coach two hours, talking to- gether upon all sorts of discourse : as re- ligion, wherein he is, I perceive, wholly skeptical, saying, that indeed the Protest- ants as to the Church of Rome are wholly fanatiques; he likes uniformity and form of prayer : about State-business, among other things he told me that his conversion to the King's cause (for I was saying that I wondered from what time the King could lock upon him to become his friend) com- menced from his being in the Sound, when he found what usage- he was likely to have from a Commonwealth. May 23. In the morning come infinity of people on board from the King to go along with him. My Lord, Mr. Crewe, and others, go on shore to meet the King as he comes off from shore, where Sir R. Stayner, bringing his Majesty into the boat, I hear that his Majesty did with a great deal of affection kiss my Lord upon his first meet- ing. The King, with the two Dukes and Queen of Bohemia, Princess Royal, and Prince of Orange, come on board, where I, in their coming in, kissed the King's, Queen's, and Princess's hand, having done the other before. Infinite shooting off of the guns, and that in a disorder on pur- pose, which was better than if it had been othei'wise. All day, nothing but Lords and persons of honor on board, that we were exceeding full. Dined in a great deal of state, the Royal company by themselves in the coach, which was a blessed sight to see. After dinner, the King and Duke al- tered the name of some of the ships, viz., the Nazeby into Charles; the Richard, James; the Speaker, Mary; the Dunbar (which was not in company with us), the Henry; Winsly, Happy Return; Wake- field, Richmond ; Lambert, the Henrietta ; Cheriton, the Speedwell ; Bradford, the Suc- cess. That done, the Queen, Princess Royal, and Prince of Orange, took leave of the King, and the Duke of York went on board the London, and the Duke of Gloucester, the Swiftsure, which done, we weighed anchor, and with a fresn gale and most happy weather we set sail for Eng- land. All the afternoon the King walked here and there, up, and down, (quite con- trary to what I thought him to have been) very active and stirring. Upon the quar- ter-deck he fell into discourse of his escape from Worcester, where it made me ready to weep to hear the stories that he told of his difftcuities that he had passed through, as his traveling four days and three nights on foot, every step up to his knee in dirt, with nothing but a green coat and a pair of country breeches on, and a pair of country shoes that made him so sore all over his feet, that he could scarce stir. Yet he was forced to run away from a miller and other com- pany, that took them for rogues. His sit- ting at a table at one place, where the master of the house, that had not seen him in eight years, did know him, but kept it private; PUEITANS AND KINGS 177 when at the same tahle there was one, that had been of his own regiment at Worcester, could not know him, but made him drink the King's health, and said that the King was at least four fingers higher than he. At another place, at his inn, the master of the house, as the King was standing with his hands upon the back of a chair by the fire- side, kneeled down and kissed his hand, privately, saying, that he would not ask him who he was, but bid God bless him whither he was going. May 25. I went, and Mr. Mansell, and one of the King's footmen, and a dog that the King loved, in a boat by ourselves, and so got on shore when the King did, who was received by General Monk with all imagina- ble love and respect at his entrance upon the land at Dover. Infinite the crowd of people and the gallantry of the horsemen, citizens, and noblemen of all sorts. The Mayor of the town come and give him his white staff, the badge of his place, which the King did give him again. The Mayor also jDresented him from the town a very rich Bible, which he took, and said it was the thing that he loved above all things in the world. A canopy was provided for him to stand under, which he did, and talked awhile with General Monk and others, and so in a state- ly coach there set for him, and so away through the town towards Canterbury, without making any stay at Dover. The shouting and joy expressed by all is past imagination. July 10.- This day I put on my new silk suit, the first that ever I wore in my life. August 25. This night W. Hewer brought me home from Mr. Pim's my velvet coat and cap, the first that ever I had. October 13. I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered ; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was presently cut down, and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there was gTeat shouts of joy. It is said, that he said that he was sure to come shortly at the right hand of Christ to judge them that now had judged him ; and that his wife do expect his coming again. Thus it was my chance to see the king beheaded at White Hall, and to see the first blood shed in revenge for the King* at Unaring Cross. Setting up shelves in my study. October 14 (Lord's day). To White Hall chapel, where one Dr. Crofts made an indif- ferent sermon, and after it an anthem, ill- sung, which made the King laugh. Here I first did see the Princess Royal since she came into England. Here I also observed, how the Duke of York and Mrs. Palmer did talk to one another very wantonly through the hangings that jDarts the King's closet where the ladies sit. November 4 (Lord's Day). In the morn to our own church, where Mr. Mills did begin to nibble at the Common Prayer, by saying Glory be to the Father, &c., after he had read the two psalms : but the people had been so little used to it, that they could not tell what to answer. January 3, 1661. To the Theater, where Avas acted "Beggar's Bush," it being very Avell done ; and here the first time that ever I saw women come upon the stage. January 31, To my Lady Batten's; where my wife and she are lately come back from being abroad, and seeing of Cromwell. Ireton, and Bradshaw, hanged and buried at Tyburne, The Puritan samuel butler [From Hudibras, 1667-8] When civil dudgeon first grew high. And men fell out they knew not why; When hard words, jealousies, and fears. Set folks together by the ears, And made them fight, like mad or drunk, For Dame Religion as for punk ; Whose honesty they all durst swear for, Though not a man of them knew wherefore ; When Gospel-trumiDeter, surrounded With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded; And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic. Was beat with fist instead of a stick; Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling. And out he rode a-colonelling. A wight he was, whose very sight would Entitle him Mirror of Knighthood, That never bow'd his stubborn knee To anything but chivalry. Nor put up blow, but that which laid 178 THE GEEAT TRADITION Right Worshipful on shoulder blade ; Chief of domestic knights and errant, Either for chartel or for warrant; Great on the bench, great in the saddle. That could as well bind o'er as swaddle; Mighty he was at both of these And styl'd of War, as well as Peace : ( So some rats, of Amphibious nature, Are either for the land or water). But here our Authors make a doubt Whether he were more wise or stout : Some hold the one, and some the other. But, howsoe'er they make a pother. The diff'rence was so small, his brain Outweigh'd his rage but half a grain ; Which made some take him for a tool That knaves do work with, call'd a Fool, He was in logic a great critic, Profoundly skill'd in analytic; He could distinguish, and divide A hair 'twixt south and southwest side; On either which he would dispute. Confute, change hands, and still confute : He'd undertake to prove, by force Of argument, a man's no horse ; He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl. And that a lord may be an owl ; A calf an alderman, a goose a justice. And rooks Committee-men and Trustees. He'd run in debt by disputation, And pay with ratiocination: All this by syllogism, true In mood and figure he would do. For his religion, it was fit To match his learning and his wit : 'Twas Presbyterian true blue ; For he was of that stubborn crew Of errant saints, whom all men grant To be the true Church Militant ; Such as do build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun; Decide all controversies by Infallible artillery; And prove their doctrine orthodox, By Apostolic blows and knocks ; Call fire and sword, and desolation, A godly, thorough Reformation, Which always must be carry'd on, And still be doing, never done ; As if Religion were intended For nothing else but to be mended : A sect whose chief devotion lies In odd perverse antipathies; In falling out with that or this, And finding somewhat still amiss ; More peevish, cross, and splenetic, Than dog distract, or monkey sick : That with more care keep holyday The wrong, than others the right way ; Compound for sins they are inclin'd to. By damning those they have no mind to : Still so perverse and opposite, As if they worship'd God for spite: The self -same thing they will abhor One way, and long another for : Freewill they one way disavow. Another, nothing else allow: All piety consists therein In them, in other men all sin : Rather than fail, they will defy That which they love most tenderly; Quarrel with minc'd-pies, and disparage Their best and dearest friend, plum-por- ridge ; Fat pig and goose itself oppose. And blaspheme custard through the nose. Of Commonwealth thomas hobbes [Fron Leviathan, 1651, chapters xvii, xviii, xix, xxi] The Nature of a C ommonwealth The final, cause, end, or design, of men, who naturally love liberty and dominion over others, in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves in which we see them live in commonwealths, is the foresight of their own preservation and of a moi'e contented life thereby ; that is to say, of getting them- selves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown in chapter xiii,^ to the natural 1 The following passage sets forth Hobbes' fa- mous idea of the state of nature with its perpetual warfare : "Hereby it is manifest that, during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war, and such a war as is of every man against every man. For 'war' consisteth not in battle only or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known, and therefore the notion of 'time' is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain but in an inclination thereto of many days together, so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting but in the known disposition thereto during all the time, there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is 'peace.' "Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same is consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish PUEITANS AND KINGS 179 passions of men, when there is no visible power to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the performance of their covenants and observation of those laws of Nature set down in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters. For the laws of Nature, as ''justice," "equity," "modesty," "mercy" and, in sum, "doing to others as we would be done to," of themselves, without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed, are con- trary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge, and the like. And covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all. Therefore, notwithstanding the laws of Nature, which every one hath then kept when he has the will to keep them, when he can do it safely, if there be no power erected or not great enough for our security, every man will, and may lawfully, rely on his own strength and art for caution against all other men. And in all places where men have lived by small families, to rob and spoil one another has been a trade, and so far from being reputed against the law of Nature, that the greater spoils they gained, the greater was their honor; and men observed no other laws therein but the laws of honor, that is, to abstain from cruelty, leaving to men their lives and instruments of hus- bandry. And as small families did then, so now do cities and kingdoms, which are but greater families, for their own security en- large their dominions, upon all pretences of danger and fear of invasion or assistance that may be given to invaders, and endeavor as much as they can to subdue or weaken their neighbors by open force and secret arts, for want of other caution, justly; and are remembered for it in after ages with honor. Nor is it the joining together of a small number of men that gives them this security, because, in small numbers, small additions on the one side or the other make the ad- vantage of strength so great as is sufficient to carry the victory, and therefore gives en- them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncer- tain, and consequently no culture of tbe earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth ; no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." ' eouragement to an invasion. The multitude sufficient to confide in for our security is not determined by any certain number, but by comparison with the enemy we fear ; and is then sufficient when the odds of the enemy is not of so visible and conspicuous moment to determine the event of war as to move him to attempt. And be there never so great a multitude, yet, if their actions be directed according to their particular judgments and particular appetites, they can expect thereby no de- fence nor protection, neither against a com- mon enemy nor against the injuries of one another. For, being distracted in opinions concerning the best use and application of their strength, they do not help, but hinder, one another, and reduce their strength by mutual opposition to nothing ; whereby they are easily not only subdued by a very few that agree together, but also, when there is no common enemy, they make war upon each other for their particular interests. For, if we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent in the observation of justice and other laws of Nature, without a common power to keep them all in awe we might as well suppose all mankind to do the same; and then there neither would be nor need to be any civil government or commonwealth at all, because there would be peace without subjection. Nor is it enough for the security which men desire should last all the time of their life that they be governed and directed by one judgment for a limited time, as in one battle or one war. For, though they obtain a victory by their unanimous endeavor against a foreign enemy, yet afterwards, when either they have no common enemy or he that by one part is held for an enemy is by another part held for a friend, they must needs by the difference of their inter- ests dissolve and fall again into a war amongst themselves. . . . The only way to erect such a common power as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort as that by their own industry and by the fruits of the earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly, is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills by plurality of voices unto one will ; which is as much as to say, to appoint one man or assembly of men 180 THE GEEAT TEADITION to bear their person; and every one to own and acknowledge himself to be author of whatsoever he that so beareth their person shall act, or cause to be acted, in those things which concern the common peace and safety ; and therein to submit their wills, every one to his will, and their judgments to his judg- ment. This is more than consent or con- cord: it is a real unity of them all, in one and the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man, in such manner as if every man should say to every man, "1 authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him and authorize all his actions in like manner." This done, the multitude so united in one person is called a "common- wealth," in Latin civitas. This is the gen- eration of that great "leviathan," or, rather, to speak more reverently, of that "mortal god," to which we owe under the "immortal God," our peace and defense. For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him that by terror thereof he is enabled to perform the wills of them all, to peace at home and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consisteth the essence of the commonwealth; which, to define it, is "one person, of whose acts a great multitude by mutual covenants one with another have made themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think expedient for their peace and common de- fense." And he that carrieth this person is called "sovereign," and said to have "sovereign power"; and every one besides his "sub- ject." The attaining to this sovereign power is by two ways. One by natural force, as when a man maketh his children to submit them- selves and their children to his government, as being able to destroy them if they refuse ; or by war subdueth his enemies to his will, giving them their lives on that condition. The other is when men agree amongst them- selves to submit to some man, or assembly of men, voluntarily, on confidence to be pro- tected by him against all others. This lat- ter may be called a political commonwealth, or commonwealth by "institution"; and the former, a commonwealth by "acquisi- tion." Of the Several Kinds of Commonwealth The difference of commonwealths con- sisteth in the difference of the sovereign or the person representative of all and every one of the multitude. And because the sov- ereignty is either in one man or in an as- sembly of more than one, and into that assembly either every man hath right to enter or not every one, but certain men dis- tinguished from the rest, it is manifest there can be but three kinds of commonwealth. For the representative must needs be one man or more; and, if more, then it is the assembly of all or but of a part. When the representative is one man, then is the com- monwealth a "monarchy" ; when an assembly 'of all that will come together, then it is a "democracy," or popular commonwealth; when an assembly of a part only, then it is called an "aristocracy." Other kind of com- monwealth there can be none; for either one, or more, or all, must have the sovereign power, which I have shown to be indivisible, entire. Of the Liberty of Subjects Liberty, or "freedom," signifieth, properly, the absence of opposition — by opposition, 1 mean external impediments of motion; and may be applied no less to irrational and inanimate creatures than to rational. For whatsoever is so tied or environed as it can- not move but within a certain space, which space is determined by the opposition of some external body, we say it hath not lib- erty to go further. And so of all living creatures whilst they are imprisoned or re- strained with walls or chains; and of the water whilst it is kept in by banks or vessels, that otherwise should sjjread itself into a larger space, we use to say they are not at liberty to move in such manner as without those external impediments they would. But, when the impediment of motion is in the constitution of the thing itself, we use not to say it wants the liberty, but the power, to move, as when a stone lieth still, or a man is fastened to his bed by sickness. And, according to this proper and gen- erally received meaning of the word, a "freeman is he that in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do is not hindered to do what he has a will to." But, when the words "free" and "liberty" are applied to anything but "bodies," they are abused; for that which is not subject to PUEITANS AND KINGS 181 motion is not subject to impediment; and, therefore, when it is said, for example, the way is iree, no liberty of the way is sig- nified, but of those that walk in it without stop. And when we say a gift is free, there is not meant any liberty of the gift, but of the giver, that was not bound by any law of covenant to give it. So, when we "speak freely," it is not the liberty of voice or pro- nunciation, but of the man, whom no law hath obliged to speak otherwise than he did. Lastly, from the use of the word "free-will" no liberty can be inferred of the will, desire, ■or inclination, but the liberty of the man, which consisteth in this, that he finds no stop in doing what he has the Avill, desire, or in- clination, to do. Fear and liberty are consistent; so when a man throweth his goods into the sea for "fear" the ship should sink, he doth it never- theless very willingly, and may refuse to do it if he will: it is therefore the action of one that was "free"; so a man some- times pays his debt, only for "fear" of im- prisonment, which, because nobody hindered him from detaining, was the action of a man at "liberty." And, generally, all actions which men do in commonwealths for "fear" of the law are actions which the doers had "liberty" to omit. "Liberty" and "necessity" are consistent, as in the Avater that hath not only "liberty" but a "necessity" of dfeseending by the chan- nel; so likewise in the actions which men voluntarily do, which, because they proceed from their will, proceed from "liberty," and yet — because every act of man's will, and every desire and inclination, proceedeth from some cause, and that from another cause, in a continual chain whose first link is in the hand of God, the first of all causes — proceedJrom "necessity." So that, to him that could see the connection of those causes, the "necessity" of all men's voluntary ac- tions would appear manifest. And there- fore God, that seeth and disposeth all things, seeth also that the "liberty" of man in doing what he will is accompanied with the "neces- sity" of doing that which God will, and no more nor less. For, though men may do many things which God does not command, nor is therefore author of them, yet they can have no passion nor appetite to any- thing of which appetite God's will is not the cause. And did not His will assure the "necessity" of man's will, and consequently of all that on man's will dependeth, the "liberty" of men would be a contradiction and impediment to the omnipotence and "liberty" of God. And this shall suffice, as to the matter in hand, of that natural "lib- erty" which only is properly called "lib- erty." But as men, for the attaining of peace and conservation of themselves thereby, have made an artificial man which we call a commonwealth, so also have they made arti- ficial chains, called "civil laws," which they themselves by mutual covenants have fast- ened at one end to the lips of that man, or assembly, to whom they have given the sov- ereign power, and at the other end to their own ears. These bonds, in their own nature but weak, may nevertheless be made to hold by the danger, though not by the difficulty, of breaking them. In relation to these bonds only it is that I am to speak now of the "liberty" of "sub- jects." For, seeing there is no common- Avealth in the world wherein there be rules enough set down for the regulating of all the actions and words of men, as being a thing impossible, it foUoweth necessarily that, in all kinds of actions by the laws pretermitted, men have the liberty of doing what their own reasons shall suggest for the most profitable to thenaselves. For, if we take liberty in the proper sense for corporal liberty — that is to say, freedom from chains and prison — it were very absurd for men to clamor as they do for the liberty they so manifestly enjoy. Again, if we take liberty for an exemption from laws, it is no less absurd for men to demand as they do that liberty by which all other men may be mas- ters of their lives. And yet, as absurd as it is, this is it they demand, not knowing that the laws are of no power to protect them, without a sword in the hands of a man or men to cause those laws to be put in execu- tion. The liberty of a subject lieth therefore only in those things which in regulating their actions the sovereign hath pretermitted, such as is the liberty to buy and sell and other- wise coiitract with one another, to choose their own abode, their own diet, their own trade of life, and institute their children as they themselves think fit, and the like. Nevertheless we are not to understand that by such liberty the sovereign power of life and death is either abolished or limited. For it has been already shown that nothing the sovereign representative can do to a subject, on what pretence soever, can properly be 182 THE GEEAT TEADITION called injustice or injury, because every sub- ject is author of every act the sovereign doth ; so that he never wanteth right to any- thing, otherwise than as he himself is the subject of God, and bound thereby to ob- serve the laws of Nature. And therefore it may, and doth, often happen in common- wealths that a subject may be put to death by the command of the sovereign power; and yet neither do the other wrong ; as when Jephtha caused his daughter to be sacrificed ; in which, and the like cases, he that so dieth had liberty to do the action for which he is nevertheless without injury put to death. And the same holdeth also in a sovereign prince that putteth to death an innocent sub- ject. For, though the action be against the law of Nature as being contrary to equity, as was the killing of Uriah by David, yet it was not an injury to Uriah, but to God. Not to Uriah, because the right to do what he pleased was given him by Uriah himself; and yet to God, because David was God's subject, and prohibited all iniquity by the law of Nature; which distinction David him- self, when he repented the fact, evidently confirmed, saying: ''To Thee only have 1 sinned." In the sarne manner the people of Athens, when they banished the most potent of their commonwealth for ten years, thought they committed no injustice; and 3'et they never questioned what crime he had done, but what hurt he would do : nay, they commanded the banishment of they knew not Avhom; and every citizen bringing his oyster shell into the market-place written with the name of him he desired should be banished, without actually accusing him, sometimes banished an Aristides, for his reputation of justice, and sometimes a scur- rilous jester, as Hyperbolus, to make a jest of it. And yet a man cannot say the sov- ereign people of Athens wanted right to banish them, or an Athenian the liberty to jest or to be just. The liberty whereof there is so frequent and honorable mention in the histories and philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and in the writings and discourse of those that from them have received all their learning in the politics, is not the lib- erty of particular men, but the liberty of the commonAvealth ; which is the same with that Vhich every man then should have, if there were no civil laws nor commonwealth at all. And the effects of it also be the same. For as amongst masterless men there is per- petual war of every man against his neigh- bor; no inheritance, to transmit to the son, nor to expect from the father ; no propriety of goods, or lands; no security; but a full and absolute liberty in every particular man: so in states and commonwealths not dependent on one another every common- wealth, not every man, has an absolute lib- erty to do what it shall judge, that is to say, what that man, or assembly that repre- senteth it, shall judge most conducing to their benefit. But withal they live in the condition of a perpetual war, and upon the confines of battle, with their frontiers armed and cannons planted against their neighbors round about. The Athenians and Romans were free, that is, free commonwealths ; not that any particular men had the liberty to resist their own representative, but that their representative had the liberty to resist or invade other people. There is written on the turrets of the city of Lucca, in great characters, at this day, the word "Libertas" ; yet no man can thence infer that a particular man has more liberty or immunity from the service of the commonwealth there than in Constantinople. Whether a commonwealth be monarchial or popular the freedom is still the same. But it is an easy thing for men to be deceived by the specious name of liberty; and, for want of judgment to distinguish, mistake that for their private inheritance and birthright which is the right of the pub- lic only. And, when the same error is con- firmed by the authority of men in reputa- tion for their writings on this subject, it is no wonder if it produce sedition, and change of government. In these western parts of the world we are made to receive our opinions concerning the institution and rights of commonwealths, from Aristotle, Cicero, and other men, Greeks and Romans, that, living under popular states, derived those rights not from the principles of Nature but transcribed them into their books, out of the practice of their own com- monwealths, which were popular; as the grammarians describe the rules of language out of the practice of the time, or the rules of poetry out of the poems of Homer and Virgil. And, because the Athenians were taught to keep them from desire of changing their government, that they were free men, and all that lived under monarchy were slaves, therefore Aristotle put it down in his Politics (lib. 6, cap. ii) : "In democracy PURITANS AND KINGS 183 'liberty' is to be supposed; for it is com- monly held that no man is 'free' in any other government." And as Aristotle, so Cicero and other writers have grounded their civil doctrine on the opinions of the Romans, who wei'e taught to hate monarchy, at first, by them that having dejDosed their sovereign shared amongst them the sovereignty of Rome, and afterwards by their successors. And by reading of these Greek and Latin authors men from their childhood have got- ten a habit, under a false show of liberty, of favoring tumults, and of licentious con- trolling the actions of their sovereigns, and again of controlling those controllers; with the effusion of so much blood as I think I may truly say there was never anything so dearly bought as these western parts have bought the learning of the Greek and Latin tongues. The Political Verse of John Dryden [From AstrcBQ Redux, 1660] And welcome now, great monarch, to your own! Behold the approaching cliffs of Albion, It is no longer motion cheats your view; As you meet it, the land approacheth you. The land returns, and in the white it wears The marks of penitence and sorrow bears. But you, whose goodness your descent doth show. Your heavenly parentage and earthly too. By that same mildness which your father's crown Before did ravish shall secure your own. Not tied to rules of policy, you find Revenge less sweet than a forgiving mind. Thus, when the Almighty would to Moses give A sight of all he could behold and live, A voice before his entry did proclaim Long-suffering, goodness, mercy, in his name. Your power to justice doth submit your cause. Your goodness only is above the laws. Whose rigid letter, while pronounced by you. Is softer made. So winds that tempests brew, When through Arabian groves they take their flight. Made wanton with rich odors, lose their spite. And as those lees that trouble it refine The agitated soul of generous wine. So tears of joy, for your returning spilt, Work out and expiate our former guilt. Methinks I see those crowds on Dover's strand, Who in their haste to welcome you to land Choked up the beach with their still grow- ing store And made a Avilder torrent on the shore : While, spurred with eager thoughts of past delight, Those who had seen you, court a second sight, Preventing still your steps and making haste To meet you often whereso'er you past. How shall I speak of that triumphant day. When you renewed the expiring pomp of May! A month that owns an interest in your name ; You and the flowers are its peculiar claim. That star, that at your birth shone out so bright It stained the duller sun's meridian light, Did once again its potent fires renew. Guiding our eyes to find and worship you. And now Time's whiter series is begun, Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run ; Those clouds that overcast your morn shall fly, Dispelled to farthest corners of the sky. Our nation, with united interest blest. Not now content to poise, shall sway the rest. Abroad your empire shall no limits know. But, like the sea, in boundless circles flow ; Your much-loved fleet shall with a wide com- mand Besiege the petty monarchs of the land; And as old Time his offspring swallowed down. Our ocean in its depths all seas shall drown. Their wealthy trade from pirates' rapine free. Our merchants shall no more adventurers be ; Nor in the farthest East those dangers fear Which humble Holland must dissemble here. Spain to your gift alone her Indies owes. For what the powerful takes not he bestows ; And France that did an exile's presence fear May justly apprehend you still too near. At home the hateful names of parties cease, And factious souls are wearied into peace. The discontented now are only they Whose crimes before did your just cause betray ; Of those your edicts some reclaim from sins. But most your life and blest example wins. 184 THE GEEAT TRADITION Oh, happy prince, whom Heaven hath taught the way By paying vows to have more vows to pay ! Oh, happy age ! oh, times like those alone By fate reserved for great Augustus' throne, When the joint growth of arms and arts foreshew The world a monarch, and that monarch you! [From Absalom and Achitophel, 1681] The inhabitants of old Jerusalem Were Jebusites; the town so called from them. And theirs the native right. But when the chosen people grew more strong, The rightful cause at length became the wrong ; 5 And every loss the men of Jebus bore, They still were thought God's enemies the more. Thus worn and weakened, well or ill content. Submit they must to David's government : Impoverished and deprived of all com- mand, 10 Their taxes doubled as they lost their land ; And, what was harder yet to flesh and blood, Their gods disgraced, and burnt like com- mon wood. This set the heathen priesthood in a flame, For priests of all religions are the same. ^^ Of whatsoe'er descent their godhead be. Stock, stone, or other homely pedigree. In his defense his servants are as bold. As if he had been born of beaten gold. The Jewish rabbins, though their enemies, 20 In this conclude them honest men and wise. For 'twas their duty, all the learned think. To espouse his cause by whom they eat and drink. From hence began that Plot, the nation's curse. Bad in itself, but represented worse, ^5 Raised in extremes, and in extremes decried, With oaths affirmed, with dying vows denied. Not weighed or winnowed by the multitude, But swallowed in the mass, unchewed and crude. Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies ^^ To please the fools and puzzle all the wise : Succeeding times did equal folly call, Believing nothing or believing all. The Egyptian rites the Jebusites embraced. Where gods were recommended by their taste ; 35 Such savory deities must needs be good As served at once for worship and for food. By force they could not introduce these gods. For ten to one in former days was odds : So fraud was used, the sacrificer's trade ; ^ Fools are more hard to conquer than per- suade. Their busy teachers mingled with the Jews And raked for converts even the court and stews : Which Hebrew priests the more unkindly took. Because the fleece accompanies the flock. 45 Some thought they God's anointed meant to slay _ By guns, invented since full many a day : Our author swears it not ; but who can know How far the devil and Jebusites may go? This plot, which failed for want of common sense, 50 Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence ; For as, when raging fevers boil the blood, The standing lake soon floats into a flood. And every hostile humor which before Slept quiet in its channels bubbles o'er ; 55 So several factions from this first ferment Work up to foam and threat the govern- ment. Some by their friends, more by themselves thought wise. Opposed the power to which they could not rise. Some had in courts been great, and thrown from thence, ^ Like fiends were hardened in impenitence. Some by their monarch's fatal mercy grown From pardoned rebels kinsmen to the throne Were raised in power and public office high ; Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie. 65 Of these the false Achitophel was first, A name to all succeeding ages curst: For close designs and crooked counsels fit, Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit, Eestless, unfixed in principles and place, '^^ In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace: A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay And o'er-inf ormed the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity, "^^ Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high. He sought the storms ; but, for a calm unfit. Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. PURITANS AND KINGS 185 Great wits are sure to madness near allied And thin partitions do their bounds divide ; ^° Else, why should he, with wealth and honor blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? Punish a body which he could not please, Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease ? And all to leave what with his toil he won §5 To that unfeathered two-legg'd thing, a son, Got, while his soul did huddled notions try, And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy. In friendshi^D false, implacable in hate. Resolved to ruin or to rule the state ; ^^ To compass this the triple bond he broke. The pillars of the public safety shook, And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke ; Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame, Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name. ^^ So easy still it proves in factious times With public zeal to cancel private crimes. How safe is treason and how sacred ill. Where none can sin against the people's will, Where crowds can wink and no offence be known, ^^^ Since in another's guilt they find their own ! Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge ; The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge. In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abbethdin With more discerning eyes or hands more clean, 105 Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress, Swift of despatch and easy of access. Oh ! had he been content to serve the crown With virtues only proper to the gown. Or had the rankness of the soil been freed ^0 From cockle that oppressed the noble seed, David for him his tuneful harp had strung And Heaven had wanted one immortal song. But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand, And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land. ^^^ Achitophel, grown weary to possess A lawful fame and lazy happiness. Disdained the golden fruit to gather free And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree. Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since, 120 He stood at "bold defiance with his prince Held up the buckler of the people's cause Against the crown, and skulked behind the laws. The wished occasion of the plot he takes ; Some circumstances finds, but more he - makes; 125 By buzzing emissaries fills the ears Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears Of arbitrary counsels brought to light, And proves the king himself a Jebusite. Weak argumenis ! which yet he knew full well 130 Were strong with people easy to rebeL For governed by the moon, the giddy Jews Tread the same track when she the prime renews ; And once in twenty years their scribes record. By natural instinct they change their lord. 1^5 Achitophel still wants a chief, and none Was found so fit as warlike Absalom. Not that he wished his greatness to create, For politicians neither love nor hate; But, for he knew his title not allowed 140 Would keep him still depending on the crowd. That kingly power, thus ebbing out, might be Drawn to the dregs of a democracy. . . . A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed Of the true old enthusiastic breed : 145 'Gainst form and order they their power employ. Nothing to build and all things to destroy. But far more numerous was the herd of such Who think too little and who talk too much. These out of mere instinct, they knew not why, 150 Adored their fathers' God and property, And by the same blind benefit of Fate The Devil and the Jebusite did hate : Born to be saved even in their own despite, Because they could not help believing right. 155 Such were the tools; but a whole Hydra more Remains of sprouting heads too long to score. Some of their chiefs were princes of the land ; In the first rank of these did Zimri stand, A man so various that he seemed to be 1^0 Not one, but all mankind's epitome : Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong. Was everything by starts and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was ehymist, fiddler, statesman, and buf- foon ; 165 Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking. Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy ! 186 THE GREAT TRADITION Railing and praising were his usual themes, i'^^ And both, to show his judgment, in ex- tremes : So over violent or over civil That every man with him was God or Devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art ; Nothing went unrewarded but desert. ^'^5 Beggared by fools whom still he found too late, He had his jest, and they had his estate. He laughed himself from Court ; then sought relief By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief : For spite of him, the weight of business fell 180 On Absalom and wise Achitophel; Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft. He left not faction, but of that was left. [From The Hind and the Panther, 1687] A milk-white Hind, immortal and un- changed. Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged; Without unspotted, innocent within. She feared no danger, for she knew no sin. Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds ^ And Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds Aimed at her heart ; was often forced to fly, And doomed to death, though fated not to die. Not so her young ; for their unequal line Was hero's make, half human, half divine. ^-^ Their earthly mould obnoxious was to fate. The immortal part assumed immortal state. Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood, Extended o'er the Caledonian wood, Their native walk ; whose vocal blood arose ^^ And cried for pardon on their perjured foes. Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed. Endued with souls, increased the sacred breed. So captive Israel multiplied in chains, A numerous exile, and enjoyed her pains. 20 With grief and gladness mixed, their mother viewed Her martyred offspring and their race re- newed ; Their corps to perish, but their kind to last. So much the deathless plant the dying fruit surpassed. Panting and pensive now she ranged alone, 25 And wandered in the kingdoms once her own. The common hunt, though from their rage restrained By sovereign power, her company dis- dained. Grinned as they passed, and with a glar- ing eye Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity. ^o 'Tis true she bounded by and tripped so light, They had not time to take a steady sight; For truth has such a face and such a mien As to be loved needs only to be seen. The bloody Bear, an Independent beast ^^ Unlicked to form, in groans her hate ex- pressed. Among the timorous kind the quaking Hare Professed neutrality, but would not swear. Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use, Mimicked all sects and had his own to choose ; ^ Still when the Lion looked, his knees he b'ent, And paid at church a courtier's compliment. The bristled Baptist Boar, impure as he. But whitened with the foam of sanctity. With fat pollutions filled the sacred place, 45 And mountains leveled in his furious race; So first rebellion founded was in grace. But, since the mighty ravage which he made In German forests had his guilt betrayed. With broken tusks and with a borrowed name, ^o He shunned the vengeance and concealed the shame, So lurked in sects unseen. With greater guile False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil ; The graceless beast by Athanasius first Was chased from Nice, then by Socinus nursed, 55 His impious race their blasphemy renewed, And Nature's King through Nature's optics viewed; Reversed they viewed him lessened to their eye, Nor in an infant could a God descry. New swarming sects to this obliquely tend, ^o Hence they began, and here they all will end. . . . Too boastful Britain, please thyself np more That beasts of prey are banished from thy shore ; The Bear, the Boar, and every savage name, Wild in effect, though in appearance tame, ^^ PURITANS AND KINGS 187 Lay waste thy woods, destroy thy blissful bower, And, muzzled though thy seem, the mutes devour. More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race Appear with belly gaunt and famished face ; Never Avas so deformed a beast of grace, "^o His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears, Close clapped for shame; but his rough crest he rears. And pricks up his predestinating ears. His wild disordered walk, his haggard eyes, Did all the bestial citizens surprise ; ''° Though feared and hated, yet he ruled a while. As captain or companion of the spoil. . . . These are the chief; to number o'er the rest And stand, like Adam, naming every beast. Were weary work; nor will the Muse de- scribe ^^ A slimy-born and sun-begotten tribe. Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound. In fields their sullen conventicles found. These gToss, half-animated lumps I leave, Nor can I think what thoughts they can con ceive. But if they think at all, 't is sure no higher Than matter put in motion may as]3ire; Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay, So drossy, so divisible are they As would but serve pure bodies for allay, ^'^ Such souls as shards produce, such beetle things 85 As only buzz to heaven with evening wings, Strike in the dark, offending but by chance, Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance. They know not beings, and but hate a name ; ^^ To them the Hind and Panther are the same. The Panther, sure the noblest next the Hind And fairest creature of the spotted kind; Oh, could her inborn stains be washed away She were too good to be a beast of prey ! i^o How can I praise or blame, and not offend. Or how divide the frailty from the friend? Her faults and virtues lie so mixed, that she Nor wholly stands condemned nor wholly free. Then, like her injured Lion, let me speak ; 1^5 He cannot bend her and he would not break. Unkind already, and estranged in part. The Wolf begins to share her wandering heart. Though unpolluted yet with actual ill. She half commits who sins but in her will. 110 If, as our dreaming Platonists report. There could be spirits of a middle sort, Too black for heaven and yet too white for hell, Who just dropped half-way down, nor lower fell; So iDoised, so gently she descends from high, 115 It seems a soft dismission from the sky. Her house not ancient, whatsoe'er pretense Pier clergy heralds make in her defense A second century not half-way run. Since the new honors of her blood begun. 120 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEALS OF SANITY AND ORDER I. CRITICISMS OF SOCIAL LIFE AND MANNERS The Rape of the Lock an heroi-comical poem alexander pope Canto I "What dire offence from amorous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things, I sing. — This verse to Caryl, Muse ! is due ; This, e'en Belinda may vouchsafe to view. Slight is the subject, but not so the praise, ^ If she inspire, and he approve my lays. Say what strange motive. Goddess! could compel A well-bred lord t' assault a gentle belle *? Oh, say what stranger cause, yet unexplored, Could make a gentle belle reject a lord? ^^ In tasks so bold, can little men engage. And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage ? Sol through white curtains shot a timor- ous ray, And oped those eyes that must eclipse the day. Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, ^^ And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake. Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knocked the ground. And the pressed watch returned a silver sound. Belinda still her downy pillow pressed. Her guardian sylph prolonged the balmy rest ; 20 'Twas he had summoned to her silent bed The morning dream that hovered o'er her head; A youth more glittering than a birth-night beau, (That e'en in slumber caused her cheek to glow) Seemed to her ear his winning lips to lay, ^5 And thus in whispers said, or seemed to say : "Fairest of mortals, thou distinguished care Of thousand bright inhabitants of air ! If e'er one vision touched thy infant thought, Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught, 30 Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen, The silver token, and the circled green. Or virgins visited by angel powers. With golden crowns and wreaths of heav- enly flowers; Hear and believe ! thy OAvn importance know, 25 Nor bound thy narrow views to things below, Some secret truths, some learned pride con- cealed, To maids alone and children are revealed. What though no credit doubting wits may give? '" The fair and innocent shall still believe, ■^o Know, then, unnumbered spirits round thee The light militia of the lower sky. These, though unseen, are ever on the wing, Hang o'er the box, and hover round the . ^^^§'- Think what an equipage thou hast in air, '^^ And view with scorn two pages and a chair. As now your own, our beings were of old, And once enclosed in woman's beauteous mould ; Thence, by a soft transition, we repair Prom earthly vehicles to these of air. ^ Think not, when woman's transient breath is fled. That all her vanities at once are dead ; Succeeding vanities she still regards, And though she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards. Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive, ^5 And love of omLer, after death survive. For when the fair in all their pride expire. 188 i EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDEE 189 To their first elements their souls retire : The sprites of fiery termagants in flame Mount up, and take a salamander's name. ^^ Soft yielding minds to water glide away, And sip, with nymphs, their elemental tea. The graver prude sinks downward to a gnome. In search of mischief still on earth to roam. The light coquettes in sylphs aloft repair, 65 And sport and flutter in the fields of air. "Know further yet : whoever fair and chaste Rejects mankind, is by some sylph em- braced ; For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease Assume what sexes and what shapes they please. "^^ What guards the purity of melting maids, In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades. Safe from the treacherous friend, the daring spark. The glance by day, the whisper in the dark, When kind occasion prompts their warm desires, '^5 When music softens, and when dancing fires'? 'Tis but their sylph, the wise celestials know. Though honor is the word with men below. Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face. For life jDredestined to the gnomes' embrace. These swell their prospects and exalt their pride, ^1 When offers are disdained, and love denied : Then gay ideas crowd the vacant brain. While peers, and dukes, and all their sweep- ing train. And garters, stars, and coronets appear, ^5 And in soft sounds 'Your Grace' salutes their ear. 'Tis these that early taint the female soul. Instruct the eyes of young coquettes to roll, Teach infant cheeks a bidden blush to know. And little hearts to flutter at a beau. ^^ "Oft when the world imagine women stray, The sylphs through mystic mazes gaxide their way, Through all the giddy circle they pursue, And old impertinence expel by new. What tender maid but must a victim fall ^^ To one man's treat, but for another's ball? When Florio speaks, what virgin could with- stand. If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand ? With varying vanities, from every part. They shift the moving toyshop of their heart; lOO Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive, Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive. This erring mortals levity may call; Oh, blind to truth ! the sylphs contrive it all. "Of these am I, who thy protection claim, A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name. ^'^^ Late, as I ranged the crystal wilds of air, In the clear mirror of thy ruling star I saw, alas ! some dread event impend, Ere to the main this morning sun descendjH^ But Heaven reveals not what, or how, or where. Warned by the sylph, pious maid, beware ! This to disclose is all thy guardian can : Beware of all, but most beware of man !" He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long, US Leaped up, and waked his mistress ith his tongue. 'Twas then, Belinda, if report say true, Thy eyes first opened on a billet-doux ; Wounds, charms, and ardors were no sooner read, But all the vision vanished from thy head. 120 And now, unveiled, the toilet stands dis- played, Each silver vase in mystic order laid. First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores, With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers. A heavenly image in the glass appears, 125 To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears; Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side. Trembling begins the sacred rites of pride. Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here The various offerings of the world appear; From each she nicely culls with curious toil. And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil. 132 This casket India's glowing gems unlocks. And all Arabia breathes from yonder box. The tortoise here and elephant unite, l^^ Transformed to combs, the speckled, and the white. Here files of pins extend their shining rows. Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billets-doux. Now awful beauty puts on all its arms ; The fair each moment rises in her charms, 1^0 Repairs her smiles, 'awakens every grace. And calls forth all the wonders of her face; Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes. The busy sylphs surround their darling care. These set the head, and those divide the hair, 190 THE GEEAT TEADITION Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the 147 gown ; And Betty's praised for labors not her own. Canto II Not with more glories, in th' ethereal plain, The smi first rises o'er the purpled main, Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames. Fair nymphs, and well-dressed youths around her shone, ^ But every eye was fixed on her alone. On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, But every eye was fixed on her alone. Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose, Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those ; ^^ Favors to none, to all she smiles extends; 'Oft she rejects, but never once offends. Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, ^^ Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide; If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all. This nymph, to the destruction of man- kind, Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind ^^ In equal curls, and well conspired to deck With shining ringlets the smooth ivory neck. Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains. And mighty hearts are held in slender chains. With hairy springes, we the birds betray, ^5 Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey. Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair. Th' adventurous baron the bright locks ad- mired ; He saw, he wished, and to the prize aspired. Resolved to win, he meditates the way, ^^ By force to ravish, or by fraud betray ; For when success a lover's toil attends. Few ask, if fraud or force attained his ends. For this, ere Phoebus rose, he had im plored Propitious Heaven, and every power adored. But chiefly Love ; to Love an altar built, Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves. And all the trophies of his former loves ; ^^ With tender billets-doux he lights the pyre, 35 And breathes three amorous sighs to raise the fire. Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize. The powers gave ear, and granted half his prayer; ' ^^ The rest the winds dispersed in empty air. But now secure the painted vessel glides. The sunbeams trembling on the floating tides ; While melting music steals upon the sky. And softened sounds along the waters die; ^ Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently .play, Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay. All but the sylph — with careful thoughts op- pressed, Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast. He summons straight his denizens of air ; ^^ The lucid squadrons round the sails repair; Soft o'er the shrouds aerial Avhispers breathe. That seemed but zephyrs to the train be- neath. Some to the sun their insect wings unfold. Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold; _ 60 Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight, Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light. Loose to the wind their airy garments flew, Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew, Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies, ^5 Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes, While every beam new transient colors flings. Colors that change whene'er they wave their wings. Amid the circle, on the gilded mast, Superior by the head, was Ariel placed ; '^*^ His purple pinions opening to the sun. He raised his azure wand, and thus begun : "Ye sylphs and sylphids, to your chief give ear! Fays, fairies, genii, elves, and demons, hear ! Ye know the spheres, and various tasks as- signed '^^ By laws eternal to th' aerial kind. Some in the fields of purest ether play. And bask and whiten in the blaze of day. Some guide the course of wandering orbs on high. Or roll the planets through the boundless sky. 80 Some less refined, beneath the moon's pale light Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night. EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OE SANITY AND OEDEK 191 Or suck the mists in grosser air below, Or clip their pinions in the painted bow, Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main, Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain ; 86 Others on earth o'er human race preside, Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide : Of these the chief the care of nations own. And guard with arms divine the British throne. SO "Our humbler province is to tend the fair, Not a less pleasing, though less glorious care ; To save the powder from too rude a gale, Nor let th' imprisoned essences exhale ; To draw fresh colors from the vernal flow- ers ; ^5 To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in showers, A brighter wash ; to curl their waving hairs, Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs; Nay, oft in dreams, invention we bestow, To change a flounce, or add a furbelow, ^^o "This day, black omens threat the bright- est fair That e'er deserved a watchful spirit's care; Some dire disaster, or by force, or sleight; But what, or where, the fates have wrapped in night. Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law. Or some frail china jar receive a flaw; 1^6 Or stain her honor, or her new brocade; Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade; Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball ; Or whether Heaven has doomed that Shock must fall. 110 Haste, then, ye spirits ! to your charge re- pair; The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care; The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign ; And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine ; Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favorite lock; Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock, n^ To fifty chosen sylphs, of special note, We trust th' important charge, the petticoat : Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail. Though stiff with hoops, and armed with ribs of whale; 120 Form a strong line about the silver bound. And guard the wide circumference around. "Whatever spirit, careless of his charge, His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large, Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins, 125 Be stopped in vials, or transfixed with pins ; Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie, Or wedged whole ages in a bodkin's eye ; Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain. While clogged he beats his silken wings in vain ; 130 Or alum styptics with contracting power Shrink his thin essence like a riveled flower ; Or, as Ixion fixed, the wretch shall feel The giddy motion of the whirling mill, In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, 1^5 And tremble at the sea that froths beloAv !" He spoke; the spirits from the sails de- scend ; Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend; Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair ; Some hang upon the pendants of her ear; 1*0 With beating hearts the dire event they wait, Anxious, and trembling for the birth of fate. Canto III Close by those meads, forever crowned with flowers, Where Thames with pride surveys his rising- towers. There stands a structure of majestic frame, Which from the neighboring Hampton takes its name. Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall fore- doom 5 Of foreign tyrants and of nymphs at home ; Here thou, great Anna ! whom three realms obey, _ Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea. Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort, To taste awhile the pleasures of a court ; 10 In various talk th' instructive hours they passed, Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last ; One speaks the glory of the British Queen, And one describes a charming Indian screen ; A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes; At every word a reputation dies. i^ Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat. With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that. Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day, The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray ; 20 The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine; The merchant from th' Exchange returns in ■ peace. And the long labors of the toilet cease. Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites, 25 Burns to encounter two adventurous knights. At omber singly to decide their doom; And swells her breast with conquests yet to come. 192 THE GREAT TRADITION Straight the three bands prepare iii arms to jom, Each band the number of the sacred nine, ^o Soon as she spreads her hand, th' aerial guard Descend, and sit on each important card : First, Ariel perched upon a Matadore, Then each, according to the rank they boje ; For sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race, ^^ Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place. Behold, four kings in majesty revered, With hoary whiskers and a forky beard; And four fair queens whose hands sustain a flower. The expressive emblem of their softer power ; ^^ Four knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band, Caps on their beads, and halberts in their hand; And parti-colored troops, a shining train. Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain. The skilful nymph reviews her force with care : ^^ Let spades be trumps ! she said, and trumps they were. Now moved to war her sable Matadores, In show like leaders of the swarthy Moors. Spadillio first, unconquerable lord ! Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board. ^^ As many more Manillio forced to yield Ajid marched a victor from the verdant field. Him Basto followed, but his fate more hard Gained but one trump and one plebeian card. With his broad saber next, a chief in years. The hoary majesty of spades appears, ^^ Puts forth one manly leg, to sight revealed. The rest, his many-colored robe concealed. The rebel knave, who dares his prince en- Proves the just victim of his royal rage. "O E'en mighty Pam, that kings and queens o'erthrew, And mowed down armies in the fights of Loo, Sad chance of war ! now destitute of aid, Falls undistinguished by the victor spade ! Thus far both armies to Belinda yield ; ^^ Now to the baron fate inclines the field. His warlike Amazon her host invades. The imiDerial consort of the crown of spades ; The club's black tyrant first her victim died, Spite of his haughty mien, and barbarous pride. '0 What boots the regal circle on his head, 85 His giant limbs, in state unwieldy spread ; That long behind he trails his pompous robe> And, of all monarchs, only grasps the globe f The baron now his diamonds pours apace ; Th' embroidered king who shows but half his face, '^^ And his refulgent queen, with powers com- bined, Of broken troops an easy conquest find. Clubs, diamonds, hearts, in wild disorder seen, With throngs promiscuous strew the level green. ^'^ Thus when dispersed a routed army runs. Of Asia's troops, and Afric's sable sons. With like confusion different nations fiy. Of various habit, and of various dye ; The pierced battalions disunited fall, In heaps on heaps; one fate o'erwhelms them all. The knave of diamonds tries his wily arts, And wms (oh shameful chance!) the queen of hearts. At this the blood the virgin's cheek forsook, A livid paleness spreads o'er all her look ; ^o She sees, and trembles at th' approaching ill, Just in the jaws of ruin, and eodille. And now (as oft in some distempered state) On one nice trick depends the general fate. An ace of hearts steps forth; the king un seen Lurked in her hand, and mourned his captive queen : He springs to vengeance with an eager pace. And falls like thunder on the prostrate ace. The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky; The walls, the woods, and long canals reply. Oh thoughtless mortals ! ever blind to fate, Too soon dejected, or too soon elate, 1^2 Sudden, these honors shall be snatched away. And cursed forever this victorious day. For lo ! the board with cups and spoons is crowned, ^^^ The berries crackle, and the mill turns round; On shining altars of Japan they raise The silver lamp ; the fiery spirits blaze ; From silver spouts the grateful liquors _ glide, _ While China's earth receives the smoking tide : i" At once they gratify their scent and taste. And frequent cups prolong the rich repast. Straight hover round the fair her airy band ; Some, as she sipped, the fuming liquoi fanned. 95 EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDER 193 Some o'er her lap their careful plumes dis- played, 115 Trembling, and conscious of the rich bro- cade. Coffee (which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half- shut eyes) Sent up in vapors to the baron's brain New stratagems the radiant lock to gain. 120 Ah, cease, rash youth ! desist ere 'tis too late, Fear the just gods, and think of' Seylla's fate ! Changed to a bird, and sent to flit in air, She dearly pays for Nisus' injured hair! But when to mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they find fit instruments of ill ! 126 Just then Clarissa drew with tempting grace A two-edged weapon from her shining case : So ladies in romance assist their knight, Present the spear, and arm him for the fight. He takes the gift with reverence, and ex- tends 131 The little engine on his fingers' ends; This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head. Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair, A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair; 136 And thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear ; Thrice she looked back, and thrice the foe drew near. Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought The close recesses of the virgin's thought ; i^O As on the nosegay in her breast reclined. He watched tli' ideas rising in her mind, Sudden he viewed, in spite of all her art, An earthly lover lurking at her heart. Amazed, confused, he found his power ex- pired, 145 Resigned to fate, and with a sigh retired. The peer now spreads the glittering f orf ex wide, T' inclose the lock; now joins it, to divide. E'en then, before the fatal engine closed, A wretched sylph too fondly interposed ; i^o Fate urged the shears, and cut the sylph in twain, (But airy substance soon unites again). The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head, forever, and forever ! Then flashed the livmg lightning from her eyes. 155 And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies. Not louder shrieks to pitying Heaven are cast, When husbands, or when lap-dogs breathe their last; Or when rich China vessels, fallen from high, In glittering dust and painted fragments lie ! "Let wreaths of triumph noAV my temples twine," 161 The victor cried ; "the glorious prize is mine ! While fish in streams, or birds delight in air, Or in a coach and six the British fair. As long as Atalantis shall be read, 165 Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed. While visits shall be paid on solemn days. When numerous wax-lights in bright order blaze. While nymphs take treats, or assignations give, So long my honor, name, and praise shall live ! 170 What Time would spare, from steel receives its date. And monuments, like men, submit to fate! Steel could the labor of the gods destroy, And strike to dust th' imperial towers of Troy; Steel could the works of mortal pride eon- found, 175 And hew triumphal arches to the ground. What wonder then, fair nymph! thy hairs should feel The conquering force of unresisted steel?" Canto IV But anxious cares the pensive nymph op- pressed, And secret passions labored in her breast. Not youthful kings in battle seized alive, Not scornful virgins who their charms sur- vive, Not ardent lovers robbed of all their bliss, ° Not ancient ladies when refused a kiss, Not tyrants fierce that unrepentmg die, Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinned awry, E'er felt such rage, resentment, and des- pair, As thou, sad virgin, for thy ravished hair, i*^ For, that sad moment, when the sylphs with- drew And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew, Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite, As ever sullied the fair face of light, Down to the central earth, his projDer scene, Repaired to search the gloomy cave of Spleen. 16 194 THE GEEAT TEADITION 31 Swift on his sooty irinions flits the gnome, And in a vapor reached the dismal dome. No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows, The dreaded east is all the wind that blows. Here in a grotto, sheltered close from air, 21 And screened in shades from day's detested glare. She sighs forever on her pensive bed, Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head. Two handmaids wait the throne, alike in place, 2^ But differing far in figure and in face. Here stood Ill-nature like an ancient maid, Her wrinkled form in black and white ar- rayed ; With store of prayers, for mornings, nights, and noons Her hand is filled ; her bosom with lampoons There Affectation, with a sickly mien, Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen. Practiced to lisp, and hang the head aside, Faints into airs, and languishes with pride, On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe, ^^ Wrapped in a gown, for sickness, and for show. The fair ones feel such maladies as these, When each new night-dress gives a new dis- ease. A constant vapor o'er the palace flies. Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise; Dreadful, as hermit's dreams in haunted shades, ^^ Or bright, as visions of expiring maids. Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires, Pale specters, gaping tombs, and purple fires ; Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes, ^^ And crystal domes, and angels in machines. Unnumbered throngs on every side are seen. Of bodies changed to various forms by Spleen. Here living teapots stand, one arm held out. One bent; the handle this, and that the spout. ^'^ A pipkin there, like Homer's tripod, walks ; Here sighs a jar, and there a goose-pie talks ; Men prove with child, as powerful fancy works. And maids, turned bottles, call aloud for corks. Safe past the gnome through this fan- tastic band, ^^ A branch of healing spleenwort in his hand. Then thus addressed the power : "Hail, way- ward queen ! 75 Who rule the sex, to fifty from fifteen : Parent of vapors and of female wit ; Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit ; 60 On various tempers act by various ways. Make some take physic, others scribble plays; Who cause the proud their visits to delay, And send the godly in a pet to pray. A nymph there is, that all thy power dis- dains, 6^ And thousands more in equal mirth main- tams. But oh ! if e'er thy gnome could spoil a grace. Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face, Like citron-waters matrons' cheeks infiame. Or change complexions at a losing game ; '^^ If e'er with airy horns I planted heads, Or rumpled petticoats, or tumbled beds, Or caused suspicion when no soul was rude. Or discomposed the head-dress of a prude Or e'er to costive lap-dog gave disease, Which not the tears of brightest eyes could ease: Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin, That single act gives half the world the spleen." The goddess with a discontented air Seems to reject him, though she grants his prayer. ^^ A wondrous bag with both her hands she binds. Like that where once Ulysses held the winds ; There she collects the force of female lungs. Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues. A vial next she fills with fainting fears, ^^ Soft sorrows, melting gTiefs, and flowing tears. The gnome rejoicing bears her gift away, Spreads his black wings, and slowly. mounts to day. Sunk in Thalestris' arms the nymph he found. Her eyes dejected and her hair unbound. ^^ Pull o'er their heads the swelling bag he rent. And all the furies issued at the vent. Belinda burns with more than mortal ire, And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire. "0 wretched maid !" she spread her hands, and cried, ^^ (While Hampton's echoes, "Wretched maid !" replied) "Was it for this you took such constant care The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare? For this your locks in paper durance bound. EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OE SANITY AND OBDEE 195 For this with torturing irons wreathed around? 10° For this with fillets strained your tender head, And bravely bore the double loads of lead? Gods ! shall the ravisher display your hair, While the fops envy, and the ladies stare ! Honor forbid ! at whose unrivalled shrine ^^^ Ease, pleasure, virtue, all our sex resign. Methinks already I your tears survey, Already hear the horrid things they say. Already see you a degraded toast, And all your honor in a whisper lost ! ^^'^ How shall I, then, your helpless fame de- fend? 'Twill then be infamy to seem your friend ! And shall this prize, th' inestimable prize. Exposed through crystal to the gazing eyes, And heightened by the diamond's circling rays. 115 On that rapacious hand forever blaze? Sooner shall grass in Hyde Park Circus grow. And wits take lodgings in the sound of Bow ; Sooner let earth, air, sea, to chaos fall, Men, monkeys, lap-dogs, parrots, perish all!" 120 She said; then raging to Sir Plume re- pairs. And bids her beau demand the precious hairs (Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain. And the nice conduct of a clouded cane). With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face, 125 He first the snuff-box opened, then the case, And thus broke out — "My lord, why, what the devil? Zounds ! damn the lock ! 'fore Gad, you must be civil ! Plague on't ! 'tis past a jest — nay prithee, pox Give her the hair," he spoke, and rapped his box. 130 "It grieves me much," replied the peer again, "Who speaks so well should ever speak in vain. But by this lock, this sacred lock, I swear, (Which never more shall join its parted hair ; Which never more its honors shall re- new, 135 Clipped from the lovely head where late it grew) That while my nostrils draw the vital air, This hand, which won it, shall forever wear." He spoke, and speaking, in proud triumph spread The long-contended honors of her head. i^O But Umbriel, hateful gnome ! forbears not so; He breaks the vial whence the sorrows flow. Then see ! the nymph in beauteous grief ap- pears, Her eyes half languishing, half drowned in tears ; On her heaved bosom hung her drooping head, 145 Which, with a sigh, she raised ; and thus she • said : "Forever eurs'd be this detested day, Which snatched my best, my favorite curl away ! HajDpy ! ah, ten times happy had I been, If Hampton Court these eyes had never seen ! 150 Yet am not I the first mistaken maid, By love of courts to numerous ills betrayed. Oh, had I rather unadmired remained In some lone isle or distant northern land ; Where the gilt chariot never marks the way, 155 Where none learn omber, none e'er taste bohea ! There kept my charms concealed from mor- tal eye. Like roses, that in deserts bloom and die. What moved my mind with youthful lords to roam? Oh, had I stayed, and said my prayers at home ! 160 'Twas this, the morning omens seemed to tell: Thrice from my trembling hand the patch- box fell; The tottering china shook without a wind ; Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind ! A sylph, too, warned me of the threats of fate, 165 In mystic visions, now believed too late ! See the poor remnants of these slighted hairs ! My hands shall rend what e'en thy rapine spares ; These in two sable ringlets taught to break. Once gave new beauties to the snowy neck; i™ The sister lock now sits uncouth, alone. And in its fellow's fate foresees its own ; Uncurled it hangs, the fatal shears de- mands. And tempts once more, thy sacrilegious hands. , 196 THE GEEAT TEADITION Oh, hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize ^'^^ Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these !" Canto V She said : the pitying audience melt in tears. But Fate and Jove had stopped the baron's ears. In vain Thalestris with reproach assails. For who can move when fair Belinda fails? Not- half so fixed the Trojan could remain, ^ While Anna begged and Dido raged in vain. Then grave Clarissa graceful waved her fan; Silence ensued, and thus the nymph began : "Say, why are beauties praised and hon- ored most. The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast? 10 Why decked with all that land and sea af- ford, Why angels called, and angel-like adored? Why round our coaches crowd the white- gloved beaux. Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows ? How vain are all these glories, all our pains, 15 Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains ; That men may say, when we the front-box grace, 'Behold the first in virtue as in face!' Oh ! if to dance all night, and dress all day, Charmed the small-pox, or chased old age away, 20 Who would not scorn what housewife's cares produce. Or Avho would learn one earthly thing of use? To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint. Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint. But since, alas ! frail beauty must decay ; ^5 Curled or uncurled, since locks will turn to gray; Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade, And she who scorns a man must die a maid ; What then remains but well our power to use. And keep good humor still whate'er we lose? 30 And trust me, dear ! good humor can pre- vail, When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail. Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul." So spoke the dame, but no applause en- sued ; 35 Belinda frowned, Thalestris called her prude. "To arms, to arms !" the fierce virago eries^ And swift as lightning to the combat flies. All side in parties, and begin th' attack; Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whale- bones crack; 40 Heroes' and heroines' shouts eonfus'dly rise. And bass and treble voices strike the skies. No common weapons in their hands are found. Like gods they flght, nor dread a mortal wound. So when bold Homer makes the gods en- gage, 45 And heavenly breasts with human passions rage ; 'Gainst Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes arms ; And all Olympus rings with loud alarms : Jove's thunder roars, Heaven trembles all around. Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing deeps resound : ^0 Earth shakes her nodding towers, the gTound gives way. And the pale ghosts start at the flash of day ! Triumphant Umbriel on a sconce's height Clapped his glad wings, and sat to view the fight; Propped on their bodkin spears, the sprites survey • ^^ The growing combat, or assist the fray. While through the press enraged Thales- tris flies. And scatters death around from both her eyes, A beau and witling perished in the throng, One died in metaphor, and one in song. ^^ "0 cruel nymph! a living death I bear," Cried Dapperwit, and sunk beside his chair. A mournful glance Sir Fopling upwards cast, "Those eyes are made so killing": — was his last. Thus on Maeander's flowery margin lies 65 Th' expiring swan, and as he sings he dies. When bold Sir Plume had draAvn Clarissa down, Chloe stepped in and killed him Avith a frown ; She smiled to see the doughty hero slain. But, at her smile, the beau revived again. '^^ EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDEE 197 Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air, Weighs the men's wits against the lady's hair ; The doubtful beam long nods from side to side ; At length the Avits mount up, the hairs sub- side. See, fierce Belinda on the Baron flies, '^^ With more than usual lightning in her eyes ; Nor feared the chief th' unequal fight to try. Who sought no more than on his foe to die. But this bold lord with manly strength en- dued, She with one finger and a thumb sub- dued: • 80 Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, A charge of snuif the wily virgin threw ; The gnomes direct, to every atom just. The pungent grains of titillating dust. Sudden, with starting tears each eye o'er- flows, 85 And the high dome re-echoes to his nose. "Now meet thy fate," incensed Belinda cried. And drew a deadly bodkin from her side. (The same, his ancient personage to deck. Her great great grandsire wore about his neck, ^^ In three seal-rings; which after, melted- down. Formed a vast buckle for his widow's gown ; Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew, The bells she jingled, and the Avhistle blew; Then in a bodkin graced her mother's hairs, ^^ Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears. ) "Boast not my fall," he cried, "insulting foe! Thou by some other shalt be laid as low; Nor think to die dejects my lofty mind : All that I dread is leaving you behind ! ^^o Rather than so, ah, let me still survive, And burn in Cupid's flames — but burn alive." "Restore the lock!" she cries; and all around "Restore the lock!" the vaulted roofs re- bound. Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain 105 Roared for the handkerchief that caused his pain. But see how oft ambitious aims are crossed. And chiefs contend till all the prize is lost ! The lock, obtained with guilt, and kept with pain, In every place is sought, but sought in vain : no With such a prize no mortal must be blessed. So Heaven decrees! with Heaven who can contest ? Some thought it mounted to the lunar sphere. Since all things lost on earth are treasured there. There heroes' wits are kept in ponderous vases, 115 And beaux' in snuff-boxes and tweezer eases ; There broken vows and death-bed alms are found, And lovers' hearts with ends of riband bound, The courtier's promises, and sick man's prayers. The smiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs, 120 Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea. Dried butterflies, and tomes of casuistry. But trust the Muse — she saw it upward rise. Though marked by none but quick, poetic eyes: (So Rome's great founder to the heavens withdrew, 125 To Proeulus alone confessed in view) A sudden star, it shot through liquid air. And drew behind a radiant trail of hair. Not Berenice's locks first rose so bright, The heavens bespangling with dishevelled light. 130 The sylphs behold it kindling as it flies. And pleased pursue its progress through the skies. This the beau mpnde shall from the Mall survey, And hail with music its jDropitious ray. This the blest lover shall for Venus take, 135 And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake. This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies. When next he looks through Galileo's eyes; And hence th' egregious wizard shall fore- doom The fate of Louis and the fall of Rome. "O Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravished hair, Which adds new glory to the shining sphere ! Not all the tresses that fair head can boast, Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost. For, after all the murders of your eye, 145 198 THE GEEAT TEADITION When, after millions slain, yourself shall die; When those fair suns shall set, as set they must, And all those tresses shall be laid in dust : This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame, And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name. ^^^ The Spectator as an Instrument ^ OE Reform ^ JOSEPH ADDISON [The Spectator, No. 10. March, 1710-11.] Non aliter quam qui adverse vix flumine lembum Remigiis subigit, si bracchia forte remisit, Atque ilium praeceps prono rapit alveus amni.= — Virgil. It is with much satisfaction that I hear this great city inquiring day by day after these my papers, and receiving my morning lectures with a becoming seriousness and at- tention. My publisher tells me that there are already three thousand of them distrib- uted every day : so that if I allow twenty readers to every paper, which I look upon as a modest computation, I may reckon about threescore thousand disciples in Lon- don and Westminster, who, I hope, will take care to distinguish themselves from the thoughtless herd of their ignorant and un- attentive brethren. Since I have raised to myself so great an audience, I shall spare no pains to make their instruction agree- able, and their diversion useful. For which reasons I shall endeavor to enliven morality ' Of the service which his essays rendered to morality it is difficult to speak too highly. It is true that, when the "Tatler" appeared, that age of outrageous profaneness and licentiousness which followed the Restoration had passed away. Jeremy Collier had shamed the theaters into something which, compared with the excesses of Btherege and Wycherley, might be called decency ; yet there still lingered in the public mind a pernicious notion that there was some connection between genius and profligacy, between the do- mestic virtues and the sullen formality of the Puritans. That error it is the glory of Addison to have dispelled. He taught the nation that the faith and the morality of Hale and Tillotson might be found in company with wit more sparkling than the wit of Congreve, and with humor richer than the humor of Vanbrugh. So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that since his time the open violation of decency has always been considered among us as the mark of a fool. And this revolution, the greatest and most salutary ever effected by any satirist, he accomplished, be it remembered, with- out writing one personal lampoon. — Macaulay: Essay on Addison. 2 " . . . Like a boatman who just manages to make head against the stream, if the tension of his arms happens to relax, and the current whirls away the boat headlong down the river's bed." — John Conington. with wit, and to temper wit with morality, that my readers may, if possible, both ways find their account in the speculation of the day. And to the end that their virtue and discretion may not be short, transient, inter- mittent starts of thought, I have resolved to refresh their memories from day to day, till 1 have recovered them out of that desperate state of vice and folly into which the age is fallen. The mind that lies fallow but a sin- gle day sprouts up in follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous cul- ture. It was said of Socrates that he brought philosophy down from heaven to inhabit among men; and I shall be ambi- tious to have it said of me that I have brought philosophy out of closets and li- braries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea tables and in coffee houses. I would, therefore, in a very particular manner recommend these my speculations to all well-regulated families that set apart an hour in every morning for tea and bread and butter, and would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be punctually served up, and to be looked upon as a part of the tea equipage. Sir Francis Bacon observes that a well- written book, compared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Moses's serpent, that im- mediately SAvallowed up and devoured those of the Egyptians. I shall not be so vain as to think that where the Spectator appears the other public i^rints will vanish, but shall leave it to my reader's consideration whether. Is it not much better to be let into the knowledge of one's self than to hear what passes in Muscovy or Poland, and to amuse ourselves with such writings as tend to the wearing out of ignorance, passion, and prejudice than such as naturally conduce to inflame hatreds and make enmities irrecon- cilable f In the next place, I would recommend this paper to the daily perusal of those gentle- men whom I cannot but consider as my good brothers and allies; I mean the fraternity of spectators who live in the world without having anything to do in it, and either by the affluence of their fortunes or laziness of their dispositions have no other business with the rest of mankind but to look ujDon them. Under this class of men are compre- hended all contemplative tradesmen, titular physicians, fellows of the Royal Society, Templars that are not given to be con- tentious, and statesmen that are out of busi- EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEALS OF SANITY AND ORDER 199 ness; in short, everyone that considers the world as a theater and desires to form a right judgment of those who are the actors on it. There is another set of men that I must likewise lay a claim to, whom I have lately called the blanks of society, as being alto- gether unfurnished with ideas till the busi- ness and conversation of the day has sup- plied them. I have often considered these poor souls with an eye of great commisera- tion when I have heard them asking the first man they have met with whether there was any news stirring ; and by that means gath- ering together materials for thinking. These needy persons do not know what to talk of till about twelve o'clock in the morning ; for by that time they are pretty good judges of the weather, know which way the wind sits, and whether the Dutch mail be come in. As they lie at the mercy of the first man they meet, and are grave or impertinent all the day long, according to the notions which they have imbibed in the morning, I would earnestly entreat them not to stir out of their chambers till they have read this paper, and do promise them that I will daily in- still into them such sound and wholesome sentiments as shall have a good effect on their conversation for the ensuing twelve hours. But there are none to whom this paper will be more useful than to the female world. I have often thought there has not been sufficient pains taken in finding out proper employments and diversions for the fair ones. Their amusements seem con- trived for them rather as they are women than as they are reasonable creatures; and are more adapted to the sex than to the siDeeies, The toilet is their great scene of business, and the right adjusting of their hair the principal employment of their lives. The sorting of a suit of ribbons is reckoned a very good morning's work ; and if they make an excursion to a mercer's or a toy shop, so great a fatigue makes them unfit for anything else all the day after. Their more serious occupations are sewing and embroidery, and their greatest drudgery the preparation of jellies and sweetmeats. This, I say, is the state of ordinary women ; though I know there are multitudes of those of a more elevated like and conversation that move in an exalted sphere of knowledge and virtue, that join all the beauties of the mind to the ornaments of dress, and inspire a kind of awe and respect, as well as love, into their male beholders. I hope to increase the num- ber of these by publishing this daily paper, which I shall always endeavor to make an innocent, if not an improving, entertain- ment, and by that means at least divert the minds of my female readers from greater trifles. At the same time, as I would fain give some finishing touches to those which are already the most beautiful pieces in human nature, I shall endeavor to point out all those imperfections that are the blemishes, as well as those virtues which are the em- bellishments, of the sex. In the meanwhile I hope these my gentle readers, who have so much time on their hands, will not grudge throwing away a quarter of an hour in a day on this paper, since they may do it without any hindrance to business. I know several of my friends and well- wishers are in great pain for me, lest I should not be able to keep up the spirit of a paper which I oblige myself to furnish every day; but to make them easy in this particular, I will promise them faithfully to give it over as soon as I grow dull. This I know will be matter of great raillery to the small wits; who will frequently put me in mind of my promise, desire me to keep my word, assure me that it is high time to give over, with many other little pleasantries of the like nature, which men of a little smart genius cannot forbear throwing out against their best friends, when they have such a handle given them of being witty. But let them remember that I do hereby enter my caveat against this piece of raillery. C. The Trumpet Club richard steele [The Tatler, No. 132. Feb. 11, 1709-10.] Habeo senectuti magnam gratiam, quae mihi sermonis aviditatem auxit, potionis et cibi sus- tulit.^ After having applied my mind with more than ordinary attention to my studies, it is my usual custom to relax and unbend it in the conversation of such as are rather easy than shining companions. This I find par- ticularly necessary for me before I retire to rest, in order to draw my slumbers upon me by degrees and fall asleep insensibly. This is the particular use I make of a set of heavy, ^ "I am much beholden to old age, which has in- creased my eagerness for conversation in propor- tion as it has lessened my appetites of hunger and thirst." 200 THE GEEAT TEADITION honest men, with whom I have passed many hours with much indolence, though not with great j)leasure. Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep : it takes the mind down from its abstractions, leads it into the familiar traces of thought, and lulls it into that state of tranquillity which is the condi- tion of a thinking man when he is but half awake. After this, my reader will not be surprised to hear the account which I am about to give of a club of my own con- temporaries among whom I pass two or three hours every evening. This I look upon as taking my first nap before I go to bed. The truth of it is, I should think myself un- just to posterity, as well as to the society at the Trumpet, of which I am a member, did not I in some part of my writings give an account of the persons among whom I have passed almost a sixth part of my time for these last forty years. Our club consisted originally of fifteen; but, partly by the severity of the law in arbitrary times, and partly by the natural effects of old age, we are at present reduced to a third part of that number; in which, however, we have this consolation, that the best company is said to consist of five persons. I must con- fess, besides the aforementioned benefit which I meet with in the conversation of this select society, I am not the less pleased with the company, in that I find myself the greatest wit among them and am heard as their oracle in all points of learning and difficulty. Sir Jeoffery Notch, who is the oldest of the club, has been in possession of the right- hand chair time out of mind and is the only man among us that has the liberty of stir- ring the fire. This, our foreman, is a gen- tleman of an ancient family, that came to a great estate some years before he had dis- cretion and run it out in hounds, horses, and cock-fighting; for which reason he looks upon himself as an honest, worthy gentle- man who has had misfortunes in the world, and calls every thriving man a pitiful up- start. Major Matchlock is the next senior, who served in the last civil wars and has all the battles by heart. He does not think any action in Europe worth talking of since the fight of Marston Moor ; and every night tells us of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the London apprentices ; for which he is in great esteem among us. Honest old Dick Reptile is the third of our society. He is a good-natured, indolent man who speaks little himself but laughs at our jokes; and brings his young nephew along with him, a youth of eighteen years old, to show him good company and give him a taste of the world. This young fellow sits generally silent; but whenever he opens his mouth or laughs at any thing that passes he is constantly told by his uncle, after a jocu- lar manner, "Ay, ay, Jack, you young men think us fools; but we old men know you are." The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, is a bencher of the neighboring inn, who in his youth frequented the ordinaries about Charing Cross, and pretends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle. He has about ten distiches of Hudibras without book and never leaves the club till he has applied them all. If any modern wit be mentioned, or any town frolic spoken of, he shakes his head at the dullness of the present age and tells us a story of Jack Ogle. For my own part, I am esteemed among them because they see I am something re- spected by others ; though at the same time I understand by their behavior that I am con- sidered by them as a man of a great deal of learning but no knowledge of the world; insomuch, that the Major sometimes, in the height of his military pride, calls me the philosopher; and Sir Jeoffery, no longer ago than last night, upon a dispute what day of the month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe out of his mouth and cried, "What does the scholar say to it?" Our club meets precisely at six o'clock in the evening; but I did not come last night until half an hour after seven, by which means I escaped the battle of Naseby, which the Major usually begins at about three- quarters after six: I found also that my good friend the bencher had already spent three of his distiches; and only waited an opportunity to hear a sermon spoken of that he might introduce the couplet where "a stick" rhymes to "ecclesiastic." At my en- trance into the room, they were naming a red petticoat and a cloak, by which I found that the bencher had been diverting them with a story of Jack Ogle. I had no sooner taken my seat but Sir Jeoffery, to show his good will toward me, gave me a pipe of his own tobacco and stirred up the fire. I look upon it as a point of morality to be obliged by those who en- deavor to oblige me; and therefore, in re- EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDEE 201 quital for his kindness and to set the con- versation a-going, I took the best occasion I could to put him upon telling us the story of old Gantlett, which he always does with very particular concern. He traced up his descent on both sides for several generations, describing his diet and manner of life, with his several battles, and particularly that in which he fell. This Gantlett was a. game cock upon whose head the knight, in his youth, had won five hundred pounds and lost two thousand. This naturally set the Major upon the account of Edgehill fight, and ended in a duel of Jack Ogle's. Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, though it was the same he had heard every night for these twenty years, and, upon all occasions, winked upon his nephew to mind what passed. This may suffice to give the world a taste of our innocent conversation, which we spun out until about ten of the clock, when my maid came with a lantern to light me home. I could not but reflect with myself, as I was going out, upon the talkative humor of old men and the little figure which that part of life makes in one who cannot employ his natural propensity in discourses which would make him venerable. I must own, it makes me very melancholy in company, when I hear a young man begin a story ; and have often observed that one of a quarter of an hour long in a man of five-and-twenty gath- ers circumstances every time he tells it, until it grows into a long Canterbury tale of two hours by the time he is threescore. The only way of avoiding such a trifling and frivolous old age is to lay up in our way to it such stores of knowledge and ob- servation as may make us useful and agree- able in our declining years. The mind of man in a long life will become a magazine of wisdom or folly, and will consequently discharge itself in something impertinent or improving. For which reason, as there is nothing more ridiculous than an old trifling story-teller, so there is nothing more ven- erable than one who has turned his ex- perience to the entertainment and advantage of mankind. In short, we who are in the last stage of life and are apt to indulge ourselves in talk ought to consider if what we speak be worth being heard and endeavor to make our dis- course like that of Nestor, which Homer compares to the flowing of honey for its sweetness. I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess I am speaking of, when I can- not conclude without observing that Milton certainly thought of this passage in Homer when, in his description of an eloquent spirit, he says, "His tongue dropped manna." The Spectator Club joseph addison [The Spectator, No. 2. March 2, 1710-11.] The first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of ancient descent, a baronet, his name is Sir Roger de Coverley. His great grandfather was inventor of that famous country-dance which is called after him. All who know that shire are very well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very singular in his behavior, but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and are con- tradictions to the manners of the world, only as he thinks the world is in the wrong. However, this humor creates him no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or ob- stinacy; and his being unconfined to modes and forms makes him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho Square. It is said, he keeps himself a bachelor, by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine gentle- man, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Ether ege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked Bully Dawson in a public coffee house for calling him youngster. But, being ill used by the above mentioned widow, he was very serious for a year and a half; and though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of him- self, and never dressed afterwards. He con- tinues to wear a coat and doublet of the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in his merry humors, he tells us, has been in and out twelve times since he first wore it. He is now in his fifty- sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty ; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of mankind : but there is such a mirthful cast in his behavior that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young 202 THE GREAT TEADITION women profess love to him, and the young men are glad of his company ; when he comes into a house, he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way upstairs to a visit. I must not omit, that Sir Roger is a justice of the Quorum; that he fills the chair at a quarter-session with great abilities, and three months ago, gained universal ap- plause, by explaining a passage in the game- act. The gentleman next in esteem and author- ity among us is another bachelor, Avho is a member of the Inner Temple; a man of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chosen his place of residence rather to obey the direction of an old humorsome father, than in pursuit of his own inclina- tions. He was placed there to study the laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the house in those of the stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better understood by him than Littleton or Coke. The father sends up every post questions relating to marriage articles, leases, and tenures, in the neighborhood ; all which questions he agrees with an attorney to answer and take care of in the lump. He is studying the passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the debates among men which arise from them. He knows the argument of each of the orations of Demosthenes and Tully ; but not one case in the reports of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool, but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. This turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable; as few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. His taste of books is a little too just for the age he lives in ; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity with the cus- toms, manners, actions, and writings of the ancients, makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the present world. He is an excellent critic, and the time of the play is his hour of business; exactly at five he passes through New Inn, crosses through Russell court, and takes a turn at Will's, till the play begins ; he has his shoes rubbed, and his periwig powdered at the barber's as you go into the Rose. It is for the good of the audience when he is at a play ; for the actors have an ambition to please him. The person of next consideration is Sir Andrew Freeport, a merchant of great eminence in the city of London. A person of indefatigable industry, strong reason, and great experience. His notions of trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich man has usually some sly way of jesting, which would make no great figure were he not a rich man) he calls the sea the British Com- mon. He is acquainted with commerce in all its parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous way to extend dominion by arms, for true power is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue that if this part of our trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one nation, — and if another, from another. I have heard him prove, that diligence makes more lasting ac- quisitions than valor, and that sloth has ruined more nations than the sword. He abounds in several frugal maxims, amongst which the greatest favorite is, "A penny saved is a penny got." A general trader of good sense is pleasanter company than a general scholar; and Sir Andrew having a natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his discourse gives the same pleasure that wit would in another man. He has made his fortunes himself; and says that England may be richer than other kingdoms, by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men ; though at the same time I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass but blows home a ship in which he is an owner. Next to Sir Andrew in the club-room sits Captain Sentry, a gentleman of great cour- age, good understanding, but invincible mod- esty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at putting their talents within the observation of such as should take notice of them. He was some years a captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several engagements and at several sieges; but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not something of a courtier as well as a soldier. I have heard him often lament, that in a pro- fession where merit is placed in so con- spicuous a view, impudence should get the better of modesty. When he has talked to this purpose, I never heard him make a sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the world, because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty and an even, regular behavior are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds who endeavor at the same end with himself, the favor of a com- mander. He will, however, in his way of EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEALS OF SANITY AND ORDER 203 talk, excuse generals for not disposing ac- cording to men's desert, or inquiring into it : for, says he, that great man who has a mind to help me, has as many to break through to come at me, as I have to come at him: therefore he will conclude, that the man who would make a figure, especially in a mili- tary way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his patron against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper assurance in his own vindication. He says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in asserting v/hat you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candor does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The same frankness runs through all his conversation. The mili- tary part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company ; for he is never over-bearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him ; nor ever too obsequious, from an habit of obeying men highly above him. But, that our society may not appear a set of humorists, unacquainted with the gal- lantries and pleasures of the age, we have among us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentleman who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but, having ever been very careful of his person, and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but a very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces on his brain. His person is well turned, of a good height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remem- bers habits as others do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode, and can inform you from what Frenchwomen our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods; and whose vanity to shew her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a year. In a word, all his conversation and knowledge have been in the female Avorld; as other men of his age will take notice to you what such a minister said upon such and such an occasion, he will tell you when the Duke of Monmouth danced at court, such a woman was then smitten, another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. In all these important relations, he has ever about the same time received a kind glance or a blow of a fan from some cele- brated beauty, mother of the present lord such-a-one. . . . This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but myself, who rarely sjjeak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man who is usually called a well- bred, fine gentleman. To conclude his char- acter, where women are not concerned, he is an honest, worthy man. I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of, as one of our company; for he visits us but seldom, but when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergy- man, a very philosophic man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution ; and con- sequently cannot aceeiDt of such cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to ; he is therefore among divines what a chamber-councillor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind, and the integrity of his life, create him followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon ; but we are so far gone in years that he observes, when he is among us, an earn- estness to have him fall on some divine topic, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interests in this world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hoj^e from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary com- panions. Public Opinion in the Making joseph addison [The Spectator, No. 403. June 12, 1712.] Qui mores hominum multornm vidit.' — Horace. When I consider this great city in its sev- eral quarters and divisions, I look upon it as an aggregate of various nations distin- guished from each other by their respective customs, manners, and interests. The courts of two countries do not so much differ from one another as the court and city in their peculiar ways of life and conversation. In short, the inhabitants of St. James's, not- withstanding they live under the same laws, and speak the same language, are a distinct ' "Who sees the manners of many men." 204 THE OEEAT TEADITION people from those of Cheapside, who are likewise removed from those of the Temple on the one side, and those of Smithfield on the other, by several climates and degrees in their way of thinking and conversing together. For this reason, when any public affair is upon the anvil, I love to hear the reflections that arise upon it in the several districts and parishes of London and Westminster, and to ramble up and down a whole day together, in order to make myself acquainted with the opinions of my ingenious countrymen. By this means I know the faces of all the prin- cipal jDoliticians within the bills of morality ; and as every coffee house has some particu- lar statesman belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street where he lives, I always take care to place myself near him, in order to know his judgment on the present posture of affairs. The last progress that I made with this intention was about three months ago, wheiT^ we had a current report of the king of France's death. As I foresaw this would j)roduee a new face of things in Europe, and many curious speculations in our British coffee houses, I was very de- sirous to learn the thoughts of our most emi- nent politicians on that occasion. That I might begin as near the fountain- head as possible, I first of all called in at St. James's, where I found the whole out- ward room in a buz;z of politics. The specu- lations were but very indifferent toward the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the room, and were so very much improved by a knot of theorists who sat in the inner room, within the steams of the coffee pot, that I there heard the whole SjDanish monarchy disposed of and all the line of Bourbon provided for in less than a quarter of an hour. I afterwards called in at Giles's, where I saw a board of French gentlemen sitting upon the . life and death of their grand monarque. Those among them who had espoused the Whig interest very positively affirmed that he departed this life about a week since, and therefore proceeded with- out any further delay to the release of their friends on the galleys, and to their own re- establishment ; but finding they could not agree among themselves, I proceeded on my intended progress. Upon my arrival at Jenny Man's, I saw an alert young fellow that cocked his hat upon a friend of his who entered just at the same time with myself, and accosted him after the following manner : "Well, Jack, the old prig is dead at last. Sharp's the word. Now or never, boy. Up to the walls of Paris di- rectly." With several other deep reflections of the same nature. I met with very little variation in the poli- tics between Charing Cross and Covent Garden. And upon my going into Will's, I found their discourse was gone off from the death of the French king to that of Monsieur Boileau, Racine, Corneille, and several other poets, whom they regretted on this occasion, as persons who would have obliged the world with very noble elegies on the death of so great a prince, and so eminent a patron of learning. At a coffee house near the Temple, I found a couple of young gentlemen engaged very smartly in a disjjute on the succession to the Spanish monarchy. One of them seemed to haye been retained as advocate for the Duke of .Anjou, the other for his Imperial Majesty. They were both for regulating the title to that kingdom by the statute laws of England ; but finding them going out of my depth I passed forward to Paul's church- yard, where I listened with great attention to a learned man, who gave the company an account of the deplorable state of France during the minority of the deceased king. I then turned on my right hand into Fish Street, where the chief politician of that quarter, upon hearing the news, (after hav- ing taken a pipe of tobacco, and ruminated for some time) "If," says he, "the king of France is certainly dead, we shall have plenty of mackerel this season; our fishery will not be disturbed by privateers, as it has been for these ten years loast." He after- wards considered how the death of this great man would affect our pilchards, and by several other remarks infused a general joy into his whole audience. I afterwards entered a by coffee house that stood at the upper end of a narrow lane, Avhere I met with a nonjuror, engaged very Avarmly with a laceman who was the great support of a neighboring conventicle. The matter in debate was whether the late French king was most like Augustus Cassar or Nero. The controversy was carried on with great heat on both sides, and as each of them looked upon me very frequently during the course of their debate, I was under some ap- prehension that they would appeal to me, and therefore laid down my penny at the EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDER 205 bar, and made the best of my way to Cheap- side. I here gazed upon the signs for some time before I found one to my purpose. The first object I met in the coffee room was a person who expressed a great grief for the death of the Trench king; but upon his ex- plaining himself, I found his sorrow did not arise from the loss of the monarch, but for his having sold out of the bank about three days before he heard the news of it : upon which a haberdasher, who was the oracle of the coffee house, and had his circle of ad- mirers about him, called several to witness that he had declared his opinion above a week before that the French king was cer- tainly dead ; to which he added, that consid- ering the late advices we had received from France, it was impossible that it could be otherwise. As he was laying these together and dictating to his hearers with great authority, there came in a gentleman from Garraway's, who told us that there were sev- eral letters from France just come in, with advice that the king was in good health, and was gone out a-hunting the very morning the post came away: ujDon which the haber- dasher stole off his hat that hung upon a wooden peg by him, and retired to his shop with gTeat confusion. This intelligence put a stop to my travels, which I had prose- cuted with much satisfaction; not being a little pleased to hear so many different opin- ions upon so great an event, and to observe how naturally upon such a piece of news everyone is apt to consider it with a regard to his particular interest and advantage. A Political Busybody JOSEPH ADDISON [The Tatter, No. 155. April 6, 1710.] Aliena negotia curat, Excussus propriis.i — Horace. From My Own Apartment, April 5. There lived some years since, within my neighborhood, a very grave person, an up- holsterer, who seemed a man of more than ordinary application to business. He was a very early riser and was often abroad two or three hours before any of his neighbors. He had a pai-ticular carefulness in the knit- ting of his brows and a kind of impatience in all his motions that plainly discovered he ^ "When he had lost all business of his own, He ran in quest of news through all the town." was always intent on matters of importance. Upon my inquiry into his life and conversa- tion, I found him to be the greatest news- monger in our quarter-: that he rose before day to read the Postman; and that he would take two or three turns to the other end of the town before his neighbors were up, to see if there were any Dutch mails come in. He had a wife and several children ; but was much more inquisitive to know what passed in Poland than in his own family and was in greater pain and anxiety of mind for King Augustus's welfare than that of his near- est relations. He looked extremely thin in a dearth of news and never enjoyed himself in a westerly wind. This indefatigable kind of life was the ruin of his shop ; for about the time that his favorite prince left the crown of Poland, he broke and disap- peared. This man and his affairs had been long out of my mind, until about three days ago, as I was walking in St. James's park, I heard somebody at a distance hemming after me; and who should it be but my old neighbor, the upholsterer? I saw he was reduced to extreme poverty, by certain shabby superfluities in his dress : for, not- withstanding that it was a very sultry day for the time of the year, he wore a loose greatcoat and a muff, with a long campaign wig out of curl, to which he had added the ornament of a pair of black garters buckled under the knee. Upon his coming up to me, I was going to inquire into his present circumstances; but was prevented by his asking me, with a whisper, 'whether the last letters .brought any accounts that one might rely upon from Bender.' I told him, "None that I heard of," and asked him whether he had yet married his eldest daughter. He told me, "No. But pray," says he, "tell me sincerely what are your thoughts of the King of Sweden?" For though his wife and children were starving, I found his chief concern at present was for this great monarch. I told him, that I looked ujDon him as one of the first heroes of the age. "But pray," says he, "do you think there is anything in the story of his wound?" And finding me surprised at the question, "Nay," says he, "I only propose it to you." I answered that I thought there was no reason to doubt of it. 206 THE GEEAT TEAUITION ''But why in the heel," says he, "more than any other part of the bodyf" "Because," said I, "the bullet chanced to light there." This extraordinary dialogue was no sooner ended but he began to launch out into a long dissertation upon the affairs of the North; and after having spent some time on them, he told me he was in a great perplexity how to reconcile the Supplement with the English Post and had been just now examining what the other papers say upon the same subject. "The Daily Courant," says he, "has these words. 'We have ad- vices from very good hands that a certain prince has some matters of great imjoortanee under consideration.' This is very mysteri- ous but the Post-hoy leaves us more in the dark; for he tells us 'That there are private intimations of measures taken by a certain prince which time will bring to light.' Now the Postman," says he, "who uses to be very clear, refers to the same news in these words : 'The late conduct of a certain prince affords great matter of speculation,' This certain jDrince," says the upholsterer, "whom they are all so cautious of naming, I take to be ." Upon which, though there was nobody near us, he whispered some- thing in my ear, which I did not hear, or think worth my while to make him re- peat. We were now got to the upper end of the Mall, where were three or four very odd fellows sitting together upon the bench. These I found were all of them politicians who used to sun themselves in that place every day about dinner time. Observing them to be curiosities in their kind and my friend's acquaintance, I sat down among them. The chief politician of the bench was a great asserter of paradoxes. He told us, with a seeming concern, that by some news he had lately read from Muscovy it ap- peared to him that there was a storm gather- ing in the Black Sea which might in time do hurt to the naval forces of this nation. To this he added that, for his part, he could not wish to see the Turk driven out of Europe, which he believed could not but be prejudicial to our woolen manufacture. He then told us that he looked upon those ex- traordinary revolutions which had lately happened in those parts of the world to have risen chiefly from two persons who were not much talked of; "and those," says he "are Prince Menzikoff and the Duchess of Mirandola." He backed his assertions with so many broken hints and such a show of dejDth and wisdom that we gave ourselves up to his opinions. The discourse at length fell upon a point which seldom escapes a knot of true-born Englishmen, whether, in case of a religious war, the Protestants would not be too strong for the Papists'? This we unani- mously determined on the Protestant side. One who sat on my right hand, and, as I found by his discourse, had been in the West Indies, assured us, that it would be a very easy matter for the Protestants to beat the Pope at sea; and added that whenever such a war does break out, it must turn to the good of the Leeward Islands. Upon this, one who sat at the end of the bench, and, as I afterwards found, was the geographer of the company, said that in case the Papists should drive the Protestants from these parts of Europe, when the worst came to the worst, it would be impossible to beat them out of Norway and Greenland, pro- vided the northern crowns hold together and the czar of Muscovy stand neuter. He further told us, for our comfort, that there were vast tracts of lands about the pole, in- habited neither by Protestants nor Papists and of greater extent than all the Roman Catholic dominions in Europe. When we had fully discussed this point my friend, the upholstered, began to exert himself upon the present negotiations of peace; in which he deposed princes, settled the bounds of kingdoms, and balanced the l^ower of Europe, with great justice and im- partiality. I at length took my leave of the company, and was going away, but had not gone thirty yards before the upholsterer hemmed again after me. Upon his ad- vancing toward me with a whisper, I ex- pected to hear some secret piece of news, which he had not thought fit to communi- cate to the bench; but instead of that, he desired me in my ear to lend him half-a- crown. In compassion to so needy a states- man, and to dissipate the confusion I found he was in, I told him, if he pleased, I would give him five shillings, to receive five pounds of him when the Great Turk was driven out of Constantinople; which he very readily accepted, but not before he had laid down to me the impossibility of such an event as the affairs of Europe now stand. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDER 207 This paper I design for the particular benefit of those worthy citizens who live more in a coffee house than in their shops, and whose thoughts are so taken up with the affairs of the allies that they forget their customers. 11. STANDARDS OF INTELLECT AND TASTE A Busy Life JOSEPH ADDISON [The Spectator, No. 317. March 4, 1711-12.] Fruges consumere nati.' — Horace. Augustus, a few moments before his death, asked his friends who stood about him if they thought he had acted his part well ; and upon receiving such an answer as was due to his extraordinary merit, Let me then, says he, go off the stage with your applause, using the expression with which the Roman actors made their exit at the conclusion of a dramatic piece. I could wish that men, while they are in health, would consider well the nature of the part they are en- gaged in, and what figure it will make in the minds of those they leave behind them; whether it was worth coming into the world for, whether it be suitable to a reasonable being; in short, whether it appears grace- ful in this life, or will turn to an advantage in the next. Let the sycophant, or buffoon, the satirist, or the good companion, consider with himself, when his body shall be laid in the grave, and his soul joass into another state of existence, how much it will redound to his praise to have it said of him that no man in England eat better, that he had an admirable talent at turning his f I'iends into ridicule, that nobody outdid him at an ill- natured jest, or that he never went to bed before he had dispatched his third bottle. These are, however, very common funeral orations, and eulogiums on deceased per- sons who have acted among mankind with some figure and reputation. But if we look into the bulk of our species, they are such as are not likely to be re- membered a moment after their disappear- ance. They leave behind them no traces of their existence, but are forgotten as though they had never been. They are neither wanted by the poor, regretted by the rich, nor celebrated by the learned. They 1 "Born but to feed." — Sir Theodore Martin. are neither missed in the commonwealth, nor lamented by private persons. Their actions are of no significancy to mankind, and might have been performed by creatures of much less dignity than those who are distinguished by the faculty of reason. An eminent French author speaks somewhere to the following purpose : I have often seen from my chamber window two noble crea- tures, both of them of an erect countenance, and endowed with reason. These two in- tellectual beings are employed, from morn- ing to night, in rubbing two smooth stones one upon another; that is, as the vulgar phrase it, in polishing marble. My friend. Sir Andrew Freeport, as we were sitting in 'the Club last night, gave us an account of a sober citizen who died a few days since. This honest man being of greater consequence in his own thoughts than in the eye of the world, had for some years past kept a journal of his life. Sir Andrew showed us one week of it. Since the occurrences set down in it mark out such a road of action as that I have been speak- ing of, I shall present my reader with a faithful copy of it; after having first in- formed him that the deceased person had in his youth been bred to trade, but find- ing himself not so well turned for business, he had for several years last past lived al- together upon a moderate annuity. Monday, Eight o'clock. I put on my clothes and walked into the parlor. Nine o'clock, ditto. Tied my knee- strings, and washed my hands. Hours ten, eleven, and twelve. Smoked three pipes of Virginia. Read the Supple- ment and Daily Courant. Things go ill in the north. Mr. Nisby's opinion thereupon. One o'clock in the afternoon. Chid Ralph for mislaying my tobacco-box. Two o'clock. Sat down to dinner. Mem. Too many plums, and no suet. From three to four. Took my afternoon's nap. From four to six. Walked into the fields. Wind, S.S.E. 208 THE GEEAT TEADITION From six to ten. At the Club. Mr. Nis- by's opinion about the peace. Ten o'clock. Went to bed, slept sound. Tuesday^ Being Holiday^ Eight o'clock. Rose as usual. Nine o'clock. Washed hands and face, shaved, put on my double soled shoes. Ten, eleven, twelve. Took a walk to Islington. One. Took a pot of Mother Cob's Mild. Between two and three. Returned, dined on a knuckle of veal and bacon. Mem. Sprouts wanting. Three. Nap as usual. From four to six. Coffee house. Read the news. A dish of twist. Grand Vizier strangled. From six to ten. At the Club. Mr. Nisby's account of the Great Turk. . Ten. Dream of the Grand Vizier. Broken sleep. Wednesday, Eight o'clock. Tongue of my shoe-buckle broke. Hands, but not face. Nine. Paid off the butcher's bill. Mem. To be allowed for the last leg of mutton. Ten, eleven. At the coffee house. More work in the north. Stranger in a black wig asked me how stocks went. From twelve to one. Walked in the fields. Wind to the south. From one to two. Smoked a pipe and a half. Two. Dined as usual. Stomach good. Three. Nap broke by the falling of a pewter-dish. Mem. Cookmaid in love, and grown careless. From four to six. At the coffee house. Advice from Smyrna, that the Grand Vizier was first of all strangled, and afterwards beheaded. Six o'clock in the evening. Was half an hour in the Club before anybody else came. Mr. Nisby of opinion that the Grand Vizier was not strangled the sixth instant. Ten at night. Went to bed. Slept with- out waking till nine next morning. Thursday, Nine o'clock. Stayed within till two o'clock for Sir Timothy, who did not bring me my annuity according to his promise. Two in the afternoon. Sat down to din- ner. Loss of appetite. Small beer sour. Beef overcorned. Three. Could not take my nap. Four and five. Gave Ralph a box on the ear. Turned off my cookmaid. Sent a mes- sage to Sir Timothy. Mem. I did not go to the Club tonight. Went to bed at nine o'clock. Friday. Passed the morning in medita- tion upon Sir Timothy, who was with me a quarter before twelve. Twelve o'clock. ^ Bought a new head to my cane, and a tongue to my buckle. Drank a glass of purl to recover appetite. Two and three. Dined, and slept well. From four to six. Went to the coffee house. Met Mr. Nisby there. Smoked sev- eral pipes. Mr. Nisby of opinion- that laced coffee is bad for the head. Six o'clock. At the Club as steward. Sat late. Twelve o'clock. Went to bed, dreamt that I drank small beer with the Grand Vizier. Saturday. Waked at eleven, walked in the fields. Wind N.E. Twelve. Caught in a shower. One in the afternoon. Returned home, and dried myself. Two. Mr. Nisby dined with me. First course mari'ow-bones. Second ox-cheek, with a bottle of Brook's and Hellier. Three o'clock. Overslept myself. Six. Went to the Club. Like to have fallen into a gutter. Grand Vizier certainly dead, etc. I question not but the reader will be sur- prised to find the above-mentioned journalist taking so much care of a life that was filled with such inconsiderable actions and re- ceived so very small improvements ; and yet, if we look into the behavior of many whom we daily converse with, we shall find that most of their hours are taken up in those tliree important articles of eating, drinking, and sleeping; I do not suppose that a man loses his time, who is not engaged in i^ublic affairs, or in an illustrious course of action. On the contrary, I believe our hours may very often be more profitably laid out in such transactions as make no figure in the world than in such as are apt to draw upon them the attention of mankind. One may become wiser and better by several methods of employing one's self in secrecy and si- lence, and do what is laudable without noise or ostentation. I would, however, recom- mend to every one of my readers the keep- ing a journal of their lives for one week, and setting down punctually their whole series of employments during that space of time. This kind of self-examination would give them a true state of themselves, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEALS OF SANITY AND ORDER 209 and incline them to consider seriously what they are about. One day would rectify the omissions of another, and make a man weigh all those indifferent actions, which, though they are easily forgotten, must cer- tainly be accounted for. A Lady's Library JOSEPH ADDISON [The Spectator, No. 37. Thursday, April 12, 1710-lL] Non ilia colo calathisve Minervae Femineas assueta manus .^ — Virgil. Some months ago, ray friend Sir Roger, being in the country, enclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain lady, whom I shall here call by the name of Leonora, and as it contained matters of consequence, desired me to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accordingly I waited upon her Ladyship pretty early in the morning, and was de- sired by her woman to walk into her Lady's library, till such time as she was in a readi- ness to receive me. The very sound of a lady's library gave me a great curiosity to see it ; and as it was some time before the lady came to me, I had an opportunity of turn- ing over a great many of her books, which were ranged together in a very beautiful order. At the end of the folios (which were finely bound and gilt) were great jars of china placed one above another in a very noble piece of architecture. The quartos were separated from the octavos by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid. The octavos were bounded by tea- dishes of all shapes, colors, and sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden frame that they looked like one continued pillar in- dented with the finest strokes of sculpture and stained with the greatest variety of dyes. That part of the library which was de- signed for the reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loose papers, was en- closed in a kind of square, consisting of one of the prettiest grotesque works that ever I saw, and made up of scaramouches, lions, monkeys, mandarins, trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in chinaware. In the midst of the room was a little japan table, with a quire of gilt paper upon it, and on the paper a silver snuff box made in the shape of a little book. I found there ' Unbred to spinning, in the loom unskilled. — Dryden. were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the number, like fagots in the muster of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixed kind of furniture as seemed very suitable both to the lady and the scholar, and did not know, at first, whether I should fancy my- self in a grotto or in a library. Upon my looking into the books, I found there were some few which the lady had bought for her own use; but that most of them had been got together, either because she had heard them praised, or because she had seen the authors of them. Among sev- eral that I examined, I very well remember these that follow: Ogilby's Virgil. Dryden's Juvenal. Cassandra. Cleopatra. Astraea. Sir Isaac Newton's Works. The Grand Cyrus; with a pin stuck in one of the middle leaves. Pembroke's Arcadia. Lock of Human Understanding, with a paper of patches in it. A spelling-book. A dictionary for the explanation of hard words. Sherlock ui3on Death. The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony. Sir William Temple's Essays. Father Malebranche's Search after Truth ; translated into English. A book of novels. The Academy of Compliments. Culpepper's Midwifery. The Ladies' Calling. Tales in Verse, by Mr. D'Urfey; bound in red leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down in several places. All the classic authors in wood. A set of Elzevirs by the same hand. Clelia ; which opened of itself in the place that describes two lovers in a bower. Baker's Chronicle. Advice to a Daughter. The New Atalantis, with a key to it. Mr. Steele's Christian Hero. A i^rayer-book ; with a bottle of Hungary water by the side of it. Dr. Sacheverell's sioeeeh. Fielding's Trial. Seneca's Morals. Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. 210 THE GEEAT TEADITION La Ferte's Instructions for Country Dances. » I was taking a catalogue in my pocket- book of these and several other authors, when Leonora entered, and, upon my pre- senting her with the letter from the knight, told me, with an unspeakable grace, that she hoped Sir Roger was in good health; I an- swered "Yes," for I hate long speeches, and after a bow or two retired. Leonora was formerly a celebrated beauty, and is still a very lovely woman. She has been a widow for two or three years, and being unfortunate in her first marriage, has taken a resolution never to venture ui3on a second. She has no chil- dren to take care of, and leaves the man- agement of her estate to my good friend Sir Roger. But as the mind naturally sinks into a kind of lethargy, and falls asleep, that is not agitated by some favorite pleasures and pursuits, Leonora has turned all the j^as- sions of her. sex into a love of books and retirement. She converses chiefly with men (as she has often said herself), but it is only in their writings; and admits of very few male visitants except my friend Sir Roger, whom she hears with great pleasure and without scandal. As her reading has lain very much among romances, it has given her a very particular turn of think- ing, and discovers itself even in her house, her gardens, and her furniture. Sit Roger has entertained me an hour together with a description of her country seat, which is situated in a kind of wilderness, about an hundred miles distant from London, and looks like a little enchanted palace. The rocks about her are shajDed into artificial grottoes covered with woodbines and jessa- mines. The woods are cut into shady walks, twisted into bowers, and filled with cages of turtles. The springs are made to run among pebbles, and by that means taught to murmur very agreeably. They are likewise collected into a beautiful lake that is in- habited by a couple of swans, and empties itself by a little rivulet, which runs through a green meadow, and is known in the family by the name of The Purling Stream. The knight likewise tells me that this lady preserves her game better than any of the gentlemen in the country. "Not," says Sir Roger, "that she sets so great a value uiDon her partridges and pheasants, as upon her larks and nightingales; for she says that every bird which is killed in her ground will spoil a concert, and that she shall certainly miss him the next year." When I think how oddly this lady is im- proved by learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration and pity. Amidst these innocent entertainments which she has formed to herself, how much more valuable does she appear than those of her sex who employ themselves in diversions that are less reasonable, though more in fashion. What improvements would a woman have made, who is so susceptible of impressions from what she reads, had she been guided to such books as have a tendency to en- lighten the understanding and rectify the passions, as well as to those which are of little more use than to divert the imagina- tion. But the manner of a lady's employing herself usefully in reading shall be the sub- ject of another paper, in which I design to recommend such particular books as may be proper for the improvement of the sex. And as this is a subject of a very nice nature, I shall desire my correspondents to give me their thoughts upon it. The Education of Women daniel defoe [From An Essay upon Projects, 1697] I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, con- sidering us as a civilized and a christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and impertinence; while I am confident, had they the advan- tages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves. One would wonder, indeed, how it should happen that women are conversible at all, since they are only beholden to natural parts for all their knowledge. Their youth is spent to teach them to stitch and sew, or make baubles. They are taught to read, in- deed, and perhaps to write their names, or so ; and that is the height of a woman's edu- cation. And I would but ask any who slight the sex for their understanding, what is a man (a gentleman, 1 mean) good for, that is taught no more? 1 need not give in- stances, or examine the character of a gen- tleman, with a good estate, of a good fam- ily, and with tolerable parts ; and examine what figure he makes for want of education. EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDEE 211 The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear. And 'tis manifest, that as the rational soul distin- guishes us from brutes, so education carries on the distinction, and makes some less brut- ish than others. This is too evident to need any demonstration. But why then should women be denied the benefit of instruction'? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God Almighty would never have given them capacities ; for he made nothing needless. Besides, I would ask such, what they can see in ignorance, that they should think it a neeessaiy orna- ment to a woman? or how much worse is a wise woman than a fool? or what has the woman done to forfeit the privilege of being taught ? Does she plague us with her pride and impertinence? Why did we not let her learn, that she might have had more wit? Shall we upbraid women with folly, when 'tis only the error of this inhuman custom that hindered them from being made wiser? The capacities of women are supposed to be greater, and their senses quicker than those of the men ; and what they might be capable of being bred to, is plain from some instances of female wit, which this age is not without, which upbraids us with injus- tice, and looks as if we denied women the advantages of education, for fear they should vie with the men in their improve- ments. . . . They should be taught all sorts of breed- ing suitable both to their genius and qual- ity. And in particular, music and dancing, which it would be cruelty to bar the sex of because they are their darlings. But be- sides this, they should be taught languages, as particularly French and Italian, and I would venture the injury of giving a woman more tongues than one. They should, as a particular study, be taught all the graces of speech, and all the necessary air of conver- sation, which our common education is so defective in that I need not expose it. They should be brought to read books, and espe- cially history ; and so to read as to make them understand the world, and be able to know and judge of things when they hear of them. To such whose genius would lead them to it, I would deny no sort of learning; but the chief thing, in general, is to cultivate the understandings of the sex, that they may be capable of all sorts of conversation; that their parts and judgments being improved, they may be as profitable in "their conversa- tion as they are pleasant. Women, in my observation, have little or no difference in them, but as they are or are not distinguished by education. Tempers, indeed, may in some degree influence them, but the mam distinguishing part is their breeding. The whole sex are generally quick and sharp — I believe, I may be allowed to say, generally so : for you rarely see them lump- ish and heavy when they are children, as boys will often be. If a woman be well bred, and taught the proper management of her natural wit, she proves generally very sensible and retentive. And, without partiality, a woman of sense and manners is the finest and most delicate part of God's creation, the glory of her Maker, and the great instance of his singular regard to man, his darling creature, to whom He gave the best gift either God could bestow or man receive. And 'tis the sordidest piece of folly and in- gratitude in the world, to withhold from the sex the due luster which the advantages of education give 'to the natural beauty of their minds. A woman .well bred and well taught, fur- nished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behavior, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish ; and the man that has such a one to his portion, has noth- ing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thank- ful. On llie other hand, suppose her to be the very same woman, and rob her of the bene- fit of education, and it follows : If her temi3er be good, want of education makes her soft and easy. Her wit, for want of teaching, makes her impertinent and talkative. Her knowledge, for want of judgment and experience, makes her fanciful and whimsical. If her temper be bad, want of breeding makes her worse; and she grows haughty, insolent, and loud. If she be passionate, want of manners makes her a termagant and a scold, which is much at one with lunatic. If she be proud, want of discretion 212 THE GEEAT TEADITION (which still is breeding) makes her con- ceited, fantastic, and ridiculous. And from these she degenerates to be tur- bulent, clamorous, noisy, nasty, and the devil ! . . . The great distinguishing difference, which is seen in the world between men and women, is in their education; and this is -manifested by comparing it with the differ- ence between one man or woman, and another. And herein it is that I take upon me to make such a bold assertion, that all the world are mistaken in their practice about women. For I cannot think that God Al- mighty ever made them so delicate, so glori- ous creatures, and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and so delightful to mankind, with souls capable of the game accomplishments with men; and all, to be only stewards of our ^ouses, cooks, and slaves. Not that I am for exalting the female government in the least ; but, in short, I would have men take women for compan- ions, and educate them to be fit for it. A woman of sense and breeding will scorn as much to encroach upon the prerogative of man, as a man of sense will scorn to oppress the weakness of the woman. But if the women's souls were refined and improved by teaching, that word would be lost. To say the weakness of the sex, as to judg- ment, would be nonsense; for ignorance and folly would be no more to be found among women than men. I remember a passage, which I heard from a very fine woman. She had wit and capacity enough, an extraordmary shape and face, and a great fortune, but had been cloistered up all her time, and for fear of being stolen, had not had the liberty of being taught the common necessary knowl- edge of women's affairs. And when she came to converse in the world her natural wit made her so sensible of the want of education, that she gave this short reflec- tion on herself: "I am ashamed to talk with my very maids," says she, "for I don't know when they do right or wrong. I had more need go to school, than be mar- ried." I need not enlarge on the loss the defect of education is to the sex, nor argue the benefit of the contrary practice. 'Tis a thing will be more easily granted than rem- edied. This chapter is but an essay at the thing; and I refer the practice to those happy days (if ever they shall be) when men shall be wise enough to mend it. From An Essay on Criticism (1711) ALEXANDER POPE First follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her just standard, which is still the same; Unerring Nature, still divinely bright, One clear, unchanged, and universal light, Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart, At once the source, and end, and test of Art. Art from that fund each just supply pro- vides, Works without show, and without pomp presides : In some fair body thus the informing soul With spirits feeds, with vigor fills the whole. Each motion guides, and every nerve sus- tams ; Itself unseen, but in the effects, remains. Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been pro- fuse, Want as much more, to turn it to its use; For wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife. 'Tis more to guide than spur the Muse's steed ; Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed; The winged courser, like a generous horse. Shows most true mettle when you check his course. Those rules of old discovered, not devised. Are Nature still, but Nature methodized; Nature, like liberty, is but restrained By the same laws which first herself or- dained. Hear how learned Greece her useful rules indites. When to repress, and when indulge our ■flights : High on Parnassus' top her sons she showed. And pointed out those arduous paths they trod ; Held from afar, aloft, the immortal prize, And urged the rest by equal steps to rise. Just precepts thus from great examples given, She drew from them what they derived from Heaven. The generous critic fanned the poet's fire. And taught the world with reason to admire. Then criticism the Muses' handmaid proved, EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDEE 213 To dress her charms, and make her more beloved : But following wits from that intention strayed, Who could not win the mistress, wooed the maid; Against the poets their own arms they turned. Sure to hate most the men from whom they learned. So modern 'potheearies, taught the art By doctor's bills to play the doctor's part, Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools. Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey. Nor time nor moths e'er spoiled so much as they. Some dryly plain, without invention's aid. Write dull receipts, how poems may be made. These leave the sense, their learning to dis- play, And those exjilain the meaning quite away. You, then, whose judgment the right course would steer. Know well each ancient's proper character; His fable, subject, scope in every page; Religion, country, genius of his age : Without all these at once before your eyes. Cavil you may, but never criticize. Be Homer's works your study and de- light. Read them by day, and meditate by night; Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring. And trace the Muses upward to their spring. Still with itself compared, his text peruse; And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse. When first young Maro in his boundless mind A Avork to outlast immortal Rome designed. Perhaps he seemed above the critic's law, And but from nature's fountains scorned to draw : But when to examine every part he came. Nature and Homer were, he found, the same. Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold de- sign ; And rules as strict his labored work eon- fine, As if the Stagirite o'erlooked each line. Learn hence for ancient rules a just es- teem; To copy nature is to copy them. How TO Judge a Play JOSEPH ADDISON [The Tatler, No. 165. — Saturday, April 29, 17 10 A It has always been my endeavor to dis- tinguish between realities and appearances and to separate true merit from the pre- tense to it. As it shall ever be my study to make discoveries of this nature in human life and to settle the proper distinctions be- tween the virtues and perfections of man- kind and those false colors and resemblances of them that shine alike in the eyes of the vulgar, so I shall be more particularly care- ful to search into the various merits and pretenses of the learned world. This is the more necessary, because there seems to be a general combination among the pedants to extol one another's labors and cry up one another's parts; while men of sense, either through that modesty which is natural to them, or the scorn they have for such tri- fling commendations, enjoy their stock of knowledge, like a hidden treasure, with sat- isfaction and silence. Pedantiy indeed, in learning", is like hypocrisy in religion, a form of knowledge without the power of it; that attracts the eyes of the common people; breaks out in noise and show; and finds its reward, not from any uiward pleas- ure that attends it, but from the praises and approbations which it receives from men. Of this shallow species there is not a more importunate, empty, and conceited an- imal than that which is generally known by the name of a Critic. This, in the common acceptation of the word, is one that, with- out entering into the sense and soul of an author, has a few general rules, which, like mechanical instruments, he applies to the works of every writer ; and as they quadrate with them, pronounces the author perfect or defective. He is master of a certain set of words, as Unity, Style, Fire, Phlegm, Easy, Natural, Turn, Sentiment, and the like; which he varies, compounds, divides, and throws together, in every part of his discourse, without any thought or meaning. The marks you may know him by are an elevated eye and a dogmatical brow, a posi- tive voice and a contempt for everything that comes out, whether he has read it or not. He dwells altogether in generals. He praises or dispraises in the lump. He shakes his head very frequently at the pedantry of universities and bursts into laughter when 214 THE GEEAT TEADITION you mention an author that is not known at Will's. He hath formed his judgment upon Homer, Horace, and Virgil, not from their own works, but from those of Rapin and Bossu. He knows his own strength so well that he never dares praise any thing in which he has not a French author for his voucher. With these extraordinary talents and ac- complishments. Sir Timothy Tittle puts men in vogue, or condemns them to obscurity, and sits as judge of life and death upon every author that appears in public. It is impossible to represent the pangs, agonies, and convulsions which Sir Timothy expresses in every feature of his face and muscle of his body upon the reading a bad poet. About a week ago, I was engaged, at a friend's house of mine, in an agreeable con- versation with his wife and daughters, when, in the height of our mirth. Sir Tim- othy, who makes love to my friend's eldest daughter, came in amongst us, puffing and blowing as if he had been very much out of breath. He immediately called for a chair and desired leave to sit down without any further ceremony. I asked him, where he had been"? whether he was out of order? He only replied, that he was quite spent, and fell a cursing in soliloquy. I could hear him cry, "A wicked rogue — an ex- ecrable wretch — was there ever such a mon- ster!" The young ladies upon this began to be affrighted, and asked, whether anyone had hurt him? He answered nothing, but still talked to himself. ''To lay the first scene," says he, "ui St. James's Park and the last in Northamptonshire!" "Is that all?" said I. "Then I suppose you have been at the rehearsal of a play this morning." "Been!" says he; "I have been at North- ampton, in the park, in a lady's bed-cham- ber, in a dining-room, everywhere ; the rogue has led me such a dance " Though I could scarce forbear laughing at his discourse, I told him I was glad it was no worse, and that he was only meta- phorically weary. "In short, sir," says he, "the author has not observed a single unity in his whole play; the scene shifts in every dialogue; the villain has hurried me up and down at such a rate that I am tired off my legs." I could not but observe with some pleas- ure that the young lady whom he made love to conceived a very just aversion toward him, upon seeing him so very passionate in trifles. And as she had that natural sense which makes her a better judge than a thou- sand critics, she began to rally him upon this foolish humor. "For my part," says she, "I never knew a play take that was written up to your rules, as you call them." "How, Madam !" says he. "Is that your opinion? I am sure you have a better taste." "It is a pretty kind of magic," says she, "the poets have, to transport an audience from place to place without the help of a coach and horses; I could travel round the world at such a rate. It is such an enter- tainment as an enchantress finds when she fancies herself in a wood, or upon a moun- tain, at a feast, or a solemnity; though at the same time she has never stirred out of her cottage." "Your simile, Madam," says Sir Tim- othy, "is by no means just." "Pray," says she, "let my similes pass without a criticism. I must confess," con- tinued she (for I found she was resolved to exasperate him), "I laughed very heartily at the last new comedy which you found so much fault with." "But, Madam," says he, "you ought not to have laughed ; and I defy anyone to show me a single rule that you could laugh by." "Ought not to laugh!" says she; "pray who should hinder me?" "Madam," says he, "there are such people in the world as Rapin, Dacier, and several others, that ought to have spoiled your mirth." "I have heard," says the young lady, "that your great critics are always very bad poets : I fancy there is as much differ- ence between the works of the one and the other as there is between the carriage of a dancing-master and a gentleman. I must confess," continued she, "I would not be troubled with so fine a judgment as yours is; for I find you feel more vexation in a bad comedy than I do in a deep tragedy." "Madam," says Sir Timothy, "that is not my fault ; they should learn the art of writ- ing." "For my part," says the young lady, "I should think the greatest art in your writers of comedies is to please." "To please !" says Sir Timothy ; and im- mediately fell a-laughing. "Truly," says she, "that is my opinion." Upon this he composed his countenance, looked upon his watch, and took his leave. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEALS OF SANITY AND ORDER 215 I hear that Sir Timothy has not been at my friend's house since this notable confer- ence, to the great satisfaction of the young lady, who by this means has got rid of a very impertinent fop. I must confess, I could not but observe with a great deal of surprise how this gen- tleman, by his ill-nature, folly, and affecta- tion, had made himself capable of suffering so many imaginary pains and looking with such a senseless severity upon the common diversions of life. III. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL IDEALS The True Born Englishman (1701) daniel defoe A true born Englishman's a contradiction ! In speech, an irony ; in fact, a fiction ! A banter made to be a test of fools! Which those that use it, justly ridicules; A metaphor invented to express A man akin to all the universe ! For as the Scots, as learned men have said. Throughout the world their wandering seed have spread, So open-handed England, 'tis believed, Has all the gleanings of the world received. Some think, of England 'twas, our Savior meant The Gospel should to all the world be sent, Since, when the blessed sound did hither reach, They to all nations might be said to preach. 'Tis well that virtue gives nobility; How shall we else the want of birth and blood supply? Since scarce one family is left alive, Which does not from some foreigner derive. Of sixty thousand English gentlemen Whose names and arms in registers remain. We challenge all our heralds to declare Ten families which English Saxons are ! Trance justly boasts the ancient noble line Of Bourbon, Montmorency, and Lorraine. The Germans, too, their House of Austria show, And Holland their invincible Nassau — Lines which in heraldry were ancient gTown, Before the name of Englishman was known. Even Scotland, too, her elder glory shows! Her Gordons, Hamiltons, and her Monroes; Douglas, Maekays, and Grahams, names well known Long before ancient England knew her But England, modern to the last degree. Borrows or makes her own nobility ; And yet she boldly boasts of pedigree! Repines that foreigners are put upon her. And talks of her antiquity and honor! Her S(aelvvil)les, S(avi)les, C(eci)ls, Dela- ( me) res, M(ohu)ns and M(ontag)ues, D(ura)s, and V(ee)res; Not one have English names, yet all are English peers ! Your Houblons, Papillons, and Lethuliers Pass now for true born English knights and squires. And make good senate members, or lord mayors. Wealth (howsoever got) in England, makes Lords, of mechanics ! gentlemen, of rakes ! Antiquity and birth are needless here. 'Tis impudence and money make a peer ! . . . Then let us boast .of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past. Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend. The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow, For vice would be hereditary too ; The tainted blood would of necessity, Involuntary wickedness convey ! Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two, May seem a generation to pursue : But virtue seldom does regard the breed. Fools do the wise, and wise men fools suc- ceed. What is it to us, what ancestors we had'? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set. Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve their fate. And see their offspring thus degenerate ; How we contend for birth and names un- known, And build on their past actions, not our own; 216 THE GEEAT TEADITION They'd cancel records, and their tombs de- face, And openly disown the vile degenerate race! For fame of families is all a cheat ; 'Tis personal virtue only makes us great! The British Constitution joseph addison 'CI (piKraTri yij firirep^ ws aefivbv crcpoBp' el Tots vovv exovcTL KTrjfiaA [The Spectator, No. 287. — January 29, 1712.] I look upon it as a peculiar happiness, that were I to choose of what religion I would be, and under what government I would live, I should most certainly give the preference to that form of religion and gov- ernment which is established in my own country. In this point I think I am de- termined by reason and conviction; but if I shall be told that I am acted by prejudice, I am sure it is an honest prejudice; it is a prejudice that arises from the love of my country, and therefore such an one as I will always indulge. I have in several papers endeavored to express my duty and esteem for the Church of England, and design this as an essay upon the civil part of our con- stitution, having often entertained myself with reflections on this subject, which I have not met with in other writers. That form of government appears to me the most reasonable, which is most con- formable to the equality that we find in human nature, provided it be consistent with public peace and tranquillity. This is what may properly be called liberty, which ex- empts one man from subjection to another so far as the order and economy of govern- ment will permit. Liberty should reach every individual of a people, as they all share one com- mon nature; if it only spreads among particular branches, there had better be none at all, since- such a liberty only aggra- vates the misfortune of those who are de- prived of it, by setting before them a dis- agreeable subject of comparison. This liberty is best preserved, where the legislative power is lodged in several per- sons, especially if those persons are of dif- ferent ranks and interests; for where they ' Dear native land, how do the good and wise Thy happy clime and countless blessings prize ! are of the same rank, and consequently have an interest to manage peculiar to that rank, it differs but little from a despotical govern- ment in a single person. But the greatest security a people can have for their liberty, is when the legislative power is in the hands of persons so happily distinguished, that by providing for the particular interests of their several ranks, they are providing for the whole body of the people that has not a common interest with at least one part of the legislators. If there be but one body of legislators, it is no better than a tyranny; if there are only two, there will want a casting voice, and one of them must at length be swallowed up by disputes and contentions that will nec- essarily arise between them. Four would have the same inconvenience as two, and a greater number would cause too much con- fusion. I could never read a passage in Polybius, and another in Cicero, to this purpose, without a secret pleasure in apply- ing it to the English constitution, which it suits much better than the Roman. Both these great authors give the pre-eminence to a mixed government, consisting of three branches, the regal, the noble, and the popu- lar. They had doubtless in their thoughts the constitution of the Roman common- wealth, in which the Consul represented the king, the Senate the nobles, and the Tribunes the people. This division of the three pow- ers in the Roman constitution was by no means so distinct and natural as it is in the English government. Among several objec- tions that might be made to it, I think the chief are those that affect the consular power, which had only the ornaments with- out the force of the regal authority. Their number had not a casting voice in it; for which reason if one did not chance to be em- ployed abroad, while the other sat at home, the public business was sometimes at a stand, while the consuls pulled two different ways in it. Besides I do not find that the consuls had ever a negative voice in the passing of a law, or decree of the senate, so that indeed they were rather the chief laody of the nobility, or the first ministers of state, than a distinct branch of the sovereignty, in which none can be looked vipon as a part, who are not a part of the legislature. Had the consuls been invested with the regal authority to as great a degree as our monarchs, there would never have been any occasion for a dictatorship, which had in it the power of all the three EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEALS OF SANITY AND ORDEE 217 orders, and ended in the subversion of the whole constitution. Such an history as that of Suetonius, which gives us a succession of absolute princes, is to me an unanswerable argument against despotic power. Where the prince is a man of wisdom and virtue, it is indeed happy for his people that he is absolute; but since, in the common run of mankind, for one that is wise and good you find ten of a contrary character, it is very danger- ous for a nation to stand to its chance, or to have its public happiness or misery de- pend on the virtue or vices of a single per- son. Look into the history I have men- tioned, or into any series of absolute princes, how many tyrants must you read through, before you come to an emperor that is sup- portable. But this is not all ; an honest pri- vate man often grows cruel and abandoned, when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality. This too we find confirmed by matter of fact. How many hopeful heii's apparent to grand empires, when in the possession of them, have be- come such monsters of lust and cruelty as are a reproach to human nature ? Some tell us we ought to make our gov- ernments on earth like that in heaven, which, say they, is altogether monarchical and unlimited. Was man like his Creator in goodness and justice, I should be for following this great model ; but where good- ness and justice are not essential to the ruler, I would by no means put myself into his hands to be disposed of according to his particular will and pleasure. It is odd to consider the connection be- tween despotic government and barbarity, and how the making of one person more than man, makes the rest less. About nine parts of the world in ten are in the lowest state of slavery, and consequently sunk in the most gross and brutal ignorance. Euro- pean slavery is indeed a state of liberty, if compared with that which prevails in the other three divisions of the world ; and there- fore it is no wonder that those who grovel under it have many tracks of light among them, of which the others are wholly des- titute. Riches and plenty are the natural fruits of liberty, and where these abound, learning and all the liberal arts will immediately lift up their heads and flourish. As a man must have no slavish fears and apprehen- sions hanging upon his mind, who will in- dulge the flights of fancy or speculation, and push his researches into all the abstruse corners of truth, so it is necessary for him to have about him a competency of all the con- veniences of life. The first thing every one looks, after is to provide himself with necessaries. This point will engToss our thoughts till it be satisfied. If this is taken care of to our hands, we look out for pleasures and amusement; and among a great number of idle people, there will be many whose pleasures will lie in reading and contemplation. These are the two great sources of knowledge; and as men grow wise, they naturally love to com- municate their discoveries; and others, see- ing the hapiDiness of such a learned life, and improving by their conversation, emu- late, imitate, and surpass one another, till a nation is filled with races of wise and un- derstanding persons. Ease and plenty are therefore the great eherishers of knowledge ; and as most of the despotic governments of the world have neither of them, they are naturally over-run with ignorance and bar- barity. In Europe, indeed, notwithstanding several of its princes are absolute, there are men famous for knowledge and learning; but the reason is, because the subjects are many of them rich and wealthy, the prince not thinking fit to exert himself in his full tyranny like the princes of the eastern na- tions, lest his subjects should be invited to new-mould their constitution, having so many prospects of liberty within their view. But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favor arts and let- ters, there is a natural degeneracy of man- kind, as you may observe from Augustus's reign, how the Romans lost themselves by degrees till they fell to an equality with the most barbarous nations that surrounded them. Look upon Greece under its free state, and you would think its inhabitants lived in different climates, and under dif- ferent heavens, from those at present; so different are the geniuses which are formed under Turkish slavery and Grecian liberty. Besides poverty and want, there are other reasons that debase the minds of men, who live under slavery, though I look on it as the principal. This natural tendency of despotic power to ignorance and barbarity, though not insisted upon by others, is, I think, an unanswerable argument against that form of government, as it shews how 218 THE GREAT TRADITION repugnant it is to the good of mankind and the perfection of human nature, which ought to be the great ends of all civil in- stitutions. The Carkee op Conquest eichard steele [The Spectator, No. 180.— Sept. 26, 1711.] Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.^ —Horace. The following letter has so much weight and good sense that I cannot forbear insert- ing it, though it relates to an hardened sin- ner, whom I have very little hopes of re- forming, viz., Lewis XIV of France. "Mr. Spectator: "Amidst the variety of subjects of which you have treated I could wish it had fallen in your way to expose the vanity of con- quests. This thought would naturally lead one to the rreneh king, who has been gen- erally esteemed the greatest conqueror of our age, till her majesty's armies had torn from him so many of his countries, and de- prived him of the fruit of all his former victories. For my own part, if I were to draw his picture, I should be for taking him no lower than to the Peace of Reswick, just at the end of his triumphs, and before his reverse of fortune; and even then I should not forbear thinking his ambition had been vain and unprofitable to himself and his people. "As for himself, it is certain he can have gained nothing by his conquests, if they have not rendered him master of more sub- jects, more riches, or greater power. What I shall be able to offer upon these heads. I resolve to submit to your consideration. "To begin, then, with his increase of sub- jects. From the time he came of age, and has been a manager for himself, all the peo- ple he had acquired were such only as he had reduced by his wars, and were left in his possession by the peace; he had con- quered not above one-third part of Flanders, and consequently no more than one-third part of the inhabitants of that province. "About one hundred years ago, the houses in that country were all numbered, and by a just computation the inhabitants of all sorts could not then exceed 750,000 souls. And if any man will consider the desola- ^ "The monarch's folly makes the people rue." tion by almost perpetual wars, the numer- ous armies that have lived almost ever since at discretion upon the people, and how much of their commerce has removed for more security to other places, he will have little reason to imagine that their numbers havp since increased; and therefore with one- third part of that province that prince can have gained no more than one-third part of the inhabitants, or 250,000 new subjects, even though it should be supposed they were all contented to live still in their native country, and transfer their allegiance to a new master. "The fertility of this province, its con- venient situation for trade and commerce, its capacity for furnishing employment and subsistence to great numbers, and the vast armies that have been maintained here, make it credible that the remaining two-thirds of Flanders are equal to all his other con- quests; and consequently by all he cannot have gained more than 750,000 new subjects, men, women, and children, especially if a deduction shall be made of such as have retired from the conqueror to live under their old masters. "It is time now to set his loss against his profit, and to show for the new subjects he had acquired how many old ones he had lost in the acquisition. I think that in his wars he has seldom brought less into the field in all places than 200,000 fighting men, besides what have been left in garrisons; and I think the common computation is that of an army, at the latter end of a campaign, without sieges or battle, scarce four-fifths can be mustered of those that came into the field at the beginning of the year. His wars at several times till the last peace have held about twenty years; and if 40,000 yearly lost, or a fifth part of his armies, are to be multiplied by twenty, he cannot have lost less than 800,000 of his old subjects, all able-bodied men, a greater number than the new subjects he had acquired. "But this loss is not all. Providence seems to have equally divided the whole mass of mankind into different sexes that every woman may have her husband, and that both may equally contribute to the con- tinuance of the species. It follows, then, that for all the men that have been lost as many women must have lived single. In so long a course of years great part of them must have died, and all the rest must go off at last without leaving any representatives EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEALS OF SANITY AND ORDER 219 behind. By this account he must have lost not only 800,000 subjects, but double that number, and all the increase that was rea- sonably to be exjDected from it. "It is said in the last war there was a famine in his kingdom which swept away two millions of his people. This is hardly credible; if the loss was only of one-fifth part of that sum it was very great. But 'tis no wonder there should be famine where so much of the people's substance is taken away for the king's use that they have not sufficient left to provide against accidents, where so many of the men are taken from the plow to serve the king in his wars, and a great part of the tillage is left to the weaker hands of so many women and chil- dren. Whatever was the loss, it must un- doubtedly be placed to the account of his ambition. "And so must also the destruction or ban- ishment of three or four hundred thousand of his reformed subjects; he could have no other reasons for valuing those lives so very cheap but only to recommend himself to the bigotry of the Spanish nation. "How should there be industry in a country where all property is precarious? What subject will sow his land that his prince may reap the whole harvest ? Parsi- mony and frugality must be strangers to such a people ; for will any man save today what he has reason to fear will be taken from him tomorrow? And where is the encouragement for marrying 1 Will any man think of raising children without any as- surance of clothing for their backs, or so much as food for their bellies? And thus by his fatal ambition he must have lessened the number of his subjects, not only by slaughter and destruction, but by preventing their very births, he has done as much as was possible toward destroying posterity it- self. "Is this then the great, the invincible Lewis? This the immortal man, the tout puissant, or the almighty, as his flatterers have called him? Is this the man that is so celebrated for his conquests? For every subject he has acquired, has he not lost three that were his inheritance? Are not his troops fewer, and those neither so well fed, or clothed, or paid, as they were formerly, though he has now so much greater cause to exert himself? And what can be the reason of all this but that his revenue is a gi'eat deal less, his subjects are either poorer, or not so many to be plundered by constant taxes for his use? "It is well for him he had found out a way to steal a kingdom; if he had gone on conquering as he did before, his ruin had been long since finished. This brings to my mind a saying of King Pyrrhus, after he had a second time beat the Romans in a pitched battle, and was complimented by his generals, 'Yes,' says he, 'such another vic- tory and I am quite undone.' And since I have mentioned Pyrrhus, I will end with a very good, though known, story of this am- bitious madman. When he had shown the utmost fondness for his expedition against the Romans, Cyneas, his chief minister, asked him what he proposed to himself by this war. 'Why,' says Pyrrhus, 'to conquer the Romans, and reduce all Italy to my obedi- ence.' 'What then?' says Cyneas. 'To pass over into Sicily,' says Pyrrhus, 'and then all the Sicilians must be our sub- jects.' 'And what does your majesty intend next?' 'Why, truly,' says the king, 'to conquer Carthage, and make myself master of all Africa.' 'And what, sir,' says the minister, 'is to be the end of all your expeditions?' 'Why, then,' says the king, 'for the rest of our lives we'll sit down to good wine.' 'How, sir,' replied Cyneas, 'to better than we have now before us? Have we not al- ready as much as we can drink?' "Riot and excess are not the becoming characters of princes; but if Pyrrhus and Lewis had debauched like Vitellius they had been less hurtful to their people. "Your humble servant, "Philaeithmus.^^ Selections from Gulliver^s Travels [1726] 1 JONATHAN SWIFT 1. Political Acrobatics [Gulliver, an English surgeon, is ship- wrecked in the country of the Lilliputians, a race of pigmies. After many surprising 1 "These voyages are intended as a moral polit- ical romance — to correct vice by showing its de- formity in opposition to the beauty of virtue, and to amend the false systems of philosophy by point- ing out the errors, and applying salutary means to avoid them." ■ — Lord Orrery. 220 THE GEEAT TEADITION adventures he is taken to the Emperor's court and gains an insight into the causes of political preferment and the nature of party strife. The selection is from Chapters III and IV.] My gentleness and good behavior had gained so far on the Emperor and his court, and indeed upon the army and people in general, that I began to conceive hopes of getting my liberty in a short time. I took all possible methods to cultivate this favor- able disposition. The natives came, by de- grees, to be less apprehensive of any danger from me. I would sometimes lie down and let five or six of them dance on my hand; and, at last, the boys and girls would ven- ture to come and play at hide and seek in my hair. I had now made a good progress in understanding and speaking their lan- guage. . The Emperor had a mind, one day, to entertain me with several of the country shows, wherein they exceed all nations I have known, both for dexterity and mag- nificence. I was diverted with none so much as that of the rope-dancers performed upon a slender white thread, extended about two feet, and twelve inches from the gromid. Upon which I shall desire liberty, with the reader's patience, to enlarge a little. This diversion is only practiced by those persons who are candidates for great em- ployments, and high favor at court. They are trained in this art from their youth, and are not always of noble birth, or liberal education. When a great office is vacant, either by death or disgrace, (which often happens) five or six of those candidates petition the Emperor to entertain his Maj- esty and the court with a dance on the rope, and whoever jumps the highest, without falling, succeeds in the office. Very often the chief ministers themselves are com- manded to show their skill, and to convince the Emperor that they have not lost their faculty. Flimnap, the treasurer, is allowed to cut a caper on the strait rope at least an inch higher than any other lord in the whole empire. I have seen him do the somerset several times together, upon a trencher fixed on the rope, which is no thicker than a common pack-thread in Eng- land. My friend Reldresal, principal secre- tary for private affairs, is, in my opinion, if I am not partial, the second after the treasurer; the rest of the great officers are much upon a par. These diversions are often attended with fatal accidents, whereof great numbers are on record. I myself have seen two or three candidates break a limb. But the danger is much greater when the ministers themselves are commanded to show their dexterity ; for, by contending to excel themselves and their fellows, they strain so far, that there is hardly one of them who hath not received a fall, and some of them two. or three. I was assured, that, a year or two before my arrival, Flimnap would have infallibly broke his neck, if one of the king's cushions, that accidentally lay on the ground, had not weakened the force of his fall. There is likewise another diversion, which is only shown before the Emperor and Em- press, and first minister, upon particular oc- casions. The Emperor lays on the table three fine silken threads of six inches long; one is blue, the other red, and the third green. These threads are proposed as prizes for those persons whom the Emperor hath a mind to distinguish by a peculiar mark of his favor. The ceremony is performed in his Majesty's great chamber of state, w^iere the candidates are to undergo a trial of dexterity very different from the former, and such as I have not observed the least resemblance of in any other country of the old or new world. The ' Emperor holds a stick in his hands, both ends jDaral- lel to the horizon, while the candidates ad- vancing, one by one, sometimes leap over the stick, sometimes creep under it backwards and forwards several times, according as the stick is advanced or depressed. Some- times the Emperor holds one end of the stick, and his first minister the other ; some- times the minister has it entirely to him- self. Whoever performs his part with most agility, and holds out the longest in leap- ing and creeping, is rewarded with the blue- colored silk, the red is given to the next, and the green to the third, which they all wear girt twice round about the middle, and you see few great persons about the court who are not adorned with one of these girdles. ... The first request I made, after I had ob- tained my liberty, was that I might have license to see Mildendo, the metropolis; which the Emperor easily granted me, but with a special charge to do no hurt either to the inhabitants or their houses. The people had notice by proclamation of my design to visit the town. The wall which encompassed it is two feet and a half high, EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDER 221 and at least eleven inches broad, so that a coach and horses may be driven very safely round it ; and it is flanked with strong tow- ers, at ten feet distance. I stepped over the great Western Gate, and passed very gently and sideling through the two prin- cipal streets, only in my short waist-coat, for fear of damaging the roofs and eaves of the houses with the skirts of my coat. I walked with utmost circumspection, to avoid treading on any stragglers that might remain in the streets, although the orders were strict that all people should keep in their houses at their own peril. The garret- windows and tops of houses were so crowded with spectators that I thought, in all my travels, I had not seen a more populous place. The city is an exact square, each side of the wall being five hundred feet long. The two great streets, which run cross, and divide it mto four quarters, are five feet wide. The lanes and alleys, which I could not enter, but only viewed them as I passed, are from twelve to eighteen inches. The town is capable of holding five hundred thousand souls. The houses are from three to five stories; the shops and markets well provided. The Emperor's palace is in the center of the city, where the two great streets met. It is inclosed by a wall of two feet high, and twenty feet distance from the buildings. I had his Majesty's permission to step over this wall; and, the space being so wide be- tween that and the palace, I could easily view it on every side. The outward court is a square of forty feet, and includes two other courts: in the inmost are the royal apartments which I was very desirous to see, but found it extremely difficult; for the great gates, from one square into another, were but eighteen inches high, and seven inches wide. Now, the buildings of the outer court were at least five feet high, and it was impossible for me to stride over them without infinite damage to the pile, though the walls were strongly built of hewn stone, and four inches thick. At the same time, the Emperor had a great desire that I should see the magnificence of his palace; but this I was not able to do till three days after, which I spent in cutting down with my knife some of the largest trees in the royal park, about an hundred yards distance from the city. Of these trees I made two stools, each about three feet high, and strong enough to bear my weight. The people hav- ing received notice a second time, I went again through the city to the palace, with my two stools in my hands. When I came to the side of the outer court, I stood upon one stool, and took the other in my hand; this I lifted over the roof, and gently set it down on the space between the first and second court, which was eight feet wide. I then stepped over the building very con- veniently, from one stool to the other, and drew up the- first after me with a hooked stick. By this contrivance I got into the inmost court ; and, lying down upon my side, I applied my face to the windows of the middle stories, which were left open on purpose, and discovered the most splendid apartments that can be imagined. There I saw the Empress, and the young Princes, in their several lodgings, with their chief attendants about them. Her Imperial Maj- esty was pleased to smile very graciously upon me, and gave me out of the window her hand to kiss. But I shall not anticipate the reader with farther descriptions of this kind, because I reserve them for a greater work, which is now almost ready for the press, containing a general description of this empire, from its first erection, through a long series of princes, with a particular account of their wai'S and politics, laws, learning, and re- ligion : their plants "and animals, their pe- culiar manners and customs, with other matters very curious and useful; my chief design at present being only to relate such events and transactions as happened to the public or to myself during* a residence of about nine months in that emiDire. 2. Political Parties and International Rela- tions in Lilliput [This passage satirizes the English high- church or Tory party andthe low-ehureh or Whig party. Chapters IV and V.] One morning, about a fortnight after I had obtained my liberty, Reldresal, princi- pal secretary (as they style him) of private affairs, came to my house, attended only by one servant. He ordered his coach to wait at a distance, and desired I would give him an hour's audience; which I readily con- sented to, on account of his quality, and personal merits, as well as the many good offices he had done me during my solicita- tions at court. I offered to lie down, that he might the more conveniently reach my 222 THE OREAT TRADITION ear; but he chose rather to let me hold hhn hi my hand durmg our conversation. He began with compliments on my liberty; said he might pretend to some merit in it; but, however, added, that, if it had not been for the present situation of things at court, per- haps I might not have obtained it so soon. "For," said he, "as flourishing a condition as we may appear to be in to foreigners, we labor under two mighty evils ; a violent fac- tion at home, and the danger- of an inva- sion by a most potent enemy from abroad. As to the first, you are to understand that, for above seventy moons past, there have been two struggling parties in this empire, under the names of Tramecksan and Sla- mecksan, from the high and Ioav heels of their shoes, by which they distinguish them- selves. It is alleged, indeed, that the high heels are most agreeable to our ancient con- stitution; but, however this be, his Majesty hath determined to make use of only low heels in the administration of the govern- ment, and all offices in the gift of the crown, as you cannot but observe ; and particularly, that his Majesty's imperial heels are lower at least by a drurr than any of his court (drurr is a measure about the fourteenth part of an inch). The animosities between these two parties run so high that they will neither eat nor drink nor talk with each other. We compute the Tramecksan, or high heels, to exceed us in number; but the power is wholly on our side. We appre- hend his Imperial Highness, the heir to the crown, to have some tendency towards the high-heels; at least, we can plainly discover that one of his heels is higher than the other, which gives him a hobble in his gait. Now, in the midst of these intestine disquiets, we are threatened with an invasion from the island of Blefuscu, which is the other great empire of the universe, almost as large and powerful as this of his Majesty. For as to what we heard you affirm, that there are other kingdoms and states in the world, in- habited by human creatures as large as yourself, our philosophers are in much doubt, and would rather conjecture that you dropped from the moon, or one of the stars ; because it is certain that an hundred moi'- tals of your bulk would, in a short time, destroy all the fruits and cattle of his Maj- esty's dominions. Besides, our histories of six thousand moons make no mention of any other regions than the two great em- pires of Lilliput and Blefuscu, which two mighty powers have, as I was going to tell you, been engaged in a most obstinate war for six and thirty moons past. It began upon the following occasion : It is allowed on all hands that the primitive way of breaking eggs before we eat them was upon the larger end ; but his present Majesty's grandfather while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and breaking it according to the ancient i^raetice, happened to cut one of his fingers. Whereupon the Emperor, his father, published an edict, commanding all his subjects upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs. The people so highly resented this law, that our his- tories tell us, there have been six rebellions raised on that account; wherein one em- peror lost his life, and another his crown. These civil commotions were constantly fo- mented by the monarehs of Blefuscu; and when they were quelled, the exiles always fled for refuge to that empire. It is com- puted that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than sub- mit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many hundred large volumes have been pub- lished upon this controversy; but the books of the Big-endians have been long forbid- den, and the whole party rendered incapa- ble by law of holding employments. Dur- mg the course of these troubles the emper- ors of Blefuscu did frequently expostulate by their ambassadors, accusing us of mak- ing a schism in religion, by offending against a fundamental doctrine of our great Prophet Lustrog, in the fifty-fourth chap- ter of the Blundeeral (which is their Al- coran). This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text; for the words are these : That all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end. And which is the convenient end seems, in my humble opinion, to be left to every man's con- science, or at least in the power of the chief magistrate to determine. Now, the Big- endian exiles have found so much credit in the Emperor of Blefuseu's court and so much private assistance and encouragement from their party here at home, that a bloody war hath been carried on between the two empires for thirty-six moons, with various success; during which time we have lost forty capital ships, and a much greater number of smaller vessels, ■ together with thirty thousand of our best seamen and sol- diers; and the damage received by the enemy is reckoned to be somewhat greater than ours. However, they have now equipped a numerous fleet, and are just pre- EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND ORDER 223 paring to make a descent upon us; and his Imperial Majesty, placing great confidence in your valor and strength, hath commanded me to lay this account of his affairs before you." I desired the secretary to present my humble duty to. the Emperor, and to let him know that I thought it would not become me, who was a foreigner, to interfere with parties; but I was ready, with the hazard of my life, to defend his person and state against all invaders. The empire of Blefuscu is an island, sit- uated to the north-east side of Lilliput, from whence it is parted only by a channel of eight hundred yards wide. I had not yet seen it, and upon this notice of an in- tended invasion, I avoided a^rpearing on that side of the coast, for fear of being dis- covered by some of the enemy's ships, who had received no intelligence of me, all in- tercourse between the two empires having been strictly forbidden during the war, upon pain of death, and an embargo laid by our Emperor upon all vessels whatso- ever. I communicated to his Majesty a project I had formed of seizing the.enemy's whole fleet : which, as our scouts assured us, lay at anchor in the harbor ready to sail with the first fair wind. I consulted the most experienced seamen upon the depth of the channel, which they had often plumbed, who told me, that in the middle, at high water, it was seventy glumgiuffs deep, which is about six feet of European measure; and the rest of it fifty glumgiuffs at most. I walked towards the north-east coast, over against Blefuscu ; where, lying down behind a hillock, I took out my small perspective glass, and viewed the enemy's fleet at an- chor, consisting of about, fifty men-of-war, and a great number of transports: I then eiame back to my house, and gave order (for which I had a warrant) for a great quantity of the strongest cable and bars of iron. The cable was about as thick as pack- thread, and the bars of the length and size of a knitting needle. I trebled the cable to make it stronger, and, for the same rea- son, I twisted three of the iron bars to- gether, binding the extremities into a hook. Having thus fixed fifty hooks to as many cables, I went back to the north-east coast, and putting off my coat, shoes, and stock- ings, walked into the sea, in my leathern jerkin, about an hour before high water. I waded with what haste I could, and swam in the middle about thirty yards, till I felt ground; I arrived to the fleet in less than half an hour. The enemy was so frighted when they saw me, that they leaped out of their ships, and swam to shore, where there could not be fewer than thirty thousand souls. I then took my tackling, and, fasten- ing a hook to the hole at the prow of each, 1 tied all the cords together at the end. While I was thus employed, the enemy dis- charged several thousand arrows, many of which stuck in my hands and face : and, be- sides the excessive smart, gave me much dis- turbance in my work. My greatest appre- hension was for mine eyes, which I should have infallibly lost, if I had not suddenly thought of an expedient. I kept among other little necessaries a pair of spectacles in a private pocket, which, as I observed before, had escaped the Emperor's search- ers. These I took out and fastened as strongly as I could upon my nose, and, thus armed, went on boldly with my work in spite of the enemy's arrows, many of which struck against the glasses of my spectacles, but without any other effect, farther than a little to discompose them. I had now fas- tened all the hooks, and, taking the knot in my hand, began to pull, but not a ship would stir, for they were all too fast held by their anchors, so that the boldest part of my enterprise remained. I therefore let go the cord, and leaving the hooks fixed to the ships, I resolutely cut with my knife the cables that fastened the anchors, re- ceiving above two hundred shots in my face and hands; then I took up the knot- ted end of the cables to which my hooks were tied, and with great ease drew fifty of the enemy's largest men-of-war after me. The Blefuscudians, who had not the least imagination of what I intended, were at first confounded with astonishment. They had seen me cut the cables, and thought my design was only to let the ships run adrift, or fall foul on each other: but when they perceived the whole fleet moving in order, and saw me pulling at the end, they set up such a scream of grief and despair, that it is almost impossible to describe or conceive. When I had got out of danger, I stopped a while to pick out the arrows that stuck in my hands and face : and rubbed on some of the same ointment that was given me at my first arrival, as I have formerly mentioned. I then took off my spectacles, and, waiting about an hour till the tide was a little fallen, I waded through the middle with my cargo, 224 THE GEEAT TRADITION and arrived safe at the royal port of Lilli- put. The Emperor and his whole court stood on the shore expecting the issue of this great adventure. They saw the ships move forward in a large half -moon, but could not discern me, who was up to my breast in water. When I advanced to the middle of the channel, they were yet in more pam, because I was under water to my neck. The EmiDeror concluded me to be drowned, and that the enemy's fleet was approaching in a hostile manner : but he was soon eased of his fears, for the channel growing shallower every step I. made, I came in a short time within hearmg, and, holding up the end of the cable by which the fleet was fastened, I cried in a loud voice. Long live the most puissant Emperor of Lilliput ! This great prince received me at my landing with all possible encomiums, and created me a nar- dac upon the spot, which is the highest title of honor among them. His Majesty desired I would take some other opportunity of bringing all the rest of his enemy's ships into his ports. And so unmeasurabie is the ambition of princes, that he seemed to think of nothing less than reducing the whole empire of Blefuscu into a province, and governing it by a viceroy; of destroymg the Big-endian exiles, and compellmg that people to break the smaller end of their eggs, by which he would re- main the sole monarch of the whole world. But I endeavored to divert him from his design, by many arguments drawn from the topics of policy as well as justice : and I plainly protested, that I would never be an instrument of bringing a free and brave people into slavery. And, when the matter was debated in council, the wisest part of the ministiy were of my opinion. This open bold declaration of mine was so opposite to the schemes and polities of his Imperial Majesty, that he could never forgive me; he mentioned it in 'a very art- ful manner at council, where I was told that some of the wisest appeared, at least, by their silence, to be of my opinion; but othei's, who were my secret enemies, could not forbear some expressions, which by a side-wind reflected on me. And from this time began an intrigue between his Majesty and. a junto of ministers maliciously bent against me, which broke out in less than two months, and had like to have ended in my utter destruction. Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions. About three weeks after this exploit, there arrived a solemn embassy from Ble- fuscu, with humble offers of a peace ; which was soon concluded upon conditions very advantageous to our Emperor, wherewith I shall not trouble the reader. There were six ambassadors, with a train of about five hundred persons, and their entry was very magnificent, suitable to the grandeur of their master, and the importance of their business. When their treaty was finished, wherein I did them several good offices by the credit I now had, or at least appeared to have at court, their Excellencies, who were privately told how much I had been their friend, made me a visit in form. They began with many compliments upon my valor and generosity, invited me to that kingdom in the Emperor their master's name, and desired me to show them some proofs of my prodigious strength, of which they had heard so many wonders ; wherein I readily obliged them, but shall not trouble the reader with the particulars. When I had for some time entertained their Excellencies to their infinite satisfac- tion and surprise, I desired they would do me the honor to present my most humble respects to the Emperor their master, the renown of whose virtues had so justly filled the whole world with admiration, and whose royal person I resolved to attend before I returned to my own country : accordingly, the next time I had the honor to see our Emperor, I desired his general license to wait on the Blefuseudian monarch, which he was pleased to grant me, as I could plainly perceive, in a very cold manner; but. could not guess the reason, till I had a whisper from a certain person, that Flimnap and Bolgolam had represented my intercourse with those ambassadors as a mark of disaf- fection, from which I am sure my heart was wholly free. And this was the first time I began to conceive some imperfect idea of courts and ministers. It is to be observed, that these ambassa- dors spoke to me by an interpreter, the languages of both empires differing as much from each other as any two in Eu- rope, and each nation priding itself upon the antiquity, beauty, and energy of their own tongues, with an avowed contempt for that of their neighbor; yet our Emperor, standing upon the advantage he had got by the seizure of their fleet, obliged them to de- EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDER 225 liver their credentials and make their speech in the Lilliputian tongue. And it must be confessed that, from the great intercourse of trade and commerce between both realms, from the continued reception of exiles, which is mutual among them, and from the custom in each empire to send their young nobility and richer gentry to the other, in order to polish themselves by seeing the world, and understanding men and man- ners, there are few persons of distinction, or merchants, or seamen, who dwell in the mari- time parts, but Avhat can hold conversation in both tongues; as I found some weeks rafter, when I went to pay my respects to the Emperor of Blefuscu, which, in the midst of great misfortunes through the malice of my enemies, proved a very happy adventure to me, as I shall relate in its proper place. 3. Public Servants in Lilliput In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good morals than to great abilities; for, since Government is necessary to mankind, they believe that the common size of human understandings is fitted to some station or other, and that Providence never intended to make the man- agement of public affairs a mystery, to be comprehended only by a few jDersons of sub- lime genius, of which there seldom are three born in an age ; but they suppose truth, jus- tice, temjoerance, and the like, to be in every man's power, the practice of which virtues, assisted by exiDerienee and a good intention, would qualify any man for the service of his country, except where a course of study is required. But they thought the want of moral virtues was so far from being supplied by superior endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put into such dangerous hands as those of persons so qualified; and at least, that the mistakes, committed by ignorance in a virtuous dis- position, would never be of such fatal eon- sequence to the public weal as the practices of a man whose inclinations led him to be corrupt, and had great abilities to manage and multiply and defend his corruptions. 4. English Institutions [In his second voyage Gulliver visits the Brobdingnagians, men of giant stature in comparison with whom Gulliver himself be- comes the Lilliputian. In the course of his association with the Emperor he takes oc- casion to "celebrate the praise of his own dear native country, in n, style equal to its merits and felicity." From Part II, Chap- ter VI.] The king, who, as I before observed, was a prince of excellent understanding, would frequently order that I should be brought in my box, and set upon the table in his closet : he would then command me to bring one of my chairs out of the box, and sit down within three yards distance upon the top of the cabinet, which brought me almost to a level with his face. In this manner I had several conversations with him. I one day took the freedom to tell his Majesty, that the contempt he discovered towards Europe, and the rest of the world, did not seem answerable to those excellent qualities of mind he was master of. That reason did not extend itself with the bulk of the body : on the contrary, we observed in our country, that the tallest persons were usually least provided with it. That, among other ani- mals, bees and ants had the reputation of more industry, art, and sagacity, than many of the larger kinds ; and that, as inconsidera- ble as he took me to be, I hoped I might live to do his Majesty some signal service. The king heard me with attention, and began to conceive a much better opinion of me than he had ever before. He desired I would give him as exact an account of the government of England as I possibly could; because, as fond as princes commonly are of their own customs (for so he conjectured of other monarchs by my former discourses) he should be glad to hear of anything that might deserve imitation. Imagine with thyself, courteous reader, how often I then wished for the tongue of Demosthenes or Cicero, that might have enabled me to celebrate the praise of my own dear native country, in a style equal to its merits and felicity. I began my discourse, by informing his Majesty, that our dominions consisted of two islands, which composed three mighty kingdoms under one sovereign, besides our plantations in America. I dwelt long upon the fertility of our soil, and the tempera- ture of our climate. I then spoke at large upon the constitution of an English Parlia- ment, partly made up of an illustrious body, called the House of Peers, persons of the noblest blood, and of the most ancient and ample patrimonies. I described that extraordinary care always taken of their education in arts and arms, to qualify them 226 THE GREAT TRADITION for being counselors both to the king and kingdom; to have a share in the Legisla- ture; to be members of the highest court of judicature, from whence there could be no appeal; and to be champions always ready for the defense of their prince and country, by their valor, conduct, and fidelity. That these were the ornament and bulwark of the kingdom^ worthy followers of their most renowned ancestors, whose honor had been the reward of their virtue from which their posterity were never once known to degenerate. To these were joined several holy persons, as part of that assembly, under the title of bishops, whose peculiar business it is to take care of religion, and of those who instruct the people therein. These were searched and sought out through the whole nation, by the prince and his wisest coun- selors, among such of the priesthood as were most deservedly distinguished by the sanctity of their lives, and the depth of their erudition, who were, indeed, the spir- itual fathers of the clergy and the people. That the other part of the Parliament con- sisted of an assembly called the House of Commons, who were all principal gentlemen, freely picked and culled out by the people themselves, for their great abilities, and love of their country, to represent the wisdom of the whole nation. And these two bodies make up the most august assembly in Europe, to whom, in conjunction with the prince, the whole Legislature is committed. I then descended to the courts of justice, over which the judges, those venerable sages and interpreters of the law, presided, for determining the disputed rights and prop- erties of men, as well as for the punishment of vice, and protection of innocence. I men- tioned the prudent management of our Treasury, the valor and achievements of our forces by sea and land. I computed the number of our people, by reckoning how many millions there might be of each re- ligious sect, or political party among us. I did not omit even our sports and .pastimes, or any other particular which I thought might redound to the honor of my country. And I finished all with a brief historical ac- count of affairs and events in England, for about an hundred years past. This conversation was not ended under five audiences, each of several hours; and the king heard the whole with gi-eat atten- tion, frequently taking notes of what I spoke, as well as memorandums of several questions he intended to ask me. When I had put an end to these long discourses, his Majesty, in a sixth audience, consulting his notes, proposed many doubts, queries, and objections upon every article. He asked what methods were used to culti- vate the minds and bodies of our young nobility, and in what kind of business they commonly spent the first and teachable part of their lives. What course was taken to supply that assembly when any noble family became extinct. What qualifications were necessary in those who are to be created new lords : whether the humor of the prince, a sum of money to a court lady, or a prime minister, or a design of strengthening a party opposite to the public interest, ever happened to be motives in those advance- ments. What share of knowledge these lords had in the laws of their country, and how they came by it, so as to enable them to decide the properties of their fellow-sub- jects in their last resort. Whether they were always so free from avarice, partialities, or want, that a bribe, or some other sinister view, could have no place among them. Whether those holy lords I spoke of, were always promoted to that rank upon account of their knowledge in religious matters, and the sanctity of their lives, had never been compilers with the times, while they were common priests, or slavish prostitute chap- lains to some nobleman, whose opinions they continued servilely to follow, after they were admitted into that assembly. He then desired to know what arts were practiced in electing those whom I called commoners : whether a stranger, with a strong purse, might not influence the vulgar voters to choose him before their own land- lord, or the most considerable gentleman in the neighborhood. How it came to pass, that people were so violently bent upon get- ting into this assembly, which I allowed to be a great trouble and expense, often to the ruin of their families, without any salary or pension: because that appeared such an exalted strain of virtue and public spirit, that his Majesty seemed to doubt it might possibly not be always sincere: and he de- sired to know whether such zealous gentle- men could have any views of refunding themselves for the charges and trouble they were at, by sacrificing the public good to the designs of a weak and vicious prince, in con- junction with a corrupted ministry. He multiplied his questions, and sifted me thoroughly upon every part of this head, proposing numbei"less enquiries and objec- EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEALS OF SANITY AND ORDER 227 tions, which I think it not prudent or con- venient to repeat. Upon what I said in relation to our courts of justice, his Majesty desired to be satis- fied in several points: and this I was the better able to do, having been formerly almost ruined by a long suit in chancery, which was decreed for me with costs. He asked what time was usually spent in de- termining between right and wrong, and what degree of expense. Whether advocates and orators had liberty to plead in causes manifestly known to be unjust, vexatious, or oppressive. Whether party in religion or politics were observed to be of any weight in the scale of justice. Whether those plead- ing orators were persons educated in the general knowledge of equity, or only in pro- vincial, national, and other local customs. Whether they or their judges had any part in penning those laws which they assumed the liberty of interpreting and glossing upon at their pleasure. Whether they had ever at different times pleaded for and against the same cause, and cited precedents to prove contrary opinions. Whether they were a rich or a poor corporation. Whether they received any pecuniary reward for pleading or delivering their opinions. And particularly, whether they were ever ad- mitted as members in the lower senate. He fell next upon the management of our treasury and said he thought my memory had failed me, because I computed our taxes at about five or six millions a year, and, when I came to mention the issues, he found they sometimes amounted to more than double; for the notes he had taken were very par- ticular in this point, because he hoped, as he told me, that the knowledge of our con- duct might be useful to him, and he could not be deceived in his calculations : but, if what I told him were true, he was still at a loss how a kingdom could run out of its estate like a private person. He asked me who were our creditors, and where we should find money to pay them. He won- dered to hear me talk of such chargeable and expensive wars; that certainly we must be a quarrelsome people, or live among very bad neighbors, and that our generals must needs be richer than our king. He asked what business we had out of our own islands, unless upon the score of trade or treaty, or to defend the coast with our fleet. Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mer- cenary standing army in the midst of peace. and among a free people. He said, if we were governed by our own consent in the persons of our representatives, he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or against whom we were to fight ; and would hear my opinion, whether a private man's house might not better be defended by himself, his children, and family, than by half a dozen rascals picked up at a venture in the streets, for small wages, who might get an hundred times more by ciitting their throats. He laughed at my odd kind of arithmetic (as he was pleased to call it) in reckoning the numbers of our peo^jle by a computation drawn from the several sects among us in religion and politics. He said he knew no reason why those who entertain opinions prejudicial to the public, should be obliged to change, or should not be obliged to con- ceal them. And as it was tyranny in any government to require the first, so it was weakness not to enfoi"ce the second: for a man may be allowed to keep poisons in his closet, but not to vend them about for cor- dials. He observed that, among the diversions of our nobility and gentry, I had mentioned gaming. He desired to know at what age this entertainment was usually taken up, and when it was laid down; how much of their time it employed ; whether it ever went so high as to affect their fortunes; whether mean, vicious people, by their dexterity in that art, might not arrive at great riches, and sometimes keep our very nobles in depend- ence, as well as habituate them to vile com- panions, wholly take them from the im- provement of their minds, and force them, by the losses they have received, to learn and practice that infamous dexterity upon others. He was perfectly astonished with the his- torical account I gave him of our affairs during the last century, protesting it was only a heap of consiDiracies, rebellions, mur- ders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, or am- bition, could produce. His Majesty in another audience was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the ansAvers I had given ; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner 228 THE GREAT TEADITION he spoke them in : ''My little fiiend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country : you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the pi'oper ingredients for qualifying a legis- lator : that laws are best explained, in- terpreted, and applied by those whose in- terest and abiUties he in perverting, eon- founding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution which, in its original, might have been tolera- ble ; but these half erased, and the rest whol- ly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It doth not appear from all you have said, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one station among you ; much less that men are ennobled on account of their virtue, that priests are advanced f or their piety or learning, soldiers for their conduct or valor, judges for their integrity, senators for the love of their country, or counselors for their wisdom. As for your- self (continued the king), who have spent the greatest part of your hf e in traveling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But, by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pain wringed and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your na- tives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." 5. Besearch [The third adventure is in the flying island of Laputa, a land in which the in- habitants, though of normal size, are strangely warped in intellect, being given over entirely to abstruse mathematical spec- ulation. Gulliver makes a ' visit to their academy of Lagado. Part III, Chapters V and VI.] This academy is not an entire single build- ing, but a continuation of several houses on both sides of a street, which, growing waste, was purchased, and applied to that use. I was received very kindly by the warden, and went for many days to the academy. Every room hath in it one or more project- ors ; and, I beheve, I could not be in fewer than five hundred rooms. The first man I saw was of a meager as- pect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in sev- eral places. His clothes, shirt, and skin were all of the same color. He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sun-beams out of cucumbers, which were tc be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, in eight years more, he should be able to sup- ply the governor's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable rate; but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me to give him something as an encouragement to in- genuity, especially since this had been a very clear season for cucumbers. I made him a small present, for my lord had fur- nished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to see them. ... I saw another at work to calcine ice intcn gunpowder, who likewise showed me a treat- ise he had written concerning the malleabil- ity of fire, which he mtended to publish. There was a most ingenious architect, Avho had contrived a new method for build- ing houses, by beginning at the roof, and working downwards to the foundation, which he justified to me, by the like prac- tice of those two prudent insects, the bee and the spider. There was a man born blind, who had sev- eral apprentices in his own condition ; their employment was to mix colors for painters, Avhich their masters taught them to distin- guish by feeling and smelling. It was, in- deed, my misfortune to find them, at that time, not very perfect in their lessons, and the professor himself happened to be gen- erally mistaken : this artist is much encour- aged and esteemed by the whole fraternity. In 'another apartment, I was highly pleased with a projector who had found a device of plowing the ground with hogs, to save the charges of plows, cattle, and labor. The method is this: in an acre of ground you buiy, at six inches distance, and eight deep, a quantity of acorns,, dates, chestnuts, and other mast, or vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest : then you drive six hundred or more of them into the field, where, in few days, they will root up the whole ground in search of their food, and make it fit for sowing; it is true, upon experiment, they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop. However, it is not doubted that this invention may be capable of great improvement. I went into another room, where the walls and ceiling were all hung round with cob- webs, except a narrow passage for the art- EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDEE 229 ist to go in and out. At my entrance he called aloud to me not to disturb his webs. He lamented the fatal mistake the world had been so long in of using silk-worms, while we had such plenty of domestic in- sects, who infinitely excelled the former, because they understood how to weave, as well as spin. And he proposed farther, that, by employing spiders, the charge of dying silks would be wholly saved ; whereof I was fully convinced, when he showed me a vast number of flies most beautifully col- ored, wherewith he fed his spiders, assuring us that the webs would take a tincture from them; and, as he had them of all hues, he hoped to fit everybody's fancy, as soon as he could find proper food for the flies, of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous mat- ter, to give a strength and consistence to the threads. There was an astronomer who had under- taken to jDlace a sundial upon the great M^eathercock on the town house, by adjust- ing the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun, so as to answer and coin- cide with all accidental turnings of the wind. ... I visited many other apartments, but shall not trouble my reader with all the curiosities I observed, being studious of brevity. I had hitherto seen only one side of the 'academy, the other being appropriated to the advancers of speculative learning, of whom I shall say something, when I have mentioned one illustrious person more, who is called among them the universal artist. He told us he had been thirty years employ- ing his thoughts for the improvement of human life. He had two large rooms full of wonderful curiosities, and flfty men at work. Some were condensing air into a dry tangible substance, by extracting the niter, and letting the aqueous or fluid par- ticles percolate; others softening marble for pillows and pin-cushions; others petri- fying the hoofs of a living horse, to pre- serve them from fomidering. The artist himself was at that time busy upon two great designs; the first to sow land with chaff, wherein he affirmed the true seminal virtue to be contained, as he demonstrated by several experiments which I was not skilful enough to comprehend. The other was, by a certain composition of gums, min- erals, and vegetables, outwardly applied, to prevent the growth of wool upon two young lambs; and he hoped, in a reasonable time, to propagate the breed of naked sheep all over the kingdom. We crossed a walk to the other part of the academy, where, as I have already said, the projectors in speculative learning re- sided. The first professor I saw was in a very large room, with forty pupils about him. After salutation, observing me to look ear- nestly upon a frame which took up the greatest part of both the length and breadth of the room, he said, perhaps I might won- der to see him employed in a project for imiDroving speculative knowledge by prac- tical and mechanical operations. But the world would soon be sensible of its useful- ness; and he flattered himself that a more noble exalted thought never sprang in any other man's head. Everyone knew how la- borious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas, by his contriv- ance, the most ignorant person, at a reason- able charge, and with a little bodily labor, may write books m philosophy, poetry, pol- itics, law, mathematics, and theology, with- out the least assistance from genius or study. He then led me to the frame, about the sides whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superficies was composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered on every square with paper pasted on them; and on these papers were written all the words of their language in their sev- eral moods, tenses, and declensions;, but without any order. The professor then de- sired me to observe, for he was going to set his engine at work. The pupils, at his com- mand, took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame; and, giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then commanded six and thirty of the lads to read the several lines softly, as they ap- peared upon the frame; and, where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dic- tated to the four remaining* boys who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn, the engine was so contrived that the words shifted into new places as the square bits of wood moved upside down. Six hours a day the young students were 230 THE GEEAT TEADITION employed in this labor, and the professor showed me several volumes in large folio already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended to piece together, and, out of those rich materials, to give the world a complete body of all arts and sciences; which, however, might be still improved, and much expedited, if the public would raise a fund for making and employing five hundred such frames in Lagado, and oblige the managers to contribute in common their several collections. He assured me that this invention had employed all his thoughts from his youth ; that he had emptied the whole vocabulary into his frame, and made the strictest com- putation of the general proportion there is in books between the numbers of particles, nouns, and verbs, and other parts of speech. I made my humblest acknowledgment to this illustrious person for his great commu- nicativeness; and promised, if ever I had the good fortune to return to my native country, that I would do him justice, as the sole inventor of this wonderful machine; the form and contrivance of which I de- sired leave to delineate upon paper, as in the figure here annexed. I told him, al- though it were the custom of our learned in Europe to steal inventions from each other, who had thereby, at least, this advantage, that it became a controversy which Avas the right owner, yet I would take such caution that he should have the honor entire, with- out a rival. We next went to the school of languages, where three professors sat in consultation upon improving that of their own country. The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyllables into one, and leav- ing out verbs and participles; because, in reality, all things imaginable are but nouns. The other project was a scheme for en- tirely abolishing all words whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in point of health, as well as brevity. For it is plain that every word we speak is, in some degree, a diminution of our lungs by cor- rosion ; and consequently contributes to the shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore offered, that since words are only names for things, it would be more con- venient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express the particular business they are to discourse on. And this invention would certainly have taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the subject, if the women, in con- junction with the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion, unless they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues after the manner of their forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to science are the common people. However, many of the most learned and wise adhere to the new scheme of express- ing themselves by things; which hath only this inconvenience attending it, that if a man's business be very great, and of vari- ous kinds he must be obliged, in proportion, to carry a greater bundle of things upon his back, unless he can afford one or two strong servants to attend him. I have often beheld two of these sages almost sinking under the weight of their packs, like pedlars among us ; who, when they met in the streets, would lay down their loads, open their sacks, and hold conversation for an hour together; then put up their implements, help each other resume their burdens, and take their leave. But, for short conversations, a man may carry implements in his pockets and under his arms, enough to supply him: and in his house he cannot be at a loss. Therefore the room where company meet, who practice this art, is full of all things ready at hand, requisite to furnish matter for this kind of artificial converse. Another great advantage, proposed by this invention, was, that it would serve as an universal language, to be understood in all civilized nations, whose goods and uten- sils are generally of the same kind, or nearly resembling, so that their uses might easily be comprehended. And thus ambassadors would be qualified to treat with foreign princes, or ministers of state, to whose tongues they were utter strangers. I was at the mathematical school, where the master taught his pupils after a method scarce imaginable to us in Europe. The proposition and demonstration were fairly written on a thin wafer, with ink composed of a cephalic tincture. This the student was to swallow upon a fasting stomach, and for three days following eat nothing but bread and water. As the wafer digested, the tincture mounted to his brain, bearing the proposition along with it. But the suc- cess had not hitherto been answerable, partlv by some error in the quantum or composi- tion, and partly by the perverseness of lads ; to whom this bolus is so nauseous that they generally steal aside and discharge it up- wards before it can operate ; neither have EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDER 231 they been yet persuaded to use so long an abstinence as the prescription requires. In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained; the professors ap- pearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their senses; which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These un- happy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarehs to choose favorites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of reAvarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services; of instruct- ing princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosmg for employ- ment persons qualified to exercise them ; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive; and confirmed in me the old observation that there is nothing so ex- travagant and irrational which some philos- ophers have not maintained for truth. But, however, I shall so far do justice to this part of the academy, as to acknowledge that all of them were not so visionary. There was a most ingenious doctor, who seemed to be perfectly versed in the whole nature and system of government. This illustrious person had very usefully em- ployed his studies in finding out effectual remedies for all diseases and corruptions to which the several kinds of public adminis- tration are subject, by the vices or infirmi- ties of those who govern, as well as by the licentiousness of those who are to obey. For instance, whereas all writers and reasoners have agreed that there is a strict universal resemblance between the natural and the political body; can there be anything more evident than that the health of both must be preserved, and the diseases cured by the same prescriptions. It is allowed that sen- ates and great councils are often troubled with redundant, ebullient, and other peccant humors; with many diseases of the head, and ftiore of the heart; with strong convul- sions, with grievous contractions of the nerves and sinews in both hands, but espe- cially the right ; with spleen, flatus, vertigos, and deliriums; with scrofulous tumors full of fetid purulent matter; with foul frothy ruetations, with canine appetites and crude- ness of digestion, besides many others need- less to mention. This doctor therefore pro- posed, that, upon the meeting of a senate, certain physicians should attend at the three first days of their sitting, and at the close of each day's debate, feel the pulses of every senator; after which, having maturely con- sidered, and consulted upon the nature of the several maladies and the methods of cure, they should on the fourth day return to the senate-house, attended by their apoth- ecaries stored with proper medicines; and, before the members sat, administer to each of them lenitives, aperitives, abstersives, cor- rosives, restringents, palliatives, laxatives, cephalalgics, icterics, apoijhlegmatics, acous- tics, as their several cases required ; and, ac- cording as these medicines should operate, repeat, alter, or admit them at the next meeting. This project could not be of any great ex- pense to the public, and would, in my poor opinion, be of much use for the dispatch of business in those countries where senates have any share in the legislative power; beget unanimity, shorten debates, open a few mouths which are now closed, and close many more which are now open; curb the petulancy of the young, and correct the posi- tiveness of the old, rouse the stupid, and damp the pert. Again : because it is a general complaint, that the favorites of princes are troubled with short and weak memories, the same doc- tor proposed, that whoever attended a first minister, after having told his business with the utmost brevity, and in the plainest words, should, at his departure, give the said minister a tweak by the nose, or a kick in the belly, or tread on his corns, or lug him thrice by both ears, or run a pin into his breech, or pinch his arm black and blue, to prevent f orgetf ulness ; and at every levee day, repeat the same operation, till the busi- ness were done, or absolutely refused. He likewise directed, that every senator in the great council of a nation, after he had delivered his opinion, and argued in the de- fense of it, should iDe obliged to give his vote directly contrary : because, if that were done, the result would infallibly terminate in the good of the public. When parties in a state are violent, he offered a wonderful contrivance to reconcile them. The method is this: you take an hundred leaders of each party; you dispose them into cou^^les of such whose heads are nearest of a size; then let two nice opera- tors saw off the occiput of each couple at the same time, in such a manner that the brain may be equally divided. Let the oc- ciputs thus cut off be interchanged, applying 232 THE GREAT TRADITION each to the head of his opposite party-man. It seems, indeed, to be a work that requireth some exactness, but the professor assured us that, if it were dexterously performed, the cure would be infallible. For he argued thus ; that the two half brains being left to debate the matter between themselves, within the space of one skull, would soon come to a good understanding, and produce that moderation, as well as regularity of think- ing, so much to be wished for in the heads of those who imagine they come into the world only to watch and govern its motion: and as to the difference of brains in quantity or quality, among those who are directors in faction, the doctor assured us, from his own knowledge, that it was a perfect trifle. I heard a very warm debate between two professors, about the most commodious and effectual ways and means of raising money without grieving the subject. The first af- firmed the justest method would be to lay a certain tax upon vices and folly : and the sum fixed upon every man to be rated after the fairest manner by a jury of his neigh- bors. The second was of an opinion directly contrary, to tax those qualities of body and mind for which men chiefly value them- selves ; the rate to be more or less according to the degrees of excelling: the decision whereof should be left entirely to their own breast. The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favorites of the other sex, and the assessments according to the num- ber and natures of the favors they have re- ceived; for which they are allowed to be their own vouchers. Wit, valor, and polite- ness were likewise proposed to be largely taxed, and collected in the same manner, by every person giving his own word for the quantum of what he possessed. But as to honor, justice, wisdom, and learning, they should not be taxed at all ; because they are qualifications of so singular a kind that no man will either allow them in his neighbor or value them in himself. The women were proposed to be taxed according to their beauty, and skill in dress- ing; wherein they had the same privilege with the men, to be determined by their own judgment. But constancy, chastity, good sense, and good nature were not rated, be- cause they would not bear the charge of col- lecting. To keep senators in the interest of the crown, it was proposed that the members should raffle for employments; every man first taking an oath, and giving security that he would vote for the court, whether he won or no; after which the losers had, in their turn, the liberty of raffling upon the next vacancy. Thus hope and expectation would be kept alive; none would complain of broken promises, but impute their disap- pointments wholly to Fortune, whose shoul- ders are broader and stronger than those of a ministry. 6. War [In his last voyage Gulliver comes to the country of the Houyhnhnms, in which the horses are endowed with reason and are lords and masters of creation. In character they retain the primitive simplicity of brutes, being wholly exempt from the vices and sophistication of civilized man. The real beasts of this kingdom are the Yahoos, creatures corrupt and irrational, who yet have forms of human beings. Gulliver in- forms his horse master about the state of England. From Part IV, Chapter V.] The reader may please to observe, that the following extract of many conversations I had with my master, contains a summary of the most material points, which were dis- coursed at several times, for above two years ; his Honor often desiring fuller satis- faction, as I farther improved in the Houy- hnhnm tongue. I laid before him, as well as I could, the whole state of Europe; I dis- coursed of trade and manufactures, of arts and sciences; and the answers I gave to all the questions he made, as they arose upon several subjects, were a fund of con- versation not to be exhausted. But I shall hei'e only set down the substance of what passed between us concerning my own coun- try, reducing it into order as well as I can, without any regard to time, or other cir- cumstances, while I strictly adhere to truth. My only concern is, that I shall hardly be able to do justice to my master's arguments and expressions, which must needs suffer by my want of capacity, as well as by a trans- lation into our barbarous English. In obedience, therefore, to his Honor's commands, I related to him the revolution under the Prince of Orange; the long war with France entered into by the said Prince, and renewed by his successor the present Queen, wherein the greatest powers of Christendom were engaged, and which still continued: I computed, at his request, that about a million of Yahoos might have been EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDEE 233 killed in the whole progress of it ; and, per- haiDS, a hundred or more cities taken, and five times as many ships burnt or sunk. He asked me what were the usual causes or motives that made one country go to war with another. I answered they were in- numerable ; but I should only mention a few of the chief. Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they have land or people enough to govern ; sometimes the cor- ruption of ministers, who engage their mas- ter in a war, in order to stifle or divert the clamor of the subjects against their evil ad- ministration. Difference in opinion hath cost many millions of lives : for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine ; whether whistling be a vice or vir- tue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire ; what is the best color for a coat, whether black, white, red, or gray ; and whether it should be long or short, narrow or wide, dirty or clean, with many more. Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance, as those occasioned by difference in opinion, espe- cially if it be in things indifferent. Sometimes the quarrel between two princes is to decide which of them shall dis- possess a third of his dominions, where neither of them pretend to any right. Some- times one prince quarreleth with another, for fear the other should quarrel with him. Sometimes a war is entered upon, because the enemy is too strong; and sometimes because he is too weak. Sometimes our neighbors want the things which we have, or have the things which we want ; and we both fight, till they take ours, or give us theirs. It is a very justifiable cause of a war, to invade a country, after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves. It is justifiable to enter into war against our nearest ally, when one of his towns lies con- venient for us, or a territory of land that would render our dominions round and com- plete. If a prince sends forces into a na- tion, where the people are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put half of them to death, and make slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce them from their bar- barous way of living. It is a very kingly, honorable, and frequent practice when one prince desires the assistance of another to secure him against an invasion, that the as- sistant, when he hath driven out the in- vader, should seize on the dominions himself, and kill, imprison, or banish the prince he came to relieve. Alliance by blood, or mar- riage, is a frequent cause of war between princes; and the nearer the kindred is, the greater is their disposition to quarrel : poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance. For these reasons, the trade of a soldier is held the most honorable of all others : because a soldier is a Yahoo hired to kill in cold blood as many of his own species, who had never offended him, as possibly he can. There is, likewise, a kind of beggarly princes in Europe, not able to make war by themselves, who hire out their troops to richer nations, for so much a day to each man; of which they keep three-fourths to themselves, and it is the best part of their maintenance; such are those in Germany and other northern parts of Europe. "What you have told me" (said my mas- ter) "upon the subject of war, does, indeed, discover most admirably the effects of that reason you pretend to : however, it is happy that the shame is greater than the danger; and that Nature hath left you utterly incapa- ble of doing much mischief. "For, your mouths lying flat with your faces, you can hardly bite each other to any purpose, unless by consent. Then as to the claws upon your feet before and behind, they are so short and tender, that one of our Yahoos would drive a dozen of yours before him. And, therefore, in recounting the numbers of those who have been killed in battle, I cannot but think that you have said the thing which is not." I could not forbear shaking my head, and smiling a little at his ignorance. And, being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him a description of cannon, culverins, muskets, carbines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea-fights ; ships sunk with a thousand men ; twenty thousand killed on each side; dying groans, limbs flying in the air ; smoke, noise, confusion, tramjDling to death under horses' feet; flight, pursuit, victory; fields strewed with carcases, left for food to dogs and wolves, and birds of prey; plundering, stripping, ravishing, burning, and destroy- ing. And, to set forth the valor of my OAvn dear countrymen, I assured him that I had seen them blow up a hundred enemies at 234 THE GREAT TRADITION once in a siege, and as many in a ship ; and beheld the dea* bodies come down in pieces from the clouds to the great diversion of the spectators, I was going on to more particulars when my master commanded me silence. He said, whoever understood the nature of Yahoos might easily beheve it possible for so vile an animal, to be capable of every action I had named, if their strength .aid cunning equaled their malice. But as my discourse had in- creased his abhorrence of the whole species, so he found it ga-ve him a disturbance in his mind, to which he was wholly a stranger be- fore. He thought his ears, being used to such abominable words, might, by degrees, admit them with less detestation. That although he hated the Yahoos of this coun- try, yet he no more blamed them for their odious qualities, than he did a gnnayh (a bird of prey) for its cruelty,, or a sharp stone for cutting his hoof. But when a crea- ture, pretending to reason, could be capable of such enormities, he dreaded lest the cor- ruption of that faculty might be worse than brutality itself. He seemed therefore con- fident that, instead of reason, we were only possessed of some quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill-shapen body, not only larger, but more distorted. 7. The Uses of Wealth [From A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms. Chapter VI.] My master was yet wholly at a loss to un- derstand what motives could incite this race of lawyers to perplex, disquiet, and weary themselves, and engage in a confederacy of injustice, merely for the sake of injuring their fellow-animals; neither could he com- prehend what I meant in saying, they did it for hire. Whereupon I was at much pains to describe to him the use of money, the ma- terials it was made of, and the value of the metals ; that, when a Yahoo had got a great store of this precious substance, he was able to purchase whatever he had a mind to, the finest clothing, the noblest houses, great tracts of land, the most costly meats and drinks; and have his choice of the most beautiful females. Therefore, since money alone was able to perform all these feats, our Yahoos thought they could never have enough of it to spend, or to save, as they found themselves inclined, from their nat- ural bent either to profusion or avarice. That the rich man enjoyed the fruit of the poor man's labor, and the latter were a thou- sand to one in iDroportion to the former. That the bulk of our people were forced to live miserably, by laboring every day for small wages, to make a few live plentifully. I enlarged myself much on these and many other particulars, to the same purpose, but his Honor was still to seek: for he went upon a supposition, that all animals had a title to their share in the productions of the earth; and especially those who presided over the rest. Therefore he desired I would let him know Avhat these costly meats were, and how any of us happened to want them. Whereupon I enumerated as many sorts as came into my head, with the various methods of dressing them, which could not be done without sending vessels by sea to every part of the world, as well for liquors to drink, as for sauces, and innumerable other conveniences. I assured him, that this whole globe of earth must be at least three times gone round, before one of our better female Yahoos could get her breakfast, or a cup to put it in. He said, that must needs be a miserable country, which cannot fur- nish food for its own inhabitants. But what he chiefly wondered at, was how such vast tracts of ground as I described, should be wholly without fresh water, and the people put to the necessity of sending over the sea for drink, I replied, that England (the dear place of my nativity) was computed to produce three times the quantity of food, more than its inhabitants are able to con- sume, as well as liquors extracted from grain, or pressed out of the fruit of certain trees, which made excellent drink; and the same proportion in every other convenience of life. But in order to feed the luxury and intemperance of the males, and the vanity of the females, we sent away the greatest part of our necessary things to other countries, from whence, in return, we brought the ma- terials of diseases, folly, and vice, to spend among ourselves. Hence it follows of neces- sity, that vast numbers of our people are compelled to seek their livelihood by beg- ging, robbing, stealing, cheating, forswear- ing, flattering, suborning, forging, gaming, lying, fawning, hectoring, voting, scribbling, star-gazing, poisoning, canting, libeling, free- thinking, and the like occupations : every one of which terms I was at much pains to make him understand. EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDER 235 That wine was not imported among us from foreign countries, to supply the want of water or other drinks, but because it was a sort of liquid which made us merry, by putting us out of our senses; diverted all melancholy thoughts, begat wild extravagant imaginations in the brain, raised our hopes, and banished our fears; suspended every office of reason for a time, and deprived us of the use of our limbs till we fell into a profound sleep ; although it must be con- fessed, that we always awaked sick and dispirited; and that the use of this liquor filled us with diseases, which made our lives uncomfortable and short. But, beside all this, the bulk of our people supported themselves by furnishing Uie necessities or conveniences of life to the rich, and to each other. For instance, when I am at home, and dressed, as I ought to be, I carry on my body the workmanship of an hundred tradesmen ; the building and fur- niture of my house employ as many more, and five times the number to adorn my wife. IV. PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE Woman alexander pope [From the Moral Essays^ 1735.] ! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray Can make tomorrow cheerful as today; She who can love a sister's charms, or hear Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear ; She who ne'er answers till a husband cools. Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accei)ting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humor most when she obeys ; Let Fops or Fortune fly which way they will, Disdains all loss of tickets or Codille ; Spleen, Vapors, or Smallpox, above them all. And mistress of herself, tho' china fall. And yet believe me, good as well as ill. Woman's at best a contradiction still. Heav'n when it strives to polish all it can Its last best work, but forms a softer Man ; Picks from each sex to make the fav'rite blest. Your love of pleasure, our desire of rest ; Blends, in exception to all gen'ral rules, Your taste of follies with our scorn of fools ; Reserve with Frankness, Art with Truth, allied, Courage with Softness, Modesty with Pride ; Fix'd principles, with fancy ever new : Shakes all together, and produces — You. Be this a woman's fame ; with this unblest, Toasts live a scorn, and Queens may die a jest. This Phoebus promis'd (I forget the year) When those blue eyes first open'd on the sphere ; Ascendant Phoebus watch'd that hour with care, Averted half your parents' simple prayer, And gave you beauty, but denied the pelf That buys your sex a tyrant o'er itself. The gen'rous God who wit and gold refines, And ripens spirits as he ripens mines. Kept dross for Duchesses, the world shall know it. To you gave Sense, Good-humor, and a Poet. The Golden Mean alexander pope [From The Second Epistle of the Second Book of Horace, 1737.] Yes, sir, how small soever be my heap, A part I will enjoy as well as keep. My heir may sigh, and think it want of grace A man so poor would live without a j)laee; But sure no statute in his favor says. How free or frugal I shall pass my days ; I who at some times spend, at others spare. Divided between carelessness and care. 'Tis one thing, madly to disperse my store; Another, not to heed to treasure more ; ' Glad, like a boy, to snatch the first good day, And pleas'd if sordid want be far away. What is 't to me (a passenger, God wot) Whether my vessel be first-rate or not ? The ship itself may make a better figure, But I that sail, am neither less nor bigger. I neither strut with every fav'ring breath. Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth ; In Power, Wit, Figure, Virtue, Fortune, placed Behind the foremost, and before the last. "But why all this of Av'riee? I have none." I wish you joy, sir, of a tyrant gone : But does no other lord it at this hour, As wild and mad ? the avarice of Pow'r ? 236 THE GEEAT TEADITION Does neither Rage inflame nor Fear appall ? Not the black fear of Death, that saddens all ? With terrors round, can Reason hold her throne, Despise the known, nor tremble at th' un- known ? Survey both worlds, intrepid and entire, In spite of witches, devils, dreams, and fire. Pleas'd to look forward, pleas'd to look behind. And count each birthday with a grateful mind? Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end ? Canst thou endure a foe, forgive a friend"? Has age but melted the rough parts away. As winter fruits grow mild ere they decay? Or will you think, my friend ! your bus'ness done, When of a hundred thorns you pull out one ? Learn to live well, or fairly make your will ; You've play'd and lov'd, and ate and drank, your fill. Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age Comes titt'i'ing on, and shoves you from the stage; Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, Whom Tolly pleases, and whose follies please. A Perfect Universe ALEXANDER POPE [Prom An Essay on Man, 1733-4.] Awake, my St. John ! leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man ; ^ A mighty maze ! but not without a plan ; A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscu- ' ous shoot; Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit. Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield ; I*' The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise ; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can ; 1^ But vindicate the ways of God to man. I. Say first, of God above, or man below. What can we reason, but from what we knoAv ? Of man, what see we biTt his station here From which to reason, or to which refer? 20 Through worlds unnumbered though the God be known, 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. He, who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe. Observe how system into system runs, 25 What other planets circle other suns, What varied being peoples every star, May tell Avhy Heaven has made us as we are. But of this frame the bearings, and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies, ^^ Gradations just, has thy pervading soul Looked through? or can a part contain the whole? Is the great chain, that draws all to agree. And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee? II. Presumptu.ous man! the reason wouldst thou find, ^^ Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind ? First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less? Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade? 40 Or ask of yonder argent fields above. Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove. Of systems possible, if 'tis confessed That wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must full or not coherent be, ^^ And all that rises, rise in due degree ; ■ Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain. There must be, somewhere, stich a rank as man : And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) Is only this, if God has placed him wrong ? 50 Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. In human works, though labored on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; _ In God's, one single can its end produce ; °^ Yet serves to second too some other use. So man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere un- known, Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal ; 'Tis but a part AA'e see, and not a whole. ^^ When the proud steed shall know why man restrains His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains ; When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND ORDEE 237 Is now a victim, and now Egypt's god : Then shall man's pride and dullness com- prehend 6S His actions', passions', being's, use and end ; Why doing, suffering, checked, impelled; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity. Then say not man's imperfect, Heaven in fault ; Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought : ™ His knowledge measured to his state and place, His time a moment, and a point his space. If to be perfect in a certain sphere. What matter, soon or late, or here or there ? The blest today is as completely so, "^^ As who began a thousand years ago. III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate. All but the page jDrescribed, their present state : From brutes what men, from men what spir- its know: Or who could suffer being here below? so The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play ? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food. And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Oh, blindness to the future ! kindly given, ^^ That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven : "V^^io sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall. Atoms or systems into ruin hurled. And now a bubble burst, and now a world. ^^ Hope humbly then; with trembling pin- ions soar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore. What future bliss, he gives not thee to know. But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast : ^5 Man never is, but always to be, blest. The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. Lo, the poor Indian ! whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds,' or hears him in the wind; 100 His soul, proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way ; Yet simple nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler Heaven ; Some safer world in depths of woods em- braced, 105 Some happier island in the watery waste. Where slaves once more their native land behold. No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To be, contents his natural desire. He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire ; ^^ But thinks, admitted to that equal sky. His faithful dog shall bear him company. IV. Go, wiser thou ! and, in thy scale of sense Weigh thy opinion against Providence; Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, Say, "Here he gives too little, there too much" ; Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, "If man's unhappy, God's unjust" ; If man alone engross not Heaven's high care. Alone made perfect here, immortal there, i^o Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod. Re-judge his justice, be the god of God. In pride, in reasoning- pride, our error lies ; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, 1^5 Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring* to be gods, if angels fell. Aspiring to be angels, men rebel: And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against the Eternal Cause, i^o V. Ask for Avhat end the heavenly bodies . shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, " 'Tis for mine : For me kind nature wakes her genial power. Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower ; Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew i^^ The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings ; For me, health gushes from a thousand springs ; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise ; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies." i^o But errs not Nature from this gracious end. From burning suns when livid deaths de- scend. When earthquakes swallow, or when tem- pests sweep . Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? No ('tis replied), the first Almighty Cause 238 THE GREAT TRADITION 155 Acts not by partial, but by general laws ; ^46 Til' exceptions few; some change, since all began : And what created perfect? — Why then man 1 If the great end be human happiness, ^^^ Then nature deviates; and can man do less? As much that end a constant course requires Of showers and sunshine, as of man's de- sires ; As much eternal springs and cloudless skies, As men forever temperate, calm, and wise. If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav en's design. Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline ? Who knows but He, whose hand the light- ning forms. Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms ; Pours fierce ambition in a Caesar's mind. Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? 160 From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs. Account for moral, as for natural things : Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit ? In both, to reason right is to submit. Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all harmony, all virtue here; ^^^ That never air or ocean felt the wind; That never passion discomposed the mind. But all subsists by elemental strife; And passions are the elements of life. ^'^^ The general order, since the whole began, Is kept in nature, and is kept in man. VI. What would this man"? Now up- ward will he soar. And little less than angel, would be more ; Now looking downwards, just as grieved ap- pears ■'■^^ To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. Made for his use all creatures if he call, Say what their use, had he the powers of all? Nature to these, without profusion, kind, The proper organs, proper powers assigned ; Each seeming want compensated of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force ; ■'^" All in exact proportion to the state ; Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. Each beast, each insect, happy in its own : ^^^ Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone? Shall he alone, whom rational we call. Be pleased with nothing, if not blessed with all? The bliss of man (could pride that bless- ing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind ; ^^'^ No powers of body or of soul to share. But what his nature and his state can bear. Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, man is not a fly. Say what the use, were finer optics given, l^^ T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven ? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, To smart and agonize at every pore? Or, quick effluvia darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain? 200 If nature thundered in his opening ears. And stunned him with the music of the spheres. How would he wish that Heaven had left him still The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill? Who finds not Providence all good and wise. Alike in what it gives, and what denies? ^^^ VII. Far as creation's ample range ex- tends. The scale of sensual, mental power ascends. Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race. From the green myriads in the peopled grass : 210 What modes of sight betwixt each wide ex- treme. The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam : Of smell, the headlong lioness between And hound sagacious on the tainted green : Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood. To that which warbles through the vernal wood : 216 The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine ! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line : In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew? 220 How instinct varies in the grovelling swine. Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with .thine ! 'Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier. Forever separate, yet forever near! Eemembrance and reflection how allied ; 225 What thin partitions sense from thought di- vide: And middle natures, how they long to join. Yet never pass th' insuperable line ! Without this just gradation, could they be Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? 230 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OKDEE 239 The powers of all subdued by thee alone, Is not thy reason all these powers in one ? VIII. See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth All matter quick, and bursting into birth. Above, how high, progressive life may go ! Around, how wide ! how deep extend below ! Vast chain of being ! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No giass can reach ; from infinite to thee, 240 From thee to nothing. — On superior powers Were we to press, inferior might on ours ; Or in the full creation leave a void. Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed : From nature's chain whatever link you strike, 245 Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike. And, if each system in gradation roll Alike essential to th' amazing whole. The least confusion but in one, not all That system only but the whole must fall. 250 Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly, Planets and suns run lawless through the sky; Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled, Being on being wrecked, and world on world ; Heaven's whole foundations to their center nod, 255 And nature tremble to the throne of God. All this dread order break — for whom? for thee"? Vile worm ! — Oh, madness ! pride ! impiety ! IX. What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread. Or hand, to toil, aspired to be the head*? 260 What if the head, the eye, or ear repined To serve mere engines to the ruling mind? Just as absurd for any part to claim To be another, in this general frame; Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains, The gi'eat directing Mind of all ordains. 266 All are but parts of one stupendous whole. Whose body nature is, and God the soul ; That, changed through all, and yet in all the same ; Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame; Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 2'i'i Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees. Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 275 As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; As full, as perfect, in vile man that xiiourns. As the rapt seraph that adores and burns : To him no high, no low, no great, no small ; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. X. Cease then, nor order imperfection name : 281 Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Kjiow thy own point : this kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness. Heaven bestows on thee. Submit. — In this, or any other sphere, 285 Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear: Safe in the hand of one disjDOsing Power, Or in the natal, or the mortal hour. All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; 290 All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good : And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite. One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right. Self Love and Reason alexander pope [From An Essay on Man, 1733-4] Two principles in Human Nature reign, Self-love to urge and Reason to restrain ; Nor this a good nor that a bad we call ; Each works its end, to move or govern all : And to their jaroper operation still ^ Ascribe all good, to their improper, ill. Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul ; Reason's comparing balance rules the whole. Man but for that no action could attend. And, but for this were active to no end : ^^ Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot. To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot ; Or meteor-like, flame lawless thro' the void. Destroying others, by himself destroy'd. Most strength the moving princij)le re quires ; Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires : Sedate and quiet the comparing* lies, Form'd but to check, delib'rate, and advise. Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh ; Reason's at distance and in prospect lie : 20 That sees immediate good by present sense ; Reason, the future and the consequence. Thicker than arguments, temptations throng ; 15 240 THE GEEAT TEADITION At best more watchful this, but that more strong. The action of the stronger to suspend, 25 Reason still use, to Reason still attend. Attention habit and experience gains ; Each strengthens Reason and Self-love re- strains. Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, More studious to divide than to unite ; ^0 And Grace and Virtue, Sense and Reason split, With all the rash dexterity of Wit. Wits, just like fools, at war about a name. Have full as oft no meaning, or the same. Self-love and Reason to one end aspire, 35 Pain their aversion, Pleasure their desire ; But greedy that, its object would devour; This taste the honey, and not woimd the flower : Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood. Our greatest evil or our greatest good. ^o Government alexander pope [From An Essay on Man, 1733-4] Who first taught souls enslaved, and realms undone, Th' enormous faith of many made for one ; That proud exception to all Nature's laws, T' invert the world, and counterwork its cause 1 Force first made conquest, and that conquest law; Till Superstition taught the tyrant awe. Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid, And Gods of conquerors, Slaves of subjects made. She, 'midst the lightning's blaze and thun- der's sound. When rock'd the mountains, and when groan'd the ground. She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray To PoAver unseen, and mightier far than they: She, from the rending earth and bursting skies, Saw Gods descend, and Fiends infernal rise : Here fix'd the dreadful, there the bless'd abodes ; Fear made her Devils, and weak hope her Gods; Gods, partial, changeful, passionate, un- just; Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust; Such as the souls of cowards might con- ceive, And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would be- lieve. Zeal then, not Charity, became the guide, And Hell was built on spite, and Heav'n on pride : Then sacred seem'd th' ethereal vault no more ; Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore : Then first the flamen tasted living food, Next his grim idol smear'd with human blood ; With Heav'n's own thunders shook the world below, And play'd the God an engine on his foe. So drives Self-love thro' just and thro' un- just. To one man's power, ambition, lucre, lust : The same Self-love in all becomes the cause Of what restrains him, government and laws. For, what one likes if others like as well, What serves one well, when many wills rebel? How shall he keep what, sleeping or awake, A weaker may surprise, a stronger take? His safety must his liberty restrain : All join to guard what each desires to gain. Forc'd into virtue thus by self-defence, Ev'n kings learn'd justice and benevolence: Self-love forsook the path it first pursued, And found the private in the public good. 'Twas then the studious head, or gen'rous mind. Follower of God, or friend of human kind. Poet or patriot, rose but to restore The faith and moral Nature gave before ; Relumed her ancient light, not kindled new ; If not God's image, yet his shadow drew; Taught power's due use to people and to kings, Taught nor to slack nor strain its tender strings. The less or greater set so justly true. That touching one must strike the other too; Till jarring int'rest of themselves create Th' according music of a well-mix'd state. Such is the world's great harmony, that springs From order, union, full consent of things; Where small and great, where weak and mighty made EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDER 241 To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade; More powerful each as needful to the rest, And, in proportion as it blesses, blest; Draw to one point, and to one center bring Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king. For forms of government let fools contest; Whate'er is best administer'd is best : For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right. In Faith and Hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is Charity: All must be false that thwart this one great end. And all of God that bless mankind or mend. Man, like the gen'rous vine, supported lives ; The strength he gains is from th' embrace he gives. On their own axis as the planets run, Yet made at once their circle round the sun ; So two consistent motions act the soul. And one regards itself, and one the Whole. Thus God and Nature linked the gen'ral frame. And bade Self-love and Social be the same. Equality alexander pope [From An Essay on Man, 1733-4] Order is Heav'n's first law; and, this con- fessed, Some are, and must be, greater than the rest. More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence That such are happier, shocks all common sense. Heav'n to mankmd impartial we confess, If all are equal in their happiness increase ; All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing ; Bliss is the same in subject or in king. In who obtain defence, or who defend, In him who is, or him who 'finds a friend : Heav'n breathes thro' every member of the whole One common blessing, as one common soul. But Fortune's gifts, if each alike possessed, And each were equal, must not all contest? If then to all men happiness was meant, God in externals could not place content. Virtue alexander pope [From An Essay on Man, 1733-4] Know then this truth (enough for man to know), "Virtue alone is happiness below ;" The only point where human bliss stands still, And tastes the good without the fall to ill; Where only merit constant pay receives, Is bless'd in what it takes and what it gives ; The joy unequal'd if its end it gain. And, if it lose, attended wiin no pain ; Without satiety, tho' e'er so bless'd, And but more relish'd as the more distress'd : The broadest mirth unfeeling Folly wears, Less pleasing far than Virtue's very tears : Good from each object, from each place acquired, For ever exercised, yet never tired; Never elated while one man's oppress'd; Never 'dejected while another's bless'd : And where no wants, no wishes can remain, Since but to wish more virtue is to gain. See the sole bliss Heav'n could on all bestow ; Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know: Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind. The bad must miss, the good untaught will find: Slave to no sect, who takes no i^rivate road, But looks thro' Nature up to Nature's God ; Pursues that chain which links th' immense design, Joins Heav'n and earth, and mortal, and divine ; Sees that no being any bliss can know. But touches some above and some below ; Learns from this union of the rising whole The first, last purpose of the human soul ; And knows where faith, law, morals, all began. All end, in love of God and love of ]\Ian. Men of Fire richard steele [The Tatter, No. 61 :1. Tuesday, August 30, 1709] Quicquid agunt homines — nostri est farrago libelli.^ — Juvenal. Among many phrases which have crept into conversation, especially of such eom- 1 "Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream, Our motley paper seizes for its theme." 242 THE GREAT TEADITION pany as frequent this place, there is not one which misleads men more than that of a "Fellow of a great deal of fire." This meta- phorical term, Fire, has done much good in keeping coxcombs in awe of one another; but, at the same time, it has made them troublesome to everybody else. You see in the very air of a "Fellow of Fire," some- thing so expressive of what he would be at that if it were not for self-preservation a man would laugh out. I had last night the fate to drink a bottle with two of these Firemen, who are indeed dispersed like the myrmidons in all quarters and to be met with among those of -the most different education. One of my companions was a scholar with Fire; and the other a soldier of the same complexion. My learned man would fall into disputes and argue without any manner of jDrovocation or con- tradiction: the other was decisive without words and would give a shrug or an oath to express his opinion. My learned man was a mere scholar and my man of war as mere a soldier. The particularity of the first was ridiculous, that of the second, terrible. They were relations by blood, which in some meas- ure moderated their extravagances toward each other: I gave myself up merely as a person of no note in the company ; but as if brought to be convinced that I was an in- considerable thing, any otherwise than that they would show each other to me and make me spectator of the triumph they alternately enjoyed. The scholar has been very con- versant with books and the other with men only; which makes them both superficial: for the taste of books is necessary to our behavior in the best company and the knowl- edge of men is required for a true relish of books: but they have both Fire, which makes one pass for a man of sense, the other for a fine gentleman. I found I could easily enough pass my time with the scholar: for, if I seemed not to do justice to his parts and sentiments, he pitied me, and let me alone. But the warrior could not let it rest there; I must know all that happened within his shallow observations of the nature of the war: to all which he added an air of laziness, and contempt of those of his comi3anions who were eminent for delighting in the exercise and knowledge of their duty. Thus it is that all the young fellows of much animal life and little understanding who repair to our armies usurp upon the conversation of reasonable men, under the notion of having Fire. The word has not been of greater use to shallow lovers to supply them with chat to their mistresses than it has been to pretended men of pleasure to support them in being pert and dull and saying of every fool of their order, "Such a one has Fire." There is Colonel Truncheon, who marches with di- visions ready on all occasions; a hero who never doubted in his life but is ever posi- tively fixed in the wrong, not out of obstinate opinion, but invincible stupidity. It is very unhapi^y for this latitude of London that it is possible for such as can learn only fashion, habit, and a set of com- mon phrases of salutation, to pass with no other accomplishments, in this nation of freedom, for men- of conversation and sense. All these ought to pretend to is not to offend ; but they carry it so far as to be negligent whether they oif end or not ; "for they have Fire." But their force differs from true spirit as much as a vicious from a mettle- some horse. A man of Fire is a general enemy to all the waiters where you drink; is the only man affronted at the company's being neglected; and makes the drawers abroad, his valet de chamhre and footman at home, know he is not to be provoked with- out danger. This is not the Fire that animates the noble Marinus, a youth of good nature, af- fability, and moderation. He commands his ship as an intelligence moves its orb : he is the vital life and his officers the limbs of the machine. His vivacity is seen in doing all the offices of life with readiness of spirit and propriety in the manner of doing them. To be ever active in laudable pursuits is the distinguishing character of a man of merit ; while the common behavior of every gay cox- comb of Fire is to be confidently in the wrong and dare to persist in it. A Vision of Human Life JOSEPH ADDISON [The Spectator, No. 159. September, 1711] Omnem, quae nunc obducta tuenti Mortales hebetat visus tibi, et humida circum Caligat, nubem eripiam .i — Virgil. When I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several oriental manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among others I met with one, 1 "I will take away wholly the cloud whose veil, cast over your eyes, dulls your mortal vision and darkles round you damp and thick." • — John Conington. EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS OF SANITY AND OEDEE 243 entitled The Visions of Mirzah, which I have read over with great pleasure. I intend to give it to the public when I have no other entertainment for them and shall begin with the first vision, which I have translated, word for word, as f oiiows : "On the fifth day of the moon, which, ac- cording to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed my- self and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a pro- found contemplation on the vanity of human life; and passing from one thought to an- pther. Surely, said I, man is but a shadow and life a dream. Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes toward the summit of a rock that was not far from me, Avhere I discov- ered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in his hand. As I looked upon him, he applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, and Avrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from anything I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of good men upon their first arrival in paradise, to wear out the im- pressions of the last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. My heart melted away in secret raptures. "I had been often told that the rock before me was the haunt of a genius ; and that sev- eral had been entertained with music who had passed by it, but never heard that the musician had before made himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts, by those transporting airs which he played, to taste the pleasures of his conversation, as I looked upon him like one astonished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his hand di- rected me to approach the place where he sat. I drew near with that reverence which is due to a superior nature ; and as my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had heard, I fell down at his feet and wept. The genius smiled upon me with a look of compassion and affability that familiarized him to my imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears and apprehen- sions with which I approached him. He lifted me from the ground, and taking me by the hand, Mirzah, said he, I have heard thee in thy soliloquies ; Follow me. "He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and placing me on the top of it, Cast thy eyes eastward, said he, and tell me what thou seest. I see, said I, a huge valley and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it. The valley that thou seest, said he, is the vale of misery, and the tide of water that thou seest is part of the great tide of eternity. What is the reason, said I, that the tide I see rises out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at the other? What thou seest, said he, is that jDortion of eternity which is called time, measured out by the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the world to its con- summation. Examine now, said he, this sea that is bounded with darkness at both ends, and tell me what thou dissoverest in it. I see a bridge, said I, standing in the midst of the tide. The bridge thou seest, said he, is human life ; consider it attentively. Upon a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it consisted of threescore and ten entire arches, with several broken arches, which, added to those that were entire, made up the number about an hundred. As I was counting the arches, the genius told me that this bridge consisted at first of a thousand arches; but that a great flood swept away the rest, and left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. But tell me further, said he, what thou diseoverest on it. I see multitudes of people passing over it, said I, and a black cloud hanging on each end of it. As I looked more attentively, I saw several of the passen- gers dropjoing through the bridge, into the great tide that flowed underneath it; and upon fui'ther examination, jDereeived there were innumerable trapdoors that lay con- cealed in the bridge, which the passengers no sooner trod upon but they fell through them into the tide and immediately disappeared. These hidden pitfalls were set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud but many of them fell into them. They grew thinner toAvard the middle, but multi- plied and lay closer together toward the end of the arches that were entire. "There were indeed some persons, but their number was very small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and spent with so long a walk. "I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful strtieture, and the gTeat 244 THE GEEAT TEADITION variety of objects which it presented. My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several dropping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and catching at everything that stood by them to save them- selves. Some were looking up toward the heavens in a thoughtful posture, and in the midst of a speculation stumbled and fell out of sight. Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of bubbles that glittered in their eyes and danced before them, but often when they thought themselves within the reach of them their footing failed and down they sunk. In this confusion of objects, I observed some with scimitars in their hands, who ran to and fro upon the bridge, thrust- ing several persons on trapdoors which did not seem to lie in their way, and which they might have escaped had they not been thus forced upon them. "The genius, seeing me indulge myself in this melancholy prospect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it : Take thine eyes off the bridge, said he, and tell me if thou yet seest anything thou dost not compre- hend. Upon looking up. What mean, said I, those gTeat flights of birds that are per- petually hovering about the bridge, and set- tling upon it from time to time 1 I see vul- tures, harpies, ravens, cormorants; and among many other feathered creatures sev- eral little winged boys that perch in great numbers ujDon the middle arches. These, said the genius, are envy, avarice, superstition, despair, love, with the like cares and pas- sions, that infest human life. "I here fetched a deep sigh. Alas, said I, man was made in vain ! How is he given away to misery and mortality! tortured in life, and swallowed up in death ! The genius being moved with compassion toward me, bid me quit so uncomfortable a prospect: Look no more, said he, on man in the first stage of his existence, in his setting out for eternity; but cast thine eye on that thick mist into which the tide bears the several generations of mortals that fall into it. I directed my sight as I was ordered, and (whether or no the good genius strengthened it with any supernatural force, or dissipated part of the mist that was before too thick for the eye to penetrate) I saw the valley open- ing at the further end, and spreading forth into an immense ocean, that had a huge rock of adamant running through the midst of it, and dividing it into two equal parts. The clouds still rested on one-half of it, inso- much that I could discover nothing in it, but the other appeared to me a vast ocean planted with innumerable islands, that were covered with fruits and flowers, and inter- woven with a thousand little shining seas that ran among them. I could see persons dressed in glorious habits, with garlands upon their heads, passing among the trees, lying down by the sides of fountains, or rest- ing on beds of flowers ; and could hear a con- fused harmony of singing birds, falling waters, human voices, and musical instru- ments.. Gladness grew in me upon the dis- covery of so delightful a scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle that I might fly away to those happy seats ; but the genius told me there was no joassage to them, except through the gates of death that I saw opening every moment upon the bridge. The islands, said he, that lie so fresh and green before thee, and with which the whole face of the ocean appears spotted as far as thou canst see, are more in number than the sands on the sea- shore; there are myriads of islands behind those which thou here discoverest, reaching further than thine eye or even thine imagi- nation can extend itself. These are the man- sions of good men after death, who, ac- cording to the degree and kinds of virtue in which they excelled, are distributed among these several islands, which abound with pleasures of different kinds and de- grees, suitable to the relishes and perfec- tions of those who are settled in them ; every island is a paradise accomrnodated to its respective inhabitants. Are not these, Mirzah, habitations worth contending for? Does life appear miserable, that gives thee opportunities of earning such a reward? Is death to be feared, that will convey thee to so happy an existence? Think not man was made in vain, who has such an eternity reserved for him. I gazed with inexpressi- ble pleasure on these happy islands. At length, said I, show me now, I beseech thee, the secrets that lie hid under those dark clouds which cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of adamant. The genius making me no answer, I turned about to ad- dress myself to him a second time, but I found that he had left me; I then turned again to the vision which I had been so long contemiDlating, but instead of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the happy islands, I saw nothing but the long hollow valley of Bagdat, with oxen, sheep, and camels grazing upon the sides of it." . . . THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY I. THE ERA OF REVOLUTION 1. THE NEW SYMPATHY An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard thomas gray 1 The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way. And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 2 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; 3 Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r The moping owl does to the moon com- plain Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r, Molest her ancient solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould- 'ring heap. Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing Mom, The swallow twitt'ring from the straw- ■ built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn. Or busy housewife ply her evening care : No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 7 Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ; How jocund did they drive their team afield ! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! 8 Let not Ambition mock their useful toil. Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile. The short and simple annals of the poor. 9 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r. And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 10 Nor you, ye Proud, impute to These the fault. If Mem'ry o'er their Tomb no Trophies raise, Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 11 Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath"? Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry sooth the dull cold ear of Death? 245 246 THE GEEAT TBADITION 12 Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre. 13 But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er un- roll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. 14 Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 15 Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little Tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. 16 Th' applause of list'ning senates to com- mand. The threats of pain and ruin to despise. To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land. And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes, 17 Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd ; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, 18 The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide. To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. 19 Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never leam'd to stray ; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 20 Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect. Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculp- ture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 21 Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlet- ter'd muse. The place of fame and elegy supply : And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die. 22 For who to dumb Forgetf ulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing lingering look be- hind? 23 On some fond breast the parting soul relies. Some pious drops the closing eye re- quires ; Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, Ev'n in our Ashes live their wonted Fires. 24 For thee, who mindful of th' unhonored Dead Dost in these lines their artless tale re- late; If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred Spirit shall inquire thy fate, 25 Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say, "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 247 26 "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 27 "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove, Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn, Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hope- less love. 28 "One morn I miss'd him on the customed hill. Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill. Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he ; 29 "The next with dirges due in sad array Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou can'st read) the lay, Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." The Epitaph Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth, A Youth to Fortune and to Fame un- known. Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heav'n did a recompense as largely send: He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, He gain'd from Heav'n {'twas all he wish'd) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, {There they alike in trembling hope repose) The bosom of his Father and his God. (1751) 16 The Wrongs of Man william cowper [From The Task, 1785] Of Slavery for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumor of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more. My ear is pained, 5 My soul is sick with every day's report Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart. It does not feel for man ; the natural bond Of brotherhood is severed as the flax i^ That falls asunder at the touch of fire. He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not colored like his own ; and having power T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one. Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys ; And, worse than all, and most to be de- plored 21 As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that mercy with a bleeding heart Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. ^5 Then what is man? And what man, seeing this. And having human feelings, does not blush, And hang his head, to think himself a man ? I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, ^^ And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earned. No : dear as freedom is, and in my heart's Just estimation prized above all prize, I had much rather be myself the slave, ^^ And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. We have no slaves at home — then why abroad ? And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emancipate and loosed. Slaves cannot breathe in England : if their lungs 40 Receive our air, that moment they are free; 248 THE GREAT TRADITION They touch our country, and their shackles fall. That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then And let it circulate through every vein 45 Of all your empire; that, where Britain's power Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too. The Lot of Poverty In such a world, so thorny, and where none Finds happiness unblighted, or, if found. Without some thistly sorrow at its side, ^^ It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin Against the law of love, to measure lots With less distinguished than ourselves ; that thus We may with patience bear our moderate ills, 54 And sympathize with others suffering more. Ill fares the traveler now, and he that stalks In ponderous boots beside his reeking team. The w.ain goes heavily, impeded sore By congregated loads adhering close To the clogged wheels; and in its sluggish pace ^^ Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow. The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide. While every breath, by respiration strong Forced downward, is consolidated soon Upon their jutting chests. He, formed to bear ^^ The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night. With half-shut eyes, and puckered cheeks and teeth Presented bare against the storm, plods on. One hand secures his hat, save when with both He brandishes his pliant length of whip, '^^ Resounding oft, and never heard in vain. happy; and in my account denied That sensibility of pain, with which Refinement is endued, thrice happy thou ! '^4 Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeed The piercing cold, but feels it unimpaired. The learned finger never need explore The vigorous pulse; and the unhealthful east, That breathes the spleen, and searches every bone Of the infirm, is wholesome air to thee. ^'^ Thy days roll on exempt from household care. Thy wagon is thy wife ; and the poor beasts. That drag the dull companion to and fro. Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care. Ah treat them kindly ! rude as thou appear- est, 85 Yet show that thou hast mercy! which the great. With needless hurry whirled from place to place. Humane as they would seem, not always show. Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat. Such claim compassion in a night like this, And have a friend in every feeling heart. ^^ Warmed, while it lasts, by labor, all day long They brave the season, and yet find at eve, 111 clad and fed but sparely, time to cool. The frugal housewife trembles when she lights 95 Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear. But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys. The few small embers left she nurses well; And, while her infant race, with outspread hands. And crowded knees sit cowering o'er the sparks, ' 1*^ Retires, content to quake, so they be warmed. The man feels least; as more inured than she To winter and the current in his veins More briskly moved by his severer toil ; l*'^ Yet he too finds his own distress in theirs. The taper soon extinguished, which I saw Dangled along at the cold finger's end Just when the day declined; and the brown loaf Lodged on the shelf, half eaten without sauce ^^ Of savory cheese, or butter, costlier still; Sleep seems their only refuge; for alas! Where penuiy is felt the thought is chained. And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few. With all this thrift they thrive not. All the care Ingenious parsimony takes, but just ^^ Saves the small inventory, bed, and stool, Skillet, and old carved chest, from public sale. They live, and live without extorted alms From grudging hands ; but other boast have none To soothe their honest pride, that scorns to beg, _ ^ 120 Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love. I praise you much, ye weak and patient pair, For ye are worthy ; choosing rather far A dry but independent crust, bard earned, THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCRACY 249 And eaten with a sigh, than to endure 125 The rugged frowns and insolent rebuffs Of knaves in office, partial in the work Of distribution ; liberal of their aid To clamorous Importunity in rags. But ofttimes deaf to suppliants, who would blush 130 To wear a tattered garb, however coarse, Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth : . These ask with painful shyness, and, re- fused Because deserving, silently retire ! 1^4 But be ye of good courage! Time itself Shall much befriend you. Time shall give increase And all your numerous progeny, well tramed But helpless, in few years shall find their hands, And labor too. Meanwhile ye shall not want What, conscious of your virtues, we can spare. i^o Of War Great princes have great playthings. Some have played At hewing mountains into men, and some At building human wonders mountain high. Some have amused the dull, sad years of life, • 144 (Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad) With schemes of monumental fame; and sought By pyramids and mausoleum pomp. Short-lived themselves, t' immortalize their bones. Some seek diversion in the tented field. And make the sorrows of mankind their sport. 150 But war's a game, which, were their sub- jects wise. Kings would not play at. Nations would do well T' extort their truncheons from the puny hands Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds i^* Are gTatified with mischief, and who spoil, Because men suffer it, their toy the world. Of Tyranny Then shame to manhood, and opprobri- ous more To France than all her losses and defeats, Old or of later date, by sea or land. Her house of bondage, worse than that of old 160 Which God avenged on Pharaoh — the Bas- tile. Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts ; Ye dungeons and ye cages of despair. That monarchs have supplied from age to age With music, such as suits their sovereign ears, i^^ The sighs and groans of miserable men! There's not an English heart that would not leap To hear that ye were fallen at last ; to know That e'en our enemies, so oft employed In forging chains for us, themselves were free. i^o For he who values Liberty, confines His zeal for her predominance within No narrow bounds; her cause engages him Wherever pleaded. 'Tis the cause of man. There dwell the most forlorn of human kind. Immured though unaccused, condemned un- tried. 176 Cruelly spared, and hopeless of escape. There, like the visionary emblem seen By him of Babylon, life stands a stump. And, filleted about with hoops of brass. Still lives, though all his pleasant boughs are gone 1^1 To count the hour-bell and expect no change ; And ever as the sullen sound is heard. Still to reflect, that, though a joyless note To him whose moments all have one dull pace, 185 Ten thousand rovers in the world at large Account it music; that it summons some To theater or jocund feast or ball ; The wearied hireling finds it a release i^^ From labor; and the lover, who has chid Its long delay, feels every welcome stroke Upon his heart-strings, trembling with de- light- To fly for refuge from distracting thought To such amusements as ingenious woe Contrives, hard-shifting, and without her tools— 195 To read engraven on the mouldy walls. In staggering types, his predecessor's tale, A sad memorial, and subjoin his own — To turn purveyor to an overgorged i^^ And bloated spider, till the pampered pest Is made familiar, watches his approach, 250 THE GEEAT TRADITION Comes at his call and serves him for a friend — To Avear out time in numbering to and fro The studs, that thick emboss his iron door ; Then downward and then ujDward, then aslant 2°^ And then alternate ; Avith a sickly hope By dint of change to give his tasteless task Some relish; till the sum, exactly found In all directions, he begins again — 209 Oh comfortless existence ! hemmed around With woes^ which who that suffers would not kneel And beg for exile, or the pangs of death "? That man should thus encroach on fellow- man, Abridge him of his just and native rights, Eradicate him, tear him from his hold 215 Upon the endearments of domestic life And social, ni^D his fruitfulness and use, And doom him for perhaps a heedless word To barrenness, and solitude, and tears, 219 Moves indignation, makes the name of king (Of king whom such prerogative can please) As dreadful as the Manichean god : Adored through fear, strong only to de- stroy. 'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its luster and perfume ; 225 And we are weeds without it. All constraint, Except Avhat wisdom lays on evil men, Is evil : hurts the faculties, impedes Their progress in the road of science, blinds The eyesight of Discovery ; and begets, 230 In those that suffer it, a sordid mind, Bestial, a meager intellect, unfit To be the tenant of man's noble form. Thee therefore still, blame-worthy as thou art With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezed 235 By public exigence, till annual food Falls for the craving hunger of the state, Thee I account still happy, and the chief Among the nations, seeing thou art free ; 239 My native nook of earth ! Thy Clime is rude, Eeplete with vapors, and disposes much All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine : Thine unadulterate manners are less soft And plausible than social life requires. And thou hast need of discipline and art, 245 To give thee what politer France receives From nature's bounty — that humane address And sweetness, without which no pleasure is In converse, either starved by cold reserve, Or flushed with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl; 250 Yet being free I love thee : for the sake Of that one feature can be well content, Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art. To seek no sublunary rest beside. But, once enslaved, farewell! I could en- dure 255 Chains nowhere patiently; and chains at home Where I am free by birthright, not at all. Then what were left of roughness in the grain Of British natures, wanting its excuse 259 That it belongs to freemen, would disgust And shock me. I should then with double pain Feel all the rigor of thy fickle clime And if I must bewail the blessing lost, For which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled, I would at least bewail it under skies 265 Milder, among a people less austere, In scenes which, having never known me free, Would not reproach me with the loss I felt. Do I forebode impossible events. And tremble at vain dreams ? Heaven grant I may. 270 But th' age of virtuous politics is past, And we are deep in that of cold pretence. Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere. And we too wise to trust them. He that takes Deep in his soft credulity the stamp 275 Designed by loud declaimers on the part Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust, Incurs derision for his easy faith. And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough : For when was public virtue to be found 280 Where private was not? Can he love the whole Who loves no part ? He be a nation's friend, Who is in truth the friend of no man there ? Can he be strenuous in his country's cause. Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake 285 That country, if at all, must be beloved ? 'Tis therefore sober and good men are sad For England's glory, seeing it wax pale And sickly, while her champions wear their hearts So loose to private duty, that no brain, 290 Healthful and undisturbed by factious fumes. THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 251 Can dream them trusty to the general weal. Such were not they of old, whose tempered blades Dispersed the shackles of usurped control, And heAved them link from link; then Al- bion's sons 295 Were sons indeed : they felt a filial heart Beat high within them at a mother's wrongs ; And, shining each in his domestic sphere, Shone brighter still, once called to public view. 299 'Tis therefore many, whose sequestered lot Forbids their interference, looking on. Anticipate jDerforce some dire event ; And, seeing the old castle of the state. That promised once more firmness, so as- sailed, 304 That all its tempest-beaten turrets shake, Stand motionless, expectant of its fall. All has its date below; the fatal hour Was registered in heaven ere time began. We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works ^^^ Die too : the deep foundations that we lay. Time ploughs them up, and not a trace re- mains. We build with what we deem eternal rock: A distant age asks where the fabric stood; And in the dust, sifted and searched in vain, The undiscoverable secret sleeps. ^15 My Country England, with all thy faults I love thee still— My country ! and while yet a nook is left, Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime 319 Be fickle, and thy year most part deformed With dripping rains, or withered by a frost, I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies. And fields without a flower, for warmer France With all her vines ; nor for Ausonia's groves Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers. To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime 326 Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire Upon thy foes, was never meant my task : But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake Thy joys and sorrows, with as true a heart As any thunderer there. And I can feel Thy follies too ; and with a just disdain, 332 Frown at effeminates, whose very looks Reflect dishonor on the land I love. How, in the name of soldiership and sense, Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth And tender as a girl, all essenced o'er With odors, and as profligate as sweet Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath, And love when they should fight ; when such as these 340 Presume to lay their hands upon the ark Of her magnificent and awful cause ? Time was when it was praise and boast enough In every clime, and travel where we might, That we were born her children. Praise enough 345 To fill th' ambition of a private man, That Chatham's language was his mother tongue, And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own. Farewell those honors, and farewell with them The hope of such hereafter! They have fallen 350 Each in his field of glory; one in arms. And one in council — Wolfe upon the lap Of Smiling Victory that moment won, And Chatham heart-sick of his country's shame ! 354 They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still Consulting England's happiness at home, Secured it by an unforgiving frown. If any wronged her. Wolfe, where'er he fought. Put so much of his heart into his act, 359 That his example had a magnet's force. And all were swift to follow whom all loved. Those suns are set. rise some other such ! Or all that we have left is empty talk Of old achievements, and despair of new. The Reality of Humble Liee GEORGE CRABBE [From The Village, 1783] The Village Life, and every care that reigns O'er youthful peasants and declining swains ; What labor yields, and what, that labor past. Age, in its hour of languor, finds at last; What form the real Picture of the Poor, ^ Demand a song — the Muse can give no more. Fled are those times, when, in harmonious strains, 252 THE GREAT TRADITION The rustic poet praised his native plains : No shepherds now, in smooth alternate verse, Their country's beauty or their nymphs re- hearse ; ■'■^ Yet still for these we frame the tender strain, Still in our lays fond Corydons complain. And shepherds' boys their amorous pains reveal, The only pains, alas ! they never feel. On Mincio's banks, in Caesar's bounteous reign, ^^ If Tityrus found the Golden Age again, Must sleepy bards the flattering dream pro- long, Mechanic echoes of the Mantuan song? From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray, Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way? 20 Yes, thus the Muses sing of happy swains. Because the Muses never knew their pains : They boast their peasants' pipes; but peas- ants now Resign their pipes and plod behind the plow ; And few, amid the rural tribe, have time 25 To number syllables, and play with rime ; Save honest Duck, what son of verse could share The poet's rapture and the peasant's care? Or the great labors of the field degrade, With the new peril of a poorer trade? 20 From this chief cause these idle praises spring, That themes so easy few forbear to sing; For no deep thought the trifling subjects ask; To sing of shepherds is an easy task; The happy youth assumes the common strain, ^^ A nymph his mistress, and himself a swain ; With no sad scenes he clouds his tuneful prayer, But all, to look like her, is painted fair. I grant indeed that fields and flocks have charms For him that grazes or for him that farms ; '^ But when amid such pleasing scenes I trace The poor laborious natives of the place, And see the mid-day sun, with fervid ray. On their bare heads and dewy temples play ; While some, with feebler heads, and fainter hearts 45 Deplore their fortune, yet sustain their parts — Then shall I dare these real ills to hide. In tinsel trappings of poetic pride? No ; cast by Fortune on a frowning coast, Which neither groves nor happy valleys boast ; 50 Where other cares than those the Muse re- lates, And other shepherds dwell with other mates ; By such examples taught, I paint the Cot, As Truth will paint it, and as Bards will not: Nor you, ye poor, of lettered scorn com- plain, 55 To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain ; O'eroome by labor, and bowed down by time, Feel you the barren flattery of a rime? Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread. By winding myrtles round your ruined shed? 60 Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower. Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?- Lo ! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er, Lends the light turf that warms the neigh- boring poor From thence a length of burning sand ap- pears. 65 Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears. Rank weeds, that every art and care defy. Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye ; There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar. And to the ragged infant threaten war; '^'^ There poppies, nodding, mock the hope of toil, There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil ; Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf. The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf; O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade, '^5 And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade ; With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound. And a sad splendor vainly shines around. So looks the nymph whom wretched arts adorn, Betrayed by man, then left for man to scorn ; 80 THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCRACY 258 Whose cheek in vain assumes the mimic rose, While her sad eyes the troubled breast dis- close : Whose outward splendor is but folly's dress, Exposing most when most it gilds distress. Here joyless roam a wild amphibious race, ^^ With sullen woe displayed in every face; Who, far from civil arts and social fly. And scowl at strangers with suspicious eye. Here too the lawless merchant of the main Draws from his plow the intoxicated swain ; ^0 Want only claimed the labor of the day, But vice now steals his nightly rest away. Where are the swains, who, daily labor done, With rural games played down the setting sun; Who struck with matchless force the bound- ing ball, ^^ Or made the ponderous quoit obliquely fall ; While some huge Ajax, terrible and strong, Engaged some artful stripling of the throng. And fell beneath him, foiled, while far around Hoarse triumph rose, and rocks returned the sound? lOO Where now are these"? — Beneath yon cliff they stand. To show the freighted pinnace where to land ; To load the ready steed with guilty haste. To fly in terror o'er the pathless waste. Or, when detected, in their straggling course, 105 To foil their foes by cunning or by force ; Or, yielding part (which equal knaves de- mand), To gain a lawless passport through the land. The Cotter's Satueday Night inscribed to robert aiken, esq. robert burns Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys and destiny obscure ; Nor Qrandeur hear with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor. Gray. My lov'd, my honor'd, much respected friend ! No mercenary bard his homage pays; With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end: My dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise : To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays. The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene ; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;_ What Aiken in a cottage would have been ; Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween! November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh,i The short'ning winter day is near a close ; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh. The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose ; The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes,— This night his weekly moil is at an end, — Collects his spades, his mattocks and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend. And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. At length his lonely cot appears in view. Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, staeher^ through To meet their dad, wi' flichterin^ noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle,^ blinkin bonilie. His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile. The lisping infant prattling on his knee. Does a' his weary kiaugh^ and care be- guile. An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil. Beljrve,^ the elder bairns come drappin in. At service out amang the farmers roun' ; Some ca'^ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie^ rin * sound * fire-place ' drive ' stagger " anxiety * careful ' fluttering « presently 254 THE GREAT TEADITION A cannie errand to a neibor toun: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman- grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her ee, Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw^ new gown, Or deposite her sair-won^O penny-fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hard- ship be. With joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers :^^ The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd fleet; Each tells the ur'xosi^ that he sees or hears. The loarents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; Anticipation forward points the view ; The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears, Garsi^ auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 6 Their master's an' their mistress's com- mand The younkers a' are warned to obey; An' mind their labors wi' an eydenti* hand, An' ne'er tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play: "An' ! be sure to fear the Lord alway, An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night ! Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and assisting might : They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright !" But hark ! a rap comes gently to the door. Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. »fine 1" hard-won " asks " makes " odds and ends " diligent The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's ee, and flush her cheek ; Wi' heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name. While Jenny hafflins ^^ is afraid to speak ; Weel pleas'd the mother hears it's nae wild worthless rake. Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben,i6 A strappin youth ; he takes the mother's eye; Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill taen ; The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.i''' The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy. But, blate ^^ and laithfu',19 scarce can weel behave ; The mother wi' a woman's wiles can spy What maks the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave, Weel-pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.^o 9 happy love! where love like this is found ! heart-felt raptures ! bliss beyond com- pare! I've paced much this weary, mortal round. And sage exijerience bids me this de- clare — "If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare. One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale." 10 Is there, in human form, that bears a heart, A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth ! That can with studied, sly, ensnaring art partly within " cows '* shy " bashful » rest THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 255 Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting ■ youth? Curse on his perjur'd arts ! dissembling smooth ! Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exil'd? \s there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child, Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their dis- traction wild? 11 But now the supper crowns their simple board, The halesome parritch,2i chief of Sco- tia's food; The sowpe22 their only hawkie^^ does af- ford, That yont 24 the hallan 25 snugly chows her cud. The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd 26 keb- buck fell,27 An' aft 28 he's prest, an' aft he ea's it guid; The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell. How 'twas a towmond 2& auld, sin' lint 30 was i' the bell. 12 The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face. They round the ingle form a circle wide; The sire turns o'er with patriarchal grace The big ha'-bible,^! ance his father's pride ; His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside. His lyart32 haffets^S wearing thin and bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide. He wales ^^ a portion with judicious care ; And, "Let us worship God," he says with solemn air. 13 They chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim : =1 porridge -" well-saved " hall Bible ^2 milk ^ strong cheese ^^ gray ^ cow =s often ^^ locks ^ beyond -s twelve-month ^ chooses ^5 partition 3" since flax Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise, Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name. Or noble Elgin beets ^^ the heaven-ward flame. The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays. Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame; The tickl'd ear no heart-felt raptures raise ; Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 14 The priest-like father reads the sacred page,— How Abram was the friend of God on high ; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;_ Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 15 Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, — How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in heav'n the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay His head: How His first followers and servants sped ; The precepts sage they wrote to many a land; How he, who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heav'n's command. 16 Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays : ^^ incites, kindles 256 THE GEEAT TEADITION Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing," That thus they all shall meet in future days : There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear. Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear. While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere. 17 Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display to congregations wide Devotion's ev'ry grace except the heart ! The pow'r, incens'd, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; But haply in some cottage far apart May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul. And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol. 18 Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest ; The parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request, That He, who stills the raven's clam'- rous nest And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best. For them and for their little ones pro- vide; But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. 19 From scenes like these old Scotia's gran- deur springs, That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad : Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, '■'An honest man's the noblest work of God" : And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind : What is a lordling's pomp ? a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness re- fin'd! 20 Scotia ! my dear, my native soil ! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content ! And, oh ! may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile ! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much- lov'd isle. 21 Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide That stream'd thro' Wallace's un- daunted heart, Who dar'd to nobly stem tyrannic pride. Or nobly die, the second glorious part, — (The patriot's God peculiarly thou art. His friend, insj^irer, guardian, and re- ward ! ) never, never Scotia's realm desert, But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard ! A Winter Night ROBERT BURNS Poor naked wretches, -wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm ! How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these V — Shakespeare. When biting Boreas, fell and doure,'^ Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r; When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r^ Far south the lif t,^ Dim-dark'ning through the flaky show'r, Or whirling drift : Ae night the storm the steeples rocked, Poor labor sweet in sleep was locked. • keen and severe * stare 'sky THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 257 While burns,* wi' snawy wreaths up-choked, ^ild-eddying savu'1, Or thro' the minmg outlet boeked,^ Down headlong hurl. 'List'ning' the doors an' winnocks rattle, I thought me on the ourie ^ cattle, Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle ^ 0' winter war. And thro' the drift, deep-lairing sprattle,® Beneath a seaur.^ Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing ! That, in the merry months o' sprmg. Delighted me to hear thee sing. What comes o' thee? Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing, An' close thy e'e? Ev'n you, on murd'ring errands toil'd, 'Lone from your savage homes exil'd, The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoil'd My heart forgets, While pitiless the tempest wild Sore on you beats. Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign, Dark-muffl'd, view'd the dreary plain j Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train, Rose in my soul, When on my ear this plaintive strain, Slow, solemn, stole : — "Blow, blow, ye winds with heavier gust ! And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost ! Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows ! Not all your rage, as now united, shows More hard unkindness unrelenting, Vengeful malice unrepenting. Than heav'n-illumin'd man on brother man bestows. "See stern oppression's iron grip, Or mad ambition's goi-y hand. Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip. Woe, want, and murder o'er a land ! Ev'n in the peaceful rural vale. Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale. How pamper'd luxury, flatt'ry by her side. The parasite empoisoning- her ear. With all the servile wretches in the rear. Looks o'er proud property, extended wide: And eyes the simple rustic hind, Whose toil upholds the giitt'ring show, A creature of another kind. * streams ^ vomited ^ shivering ^ scramble ' noisy onset ° cliff Some coarser substance unrefin'd, Plac'd for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below. "Where, where is love's fond, tender throe, With lordly honor's lofty brow. The powers you proudly own ? Is there, beneath love's noble name. Can harbor, dark, the selfish aim. To bless himself alone? Mark maiden-innocence a prey To love-pretending snares; This boasted honor turns away, Shunning soft pity's rising sway. Regardless of the tears and unavaiUng pray'rs ! Perhaps, this hour, in luis'ry's squalid nest. She strains your infant to her joyless breast,-? - And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast ! "Oh ye ! who, sunk in beds of down. Peel n"t)t a want but what yourselves creiate, Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate, Whom friends and fortune quite dis- own ! Ill-satisfied keen nature's elam'rous call, Stretch'd on his straw he lays himself to sleep. While thro' the ragged roof and chinky wall. Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap ! Think on the dungeon's grim confine. Where guilt and poor misfortune puie ! Guilt, errmg man, relenting view! But shall thy legal rage pursue The wretch, already crushed low By cruel fortune's undeserved blow? Affliction's sons are brothers in distress, A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss !" I heard nae mair, for chanticleer Shook off the pouthery snaw. And hail'd the morning with a cheer — A cottage-rousing craw. But deep this truth impress'd my mind — - Through all His works abroad. The heart benevolent and kind The most resembles God. 258 THE GEEAT TRADITION A Man's a Man for A' That ROBERT BURNS Is there, for honest poverty, That hmgs his head, an' a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that ! For a' that, an' a' that, Our toils obscure, an' a' that; The rank is but the guinea's stamp ; The man's the gowd ^ for a' that. What tho' on hamely fare we dine, Wear hodden-gray,^ an' a' that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man's a man for a' that. For a' that, an' a' that. Their tinsel show, an' a' that; The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, Is king o' men for a' that. Ye see yon birkie,^ ca'd a lord, Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that; Tho' hundreds worship at his word, He's but a eoof * for a' that : For a' that, an' a' that, His riband, star, an' a' that, The man o' independent mind. He looks and laughs at a' that. A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, an' a' that ; But an honest man's aboon ^ his might, Guid faith he mauna fa' ^ that ! For a' that, an' a' that. Their dignities, an' a' that, The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth. Are higher rank than a' that. Then let us pray that come it may. As come it will for a' that. That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree,''' an' a' that. For a' that, an' a' that, It's coming yet, for a' that. That man to man, the warld o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that. The Twa Dogs robert burns 'Twas in that place o' Scotland's isle, That bears the name o' Auld King Coil, Upon a bonnie day in June, ^ gold . ^ young fellow ^ cannot accom- 2 coarse gray * fool plish cloth 6 above ' prize When wearing thro' the afternoon, Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame, Forgather'd ance upon a time. The first I'll name, they ca'd him Caesar, Was keepit for his Honor's pleasure; His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,^ Shew'd he was nane o' Scotland's dogs; But whalpit - some place far abroad, Whare sailors gang to fish for cod. His locked, letter'd, braw^ brass collar Shew'd him the gentleman and scholar; But tho' he was o' high degree, The fient * a pride — nae pride had he. But wad hae spent an hour earessin', Even wi' a tinkler-gypsey's messan.^ At kirk or market, mill or smiddie,^ Nae tawted''' tyke,^ tho' e'er sae duddie,^ But he wad stan't, as glad to see him, And stroan't on stanes an' hillocks wi' him. The tither was a plowman's collie, A rhyming, ranting, raving billie, Wha for his friend an' comrade had him, And in his freaks had Luath ca'd him. After some dog in Highland sang, Was made lang-syne — Lord knows how lang. He was a gash ^° an' faithfu' tyke, As ever lap a sheugh ^^ or dyke. His honest, sonsie, baws'nt ^- face. Aye gat him friends in ilka place. His breast was white, his towzie back Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black; His gaucie ^^ tail, Avi' upward curl, Hung owre his hurdles ^"^ wi' a swirl. Nae doubt but they were fain' o' ither. An' unco pack an' thick thegither; Wi' social nose whyles snutf'd and snowkit; Whyles mice an' moudieworts ^^ they how- kit; i« Whyles scour'd awa' in lang excursion. An' worry'd ither in diversion ; Until wi' daffln ^'^ weary grown, Upon a knowe^s they sat them down And there began a lang digression About the lords o' the creation. Caesar I've aften wonder'd, honest Luath, What sort o' life poor dogs like you have; ^ ear ■^ with m atted *- white-streaked - whelped hair " big and joyous = fine ' cur " haunches 4 devil " ragged 1^ moles ^ cur ^^ wise ^^ digged " smithy " ditch " larking 18 knoll THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 259 An' when the gentry's life I saw, What way poor bodies liv'd ava. Our Laird gets in his racked rents. His coals, his kain,^^ an' a' his stents; He rises when he likes himsel; His flunkies answer at the bell ; He ca's his coach, he ca's his horse; He draws a bonnie silken purse As lang's my tail, whare, thro' the steeks,^*' The yellow-letter'd Geordie keeks,^^ Frae morn to e'en it's nought but toiling, At baking, roasting, frying, boiling; An' tho' the gentry first are stechin,-- Yet ev'n the ha' folk fill their pechan -^ Wi' sauce, ragouts, an' sic-like trashtrie, That's little short o' downright wastrie. Our whii^per-in, wee blastit wonner,^* Poor worthless elf, it eats a dinner Better than ony tenant man His Honor has in a' the Ian'; An' what poor cot-folk pit their paineh in, I own it's past my comprehension. Luath Trowth, Caesar, whiles they're fasht^^ eneugh ; A cotter howkin in a sheugh, Wi' dirty stanes biggin a dyke. Baring a quarry, an' sie like ; Himsel, a wife, he thus sustains, A smytrie -^ o' wee duddie weans. An' nought but his han' darg,-'' to keep Them right an' tight in thack an' rape.-^ An' when they meet wi' sair disasters, Like loss o' health or want o' masters, Ye maist wad think, a wee touch langer. An' they maun starve o' cauld an' hunger : But, how it comes, I never kenn'd yet, They're maistly wonderf u' contented : And buirdly chiels,-'' an' clever hizzies, Are bred in sic a way as this is. Caesar But, then, to see how ye're negleekit, How hutf'd, and cuff' d, and disrespekit ! L — d, man, our gentiy care as little For delvers, ditchers, an' sic cattle; They gang as saucy by poor folk As I wad by a stinkin' brock.^" I've notic'd, on our Laird's court-day, '* rents ^ stomach " labor =» stitches -* wonder =s roof 2^ peeps 2^ worried 2» stalwart folks =» stuffing ^ litter '» badger An' mony a time my heart's been wae, Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash. How they maun thole a factor's snash,=*i He'll stamp and threaten, curse an' swear. He'll apprehend them, poind their gear; While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble, And hear it a', an' fear an' tremble I I see how folk live that hae riches : But surely poor folk maun be wretches? Luath They're no sae wretched's ane wad think Tho' constantly on poortith's brink; They're sae accustom'd wi' the sight. The view o't gies them little fright. Then chance an' fortune are sae guided. They're aye in less or mair provided; An' tho' fatigued wi' close employment, A blink o' rest's a sweet enjoyment". The dearest comfort o' their lives. Their grushie weans ^" an' f aithf u' wives ; The prattling things are just their pride That sweetens a' their fire-side; An' whyles twalpennie worth o' nappy ^^ Can mak the bodies unco happy; They lay aside their private cares. To mind the Kirk and State affairs: They'll talk o' patronage an' priests, Wi' kindling fury in their breasts; Or tell what new taxation's comin', An' f erlie ^^ at the folk in Lon'on. As bleak-fae'd Hallowmass returns They get the jovial, ranting kirns,^^ When rural life, o' ev'ry station. Unite in common recreation; Love blinks. Wit slaps, an' social Mirth Forgets there's Care upo' the earth. That merry day the year begins They bar the door on frosty win's; The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream. And sheds a heart-inspirmg steam; The luntin ^^ pipe, an' sneeshin mill,^^ Are handed round wi' right guid will; The cantie auld folks craekin' crouse,^^ The young anes rantin thro' the house, — My heart has been sae fain to see them. That I for joy hae barkit wi' them. Still it's owre true that ye hae said, Sic game is now owre aften play'd. There's mony a creditable stock ^^ abuse ** wonder " snuff-box =2 growing chil- ^= harvest-homes '* talking In a dren ^ smoking lively manner ^ale 260 THE GEEAT TRADITION 0' decent, honest, fawsont^^ folk Are riven out baitli root and branch, Some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench, Wha thuiks to knit himsel the faster In favor wi' some gentle master, Wha aiblms,*° thrang a parliamentin'. For Britain's guid his saul indentin' — Caesar Haith, lad, ye little ken about it; For Britain's guid! guid faith! I doubt it. Say, rather, gaun as Premiers lead him, An' saying ay or no's they bid him At operas an' plays parading. Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading; Or maybe, in a frolic daft. To Hague or Calais taks a waft. To mak a tour, an' tak a whirl. To learn hon ton, an' see the worl'. There, at Vienna or Versailles, He rives his father's auld entails; Or by Madrid he taices the route. To thrum guitars, an' fecht wi'.nowte;*^ Or down Italian vista startles. Whore-hunting amang gi'oves o' myrtles; Then bouses drumly*- German water. To mak himsel look fair and fatter, And clear the consequential sorrows, Love gifts of Carnival signoras. For Britain's guid ! — for her destruction ! Wi' dissipation, feud, an' faction! Liiatli Heeh man ! dear sirs ! is that the gate They waste sae mony a braw estate! Are we sae foughten an' harass'd For gear*2 to gang that gate** at last! would they stay aback frae Courts, An' please themsels wi' countra sports, It wad for ev'iy ane be better. The Laird, the Tenant, and the Cotter! For thae frank, rantin' ramblin' billies, Fient haet*^ o' them 's ill-hearted fellows; Except for breakin' o' their timmer. Or speakin' lightly o' their limmer,*® Or shootin' o' a hare or" moorcock, The ne'er a bit they're ill to poor folk. But will you tell me, Master Caesar, Sure great folk's life's a life o' pleasure? Nae eauld nor hunger e'er can steer them, The vera thought o't needna fear them. Caesar Lord, man, were ye but whyles whare I '* decent *" perhaps " fight with bulls *^ muddy '-^ goods M way <»Fiend have It, none " mistress The gentles, ye wad ne'er envy 'em. It's true they needna starve nor sweat, Thro' winter's cauld, or simmer's heat; They've nae sair wark to craze their banes, An' fill auld age wi' g-rips an' granes: But human bodies are sic fools. For a' their colleges and schools. That when nae real ills perplex them, They mak enow themsels to vex them; An' aye the less they hae to sturt them, In like proportion, less will hurt them. A countra fellow at the pleugh. His acres till'd, he's right eneugh; A countra girl at her wheel, Her dizzens *^ done, she's unco weel : But gentlemen, an' ladies warst, Wi' ev'ndown want o' wark are curst. They loiter, lounging, lank, an' lazy; Tho' deil-haet ails them, yet uneasy ; Their days insipid, dull, an' tasteless; Their nights unquiet, lang, an' restless; An' e'en their sports, their balls an' races, Their galloping thro' public places. There's sic parade, sic pomp, an' art. The joy can scarcely reach the heart. The men cast out in party-matches, Then sowther*^ a' in deep debauches; Ae night, they're mad wi' drink and whoring, Niest day their life is past enduring. The ladies arm-in-arm in clusters. As great an' gracious a' as sisters; But hear their absent thoughts o' ither. They're a' run deils an' jads thegither. Whyles, owre the wee bit cup an' platie. They sip the scandal potion pretty : Or lee-lang nights,* wi' crabbit leuks Pore owre the devil's pictur'd beuks; Stake on a chance a farmei''s stackyard. An' cheat like ony unhang'd blackguard, There's some exception, man an' woman; But this is gentry's life in common. By this, the sun was out o' sight, An' darker gloaming brought the night : The bum-clock*^ humm'd wi' lazy drone ; The kye^° stood rowtin i' the loan^^ : When up they gat, and shook their lugs, Rejoic'd they were na men, but dogs; An' each took aff his several way, Resolv'd to meet some ither day. (1786) •^^ dozens ^^ solder •''' humming beetle °^ lane =0 cattle THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 261 To A Mouse On Turning Up Her Nest with the Plow, November^ 1785 ROBERT BURNS Wee, sleekit,^ eowrin, tim'rous beastie, Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty Wi' bickerin ^ brattle ! ^ I wad be laith * to rin an' chase thee Wi' murd'rin pattle ! ^ I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken nature's social union, An' justifies that ill opinion Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion, An' fellow-mortal! I doubt na, whyles,^ but thou may thieve : What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A dahnen ^ icker ^ in a thrave ^ 'S a sma' request; I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,^° An' never miss 't! Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin ! Its silly wa's the win's are strewin ! An' naething, now, to big^^ a new ane, 0' f oggage ■^- green ! An' bleak December's winds ensuin Baith snell ^^ an' keen ! Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste. An' weary winter comin fast,. An' cozie here beneath the blast Thou thought to dwell, Till crash ! the cruel coulter past Out thro' thy cell. G That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! Now thou's turn'd out for a' thy trouble. But ^* house or hald. To thole ^^ the winter's sleety dribble An' cranreuch ^^ cauld ! * sleek ^ hurrying ' scamper Moth " paddle ' sometimes ' occasional ' ear of grain ' twenty-four sheaves " rest n build '2 rank grass ^^ piercing " without ^' endure ^^ hoar-frost But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane^^ In proving foresight may be vain : The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley,^^ An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain For promis'd joy. 8 Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me! The present only toucheth thee: But, oeh! I backward cast my ee On prospects drear! An' forward, tho' I canna see, I guess an' fear! Macpherson's Farewell robert burns Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, The wretch's destinie ! Macpherson's time will not be long On yonder gallows-tree. Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, Sae dauntingly gaed he; He play'd a spring,^ and danc'd it round. Below the gallows-tree. Oh ! what is death but parting breath ? — On mony a bloody plain I've dar'd his face, and in this place I scorn him yet again ! Untie these bands from oif my hands, And bring to me my sword ! And there's no a man in all Scotland But I'll brave him at a word. I've liv'd a life of sturt and strife; I die by treaeherie: It burns my heart I must depart, And not avenged be. Now farewell light — thou sunshine bright, And all beneath the sky ! May coward shame distain his name, The wretch that dare not die ! ' lone dance tune 262 THE GEEAT TEADITION A Dream ROBERT BURNS Thoughts, words, and deeds, the statute blames with reason ; But surely dreams were ne'er indicted treason. On reading, in the public papers, the Lau- reate's Ode, with the other parade of June 4, 1786, the author was no sooner dropt asleep than he imagined himself transported to the birthday levee ; and in his dreaming fancy made the fol- lowing address. — Burns. Guid-mornin' to your Majesty! May Heav'n augment your blisses, On ev'ry new birthday ye see, A liumble poet wishes! My bardship here, at your levee. On sic a day as this is, Is sure an uncouth sight to see, Amang thae birthday dresses Sae fine this day. I see ye're complimented thrang,^ By mony a lord an' lady; "God save the king !" 's a cuckoo sang That's unco easy said aye; The poets, too, a venal gang, Wi' rhymes weel-turn'd and ready, Wad gar you trow ye ne'er do wrang. But aye unerring steady. On sic a day. For me, before a monarch's face, Ev'n there I winna flatter; For neither pension, post, nor place, Am I your humble debtor: So, nae reflection on your grace. Your kingship to bespatter; There's mony waur^ been o' the race, And aiblins ane been better Than you this day. 'Tis very true, my sov'reign king. My skill may weel be doubted : But facts are chiels that winna ding,^ An downa* be disputed : Your royal nest, beneath your wing, Is e'en right reft an' clouted,^ And now the third part of the string, An' less, will gang about it Than did ae day. industriously ' worse * be upset * cannot ^ patched Far be't frae me that I aspire To blame your legislation. Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire, To rule this mighty nation ! But faith ! I muckle doubt, my Sire, Ye've trusted ministration To chaps, wha, in a barn or byre,^ Wad better fill'd their station Than courts yon day. And now ye've gien auld Britain peace. Her broken shins to plaister; Your sair taxation does her fleece. Till she has scarce a tester; For me, thank God, my life's a lease, Nae bargain wearing faster. Or, faith ! I fear, that wi' the geese, I shortly boost to pasture I' the craft some day. I'm no mistrusting Willie Pitt, When taxes he enlarges (An' Will's a true guid fallow's get, A name not envy spairges),''^ That he intends to pay your debt, An' lessen a' your charges; But, Gudesake ! let nae saving fit Abridge your bonnie barges An' boats this day. Adieu, my Liege! may freedom geck^ Beneath your high protection; An' may ye rax ^ Corruption's neck. And gie her for dissection! But since I'm here, I'll no neglect. In loyal, true affection, To pay your Queen, with due respect, My fealty an' subjection This great birthday. 9 Hail, Majesty most Excellent ! While nobles strive to please ye. Will ye accept a compliment A simple poet gies ye? Thae bonnie bairntime,i° Heav'n has lent. Still higher may they heeze^'^ ye In bliss, till fate some day is sent. For ever to release ye Frae care that day. * cow-shed ' stains * sport ® stretch ^•^ issue " hoist THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 263 10 For you, young potentate o' Wales, I tell your Highness fairly, Down pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sails, I'm tauld ye're driving rarely; But some day ye may gnaw your nails, An' curse your folly sairly, ^ That e'er ye brak Diana's pales, Or rattl'd dice wi' Charlie, By night or day. 11 Yet aft a ragged eowte's ^^ been known To mak a noble aiver;^^ So, ye may doucely ^* fill a throne, For a' their clish-ma-claver : ^' There, him at Agincourt wha shone, Few better were or braver; And yet, wi' funny, queer Sir John, He was an uneo shaver For mony a day. 12 For you, right rev'rend Osnaburg, Nane sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter, Altho' a ribbon at your lug ^^ Wad been a dress completer: As ye disown yon paughty^^ dog That bears the keys o' Peter, Then, swith ! an' get a wife to hug. Or, trouth ! ye'll stain the mitre Some luckless day. 13 Young, royal Tarry Breeks, I learn, Ye've lately come athwart her; A glorious galley, stem an' stern, Weel rigg'd for Venus' barter; But first hang out, that she'll discern Your hymeneal charter. Then heave aboard your grapple airn, An' large upon her quarter Come full that day. 14 Ye, lastly, bonnie blossoms a', Ye royal lasses dainty, Heav'n mak you guid as weel as braw,^* An' gie you lads a-plenty: But sneer na British boys awa. For kings are uneo scant aye; An' German gentles are but sma', They're better just than want aye On ony day. "colt ^^ nonsense »s haste ^^ horse 16 ear "fine ** soberly " haughty 15 God bless you a'! consider now, Ye're unco muckle dautit ; -** But ere the course o' life be thro'. It may be bitter sautit : ^^ An' I hae seen their coggie 2- f u', That yet hae tarrow't at it; But or the day was done, I trow. The laggen -* they hae clautit ^^ Fu' clean that day. The Tree of Liberty robert burns Heard ye o' the tree 0' France? I watna what's the name o't; Around it a' the patriots dance, Weel Europe kens the fame o't. It stands where ance the Bastile stood, A prison built by kings, man, When Superstition's hellish brood Kept France in leading-strings, man. Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit. Its virtues a' can tell, man; It raises man aboon the brute, It makes him ken himsel, man. Gif ance the peasant taste a bit. He's greater than a lord, man. And wi' the beggar shares a mite Of a' he can afford, man. This fruit is worth a' Afric's wealth. To comfort us 'twas sent, man : To gie the sweetest blush o' health. And mak us a' content, man. It clears the een, it cheers the heart. Makes high and low guid friends, man ; And he wha acts the traitor's part It to perdition sends, man. My blessings aye attend the chiel Wha pitied Gallia's slaves, man. And stawl a branch, spite o' the deil, Frae yont the western waves, man. Fair Virtue water'd it wi' care, And now she sees wi' pride, man, How weel it buds and blossoms there. Its branches spreading wide, man. But vicious folk aye hate to see The works of Virtue thrive, man ; The courtly vermin's bann'd the tree. And grat ^ to see it thrive, man ; *° uncommonly ^ little dish "^ scraped much petted ^^ murmured 'stole ^ salted ^* corner * grieved 264 THE GREAT TRADITION King Louis thought to cut it down, When it was unco sma', man; For this the watchman crack'd his crown, Cut aff his head and a', man : A wicked crew syne,^ on a time, Did tak a solemn aith, man, It ne'er should flourish to its prime, I wat they pledged their faith, man; Awa they gaed, wi' mock parade, Like beagles hunting game, man. But soon grew weary o' the trade, And wish'd they'd been at hame, man. For Freedom, standing by the tree. Her sons did loudly ca', man ; She sang a sang o' liberty. Which pleased them ane and a', man. By her inspired, the new-born race Soon drew the avenging steel, man ; The hirelings ran — her foes gied chase. And bang'd the despot weel, man. Let Britain boast her hardy oak. Her poplar and her pine, man, Auld Britain anee could crack her joke, And o'er her neighbors shine, man. But seek the forest round and round. And soon 'twill be agreed, man. That sic a tree cannot be. round 'Twixt London and the Tweed, man. Without this tree, alake, this life Is but a vale o' woe, man; A scene o' sorrow mix'd wi' strife, Nae real joys we know, man. We labor soon, we labor late. To feed the titled knave, man ; And a' the comfort we're to get Is that ayont the grave, man. Wi' plenty o' sic trees, I trow. The warld would leeve in peace, man; The sword would help to mak a plow, The din o' war wad cease, man. Like brethren in a common cause, We'd on each other smile, man; And equal rights and equal laws Wad gladden every isle, man. Wae worth the loon ^ wha wadna eat Sic halesome dainty cheer, man ; I'd gie my shoon frae aff my feet. To taste sic fruit, I swear, man. Syne let us pray, auld England may Sure plant this far-famed tree, man; And blithe we'll sing, and hail the day That gives us liberty, man. • then * woe to the rogue The American War ROBERT BURNS When Guilford good our pilot stood, And did our helm thraw, man, Ae night, at tea, began a plea, Within America, man: Then up they gat the maskin-pat,^ And in the sea did jaw, man; An' did nae less, in full Congress, Than quite refuse our law, man. Then thro' the lakes Montgomery takes, I wat he was na slaw, man ! Down Lowrie's burn he took a turn, And Carleton did ca', man: But yet, what reck, he, at Quebec, Montgomery-like did fa', man: Wi' sword in hand, before his band, Amang his en'mies a', man. Poor Tammy Gage, within a cage, Was kept at Boston ha', man; Till Willie Howe took o'er the knowe For Philadelphia, man; Wi' sword an' gun he thought a sin Guid Christian bluid to draw, man; But at New York, wi' knife an' fork. Sir-loin he hacked sma', man. Burgoyne gaed up, like spur an' whip. Till Fraser brave did fa', man; Then lost his way, ae misty day, In Saratoga shaw,^ man. Cornwallis fought as long's he dought, An' did the buckskins claw, man; But Clinton's glaive ^ frae rust to save, He hung it to the wa', man. Then Montague, and Guildford too, Began to fear a fa', man: And Sackville doure,* wha stood the stoure,^ The German chief to thraw, man; For Paddy Burke, like ony Turk, Nae mercy had at a', man ; And Charlie Fox threw by the box," An' lows'd his tinkler jaw, man. ^ tea-pot ^ forest ^ sword * stubborn ^ storm the dice box THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCEACY 265 6 Then Rockingham took up the game, Till death did on him ea', man; When Shelburne meek held up his cheek, Conform to gospel law, man; Saint Stephen's boys, wi' jarring noise, They did his measures thi'aw, man, For North an' Tox united stocks, An' bore him to the wa', man. Then clubs an' hearts were Charlie's cartes. He swept the stakes awa, man, Till the diamond's ace, of Indian race. Led him a sair faux pas, man; The Saxon lads, wi' loud placads, On Chatham's boy did ca', man; An' Scotland drew her pipe, an' blew, 'Up Willie,'' waur ® them a' man !' 8 Behind the throne then Granville's gone, A secret word or twa, man; While slee Dundas arous'd the class, Be-north the Roman wa', man: And Chatham's wraith, in heav'nly graith,^ (Inspired Bardies saw, man;) Wi' kindling" eyes cry'd 'Willie, rise ! Would I hae f ear'd them, a', man !' 9 But, word an' blow. North, Fox, and Co., Gowfe'd^o Willie like a ba', man, Till Suthron ^^ raise, an' coost their claise Behind him in a raw, man; An' Caledon threw by the drone,^^ An' did her whittle draw, man ; An' swoor fu' rude, thro' dirt and bluid. To make it guid in law, man. Scots Wha Hae robert burns Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led; Welcome to your gory bed. Or to victory ! Now's the day, and now's the hour; See the front o' battle lour; See approach proud Edward's power — Chains and slavery! ' William Pitt * worse " attire 10 "golfed," i. c, struck " Southern, i. e., the Fnsclish Impart of a bag- pipe Wha will be a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a slave *? Let him turn and flee ! Wha for Scotland's king and law Freedom's sword will sti'ongly draw, Freeman stand, or Freeman fa', Let him follow me! By oppression's woes and pains By your sons in servile chains! We will drain our dearest veins. But they shall be free! Lay the "proud usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty's in every blow ! — Let us do or die! A Vision- Robert BURNS As I stood by yon roofless tower. Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air, Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower, And tells the midnight moon her care; The winds were laid, the air was still. The stars they shot alang the sky; The fox was howling on the hill, And the distant-echoing glens reply. The stream, adown its hazelly path. Was rushing by the ruin'd wa's. Hasting to join the sweeping Nith, Whose distant roaring swells and fa's. The cauld blue north was streaming- forth Her lights, wi' hissing, eerie din : Athort the lift ^ they start and shift, Like fortune's favors, tint ^ as win. By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes, And, by the moonbeam, shook to see A stern and stalwart ghaist arise, Attir'd as minstrels wont to be. Had I a statue been o' stane. His daring look had daunted And on his bonnet grav'd was The sacred posie — 'Liberty!' And frae his harp sic strains did flow, Might rous'd the slumb'ring dead to hear : But, oh ! it was a tale of woe, As ever met a Briton's ear ! sky ■lost 266 THE GEEAT TRADITION He sang wi' joy this former day, He, weeping, wail'd his latter times; But what he said it was nae play, — I winna venture 't in my rhymes. The Dumfries Volunteers Does haughty Gaul invasion threat"? Then let the louns ^ beware. Sir ; There's wooden walls upon our seas, And volunteers on shore. Sir. The Nith shall rin to Corsineon, And Criffel sink in Solway, Ere we permit a foreign foe On British ground to rally ! We'll ne'er permit a foreign foe On British ground to rally. let us not, like snarling curs, In wrangling be divided; Till, slap ! come in an unco loun, Ajid wi' a rung^ decide it. Be Britain still to Britain true, Amang oursels united; For never but by British hands Maun British wrangs be righted ! For never, etc. The kettle o' the Kirk and State, Perhaps a clout ^ may fail in 't ; But deil a foreign tinkler loun Shall ever ca' * a nail in 't. Our fathers' bluid the kettle bought; And wha wad dare to spoil if? By heavens ! the sacrilegious dog Shall fuel be to boil it ! By heavens, etc. The wretch that wad a tyrant own, And the wretch, his true-sworn brother, Wha would set the mob aboon the throne, May they be damn'd together! Wha will not sing, 'God save the King,' Shall hang as high 's the steeple; But while we sing, 'God save the King,' We'll ne'er forget the People. But while we sing, etc. The Toast 1 robert burns Instead of a song, boys, I'll give you a toast — ^ patch * drive 1 rogues * cudgel ^ At an annual celebration of the victory of Admiral Rodney over the Spanish fleet in the West Indies, April 12, 1782. Here's the memory of those on the twelfth that we lost — That we lost, did I say? nay, by Heav'n, that we found; For their fame it shall last while the world goes round. The next in succession, I'll give you — the King ! Whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing ! And here's the grand fabric, our free Con- stitution, As built on the base of the great Revolution ; And longer with politics not to be cramm'd, Be Anarchy curs'd, and be Tyranny damn'd ; And who would to Liberty e'er prove dis- loyal, May his son be a hangman, and he his first trial ! Address to the Deil ROBERT BURNS O Prince ! O Chief of many thronfed pow'rs ! That led th'embattled seraphim to war. — Milton. thou ! whatever title suit thee, — Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie! Wha in yon cavern, grim an' sootie, Clos'd under hatches, Spairges ^ about the brunstane cootie ^ To scaud ^ poor wretches ! Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee. An' let poor damned bodies be; I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie. E'en to a deil. To skelp * an' scaud poor dogs like me, An' hear us squeel ! Great is thy pow'r, an' great thy fame ; Far ken'd ^ an' noted is thy name ; An' tho' yon lowin heugh's ^ thy hame,'^ Thou travels far ; An' faith ! thou's neither lag ^ nor lame. Nor blate ^ nor scaur.^° Whyles,^^ rangin like a roarin lion. For prey a' holes an' corners tryin ; ' splashes ^ known ^ shy - brimstone tub ^ flaming ravine ^^ timid ^ scald ' home " sometimes * slap ' sluggish THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 267 Whyles, on the strong-wing'd tempest flyin, Tirlin' ^^ the kirks ; ^^ Whyles, in the human bosom pryin. Unseen thou lurks. I've heard my rev'rend grannie say, In lanely ^* glens ye like to stray ; Or whare auld ruin'd castles gray Nod to the moon, Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way Wi' eldritch ^^ croon. When twilight did my grannie summon To say her pray'rs, douce ^^ honest woman ! Aft yont ^'^ the dike she's heard you bummin, Wi' eerit drone ; Or, rustlin, thro' the boortrees ^^ comin, Wi' heavy groan. Ae 1^ dreary, windy, winter night. The stars shot down wi' sklentin ^'^ light, Wi' you mysel I gat a fright Ayont 2^ the lough ; ^^ Ye like a rash-buss ^^ stood in sight Wi' waving sough. The cudgel in my nieve -* did shake. Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake, When wi' an eldritch, stoor ^^ "Quaick, quaiek," Amang the springs, Awa ye squatter'd like a drake. On whistlin wings. Let warlocks -^ grim an' wither'd hags Tell how wi' you on ragweed nags They skim the muirs an' drizzy crags Wi' wicked speed ; And in kirk-yards ^"^ renew their leagues, Owre howket ^^ dead. 10 Thence, countra wives wi' toil an' pain May plunge an' plunge the kirn -^ in vain ; For oh ! the yellow treasure's taen By witchin skill; •* unroofing •' churches " lonely *5 unearthly 16 grave " often beyond '' elders » one ^ slanting ^ beyond " lake ^ rush-bush Mflst ^ harsh 2^ wizards 2' churchyards 2^ dug up ^^ churn An' dawtet,^° twal-pint hawkie's ^^ gaen As yell's ^- the bilL^s 11 Thence, mystic knots mak great abuse. On young guidmen, fond, keen, an' crouse ; ^* When the best wark-lume ^^ i' the house. By cantrip ^^ wit. Is instant made no worth a louse. Just at the bit. 12 When thowes ^'^ dissolve the snawy hoord,^^ An' float the jinglin icy-boord. Then water-kelpies ^^ haunt the foord By your direction. An' nighted trav'lers are allur'd To their destruction. 13 And aft *° your moss-traversing spunkies *^ Decoy the wight that date and drunk is : The bleezin^*^ curst, mischievous monkeys Delude his eyes. Till in some miry slough he sunk is. Ne'er mair to rise. 14 When masons' mystic word and grip In storms an' tempests raise you up. Some cock or eat your rage maun stop. Or, strange to tell. The youngest brither "^^ ye wad whip Aff ** straught to hell ! 15 Lang syne, in Eden's bonie yard, When youthfu' lovers first were pair'd. And all the soul of love they shar'd, The raptur'd hour. Sweet on the fragrant flow'ry swaird,*^ In shady bow'r; 16 Then you, ye auld sneek-drawin *" dog ! Ye cam to Paradise incog. And play'd on man a cursed brogue,*'^ (Black be your fa' !) And gied the infant warld a shog,*^ Maist *" ruin'd a'. 8° petted 5^ thaws •* brother •^ twelve-pint cow'* snowy hoard " off '- dry as ^ water-spirits ^^ sward S3 bull •» often ■" latch-lifting »* bold ^1 will-o'-the- " trick '" work-loom wisps '-* shock °* mischievous *- blazing '" almost 268 THE GREAT TEADITION 17 D'ye mind that day, when in a bizz,50 Wi' reeket ^^ duds and reestet gizz,^^ Ye did present your smoutie phiz Mang better folk, An' sklented ^^ on the man of Uz Your spitefu' joke? 18 An' how ye gat him i' your thrall. An' brak him out o' house and hal', While scabs and blotches did him gall, Wi' bitter claw, An' lows'd 5* his ill-tongued, wicked scaul,^ Was warst ava?^^ 19 But a' your doings to rehearse, Your wily snares an' fetchin fierce. Sin' that day Michael did you pierce, Down to this time. Wad ding ^'^ a Lallan tongue, or Erse, In prose or rhyme, 20 An' now, auld Cloots, I ken ye're thinkin, A certain Bardie's rantin, drinkin, Some luckless hour will send him linkin,^^ To your black pit ; But faith ! he'll turn a corner jinkin,^^ An' cheat you yet. 21 But fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben! wad ye tak a thought an' men' ! Ye aiblins''*' might — I dinna ken — Still hae a stake : I'm wae ''^ to think upo' yon den, Ev'n for your sake ! The Sincerity of Burns thomas carlyle [From An Essay on Burns, 1828,] The excellence of Burns is, indeed, among the rarest, whether in poetry or prose ; but, at the same time, it is plain and easily recog- nized, — his Sincerity, his indisputable air of Truth, Here are no fabulous woes or joys; no hollow fantastic sentimentalities; no wire-drawn refinings, either in thought or ^^ flurry ^^ smoked "= singed face ^^ directed ^^ loosed ^^ scold ''" worst of all =■ baffle '8 tripping ''^ darting <'° possibly " sad feeling : the passion that is traced before us has glowed in a living heart ; the oiDinion he utters has risen in his own understanding, and been a light to his own steps. He does not write from hearsay, but from sight and experience ; it is the scenes that he has lived and labored amidst, that he describes; those scenes, rude and humble as they are, have kindled beautiful emotions in his soul, noble thoughts, and definite resolves; and he speaks forth what is in him, not from any outward call of vanity or interest, but be- cause his heart is too full to be silent. He speaks it with such melody and modulation as he can; "in homely rustic jingle"; but it is his own, and genuine. This is the grand secret for finding readers and retaining them: let him who would move and con- vince others, be first moved and convinced himself, Horace's rule, Si vis me flere, is applicable in a wider sense than the literal one. To every poet, to every wi'iter, we might say: Be true, if you would be be- lieved. Let a man but speak forth with genuine earnestness the thought, the emo- tion, the actual condition of his own heart; and other men, so strangely are we all knit together by the tie of sympathy, must and will give heed to him. In culture, in extent of view, we may stand above the speaker, or below him; but in either case, his words, if they are earnest and sincere, will find some response within us ; for in spite of all casual varieties in outward rank or inward, as face answers to face, so does the heart of man to man. . . . Byron and Burns were sent forth as mis- sionaries to their generation, to teach it a higher Doctrine, a purer Truth ; they had a message to deliver, which left them no rest till it was accomplished; in dim throes of pain, this divine behest lay smouldering within them, for they knew not what it meant, and felt it only in mysterious antici- pation, and they had to die without articu- lately uttering it. They are in the camp of the Unconverted; yet not as high messen- gers of rigorous though benignant Truth, but as soft flattering singers, and in pleas- ant fellowship will they live there ; they are first adulated, then persecuted; they ac- complish little for others ; they find no peace for themselves, but only death and the peace of the grave. We confess it is not without a certain mournful awe that we view the fate of these noble souls, so richly gifted, yet ruined to so little purpose with all their THE RISE OF MODEEN DEMOCRACY 269 gifts. It seems to us there is a stern moral taught in this piece of liistory, — twice told us in our own time ! Surely to men of like genius, if there be any such, it carries with it a lesson of deep, impressive significance. Surely it would become such a man, fur- nished for the highest of all enterprises, — that of being the Poet of his Age, — to con- sider well what it is that he attempts, and in what spirit he attempts it. For the words of Milton are true in all times, and were never truer than in this: "He who Avould write heroic poems must make his whole life a heroic poem." If he cannot first so make his life, then let him hasten from this arena ; for neither its lofty glories nor its fearful perils are fit for him. Let him dwindle into a modish balladmonger ; let him worship and be-sing the idols of the time, and the time will not fail to reward him, — if, indeed, he can endure to live in that capacity ! Byron and Burns could not live as idol-priests, but the fire of their own hearts consumed them, and better it was for them that they could not. For it is not in the favor of the great or of the small, but in a life of truth, and in the inexpugnable citadel of his own soul, that a Byron's or a Burns's strength must lie. Let the great stand aloof from him, or know how to reverence him. Beautiful is the union of wealth with favor and furtherance for literature, like the costliest flower- jar en- closing the loveliest amaranth. Yet let not the relation be mistaken. A true poet is not one whom they can hire by money or flattery to be a minister of their pleasures, their writer of occasional verses, their purveyor of table-wit; he cannot be their menial, he cannot even be their partisan. At the peril of both parties, let no such union be at- tempted! Will a Courser of the Sun work softly in the harness of a Dray-horse ? His hoofs are of fire, and his path is through the heavens, bringing light to all lands; will he lumber on mud highways, dragging ale for earthly appetites from door to door? 2. THE STKUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA The Character of Pitt john richard green [From A Short History of the English People, 1877] But the nation of which Chesterfield despaired was really on the eve of its great- est triumphs, and the miserable incapacity of the Duke of Newcastle only called to the front the genius of William Pitt. Pitt was the grandson of a wealthy governor of Madras, who had entered Parliament in 1735 as member for one of his father's pocket boroughs, and had headed the younger "patriots" in their attack on Wal- pole. The dismissal from the army by which Walpole met his attacks turned his energy wholly to politics. His fiery spirit was hushed in office during the "broad- bottom administration" which followed Wal- pole's fall, but after the death of Henry Pelham, Newcastle's jealousy of power threw him into an attitude of opposition and he was deprived of his place. When the disasters of the war however drove New- castle from office in November 1756, Pitt became Secretary of State; but in four months the enmity of the King and of New- castle's party drove him to resign. In July 1757, however, it was necessary to recall him. The failure of Newcastle to construct an administration forced the Duke to a junction with his rival ; and fortunately for their country, the character of the two statesmen made the compromise an easy one. For all that Pitt coveted, for the general direction of public affairs, the control of foreign policy, the administration of the war, Newcastle had neither capacity nor in- clination. On the other hand, his skill in parliamentary management was unrivalled. If he knew little else, he knew better than any living man the price of every member and the intrigues of every borough. What he cared for was not the control of affairs, but the distribution of patronage and the work of corruption, and from this Pitt turned disdainfully away. "Mr. Pitt does everything," wrote Horace Walpole, "and the Duke gives everything. So long as they agree in this partition they may do what they please." Out of the union of these two strangely-contrasted leaders, in fact, rose the greatest, as it was the last, of the j^urely Whig administrations. But its real power lay from beginning to end in Pitt himself. Poor as he was, for his income was little 270 THE GEEAT TRADITION more than two hundred a year, and spring- ing as he did from a family of no political importance, it was by sheer dint of genius that the young eoi-net of horse, at whose youth and inexperience Walpole had sneered, seized a power which the Whig houses had ever since the Revolution kept jealously in their grasp. His ambition had no petty aim. "I want to call England," he said as he took office, "out of that ener- vate state in which twenty thousand men from France can shake her." His call was soon answered. He at once breathed his own lofty spirit into the country he served, 'as he communicated something of his own grandeur to the men who served him. "No man," said a soldier of the time, "ever en- tered Mr. Pitt's closet who did not feel him- self braver when he came out than when he went in." Ill-combined as were his earlier expeditions, many as were his failures, he roused a temper in the nation at large which made ultimate defeat impossible. "England has been a long time in labor," exclaimed Frederick of Prussia as he recognized a greatness like his own, "but she has at last brought forth a man." It is this personal and solitary grandeur which strikes us most as we look back to William Pitt. The tone of his speech and action stands out in utter contrast with the tone of his time. In the midst of a society critical, polite, indifferent, simple even to the affectation of simplicity, witty and amusing but absolutely prosaic, cool of heart and of head, skeptical of virtue and enthusiasm, skeptical above all of itself, Pitt stood absolutely alone. The depth of his conviction, his passionate love for all that he deemed lofty and true, his fiery en- ergy, his poetic imaginativeness, his theat- rical airs and rhetoric, his haughty self- assumption, his pomjDousness and extrava- gance, were not more puzzling to his eon- temiDoraries than the confidence with which he appealed to the higher sentiments of man- kind, the scorn with which he turned from a corruption which had till then been the great engine of politics, the undoubting faith which he felt in himself, in the gran- deur of his aims, and in his power to carry them out. "I know that I can save the country," he said to the Duke of Devonshire on his entry into the Ministiy, "and I know no other man can." The groundwork of Pitt's character was an intense and passion- ate pride ; but it was a pride which kept him from stooping to the level of the men who had so long held England in their hands. He was the first statesman since the Resto- ration who set the example of a purely pub- lic spirit. Keen as was his love of power, no man ever refused office so often, or ac- cepted it with so strict a regard to the prin- ciples he professed. "I will not go to Court," he replied to an offer which was made him, "if I may not bring the Consti- tution with me." For the corruption about him he had nothing but disdain. He left to Newcastle the buying of seats and the pur- chase of members. At the outset of his ca- reer Pelham appointed him to the most lucrative office in his administration, that of Paymaster of the Forces; but its profits were of an illicit kind, and poor as he was Pitt refused to accept one farthing beyond his salary. His pride never appeared in loftier and nobler form than in his attitude towards the people at large. No leader had ever a wider popularity than "the great commoner," as Pitt was styled, but his air was always that of a man who commands popularity, not that of one who seeks it. He never bent to flatter popular prejudice. When mobs were roarmg themselves hoarse for "Wilkes and liberty," he denounced Wilkes as a worthless profligate; and when all England went mad in its hatred of the Scots, Pitt haughtily declared his esteem for a people whose courage he had been the first to enlist on the side of loyalty. His noble figure, the hawk-like eye which flashed from the small thin face, his majestic voice, the fire and grandeur of his eloquence, gave him a sway over the House of Commons far greater than any other minister has pos- sessed. He could silence an opponent with a look of scorn, or hush the whole House with a single word. But he never stooped to the arts by which men form a political party, and at the height of his power his personal following hardly numbered half a dozen members. His real strength indeed lay not in Par- liament but in the people at large. His significant title of "the great commoner" marks a political revolution. "It is the peo- ple who have sent me here," Pitt boasted with a haughty pride when the nobles of the Cabinet opposed his will. He was the first to see that the long political inactivity of the public mind had ceased, and that the progress of commerce and industry had pro- duced a great middle class, which no longer found its representatives in the legislature. "You have taught me," said George the Sec- THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY i271 ond when Pitt sought to save Byng by ap- pealing to the sentiment of Parliament, "to look for the voice of my people in other places than within the House of Commons." It was this unrepresented class which had forced him into power. During his strug- gle with Newcastle the greater towns backed him with the gift of their freedom and ad- dresses of confidence. "For weeks," laughs Horace Walpole, *'it rained gold boxes." London stood by him through good report and evil report, and the wealthiest of Eng- lish merchants, Alderman Beckford, was proud to figure as his political lieutenant. The temper of Pitt indeed harmonized ad- mirably with the temper of the commercial England which rallied round him, with its energy, its self-confidence, its pride, its pa- triotism, its honesty, its moral earnestness. The merchant and the trader were drawn by a natural attraction to the one statesman of their time whose aims were unselfish, whose hands were clean, whose life was pure and full of tender affection for wife and child. But there was a far deeper ground for their enthusiastic reverence and for the reverence which his country has borne Pitt ever since. He loved England with an intense and per- sonal love. He believed in her power, her glory, her public virtue, till England learned to believe in herself. Her triumphs were his triumphs, her defeats his defeats. Her dangers lifted him high above all thought of self or party-spirit. "Be one people," he cried to the factions who rose to bring about his fall : "forget everything but the public ! I set you the example!" His glowing pa- triotism was the real spell by which he held England. But even the faults which cheq- uered his character told for him with the middle classes. The Whig statesmen who preceded him had been men whose pride ex- pressed itself in a marked simplicity and absence of pretence. Pitt was essentially an actor, dramatic in the cabinet, in the House, in his very office. He transacted business with his clerks in full dress. His letters to his family, genuine as his love for them was, are stilted and unnatural in tone. It was easy for the wits of his day to jest at his affectation, his pompous gait, the dra- matic appearance which he made on great debates with his limbs swathed in flannel and his crutch by his side. Early in life Wal- pole sneered at him for bringing into the House of Commons "the gestures and emo- tions of the stage." But the classes to whom Pitt appealed were classes not easily of- fended by faults of taste, and saw nothing to laugh at in the statesman who was borne into the lobby amidst the tortures of the gout, or carried into the House of Lords to breathe his last in a protest against na- tional dishonor. Above all Pitt wielded the strength of a resistless eloquence. The power of political speech had been revealed in the stormy de- bates of the Long Parliament, but it was cramped in its utterance by the legal and theological pedantry of the time. Pedantry was flung off by the age of the Revolution, but in the eloquence of Somers and his rivals we see ability i-ather than genius, knowledge, clearness of expression, preci- sion of thought, the lucidity of the pleader or the man of business, rather than the pas- sion of the orator. Of this clearness of statement Pitt had little or none. He was no ready debater like Walpole, no speaker of set speeches like Chesterfield. His set speeches were always his worst, for in these his want of taste, his love of effect, his trite quotations and extravagant metaphors came at once to the front. That with defects like these he stood far above every orator of his time was due 'above all to his profound conviction, to the earnestness and sincerity with which he spoke. "I must sit still," he whispered once to a friend, "for when once I am up everything that is in my mind comes out." But the reality of his eloquence was transfig-ured by a large and poetic imag- ination, and by a glow of passion which not only raised him high above the men of his own day but set him in the front rank among the orators of the world. The cool reasoning, the wit, the common sense of his age made way for a splendid audacity, a sympathy with popular emotion, a sustained grandeur, a lofty vehemence, a command over the whole range of human feeling. He passed without an effort from the most sol- emn appeal to the gayest raillery, from the keenest sarcasm to the tenderest pathos. Every word was driven home by the grand self -consciousness of the speaker. He spoke always as one having authority. He was in fact the first English orator whose words were a power, a power not over Parliament only but over the nation at large. Parlia- mentaiy reporting was as yet unknown, and it was only in detached phrases and half- remembered outbursts that the voice of Pitt reached beyond the walls of St. Stephen's. But it was especially in these sudden out- bursts of inspiration, in these brief passion- 272 THE GREAT TEADITION ate appeals, that the power of his eloquence lay. The few broken words we have of hun stir the same thrill in men of our day which they stirred in the men of his own. But pas- sionate as was Pitt's eloquence, it was the eloquence of a statesman, not of a rhetori- cian. Time has approved almost all his greater struggles, his defense of the liberty of the subject against arbitrary imprison- ment under "general warrants," of the lib- erty of the press aga,inst Lord Mansfield, of the rights of constituencies against the House of Commons, of the constitutional rights of America against England itself. Cabinet Government Under George III^ "JUNIUS"'' [From A Letter to the Duke of Grafton, July 8, 1769.] Since the accession of our most gracious sovereign to the throne we have seen a sys- tem of government which may well be called a reign of experiments. Parties of all de- nominations have been employed and dis- missed. The advice of the ablest men in this country has been repeatedly called for and rejected; and when the royal displeasure has been signified to a minister, the marks of it have usually been proportioned to his abilities and integrity. Tlie spirit of the favorite had some apj^arent influence upon every administration: and every set of ministers preserved an appearance of dura- tion, as long as they submitted to that in- fluence. But there were certain services to be performed for the favorite's security, or to gratify his resentments, which your predecessors in office had the wisdom or the virtue not to undertake. The moment this refractory spirit was discovered their dis- grace was determined. Lord Chatham, Mr. Grenville, and Lord Rockingham have suc- cessively had the honor to be dismissed for preferring their duty as servants of the pub- lie to those compliances which were expected from their station. A submissive adminis- tration was at last gradually collected from ^Junius' eloquent attack on the Duke of Grafton, left in power by the withdrawal of the Earl of Chatham in 1767, was prompted by the subservience of the ministry to the tyrannical will of George III, who opposed the liberties of his sub- jects by pressing the expulsion of the popular John Wilkes from Parliament and by continuing bis oppressive policy toward the American colonies. the deserters of all parties, interests, and connections; and nothing remained but to find a leader for these gallant well-disci- plined troops. Stand forth, my Lord, for thou art the man. Lord Bute found no re- source of dependence or security in the proud, imposing superiority of Lord Chatham's abilities, the shrewd, inflexible judgment of Mr. Grenville, nor in the mild but determined integrity of Lord Rocking- ham. His views and situation required a creature void of all these projDerties ; and he was forced to go through every division, resolution, composition, and refinement of political chemistry, before he happily ar- rived at the caput mortuum of vitriol in your Grace. Flat and insipid in your re- tired state, but, brought into action, you be- come vitriol again. Such are the extremes of alternate indolence or fury which have governed your whole administration. Your circumstances with regard to the people soon becoming desperate, like other honest servants you determined to involve the best of masters in the same difficulties with your- self. We owe it to your Grace's well-di- rected labors, that your sovereign has been persuaded to doubt of the affections of his subjects, and the people to susjject the vir- tues of their sovereign, at a time when both were unquestionable. You have degraded the royal dignity into a base, dishonorable competition with Mr. Wilkes, nor had you abilities to carry even this last contemptible triumph over a private man, without the grossest violation of the fundamental laws of the constitution and rights of the people. But these are rights, my Lord, which you can no more annihilate than you can the soil to which they are annexed. The ques- tion no longer turns upon points of national honor and security abroad, or on the de- grees of expedience and propriety of meas- ures at home. It was not inconsistent that you should abandon the cause of liberty in another country, which you had persecuted in your own; and in the common arts of domestic corruption, we miss no part of Sir Robert Walpole's system except his abili- ties. In this humble imitative line you might long have proceeded, safe and con- temptible. You might, probably, never have risen to the dignity of being hated, and even have been despised with moderation. But it seems you meant to be distinguished, and, to a mind like yours, there was no other road to fame but by the destruction of a THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 273 noble fabric, which you thought had been too long the admiration of mankind. The use you have "made of the military force intro- duced an alarming change in the mode of executing the laws. The arbitrary appoint- ment of Mr. Luttrell invades the founda- tion of the laws themselves, as it manifestly transfers the right of legislation from those whom the people have chosen to those whom they have rejected. With a succession of such appointments we may soon see a House of Commons collected, in the choice of which the other towns and counties of England will have as little share as the devoted county of Middlesex. An Address to the King^ '^JUNIUS" December 19, 1769. When the complaints of a brave and powerful peojDle are observed to increase in proportion to the wrongs they have suf- fered ; when, instead of sinking into submis- sion, they are roused to resistance, the time will soon arrive at which every inferior con- sideration must yield to the security of the sovereign, and to the general safety of the state. There is a moment of difficulty and danger at which flattery and falsehood can no longer deceive, and simplicity itself can no longer be misled. Let us suppose it ar- rived. Let us suppose a gracious, well-inten- tioned prince, made sensible at last of the great duty he owes to his people, and of his own disgraceful situation — that he looks round him for assistance, and asks for no advice but how to gratify the wishes and se- cure the happiness of his subjects. In these circumstances, it may be matter of curious speculation to consider if an honest man were permitted to approach a king, in what terms he would address himself to his sov- ereign. Let it be imagined, no matter how improbable, that the first prejudice against his character is removed, that the ceremoni- ous difficulties of an audience are sur- mounted, that he feels himself animated by the purest and most honorable affections to his king and country, and that the great person whom he addresses has spirit enough to bid him speak freely, and understanding enough to listen to him with attention. Un- acquainted with the vain impertinence of 1 The most daring and sensational of the public utterances of the mysterious "Junius," rivalling in boldness the inflammatory speeches of men like Patrick Henry in America. forms, he would deliver his sentiments with dignity and firmness, but not without re- spect. Sir, — It is the misfortune of your life, and originally the cause of every reproach and distress which has attended your gov- ernment, that you should never have been acquainted with the language of truth un- til you heard it in the complaints of your people. It is not, however, too late to cor- rect the error of your education. We are still inclined to make an indulgent allow- ance for the pernicious lessons you received in your youth, and to form the most san- guine hopes from the natural benevolence of your disposition. We are far from think- ing you capable of a direct, deliberate pur- pose to invade those original rights of your subjects on which all their civil and political liberties depend. Had it been possible for us to entertain a suspicion so dishonorable to your character, we should long since have adopted a style of remonstrance very distant from the humility of complaint. The doctrine inculcated by our laws. That the king can do no wrong, is admitted without reluctance. We separate the amiable, good-., natured prince from the folly and treachery of his servants, and the private virtues of the man from the vices of his government. , Were it not for this just distinction, I know;- not whether your Majesty's condition or that, of the English nation would deserve most to£ be lamented. I would prepare your mindrf for a favorable reception of truth by re- i moving every painful, offensive idea of per- sonal reproach. Your subjects, Sir, wish for nothing but that, as they are reasonable and affectionate enough to separate your person from your government, so you, in your turn, should distinguish between the conduct which becomes the permanent dig- nity of a king and that which serves only to iDromote the temporary interest and mis- erable ambition of a minister. Taking it for granted, as I do very sin- cerely, that you have personally no design against the constitution, nor any views in- consistent with the good of your subjects, I think you cannot hesitate long upon the choice, which it equally concerns your in- terest and your honor to adopt. On one side you hazard the affections of all your English subjects — you relinquish every hope of repose to yourself, and you endanger the establishment of your family forever. All this you venture for no object whatsoever, 274 THE GEEAT TRADITION or for such an object as it would be an af- front to you to name. Men of sense will examine your conduct with suspicion, while those who are incapable of comprehending to what degree they are injured, afflict you with clamors equally insolent and unmean- ing. Supioosing it possible that no fatal struggle should ensue, you determine at once to be unhappy, without the hope of a compensation either from interest or am- bition. If an English king be hated or de- spised, he must be unhappy; and this, per- haps, is the only political truth which he ought to be convinced of without experi- ment. But if the English people should no longer confine their resentment to a submis- sive representation of their wrongs — if, fol- lowing the glorious example of their an- cestors, they should no longer appeal to the creature of the constitution, but to that high Being who gave them the rights of human- ity, whose gifts it were sacrilege to surren- der — let me ask you, Sir, upon what part of your subjects would you rely for as- sistance ? The people of Ireland have been uni- formly plundered and oppressed. In return they give you every day fresh marks of their resentment. They despise the miserable gov- ernor you have sent them, because he is the creature of Lord Bute; nor is it from any natural confusion in their ideas that they are so ready to confound the original of a king with the disgraceful representation of him. The distance of the colonies would make it impossible for them to take an active con- cern in your affairs if they were as well af- fected to your government as they once pretended to be to your person. They were ready enough to distinguish between you and your ministers. They complained of an act of the legislature, but traced the origin of it no higher than the servants of the crown; they pleased themselves with the hope that their sovereign, if not favorable to their cause, at least was impartial. The decisive, personal part you took against them has effectually banished that first dis- tinction from their minds. They consider you as united with your servants against America, and know how to distinguish the sovereign and a venal parliament on one side from the real sentiments of the English people on the other. Looking forward to independence, they might possibly receive you for their king; but, if you retire to America, be assured they will give you such a covenant to digest as the presbytery of Scotland would have been ashamed to offer to Charles the Second. They left their na- tive land in search of freedom, and found it in a desert. Divided as they are into a thousand forms of policy and religion, there is one point in which they all agree — they equally detest the pageantry of a king and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop. These sentiments. Sir, and the style they are conveyed in, may be offensive, perhaps, because they are new to you. Accustomed to the language of courtiers, you measure their affections by the vehemence of their expressions ; and, when they only praise you indirectly, you admire their sincerity. But this is not a time to trifle with your fortune. They deceive you. Sir, who tell you that you have many friends whose affections are founded upon a principle of personal at- tachment. The first foundation of friend- ship is not the power of conferring bene- fits, but the equality with which they are received and may be returned. The fortune which made you a king forbade you to have a friend. It is a law of nature which can- not be violated with impunity. The mis- taken prince who looks for friendship will find a favorite, and in that favorite the ruin of his affairs. The people of England are loyal to the house of Hanover, not from a vain prefer- ence of one family to another, but from a conviction that the establishment of that family was necessary to the support of their civil and religious liberties. This, Sir, is a principle of allegiance equally solid and ra- tional; fit for Englishmen to adopt, and well worthy of your majesty's encouragement. We cannot long be deluded by nominal distinctions. The name of Stuart, of itself, is only contemptible; armed with the sov- ereign authority, their principles are for- midable. The prince who imitates their conduct should be warned by example ; and, while he plumes himself upon the security of his title to the crown, should remember that, as it was acquired by one revolution, it may be lost by another. An Imperial Britain edmund burke [From American Taxation^ 1774] Let us. Sir, embrace some system or other before we end this session. Do you mean THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 275 to tax America and to draw a productive revenue from thence? If you do, speak out; name, fix, ascertain this revenue; settle its quantity; define its objects; provide for its collection; and then fight when you have something to fight for. If you murder, rob ; if you kill, take possession: and do not appear in the character of madmen as well as assassins, violent, vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, without an object. But may bet- ter counsels guide you! Again and again revert to your own prin- ciples — seek peace and ensue it — leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I am not here going into the distinctions of rights, not attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distinc- tions, born of our unhappy content, will die along with it. They and we, and their and our ancestors, have been happy under that system. Let the memory of all actions in contradiction to that good old mode, on both sides, be extinguished for ever. Be content to bind America by laws of trade; You have always done it. Let this be your reason for binding their trade. Do not burden them by taxes; you were not used to do so from the beginning. Let this be your reason for not taxing. These are the arguments of states and kingdoms. Leave the rest to the schools, for there only they may be discussed with safety. But if, in- temperately, unwisely, fatally, you sophisti- cate and poison the very source of govern- ment, by urging subtle deductions and con- sequences odious to those you govern, from the unlimited and illimitable nature of su- preme sovereignty, you will teach them by these means to call that sovereignty itself in question. When you drive him hard, the boar will surely turn upon the hunters. If that sovereignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they take? They will cast your sovereignty in your face. No- body will be argued into slavery. Sir, let the gentlemen on the other side call forth all their ability, let the best of them get up and tell me, what one character of liberty the Americans have, and what one brand of slavery they are free from, if they are bound in their property and industry by all the restraints you can imagine on com- merce, and at the same time are made pack- horses of every tax you choose to impose, without the least share in granting them. When they bear the burdens of unlimited monopoly, will you bring them to bear the burdens of unlimited revenue too? The Englishman in America will feel that this is slavery — ^that it is legal slavery will be no compensation either to his feelings or his understanding. A noble lord, who spoke some time ago, is full of the fire of ingenuous youth; and when he has modelled the ideas of a lively imagination by further experience he will be an ornament to his country in either House. He has said that the Americans are our children, and how can they revolt against their parent ? He says that if they are not free in their present state, England is not free, because Manchester and other considerable places are not represented. So then, because some towns in England are not represented, America is to have no rep- resentative at all. They are "our chil- dren"; but when children ask for bread we are not to give a stone. Is it because the natural resistance of things and the vari- ous mutations of time hinder our Govern- ment, or any scheme of government, from being any more than a sort of approxima- tion to the right, is it therefore that the colonies are to recede from it infinitely? When this child of ours wishes to assimilate to its parent and to reflect with a true filial resemblance the beauteous countenance of British liberty, are we to turn to them the shameful parts of our constitution? are we to give them our weakness for their strength? our opprobrium for their glory ? and the slough of slavei'y, which we are not able to work off, to serve them for their freedom ? If this be the case, ask yourselves this question. Will they be content in such a state of slavery? If not, look to the conse- quences. Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue, it yields noth- ing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading up to your eyes in blood, you could only end just where you be- gun ; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found, to — ;my voice fails me; my in- clination indeed carries me no further — all is confusion beyond it. Well, Sir, I have recovered a little, and before I sit down I must say something to 276 THE GEEAT TRADITION another point with which gentlemen urge us. What is to become of the Declaratory Act asserting the entireness of British legis- lative authority if we abandon the practice of taxation? For my part I look upon the rights stated in that Act exactly in the manner in which I viewed them on its very first proposition, and which I have often taken the liberty, with great humility, to lay before you. I look, I say, on the imperial rights of Great Britain and the privileges which the colon- ists ought to enjoy under these rights to be just the most reconcilable things in the world. The Parliament of Great Britain sits at the head of her extensive empire in two capacities: one as the local legislature of this island, providing for all things at home, immediately, and by no other instru- ment than the executive power; the other and I think her nobler capacity, is what I call her imperial character, in which, as from the throne of heaven, she superintends all the several inferior legislatures, and guides and controls them all, without annihilating any. As all these provincial legislatures are only co-ordinate to each other, they ought all to be subordinate to her; else they can neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor effectually afford mutual assistance. It is necessary to coerce the negligent, to restrain the violent, and to aid the weak and deficient by the overruling plentitude of her power. She is never to intrude into the place of the others, whilst they are equal to the common ends of their institution. But in order to enable Parlia- ment to answer all. these ends of provident and beneficent superintendence, her powers must be boundless. The gentlemen who think the powers of Parliament limited, may please themselves to talk of requisitions. But suppose the requisitions are not obeyed? What! Shall there be no reserved power in the empire, to supply a deficiency which may weaken, divide, and dissipate the whole ? We are engaged in war — the Secretary of State calls upon the colonies to contribute — some would do it, I think most would cheerfully furnish whatever is demanded — one or two, suppose, hang back, and, easing themselves, let the stress of the draft lie on the others — surely it is proper, that some authority might legally say — "Tax your- selves for the common supply, or Parlia- ment will do it for you." This backward- ness was, as I am told, actually the case of Pennsylvania for some short time towards the beginning of the last war, owing to some internal dissensions in the colony. But whether the fact were so, or otherwise, the case is equally to be provided for by a com- petent sovereign power. But then this ought to be no ordinary power, nor ever used in the first instance. This is what I meant, when I have said at various times that I consider the power of taxing in Parliament as an instrument of empire and not as a means of supply. Such, Sir, is my idea of the constitution of the British empire, as distinguished from the constitution of Britain; and on these grounds I think subordination and liberty may be sufficiently reconciled through the whole, whether to serve a refining speculatist or a factious demagogue, I know not, but enough surely for the ease and happiness of man. Sir, whilst we held this happy course, we drew more from the colonies than all the im- portant violence of despotism ever could extort from them. We did this abundantly in the last war. It has never been once denied — and what reason have we to imagine that the colonies would not have jiroceeded in supplying government as liberally, if you had not stepped in and hindered them from contributing, by interrupting the chan- nel in which their liberality flowed with so strong a course, by attempting to take, in- stead of being satisfied to receive? Sir William Temple says that Holland has loaded itself with ten times the impositions which it revolted from Spain rather than submit to. He says true. Tyranny is a poor provider. It knows neither how to accumulate nor how to extract. I charge therefore to this new and unfor- tunate system the loss not only of peace, of union, and of commerce, but even of revenue, which its friends are contending for. It is morally certain that we have lost at least a million of free grants since the peace. I think we have lost a great deal more, and that those who look for a revenue from the provinces never could have pur- sued, even in that light, a course more di- rectly repugnant to their purposes. Now, Sir, I trust I have shown, first on that narrow ground which the honorable gentleman measured, that you are likely to lose nothing by complying with the mo- tion, except what you have lost already. I have shown afterwards, that in time of THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 277 peace you flourished in commerce, and, when war required it, had sufficient aid from the colonies while you pursued your ancient policy ; that you threw everything into con- fusion when you made the Stamp Act ; and that you restored everything to peace and order when you repealed it. I have shown that the revival of the system of taxation has produced the very worst effects, and that the partial repeal has produced, not partial good, but universal evil. Let these consid- erations, founded on facts not one of which can be denied, bring us back to our reason by the road of our experience. I cannot, as I have said, answer for mixed measures; but surely this mixture of lenity would give the whole a better chance of success. When you once regain confidence, the way will be clear before you. Then you inay enforce the Act of Navigation when it ought to be enforced. You will your- selves open it where it ought still further to be opened. Proceed in what you do, whatever you do, from policy and not from rancour. Let us act like men, let us act like statesmen. Let us hold some sort of consistent conduct — it is agreed that a revenue is not to be had in America. If we lose the profit, let us get rid of the odium. On this business of America I confess I am serious even to sadness. I have had but one opinion concerning it since I sat, and before I sat, in Parliament. The noble lord ^ will, as usual, probably attribute the part taken by me and my friends in this business to a desire of getting his places. Let him enjoy this happy and original idea. . If I deprived him of it, I should take away most of his wit and all .his argument. But I had rather bear the brunt of all his wit, and indeed blows much heavier, than stand answerable to God for embracing a system that tends to the destruction of some of the very best and fairest of his works. But I know the map of England as well as the noble lord,^ or as any other person, and I know that the way I take is not the road to preferment. My excellent and honor- able friend under me on the floor ^ has trod that road with great toil for upwards of tAventy years together. He is not yet ar- rived at the noble lord's destination. How- ever, the tracks of my worthy friend are those I have ever wished to follow, be- 1 Lord North. *Mr. Dowdeswell. cause I know they will lead to honor. Long may we tread the same road together, whoever may accompany us, or who- ever may laugh at us on our journey! I honestly and solemnly declare, I have in all seasons adhered to the systems of 1766, for no other reason than that I think it laid deep in your truest interest — and that, by limiting the exercise, it fixes on the firmest foundations a real, consistent, well-grounded authority in Parliament. Until you come back to that system there will be no peace for England. On Conciliating the Colonies edmund burke [From a Speech Delivered March 22, 1775] The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war ; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations ; not peace to arise out of universal discord fomented, from principle, in all parts of the Empire; not peace to depend on the juridical determina- tion of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a com- plex government. It is simple peace ; sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific. I propose, by removing the ground of the difference, and by restoring the former un- suspecting confidence of the Colonies in ihe Mother Countiy, to give permanent satis- faction to your people; and (far from a scheme of ruling by discord) to reconcile them to each other in the same act and by the bond of the very same interest which reconciles them to British government. My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion ; and ever will be so, as long as the woi-ld endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily dis- covered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of mankind. Gen- uine simplicity of heart is an healing and cementing principle. My plan, therefore, being formed ujDon the most simple grounds imaginable, may disappoint some people when they hear it. It has nothing to rec- ommend it to the pruriency of curious ears. There is nothing at all new and captivating in it. It has nothing of the splendor of the project which has been lately laid upon your table by the noble lord in the blue ribbon. 278 THE GEEAT TEADITION It does not propose to fill your lobby with squabbling Colony agents, who will require the interposition of your maee, at every in- stant, to keep the peace amongst them. It does not institute a magnificent auction of finance, where captivated provinces come to general ransom by bidding against each other, until you knock down the hammer, and determine a proportion of payments beyond all the powers of algebra to equalize ai>d settle. The House has gone farther; it has de- clared conciliation admissible, previous to any submission on the part of America. It has even shot a good deal beyond that mark, and has admitted that the complaints of our former mode of exerting the right of taxa- tion were not wholly unfounded. That right thus exerted is allowed to have something reprehensible in it, something unwise, or something grievous; since, in the midst of our heat and resentment, we, of ourselves, have proposed a capital alteration ; and in order to get rid of what seemed so very exceptionable, have instituted a mode that is altogether new ; one that is, indeed, wholly alien from all the ancient methods and forms of Parliament. The iDrinciple of this proceeding is large enough for my purpose. The means pro- posed by the noble lord for carrying his ideas into execution, I think, indeed, are very indifferently suited to the end; and this I shall endeavor to show you before I sit down. But, for the present, I take my gi'ound on the admitted principle. I mean to give peace. Peace implies recon- ciliation; and where there has been a mate- rial dispute, reconciliation does in a man- ner always imply concession on the one part or on the other. In this state of things, I make no difficulty in affirming that the proposal ought to originate from us. Great and acknowledged force is not impaired, either in effect or in opinion, by an im- willingness to exert itself. The superior power may offer peace with honor and with safety. Such an offer from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity. But the concessions of the weak are the eon- cessions of fear. When such a one is dis- armed, he is wholly at the mercy of his superior; and he loses forever that time and those chances, which, as they hajapen to all men, are the strength and resources of all inferior poAver. The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide are these two : First, whether you ought to concede; and secondly, what your concession ought to be. On the first of these questions we have gained, as I have just taken the liberty of observing to you, some gTound. But I am sensible that a good deal inore is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us to deter- mine both on the one and the other of these great questions with a firm and precise judgTiient, I think it may be necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object which we have before us ; because after all our struggle, whether we will or not, we must govern America according to that nature and to those circumstances, and not accord- ing to our own imaginations, nor according to abstract ideas of right — -by no means according to mere general theories of gov- ernment, the resort to which appears to me, in our present situation, no better than ar- rant trifling. I shall therefore endeavor, with your leave, to lay before you some of the most material of these circumstances in as full and as clear a manner as I am able to state them. . . . In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole; and as an ardent is always a jealous affec- tion, your Colonies become suspicious, rest- ive, and untractable whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English Colonies probably than in any other people of the earth, and this from a great variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the true temper of their minds and the direction which this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely. First, the people of the Colonies are de- scendants of Englishmen, England, Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The Colo- nists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object ; and eveiy nation has formed to itself some fa- vorite point, which by way of eminence be- THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCRACY 279 comes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contests for freedom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned pri- marily on the right of election of magis- trates; or on the balance among the several orders of the state. The question of money was not with them so immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens, and most eloquent tongues, have been exercised; the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance of this point, it was not only necessary for those who in argument de- fended the excellence of the English Con- stitution to insist on this privilege of grant- ing money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that the right had been acknowledged in 'ancient parchments and blind usages to reside in a certain body called a House of Commons. They went much farther; they attempted to prove, and they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular nature of a House of Commons as an immediate representative of the peo- ple, whether the old records had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty can subsist. The Colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and at- tached on this specific point of taxing. Lib- erty might be safe, or might be endangered, in twenty other particulars, without their being much pleased or alarmed. Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat, they thought themselves sick or sound. I do not say whether they were right or wrong in applying your general arguments to their own case. It is not easy, indeed, to make a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The fact is, that they did thus apply those gen- eral arguments; and your mode of govern- ing them, whether through lenity or indo- lence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination that they, as well as you, had an interest in these common principles. They were further confirmed in this pleas- ing error by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are popular in an high degree; some are merely popular; in all, the popular repre- sentative is the most weighty ; and this share of the people in their ordinary government never fails to inspire them with lofty senti- ments, and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their chief importance. . . . Then, Sir, from these six capital sources — of descent, of form of government, of re- ligion in the Northern Provinces, of man- ners in the Southern, of education, of the remoteness of situation from the first mover of government — from all these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up. It has grown with the growth of the people in your Colonies, and increased with the in- crease of their wealth; a spirit that un- happily meeting with an exercise of power in England which, however lawful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has kindled this flame that is ready to consume us, I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this excess, or the moral causes which produce it. Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom in them would be more acceptable to us. Per- haps ideas of liberty might be desired more reconcilable with an arbitrary and boundless authority. Perhaps we might wish the Colo- nists to be persuaded that their liberty is more secure when held in trust for them by us, as their guardians during a perpetual minority, than with, any part of it in their own hands. The question is, not whether their spirit deserves praise or blame, but — what, in the name of God, shall we do with if? You have before you the object, such as it is, with all its glories, with all its im- perfections on its head. You see the mag- nitude, the importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. By all these consid- erations we are strongly urged to determine something concerning it. We are called upon to fix some rule and line for our fu- ture conduct which may give a little stability* to our politics, and prevent the return of such unhappy deliberations as the present. Every such return will bring the matter before us in a still more untractable form. For, what astonishing and incredible things have we not seen already ! What monsters have not been generated from this unnatural contention ! Whilst every principle of au- thority and resistance has been pushed, upon both sides, as far as it would go, there is nothing so solid and certain, either in rea- 280 THE GREAT TRADITION soning or in practice, that has not been shaken. Until very lately all authority in America seemed to be nothing but an ema- nation from yours. Even the popular part of the Colony Constitution derived all its activity and its first vital movement from the pleasure of the Crown. We thought, Sir, that the utmost which the discontented Colonies could do was to disturb authority; we never dreamt they could of themselves supply it — knowing in general what an operose business it is to establish a govern- ment absolutely new. But having, for our purposes in this contention, resolved that none but an obedient Assembly should sit, the humors of the people there, finding all passage through the legal channel stopped, with great violence broke out another way. Some provinces have tried their experiment, as we have tried ours; and theirs has suc- ceeded. They have formed a government sufficient for its pux^^^oses, without the bustle of a revolution or the formality of an elec- tion. Evident necessity and tacit consent have done the business in an instant. So well they have done it, that Lord Dunmore — the account is among the fragments on your table — tells yoa that the new institu- tion is infinitely better obeyed than the an- cient government ever was in its most for- tunate periods. Obedience is what makes government, and not the names by which it is called ; not the name of Governor, as for- merly, or Committee, as at present. This new government has originated directly from the people, and was not transmitted through any of the ordinary artificial media of a positive constitution. It was not a manufacture ready formed, and transmitted to them in that condition from England. The evil arising from hence is this ; that the Colonists having once found the possibility of enjoying the advantages of order in the midst of a struggle for liberty, such strug- gles will not henceforward seem so terrible to the settled and sober part of mankind as they had appeared before the trial. . . . If then, Sir, it seems almost desperate to think of any alterative course for changing the moral causes, and not quite easy to re- move the natural, which produce prejudices irreconcilable to the late exercise of our au- thority — but that the spirit infallibly will continue, and, continuing, will produce such effects as now embarrass us — the second mode tinder consideration is to prosecute that spirit in its overt acts as crimmal. At this proposition I must pause a mo- ment. The thing seems a great deal too big for my ideas of jurisprudence. It should seem to my way of conceiving such matters that there is a very wide difference, in rea- son and policy, between the mode of pro- ceeding on the irregular conduct of scat- tered individuals, or even of bands of men who disturb order within the state, and the civil dissensions which may, from time to time, on great questions, agitate the several communities which compose a great empire. It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal jus- tice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indict- ment against a whole people. I cannot in- sult and ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow-creatures as Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellent individual (Sir Wal- ter Raleigh) at the bar. I hope I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted with magistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged with the safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the very same title that I am. I really think that, for wise men, this is not judicious; . for sober men, not decent; for minds tinctured with humanity, not mild and merciful. Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an empire, as distinguished from a single state or kingdom. But my idea of it is this ; that an empire is the aggregate of many states under one common head, whether this head be a monarch or a presiding republic. It does, in such constitutions, frequently happen — and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead uniformity of servitude can prevent its happening — that the subordinate parts have many local privileges and immunities. Between these privileges and the supreme common authority the line may be extremely nice. Of course disputes, often, too, very bitter disputes, and much ill blood, will arise. But though every privilege is an exemp- tion, in the case, from the ordinary exercise of the supreme authority, it is no denial of it. The claim of a privilege seems rather, ex vi termini, to imply a superior power; for to talk of the privileges of a state or of a person who has no superior is hardly any better than speaking nonsense. Now, in such unfortunate quarrels among the com- ponent parts of a great political union of communities, I can scarcely conceive any- thing more completely imprudent than for the head of the empire to insist that, if any privilege is pleaded against his will or his acts, his whole authority is denied ; instantly THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 281 to proclaim rebellion, to -beat to arms, and to put the offending provinces under the ban. Will not this. Sir, very soon teach the provinces to make no distinctions on their part 1 Will it not teach them that the government, against which a claim of lib- erty is tantamount to high treason, is a gov- ernment to which submission is equivalent to slavery 1 It may not always be quite con- venient to impress dependent communities with such an idea. We are, indeed, in all disputes with the Colonies, by the necessity of things, the judge. It is true. Sir. But I confess that the character of judge in my own cause is a thing that frightens me. Instead of filling me with pride, I am exceedingly humbled by it. I cannot proceed with a stern, as- sured, judicial confidence, until I find my- self in something more like a judicial char- acter. I must have these hesitations as long as I am compelled to recollect that, in my little reading upon such contests as these, the sense of mankind has at least as often decided against the superior as the subordi- nate power. Sir, let me add, too, that the opinion of my having some abstract right in my favor would not put me much at my ease in passing sentence, unless I could be sure that there were no rights which, in their exercise under certain circumstances, were not the most odious of all wrongs and the most vexatious of all injustice. Sir, these considerations have great weight with me when I find things so circumstanced, that I see the same party at once a civil litigant against me in point of right and a culprit before me, while I sit as a criminal judge on acts of his whose moral quality is to be decided upon the merits of that very liti- gation. Men are every now and then put, by the complexity of human affairs, into strange situations; but justice is the same, let the judge be in what situation he will. There is. Sir, also a circumstance which convinces me that this mode of criminal proceeding is not, at least, in the present stage of our contest, altogether expedient; which is nothing less than the conduct of those very persons who have seemed to adopt that mode by lately declaring a re- bellion in Massachusetts Bay, as they had formerly addressed to have traitors brought hither, under an Act of Henry the Eighth, for trial. For though rebellion is declared, it is not proceeded against as such, nor have any steps been taken towards the apprehen- sion or conviction of any individual of- fender, either on our late or our former Ad- dress; but modes of public coercion have been adopted, and such as have much more resemblance to a sort of qualified hostility towards an independent power than the punishment of rebellious subjects. All this seems rather inconsistent ; but it shows how difficult it is to apply these juridical ideas to our present case. In this situation, let us seriously and coolly ponder. What is it we have got by all our menaces, which have been many and ferocious? What advantage have we de- rived from the penal laws we have passed, and which, for the time, have been severe and numerous? What advances have we made towards our object by the sending of a force which, by land and sea, is no con- temptible strength? Has the disorder abated? Nothing less. When I see things in this situation after such confident hopes, bold promises, and active exertions, I can- not, for my life, avoid a suspicion that the plan itself is not correctly right. If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit of American liberty be for the greater part, or rather entirely, impracticable; if the ideas of criminal process be inapplicable — or, if applicable, are in the highest de- gree inexpedient; what way yet remains? No way is open but the third and last, — to comply with the American spirit as neces- sary ; or, if you please, to submit to it as a necessary evil. If we adopt this mode, — if we mean to conciliate and concede, — let us see of what nature the concession ought to be. To as- certain the nature of our concession, we must look at their complaint. The Colonies complain that they have not the character- istic mark and seal of British freedom. They complain that they are taxed in a Parlia- ment in which they are not represented. If you mean to satisfy them at all, you must satisfy them with regard to this complaint. If you mean to please any people you must give them the boon which they ask; not what you may think better for them, but of a kuid totally different. Such an act may be a wise regulation, but it is no con- cession; whereas our present theme is the mode of giving satisfaction. Sir, I think you must perceive that I am resolved this day to have nothing at all to do with the question of the right of taxa- tion. Some gentlemen start — but it is true ; I put it totally out of the question. It is less than nothing in my consideration. I do 282 THE GEEAT TRADITION not indeed wonder, nor will you, Sir, that gentlemen of profound learning are fond of displaying it on this profound subject. But my consideration is narrow, confined, and wholly limited to the policy of the question. I do not examine whether the giving away a man's money be a power excepted and re- served out of the general trust of govern- ment, and how far all mankind, in all forms of polity, are entitled to an exercise of that right by the charter of nature; or whether, on the contrary, a right of taxation is nec- essarily involved in the general principle of legislation, and inseparable from the ordi- nary supreme power. These are deep ques- tions, where great names militate against each other, where reason is perplexed, and an appeal to authorities only thickens the confusion; for high and reverend authori- ties lift up their heads on both sides, and there is no sure footing in the middle. This point is the great "Serbonian bog. Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, Where armies whole have sunk." I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, though in such respectable company. The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people miser- able, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I m^ay do, but what humanity, rea- son, and justice tell me I ought to do. Is a politic act the worse for being a generous one ? Is no concession proper but that which is made from your want of right to keep what you grant ? Or does it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the exercise of an odious claim because you have your evi- dence-room full of titles, and your maga- zines stuffed with arms to enforce them? What signify all those titles, and all those arms? Of what avail are they, when the reason of the thing tells me that the asser- tion of my title is the loss of my suit, and that I could do nothing but wound myself by the use of my own weapons'? Such is steadfastly my opinion of the ab- solute necessity of keeping up the concord of this Empire by an unity of spirit, though in a diversity of operations, that, if I were sure the Colonists had, at their leaving this country, sealed a regular compact of servi- tude; that they had solemnly abjured all the rights of citizens ; that they had made a vow to renounce all ideas of liberty for them and their posterity to all generations ; yet I should hold myself obliged to conform to the temper I found universally prevalent in my own day, and to govern two million of men, impatient of servitude, on the prin- ciples of freedom. I am not determining a point of law, I am restoring tranquillity; and the general character and situation of a people must determine what sort of govern- ment is fitted for them. That point nothing else can or ought to determine. My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield as matter of right, or grant as matter of favor, is to admit the people of our Colonies into an interest in the Consti- tution ; and, by recording that admission in the journals of Parliament, to give them as strong an assurance as the nature of the thing will admit, that we mean forever to adhere to that solemn declaration of sys- tematic indulgence. . . . For that service — for all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire — my trust is in her interest in the British Constitution. My hold of the Colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the Colonists always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government,- — they will cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once understood that your gov- ernment may be one thing, and their privi- leges another, that these two things may exist without any mutual relation, the ce- ment is gone — the cohesion is loosened — and everything hastens to decay and disso- lution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred tem- ple consecrated to our common faith, wher- ever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ar- dently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere — it is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain ; they may have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. This is the commodity of price of which you have the monopoly. This is the true Act of Navi- gation which binds to you the commerce of THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCRACY 283 the Colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the Empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and your bonds, your af- fidavits and your sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office, and your instruc- tions, and your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together the great contex- ture of the mysterious whole. These things do not make your government. Dead in- struments, passive tools as they are, it is the spirit of the English communion that gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit of the English Constitution which, in- fused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the Empire, even down to the minutest member. Is it not the same virtue which does every- thing for us here in England? Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue ? that it is the an- nual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army? or that it is the Mu- tiny Bill which inspires it with braveiy and discipline ? No ! surely no ! It is the love of the people ; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institu- tion, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obe- dience without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rot- ten timber. All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these rul- ing and master principles which, in the opin- ion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth every- thing, and all in all. Magnanimity in poli- ties is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our station, and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our situation and ourselves, we ought to auspi- cate all our public proceedings on America with the old warning of the church, Sursum cor da I We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of providence has called us. By ad- verting to the dignity of this high calling our ancestors have turned a savage wilder- ness into a glorious empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honorable conquests — not by destroying, but by pro- moting the wealth, the number, the happi- ness, of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got an Ameri- can empire. English privileges have made it all that it is ; English privileges alone will make it all it can be. In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now, quod felix faustumque sit, lay the first stone of the TemjDle of Peace; and I move you — ''That the Colonies and Plantations of Great Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and con- taming two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any Knights and Burgesses, or others, to repre- sent them in the High Court of Parliament," On the Affairs of America edmund burke [From a letter addressed to John Farr and John Harris, sheriffs of the City of Bristol, 1777] The Act! of which I speak is among the fruits of the American war; a war in my humble opinion productive of many mis- chiefs of a kind which distinguish it from all others. Not only our policy is deranged, and our empire distracted, but our laws and our legislative spirit api^ear to have been totally perverted by it. We have made war on our colonies, not by arms only, but by laws. As hostility and law are not very concordant ideas, every step we have taken in this business has been made by trampling on some maxim of justice, or some capital principle of wise government. What prece- dents were established, and what jDrinciples overturned (I will not say of English privi- lege, but of general justice), in the Boston Port, the Massachusetts Charter, the Mili- tary Bill, and all that long array of hostile Acts of Parliament by which the war with 1 An act for the suspension 'of Haheas Corpus in the Colonies and on the high seas. 284 THE GREAT TRADITION America has been begun and supported! Had the principles of any of these Acts been first exerted on English ground they would probably have expired as soon as they touched it. But by being removed from our persons they have rooted in our laws, and the latest posterity will taste the fruits of them. Nor is it the worst effect of this unnatural contention, that our laws are corrupted. Whilst manners remain entire, they will cor- rect the vices of law, and soften it at length to their own temper. But we have to lament that in most of the late proceedings we see very few traces of that generosity, humanity, and dignity of mind which formerly charac- terized this nation. War suspends the rules of moral obligation, and what is long sus- pended is in danger of being totally abro- gated. Civil wars strike deepest of all into the manners of the people. They vitiate their polities, they corrupt their morals, they pervert even the natural taste and relish of equity and justice. By teaching us to consider our fellow-citizens in a hostile light, the whole body of our nation becomes gradually less dear to us. The very names of affection and kindred, which were the bond of charity whilst we agreed, become new incentives to hatred and rage, when the communion of our country is dissolved. We may flatter ourselves that we shall not fall into this misfortune. But we have no char- ter of exemption that I know of from the ordinary frailties of our nature. What but that blindness of heart which arises from the phrensy of civil contention could have made any jaersons conceive the present situation of the British affairs as an object of triumph to themselves, or of con- gratulation to their sovereign? Nothing surely could be more lamentable to those who remember the flourishing days of this kingdom than to see the insane joy of sev- eral unhappy people, amidst the sad spec- tacle which our affairs and conduct exhibit to the scorn of Europe. We behold (and it seems some peojDle rejoice in beholding) our native land, which used to sit the envied arbiter of all her neighbors, reduced to a servile dependence on their mercy, ac- quiescing in assurances of friendshijD which she does not trust, complaining of hostili- ties which she dares not resent, deficient to her allies, lofty to her subjects, and sub- missive to her enemies; whilst the liberal Government of this free nation is supported by the hireling sword of German boors and vassals; and three millions of the subjects of Great Britain are seeking for protection to English privileges in the arms of France? These circumstances apjDear to me more like shocking i3rodigies than natural changes in human affairs. Men of firmer minds may see them without staggering or astonish- ment. Some may think them matters of con- gratulation and complimentary addresses; but I trust your candor will be so indulgent to my weakness, as not to have the worse opinion of me for my declining to partici- pate in this joy, and my rejecting all share whatsoever in such a triumph. I am too old, too stiff in my inveterate partialities, to be ready at all the fashionable evolutions of opinion. I scarcely know hoAV to adapt my mind to the feelings with which the court gazettes mean to impress the people. It is not instantly that I can be brought to re- joice, when I hear of the slaughter and cap- tivity of long lists of those names which have been familiar to my ears from my infancy, and to rejoice that they have fallen under the sword of strangers, whose barbarous ap- pellations I scarcely know how to pro- nounce. The glory acquired at the White Plains by Colonel Kaille has no charms for me; and I fairly acknowledge that I have not yet learned to delight in finding Fort Kniphausen in the heart of the British dominions. It might be some consolation for the loss of our old regards if our reason weje en- lightened in proportion as our honest preju- dices are removed. Wanting feelings for the honor of our country, we might then in cold blood be brought to think a little of our interests as individual citizens, and our pri- vate conscience as moral agents. Indeed our affairs are in a bad condition. I do assure those gentlemen who have prayed for war, and have obtained the blessing they have sought, that they are at this instant in very great straits. The abused wealth of this country continues a little longer to feel its distemper. As yet they, and their Ger- man allies of twenty hireling states, have contended only with the unprepared strength of our own infant colonies. But America is not subdued. Not one unattached village which was originally adverse throughout that vast continent has yet submitted from love or terror. You have the ground you encamp on, and you have no more. The cantonments of your troops and your dominions are ex- THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 285 aetly of the same extent. You spread de- vastation, but you do not enlarge the sphere of authority. The events of this war are of so much greater magnitude than those who either wished or feared it ever looked for, that this alone ought to fill every considerate mind with anxiety and diffidence. Wise men often tremble at the very things which fill the thoughtless with security. For many reasons I do not choose to expose to public view all the particulars of the state in which you stood with regard to foreign powers during the whole course of the last year. Whether you are yet wholly out of danger from them is more than 1 know or than your rulers can divine. But even if I were certain of my safety, I could not easily forgive those who had brought me into the most dreadful perils, because by accidents, unforeseen by them or me, I have escaped. Believe me, gentlemen, the way still before you is intricate, dark, and full of perplexed and treacherous mazes. Those who think they have the clue may lead us out of this labyrinth. We may trust them as amply as we think proper ; but as they have most cer- tainly a call for all the reason which their stock can furnish, why should we think it proper to disturb its operation by inflaming their passions? I may be unable to lend an helping hand to those who direct the state, but I should be ashamed to make myself one of a noisy multitude to halloo and hearten them into doubtful and dangerous courses. A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood. He would feel some ap- prehension at being called to a tremendous account for engaging in so deep a play with- out any sort of knowledge of the game. It is no excuse for presumptuous ignorance that it is directed by insolent passion. The poorest being that crawls on earth, contend- ing to save itself from injustice and oppres- sion, is an object respectable in the eyes of God and man. But I cannot conceive any existence under heaven (which, in the depths of its wisdom, tolerates all sorts of things), that is more truly odious and disgusting than an impotent, helpless creature, without civil wisdom or military skill, without a con- sciousness of any other qualification for power but his servility to it, bloated with pride and arrogance, calling for battles which he is not to fight, contending for a violent dominion which he can never ex- ercise, and satisfied to be himself mean and miserable in order to render others con- temptible and wretched. If you and I find our talents not of the great and ruling kind, our conduct, at least, is conformable to our faculties. No man's life pays the forfeit of our rashness. No desolate widow weeps tears of blood over our ignorance. Scrupulous and sober in our well-grounded distrust of ourselves, we would keep in the port of peace and se- curity ; and perhaps, in recommending to others something of the same diffidence, we should show ourselves more charitable in their welfare than injurious to their abili- ties. There are many circumstances in the zeal shown for civil war which seem to discover but little of real magnanimity. The address- ers offer their own persons, and they are satisfied with hiring Germans. They promise their private fortunes, and they mortgage their country. They have all the merit of volunteers, without risk of person or charge of contribution ; and when the unfeeling arm of a foreign soldiery pours out their kindred blood like water, they exult and triumph as if they themselves had performed some nota- ble exploit. I am really ashamed of the fashionable language which has been held for some time past, which, to say the best of it, is full of levity. You know that I allude to the general cry against the coward- ice of the Americans, as if we despised them for not making the king's soldiery purchase the advantage they have obtained at a dearer rate. It is not, gentlemen, it is not to re- spect the dispensations of Providence, nor to provide any decent retreat in the muta- bility of human affairs. It leaves no medium between insolent victory and infamous de- feat. It tends to alienate our minds farther and farther from our natural regards, and to make an eternal rent and schism in the British nation. Those who do not wish for such a separation would not dissolve that cement of reciprocal esteem and regard which can alone bind together the parts of this great fabric. It ought to be our wish, as it is our duty, not only to forbear this style of outrage ourselves, but to make every one as sensible as we can of the im- propriety and unworthiness of the tempers which give rise to it, and which designing men are laboring with such malignant in- dustry to diffuse amongst us. It is our business to counteract them if possible; if possible to awake our natural regards, and 286 THE GEEAT TRADITION to revive the old partiality to the English name. Without something of this kind I do not see how it is ever practicable really to reconcile with those whose affection, after all, must be the surest hold of our govern- ment; and which is a thousand times more worth to us than the mercenary zeal of all the circles of Germany. I can well conceive a country completely overrun, and miserably wasted, without ap- proaching in the least to settlement. In my apprehension, as long as English govern- ment is attempted to be supported over Englishmen by the sword alone, things will thus continue. I anticipate in my mind the moment of the final triumph of foreign mili- tary force. When that hour arrives (for it may arrive), then it is that all this mass of weakness and violence will appear in its full lighto If we should be expelled from America, the delusion of the partisans of military government might still continue. They might still feed their imaginations with the possible good consequences which might have attended success. Nobody could prove the contrary by facts. But in case the sword should do all that the sword can do, the success of their arms and the defeat of their policy will be one and the same thing. You will never see any revenue from America. Some increase of the means of corruption, .without ease of the public burthens, is the very best that can happen. Is it for this that we are at war — and in such a war? As to the difficulties of laying once more the foundations of that government which, for the sake of conquering what was our own, has been voluntarily and wantonly pulled down by a court faction here, I tremble to look at them. Has any of these gentlemen, who are so eager to govern all mankind, showed himself possessed of the first qualification towards government, some knowledge of the object and of the diffi- culties which occur in the task they have undertaken ? I assure you that, on the most prosperous issue of your arms, you will not be where you stood, when you called in war to supply the defects of your political establishment. Nor would any disorder or disobedience to government which could arise from the most abject concession on our part ever equal those which will be felt after the most triumphant violence. You have got all the intermediate evils of war into the bargain. I think I know America. If I do not, my ignorance is incurable, for I have spared no pains to understand it; and I do most solemnly assure those of my constituents who put any sort of confidence in my in- dustry and integrity, that everything that has been done there has arisen from a total misconception of the object; that our means of originally holding America, that our means of reconciling with it after quarrel, of recovering it after separation, of keeping it after victory, did depend and must depend in their several stages and periods, upon a total renunciation of that unconditional sub- mission, which has taken such possession of the minds of violent men. The whole of those maxims upon which we have made and continued this war must be abandoned. Nothing indeed (for I would not deceive you) can place us in our former situation. That hope must be laid aside. But there is a difference between bad and the worst of all. Terms relative to the cause of the war ought to be offered by the authority of Parliament. An arrangement at home promising some security for them ought to be made. By doing this, without the least impairing of our strength, we add to the credit of our moderation, which in itself is always strength more or less. I know many have been taught to think that moderation in a ease like this is a sort of treason, and that all arguments for it are sufficiently answered by railing at rebels and rebellion and by charging all the present or future miseries which we may suffer on the resistance of our brethren. But I would wish them in this grave matter, and if peace is not wholly removed from their hearts, to consider seriously, first, that to criminate and recriminate never yet was the road to reconciliation in any difference amongst men. In the next place, it would be right to reflect that the American English (whom they may abuse if they think it honorable to revile the absent) can, as things now stand, neither be provoked at our railing nor bettered by our instruction. All com- munication is cut off between us, but this we know with certainty that, though we can- not reclaim them, we may reform ourselves. If measures of peace are necessary, they must begin somewhere, and a conciliatory temper must precede and prepare every plan of reconciliation. Nor do I conceive that we suffer anything by thus regulating our own minds. We are not disarmed by being dis- encumbered of our passions. Declaiming on THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 287 rebellion never added a bayonet or a charge of powder to your military force, but I am afraid that it has been the means of taking up many muskets against you. This outrageous language, which has been encouraged and kept alive by every art, has already done incredible mischief. For a long time, even amidst the desolations of war and the insults of hostile laws daily accumulated on one another, the American leaders seem to have had the greatest dif&eulty in bringing up their people to a declaration of total in- dependence. But the court gazette ac- complished what the abettors of independ- ence had attempted in vain. When that dis- ingenuous compilation and strange medley of railing and flattery was adduced as a proof of the united sentiments of the people of Great Britain, there was a great change throughout all America. The tide of popu- lar affection, which had still set towards the parent country, began immediately to turn, and to flow with great rapidity in a contrary course. Far from concealing these wild declarations of enmity, the author of the celebrated pamphlet,^ which prepared the minds of the people for independence, in- sists largely on the multitude and the spirit of these addresses; and he draws an argu- ment from them which (if the fact was as he supposes) must be irresistible. For I never knew a writer on the theory of government so partial to authority as not to allow that the hostile mind of the rulers to their people did fully justify a change of government; nor can any reason whatever be given why one people should voluntarily yield any de- gree of pre-eminence to another but on a supposition of great affection and benevo- lence towards them. Unfortunately your rulers, trusting to other things, took no notice of this great principle of connection. From the beginning of this affair they have done all they could to alienate your minds from your own kindred; and if they could excite hatred enough in one of the parties towards the other, they seemed to be of opinion that they had gone half the way towards reconciling the quarrel. I know it is said that your kindness is only alienated on account of their resist- ance ; and therefore, if the colonies surrender at discretion, all sorts of regard and even much indulgence is meant towards them in future. But can those who are partisans for continuing a war to enforce such a sur- * Paine's Common Sense, render be responsible (after all that has passed) for such a future use of a power that is bound by no compacts and restrained by no terror? Will they tell us what they call indulgences ? Do they not at this instant call the present war and all its horrors a lenient and merciful proceeding? .... If I had not lived long enough to be little surprised at anything, I should have been in some degree astonished at the continued rage of several gentlemen who, not satisfied with carrying fire and sword into America, are animated nearly with the same fury against those neighbors of theirs whose only crime it is that they have charitably and humanely wished them to entertain more reasonable sentiments, and not always to sacrifice their interest to their passion. All this rage against unresisting dissent con- vinces me that at bottom they are far from satisfied they are in the right. For what is it they would have? A war? They cer- tainly have at this moment the blessing of something that is very like one, and if the war they enjoy at present be not sufficiently hot and extensive, they may shortly have it as warm and as spreading as their hearts can desire. Is it the force of the kingdom they call for? They have it already; and if they choose to fight their battles in their own person, nobody prevents their setting sail to America in the next transports. Do they think that the service is stinted for want of liberal supplies ? Indeed they com- plain without reason. The table of the House of Commons will glut them, let their appetite for expense be never so keen. And I assure them further that those who think with them in the House of Commons are full as easy in the control as they are liberal in the vote of these expenses. If this be not supply or confidence sufficient, let them open their own private purse-strings and give from what is left to them as largely and Avith as little care as they think proper. Tolerated in their passions, let them learn not to persecute the moderation of their fel- low-citizens. If all the world joined them in a full cry against rebellion, and were as hotly inflamed against the whole theory and enjoyment of freedom as those who are the most factious for servitude, it could not in my opinion answer any one end whatsoever in this contest. The leaders of this war could not hire (to gratify their friends) one German more than they do, or inspire him with less feeling for the persons or less 288 THE GBEAT TRADITION value for the privileges of their revolted brethren. If we all adopted their sentiments to a man, their allies, the savage Indians, could not be more ferocious than they are; they could not murder one more helpless woman or child, or with more exquisite re- finements of cruelty torment to death one more of their English flesh and blood than they do already. The public money is given to purchase this alliance — and they have their bargain. They are continually boasting of unanim- ity, or calling for it. But before this una- nimity can be matter either of wish or con- gratulation we ought to be pretty sure that we, are engaged in a rational pursuit. Phrensy does not become a slighter dis- temper on account of the number of those who may be infected with it. Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less because they are universal. I declare that I cannot discern the least advantage which could accrue to us if we were able to per- suade our colonies that they had not a single friend in Great Britain. On the contrary, if the affections and opinions of mankind be not exploded as principles of connection, I conceive it would be happy for us if they were taught to believe that there was even a formed American party in England to whom they could always" look for support! Happy would it be for us if, in all tempers, they might turn their eyes to the parent state, so that their very turbulence and sedi- tion should find vent in no other place than this. I believe there is not a man (except those who prefer the interest of some paltry faction to the very being of their country) who would not wish that the Americans should from time to time carry many points, and even some of them not quite reasonable, by the aid of any denomination of men here rather than they should be driven to seek for protection against the fury of foreign mercenaries and the waste of savages in the arms of France. When any community is subordinately connected with another, the great danger of the connection is the extreme pride and self- complacency of the superior, which in all matters of controversy will probably decide in its own favor. It is a powerful corrective to such a very rational cause of fear if the inferior body can be made to believe that the party inclination, or political views, of several in the principal state will induce them in some degree to counteract this blind and tyrannical partiality. There is no danger that any one acquiring consideration or power in the presiding state should carry this leaning to the inferior too far. The fault of human nature is not of that sort. Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself. But one great advantage to the support of authority at- tends such an amicable and protecting con- nection, that those who have conferred favors obtain influence, and from the fore- sight of future events can persuade men who have received obligations sometimes to re- turn them. Thus, by the mediation of those healing principles (call them good or evil), troublesome discussions are brought to some sort of adjustment, and every hot contro- versy is not a civil war. But if the colonies (to bring the general matter home to us) could see that, in Great Britain, the mass of the people are melted into its Government, and that every dispute with the Ministry must of necessity be always a quarrel with the nation, they can stand no longer in the equal and friendly relations of fellow-citizens to the subjects of this king- dom. Humble as this relation may appear to some, when it is once broken a strong tie is dissolved. Other sort of connections will be sought. For there are very few in the world who will not prefer a useful ally to an insolent master. Such discord has been the effect of the unanimity into which so many have of late been seduced or bullied, or into the appear- ance of which they have sunk through mere despair. They have been told that their dis- sent from violent measures is an encourage- ment to rebellion. Men of gi'eat presump- tion and little knowledge will hold a language which is contradicted by the whole course of history. General rebellions and revolts of a whole people never were encouraged, now or at any time. They are always provoked. But if this unheard-of doctrine of the en- couragement of rebellion were true, if it were true that an assurance of the friend- ship of numbers in this country towards the colonies could become an encouragement to them to break off all connection with it, what is the inference? Does anybody seriously maintain that, charged with my share of the public councils, I am obliged not to resist projects which I think mischievous lest men who suffer should be encouraged to resist? The very tendency of such projects to pro- duce rebellion is one of the chief reasons THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 289 against them. Shall that reason not be given ? Is it then a rule that no man in this nation shall open his mouth in favor of the colonies, shall defend their rights, or com- plain of their sufferings'? Or, when war finally breaks out, no man shall express his desires of peace? Has this been the law of our 4)ast, or is it to be the terms of our future connection 1 Even looking no further than ourselves, can it be true loyalty to any government, or true patriotism toAvards any country, to degrade their solemn councils into servile drawing-rooms, to flatter their pride and passions, rather than to enlighten their reason, and to prevent them from being cautioned against violence lest others should be encouraged to resistance'? By such ac- quiescence great kings and mighty nations have been undone ; and if any are at this day in a perilous situation from resisting truth and listening to flattery, it would rather be- come them to reform the errors under which they suffer than to reproach those who fore- warned them of their danger. But the rebels looked for assistance from this counti'y. They did so in the beginning of this controversy most certainly ; and they sought it by earnest supplications to Gov- ernment, which dignity rejected, and by a suspension of commerce, which the wealth of this nation enabled you to desi^ise. When they found that neither prayers nor menaces had any sort of weight, but that a firm reso- lution was taken to reduce them to uncon- ditional obedience by a military force, they came to the last extremity. Despairing of us, they trusted in themselves. Not strong enough themselves, they sought succor in France. In proportion as all encouragement here lessened, their distance from this coun- try increased. The encouragement is over; the alienation is complete. . . . I have always wished that, as the dispute had its apparent origin from things done in Parliament, and as the Acts passed there had provoked the war, that the foundations of peace should be laid in Parliament also. I have been astonished to find that those whose zeal for the dignity of our body was so hot as to light up the flames of civil war should even publicly declare that these deli- cate points ought to be wholly left to the crown. Poorly as I may be thought affected to the authority of Parliament, I shall never admit that our constitutional rights can ever become a matter of ministerial nego- tiation. I am charged with being an American. If warm affection towards those over whom I claim any share of authority be a crime, I am guilty of this charge. But I do assure you (and they who know me publicly and privately will bear witness to me), that if ever one man lived more zealous than another for the supremacy of Parliament and the rights of this imperial crown, it was myself. Many others, indeed, might be more knowing in the .extent of the foundation of these rights. I do not pretend to be an antiquary, a lawyer, or qualified for the chair of professor in metaphysics. I never ventured to put your solid interests upon speculative grounds. My having constantly declined to do so has been attributed to my incapacity for such disquisitions; and I am inclined to believe it is partly the cause. I never shall be ashamed to confess that where I am ignorant I am diffident. I am indeed not very solicitous to clear myself of this imputed incapacity, because men, even less conversant than I am in this kind of subtleties, and placed in stations. to which I ought not to aspire, have, by the mere force of civil discretion, often conducted the affairs of great nations with distinguished felicity and glory. When I first came into a public trust, I found your Parliament in possession of an unlimited legislative power over the colonies. I could not open the statute book without seeing the actual exercise of it, more or less, in all cases whatsoever. This possession passed with me for a title. It does so in all human affairs. No man examines into the defects of his title to his paternal estate, or to his established Government. Indeed common sense taught me that a legislative authority, not actually limited by the express terms of its foundation, or by its own sub- sequent acts, cannot have its powers par- celed out by argumentative distinctions, so as to enable us to say that here they can, and there they cannot, bind. Nobody was so obliging as to produce to me any record of such distinctions, by compact or otherwise, either at the successive formation of the sev- eral colonies, or during the existence of any of them. If any gentlemen were able to see how one power could be given up (mere- ly on abstract reasoning) without giving up the rest, I can only say that they saw farther than I could ; nor did I ever presume to con- demn any one for being clear-sighted when I was blind. I praise the penetration and 290 THE GEEAT TEADITION learning, and hope that their practice has been correspondent to their theory. I had indeed very earnest wishes to keep the whole body of this authority perfect and entire as I found it; and to keep it so, not for our advantage solely, but principally for the sake of those on whose account all just authority exists — I mean the people to be governed. For I thought I saw that many eases might well happen in which the exercise of every power comprehended in the broadest idea of legislature might become, in its time and circumstances, not a little expedient for the peace and union of the colonies amongst themselves, as well as for their perfect harmony with Great Britain. Thinking so (perhaps erroneously), but being honestly of that opinion, I was at the same time very sure that the authority, of which I was so jealous, could not under the actual circumstances of our plantations be at all preserved in any of its members but by the greatest reserve in its applica- tion, particularly in those delicate points in which the feelings of mankind are the most irritable. They who thought other- wise have found a few more difficulties in their work than, I hope, they were thorough- ly aware of when they undertook the pres-. ent business. I must beg leave to observe that it is not only the invidious branch of taxation that will be resisted, but that no other given part of legislative rights can be exercised without regard to the general opinion of those who are to be governed. That general opinion is the vehicle and organ of legislative omnipotence. Without this it may be a theory to entertain the mind, but it is nothing in the direction of affairs. The completeness of the legislative authority of Parliament over this kingdom is not ques- tioned ; and yet many things indubitably in- eluded in the abstract idea of that power, and which carry no absolute injustice in themselves, yet being contrary to the opinions and feelings of the people, can as little be exercised as if Parliament in that ease had been possessed of no right at all. I see no abstract reason which can be given why the same power which made and re- pealed the high commission court and the star-chamber might not revive them again; and these courts, warned by their former fate, might possibly exercise their powers with some degree of justice. But the mad- ness would be as unquestionable as the eom- petenpe of that Parliament which should attempt such things. If anything can be supposed out of the power of human legis- lature it is religion : I admit, however, that the established religion of this country has been three or four times altered by Act of Parliament, and therefore that a statute binds even in that case. But we may very safely affirm that, notwithstanding thi« ap- parent omnipotence, it would be now found as impossible for king and Parliament to alter the established religion of this country as it was to King James alone, when he attempted to make such an alteration with- out a Parliament. In effect, to follow, not to force, the public inclination, to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature. It is so with regard to the exercise of all the powers which our constitution knows in any of its parts, and indeed to the substan- tial existence of any of the parts themselves. The king's negative to bills is one of the most indisputed of the royal prerogatives, and it extends to all eases whatsoever. I am far from certain that if several laws which I know had fallen under the stroke of that scepter that the public would have had a very heavy loss. But it is not the pro- priety of the exercise which is in question. The exercise itself is wisely forborne. Its repose may be the preservation of its ex- istence, and its existence may be the means of saving the constitution itself, on an occa- sion worthy of bringing it forth. As the dis- putants, whose accurate and logical reason- ings have brought us into our present condi- tion, think it absurd that powers or members of any constitution should exist rarely or never to be exercised, I hope I shall be ex- cused in mentioning another instance that is material. We knoAV that the convocation of the clergy had formerly been called, and sat with nearly as much regularity to business as Parliament itself. It is now called for form only. It sits for the purpose of mak- ing some polite ecclesiastical compliments to the king, and, when that grace is said, retires and is heard of no more. It is, however, a part of the constitution, and may be called out into act and energy whenever there is occasion, and whenever those who conjure up that spirit will choose to abide the con- sequences. It is wise to permit its legal existence; it is much wiser to continue it a legal existence only. So truly has prudence (constituted as the god of this lower world) THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 291 the entire dominion over every exercise of power committed into its hands; and yet I have lived to see prudence and conformity to circumstances wholly set at nought in our late controversies, and treated as if they were the most contemptible and irrational of all things. I have heard it a hundred times very gravely alleged that, in order to keep power in mind, it was necessary, by prefer- ence, to exert it in those very points in which it was most likely to be resisted and the least likely to be productive of any ad- vantage. These were the considerations, gentlemen, which led me early to think that, in the com- prehensive dominion which the Divine Providence had put into our hand^, instead of troubling our understandings with specu- lations concerning the unity of empire, and the identity or distinction of legislative powers, and inflaming our passions with the heat and pride of controversy, it was our duty, in all soberness, to conform our gov- ernment to the character and circumstances of the several people who composed this mighty and strangely diversified mass. I never was wild enough to conceive that one method would serve for the whole ; that the natives of Hindostan and those of Virginia could be ordered in the same manner, or that the Cutchery court and the grand jury of Salem could be regulated on a similar plan. I was persuaded that government was a practical thing, made for the happiness of mankind, and not to furnish out a spectacle of uniformity to gratify the schemes of visionary politicians. Our business was to rule, not to wrangle ; and it would have been a poor compensation that we had triumphed in a dispute, whilst we lost an empire. If there be one fact in the world perfectly clear it is this : ''That the disposition of the people of America is wholly averse to any other than a free government"; and this is indication enough to any honest statesman how he ought to adapt whatever power he finds in his hands to their ease. If any ask me what a free government is, I answer that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so; and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and coinpetent judges of this matter. If they practically allow me a greater degree of authority over them than is consistent with any correct ideas of perfect freedom, I ought to thank them for so great a trust and not to en- deavor to prove from thence that they have reasoned amiss, and that, having gone so far, by analogy, they must hereafter have no enjoyment but by my pleasure. If we had seen this done by any others, we should have concluded them far gone in madness. It is melancholy as well as ridicu- lous to observe the kind of reasoning with which the public has been amused, in order to divert our minds from the common sense of our American policy. There are people who have S23lit and anatomized the doctrine of free government as if it were an abstract question concerning metaphysical liberty and necessity, and not a matter of moral prudence and natural feeling. They have disputed whether liberty be a positive or a negative idea; whether it does not consist in being governed by laws without consid- ering what are the laws or who are the makers; whether man has any rights by nature ; and whether all the property he en- joys be not the alms of his government, and his life itself their favor and indulgence. Others, corrupting religion as these have perverted philosophy, contend that Chris- tians are redeemed into captivity, and the blood of the Saviour of mankind has been shed to make them the slaves of a few proud and insolent sinners. These shocking ex- tremes provoking to extremes of another kind, speculations are let loose as destruc- tive to all authority as the former are to all freedom; and every government is called tyranny and usurpation which is not formed on their fancies. In this manner the stirrers- up of this contention, not satisfied with dis- tracting our dependencies and filling them with blood and slaughter, are corrupting our understandings; they are endeavoring to tear up, along with practical liberty, all the foundations of human society, all equity and justice, religion, and order. Civil freedom, gentlemen, is not, as many have endeavored to persuade you, a thing that lies hid in the depth of abstruse science. It is a blessing and a benefit, not an abstract speculation ; and all the just reasoning that can be upon it is of so coarse a texture as perfectly to suit the ordinary capacities of those who are to enjoy, and of those who are to defend it. Far from any resemblance to those propositions in geometry and meta- physics, which admit no medium, but must be true or false in all their latitude, social and civil freedom, like all other things in common life, are variously mixed and modi- fied, enjoyed in very different degrees, and 292 THE GREAT TRADITION shaped into an infinite diversity of forms, according to the temper and circumstances of every community. The extreme of liberty (which is its abstract perfection, but its real fault) obtains nowhere, nor ought to obtain anywhere. Because extremes, as we all know, in every point which relates either to our duties or satisfactions in life, are destructive both to virtue and enjoyment. Liberty too must be limited in order to be possessed. The degree of restraint it is impossible in any ease to settle precisely. But it ought to be the constant aim of every wise public council to find out, by cautious experiments and rational, cool endeavors, with how little, not how much, of this restraint the com- munity can subsist. For liberty is a good to be improved, and not an evil to be lessened. It is not only a private blessing of the first order, but the vital spring and en- ergy of the state itself, which has just so much life and vigor as there is liberty in it. But whether liberty be advantageous or not (for I know it is a fashion to decry the very principle) none will dispute that peace is a blessing ; and peace must in the course of human affairs be frequently bought by some indulgence and toleration at least to liberty. For as the Sabbath (though of Divine in- stitution) was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, government, which can claim no higher origin or authority, in its exercise at least, ought to conform to the exigencies of the time and the temjoer and character of the people with whom it is concerned, and not always to attempt violently to bend the people to their theories of subjection. The bulk of mankind on their part are not excessively curious concerning any theories, whilst they are really happy; and one sure symptom of an ill-conducted state is the propensity of the people to resort to them. But when subjects, by a long course of such ill conduct, are once thoroughly in- flamed, and the state itself violently dis- tempered, the people must have some satis- faction to their feelings more solid than a sophistical speculation on law and govern- ment. Such was our situation, and such a satisfaction was necessary to prevent re- ' course to arms; it was necessary towards laying them down : it will be necessary to prevent the taking them up again and again. Of what nature this satisfaction ought to be T wish it had beeai the disposition of Par- liament seriously to consider. It was cer- tainly a deliberation that called for the ex- ertion of all their wisdom. I am, and ever have been, deeply sensible of the difficulty of reconciling the strong presiding power, that is so useful towards the conservation of a vast, disconnected, in- finitely diversified empire, with that liberty and safety of the provinces, which they must enjoy (in opinion 'and practice at least) or they will not be provinces at all. I know, and have long felt, the difficulty of reconcil- ing the unwieldy haughtiness of a great ruling nation, habituated to command, pam- pered by enormous wealth, and confident from a long course of prosperity and vic- tory, to the high spirit of free dependencies, animated with the first glow and activity of juvenile heat, and assuming to themselves as their birthright some part of that very pride which oppresses them. They who per- ceive no difficulty in reconciling these tem- pers (which, however, to make peace must some way or other be reconciled), are much above my capacity or much below the mag- nitude of the business. Of one thing I am perfectly clear, that it is not by deciding the suit, but by compromising the difference that peace can be restored or kept. They who would put an end to such quarrels, by de- claring roundly in favor of the whole de- mands of either party, have mistaken, in my humble opinion, the office of a mediator. The war is now of full two years' stand- ing; the controversy, of many more. In different periods of the dispute, different methods of reconciliation were to be pur- sued. I mean to* trouble you with a short state of things at the most important of these periods, in order to give you a more distinct idea of our policy with regard to this most delicate of all objects. The colonies were from the beginning subject to the legis- lature of Great Britain, on principles which they never examined ; and we "permitted to them many local privileges, without asking how they agreed with that legislative author- ity. Modes of administration were formed in an insensible and very unsystematic man- ner. But they gradually adapted them- selves to the varying condition of things : what was first a single kingdom, stretched into an empire; and an imperial superin- tendency, of some kind or other, became necessary. Parliament, from a mere repre- sentative of the people, and a guardian of popular privileges for its OAvn immediate constituents, grew into a mighty sovereign. THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 293 Instead of being a control on the crown on its own behalf, it communicated a sort of strength to the royal authority; which was wanted for the conservation of a new object, but which could not be safely trusted to the crown alone. On the other hand, the colonies, advancing by equal steps and governed by the same necessity, had formed within them- selves, either by royal instruction or royal charter, assemblies so exceedingly resem- bling a parliament in all their forms, func- tions, and powers, that it was impossible they should not imbibe some opinion of a similar authority. At the first designation of these assem- blies they were probably not intended for anything more (nor perhaps did they think themselves much higher) than the municipal corporations within this island, to wnich some at present love to compare them. But nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant. Therefore, as the colonies pros- pered and increased to a numerous and mighty people, s^Dreading over a very great tract of the globe, it was natural that they should attribute to assemblies, so respecta- ble in their formal constitution, some part of the dignity of the great nations which they represented. No longer tied to bye- laws these assemblies made Acts of all sorts and in all cases whatsoever. They levied money, not for parochial purposes, but upon regular gi'ants to the crown, following all the rules and principles of a parliament, to which they aj^proached every day more and more nearly. Those who think themselves wiser than Providence and stronger than the course of nature may complain of all this variation on the one side or the other, as their several humors and prejudices may lead them. But things could not be other- wise, and English colonies must be had on these terms or not had at all. In the mean- time neither party felt any inconvenience from this double legislature, to which they had been formed by imperceptible habits and old custom, the great support of all the governments in the world. Though these two legislatures were sometimes found per- haps performing the very same functions, they did not very grossly or systematically clash. In all likelihood this arose from mere neglect, possibly from the natural opera- tion of things which, left to themselves, gen- erally fall into their proper order. But whatever was the cause, it is certain that a regular revenue, by the authority of Parlia- ment, for the support of civil and military establishments, seems not to have been thought of until the colonies were too proud to submit, too strong to be forced, too en- lightened not to see all the consequences which must arise from such a system. If ever this scheme of taxation was to be pushed against the inclinations of the people, it was evident that discussions must arise which would let loose all the elements that composed this double constitution, would show how much each of their members had departed from its original principles, and would discover contradictions in each legislature, as well to its own first princi- ples as to its relation to the other, very dif- ficult, if not absolutely impossible, to be reconciled. Therefore at the first fatal opening of this contest, the wisest course seemed to be to put an end as soon as possible to the im- mediate causes of the dispute, and to quiet a discussion, not easily settled upon clear principles, and arising from claims which pride would permit neither party to aban- don, by resorting as nearly as possible to the old, successful course. A mere repeal of the obnoxious tax, with a declaration of the leg- islative authority of this kingdom, was then fully sufficient to procure peace to both sides. Man is a creature of habit, and the first breach being of very short continuance, the colonies fell back exactly into their ancient state. The congress has used an ex- pression with regard to this pacification which appears to me truly significant. After the repeal of the Stamp Act, "the colonies fell," says this assembly, "into their ancient state of unsuspecting confidence in the mother-country. '' This unsuspecting con- fidence is the true center of gravity amongst mankind, about which all the parts are at rest. It is this unsuspecting confidence that removes all difficulties and reconciles all the contradictions which occur in the complexity of all ancient, puzzled, political establish- ments. Happy are the rulers which have the secret of presei'ving it ! . . . It is impossible that we should remain long in a situation which breeds such no- tions and dispositions without some great alteration in the national character. Those ingenuous and feeling minds who are so fortified against all other things, and so un- armed to whatever approaches in the shape 294 THE GEEAT TRADITION of disgrace, finding these principles, which they considered as sure means of honor, to be grown into disrepute, will retire dis- heartened and disgusted. Those of a more robust make, the bold, able, ambitious men who pay some of their court to power through the people, and substitute the voice of transient opinion in the place of true glory, will give in to the general mode ; and those superior understandings which ought to correct vulgar prejudice will confirm and aggravate its errors. Many things have been long operating towards a gradual change in our principles. But this Ameri- can war has done more in a very few years than all the other causes could have ef- fected in a century. It is therefore not on its own separate account, but because of its attendant circumstances that I consider its continuance or its ending in any way but that of an honorable and liberal accommo- dation as the greatest evils which can be- fall us. For that reason I have troubled you with this long letter. For that reason I entreat you again and again neither to be persuaded, shamed, or frighted out of the principles that have hitherto led so many of you to abhor the war, its cause, and its consequences. Let us not be among the first who renounce the maxims of our fore- fathers. Concord Hymn ralph waldo emerson By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world. The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream. We set today a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When like our sires, our sons are gone. Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee. Lexington john greenleaf whittier No Berserk thirst of blood had they. No battle- joy was theirs, who set Against the alien bayonet Their homespun breasts in that old day. Their feet had trodden peaceful ways; They loved not strife, they dreaded pain ; They saw not, what to us is plain. That God would make man's wrath his praise. No seers were they, but simple men; Its vast results the future hid: The meaning of the work they did Was strange and dark and doubtful then. Swift as their summons came they left The plow mid-furrow standing still. The half-ground corn grist in the mill. The spade in earth, the axe in cleft. They went where duty seemed to call. They scarcely asked the reason why; They only knew they could but die, And death was not the worst of all ! Of man for man the sacrifice, All that was theirs to give, they gave. The flowers that blossomed from their grave Have sown themselves beneath all skies. Their death-shot shook the feudal tower, And shattered slavery's chain as well; On the sky's dome, as on a bell. Its echo struck the world's great hour. That fateful echo is not dumb: The nations listening to its sound Wait, from a century's vantage-ground. The holier triumphs yet to come, — The bridal time of Law and Love, The gladness of the world's release, Wlien, war-sick, at the feet of Peace The hawk shall nestle with the dove ! The golden age of brotherhood Unknown to other rivalries Than of the mild humanities. And gracious interchange of good. When closer strand shall lean to strand. Till meet, beneath saluting flags. The lion of our Motherland ! The eagle of our mountain-crags. THE RISE OF MODEEN DEMOCRACY 295 Liberty or Death PATRICK HENRY [From a speech delivered at the Virginia Convention, March 28, 1775] Mr. President, no man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as of the abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in ^ different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not bs thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining, as I do, opin- ions of a character very opposite from theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful moment to this coun- try. For my own part, I consider it as noth- ing less than a question of freedom or sla- very; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty towards the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings. Mr. President, it is natural to man to in- dulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and ardu- ous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their tem- poral salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth ; to know the worst, and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experi- ence. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British Ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House ? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies nec- essary to a work of love and reconciliation ? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive our- selves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation — the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentle- men assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quar- ter of the world, to call for all this accumu- lation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us ; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British Ministry have been so long forg- ing. And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to en- treaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find, which have not been al- ready exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done eveiything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned ; we have remonstrated ; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have im- plored its interposition to arrest the tyran- nical hands of the Ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our re- monstrances have produced additional vio- lence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending — if we mean not basely to aban- don the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained — ^we must fight! I repeat it, sir, 296 THE GEEAT TEADITION we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us ! They tell us, sir, that we are weak ; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disai-med, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irreso- lution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying su- pinely on our backs and hugging the de- lusive phantom of hope until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of lib- erty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone ; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to re- tire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery ! Our chains are forged ! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston ! The war is inevi- table — and let it come ! I repeat it, sir, let it come! It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace ! — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren are already in the field ! Why stand we here idle ? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Torbid it. Almighty God! I know not what course others may take ; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! Washington" Anticipates the Declara- tion george washington [From a letter written in February, 1776] With respect to myself, I have never en- tertained an idea of an accommodation, since I heard of the measures which were adopted in consequence of the Bunker Hill fight. The King's speech has confirmed the senti- ments I entertained upon the news of that affair; and, if every man was of my mind, the ministers of Great Britain should know, in a few words, upon what issue the cause should be put. I would not be deceived by artful declarations, nor specious pretenses; nor would I be amused by the unmeaning propositions; but in open, undisguised, and manly terms proclaim our wrongs, and our resolution to be redressed. I would tell them, that we had borne much, that we had long and ardently sought for reconciliation upon honorable terms, that it had been de- nied us, that all our attempts after peace had proved abortive, and had been grossly misrepresented, that we had done every- thing which could be expected from the best of subjects, that the spirit of freedom rises too high in us to submit to slavery, and that, if nothing else would satisfy a tyrant and his diabolical ministry, we are deter- mined to shake off all connections with a state so unjust and unnatural. This I would tell them, not under covert, but in words as clear as the sun in its meridian brightness. From the Declaration of Independence^ thomas jefferson When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dis- solve the political bands which have con- nected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate 1 The Declaration of Independence was pre- pared by a committee of whicli Thomas Jefferson was chairman, and the actual composition was done by Jefferson. It was reported to Congress on the second of July and on the fourth was adopted after a debate in which some portions of the original draft were cut out. John Adams, writing to his wife about it, used these words : "Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dis- senting colony, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states. . . . The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commem- orated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illumina- tions, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore. You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am aware of the toil, and blood, and treas- ure, that it will cost us to maintain this declara- tion and support and defend these states. Yet, through all the gloom, I can ^ee the rays of rav- ishing light and glory." THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 297 and equal station to wbieli tlie laws of na- ture and of nature's God entitle them, a decent resj^ect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the gov- erned; that, whenever any form of govern- ment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abol- ish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely .to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long estab- lished should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all expe- rience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpa- tions, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under abso- lute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future secur- ity. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the ne- cessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usuriDa- tions, all having in direct object the estab- lishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. [Here is given a list of the wrongs suf- fered by the colonies at the hands of the British Government.] We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Con- gress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the au- thority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare. That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the Brit- ish croAvn, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain. is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states^ they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which inde- pendent states may of right do. And, for the supiDort of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Provi- dence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Times That Try Men's Souls thomas paine [From Tlie Crisis, 1776] These are the times that try men's wouls. The summer soldier and the sunshine pa- triot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and Avoman. Tyranny, like hell, is not eas- ily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumioh. What we ob- tain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared .that she has a right (not only to tax) but to "bind us in all cases whatsoever," and if being bound in that manner is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impi- ous, for so unlimited a power can belong only to God. I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has been, and still is that God Almighty will -not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean prin- ciples that are held by the tories : a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as jDretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unf atherly expression, "Well ! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives 298 THE GEEAT TEADITION on the continent but fvilly believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace"; and his single reflection, well ap- plied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as Amei"ica. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can disting-uish in himself between tem- per and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that Amer- ica will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may some- times cease to shine, the coal can never expire. The heart that feels not now, is dead ; the blood of his children will curse his coward- ice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from dis- tress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his prin- ciples unto death. My own line of reason- ing is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have in- duced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all eases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer if? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man ; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them"? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and par- don in the other. On the Americajst Revolution william cowper [A letter to the Rev. John Newton, Nov. 27, 1781] My Dear Friend, — First Mr. Wilson, then Mr. Teedon, and lastly Mr. Whit- ford, each with a cloud of melancholy on his brow, and with a mouth wide open, have just announced to us this unwelcome intelli- gence from America.^ We are sorry to hear it, and should be more cast down than we are if we did not know that this catastrophe was ordained beforehand, and that, there- fore, neither conduct, nor courage, nor any means that can possibly be mentioned, could have prevented it. If the King and his ministry can be contented to close the busi- ness here, and, taking poor Dean Tucker's advice, resign the Americans into the hands of their new masters, it may be well for Old England. But if they will still persevere, they will find it, I doubt, an hopeless con- test to the last. Domestic murmurs will grow louder, and the hands of faction, being strengthened by this late miscarriage, will find it easy to set fire to the pile of combus- tibles they have been so long employed in building. These are my politics; and for aught I can see, you and we by our respect- ive firesides, though neither connected with men in power, nor professing to possess any share of that sagacity which thinks itself qualified to wield the affairs of kingdoms, can make as probable conjectures, and look forward into futurity witlr as clear a sight as the greatest man in the cabinet. The Destiny of England and America john richard green [From A History of the English People, 1877] Whatever might be the importance of American independence in the history of England, it was of unequalled moment in the history of the world. If it crippled for a while the supremacy of the English na- tion, it founded the supremacy of the Eng- lish race. From the hour of American Independence the life of the English People has flowed not in one current, but in two; and while the older has shown little signs of lessenmg, the younger has fast risen to a greatness which has changed the face of the world. In 1783 America was a nation of three millions of inhabitants, scattered thinly along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It is now a nation of forty millions, stretch- ing over the whole continent from the At- lantic to the Pacific. In wealth and mate- rial energy, as in numbers, it far surpasses the mother-country from which it sprang. 1 The "unwelcome intelliaieiice" was the news of Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown. THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 299 It is already the main branch of the English People; and in the days that are at hand the main euri'ent of that people's history must rmi along the channel not of the Thames or the Mersey, but of the Hudson and the Mississippi. But distinct as these currents are, every year proves more clearly that in spirit the English People is one. The distance that parted England from Amer- ica lessens every day. The ties that unite them grow every day stronger. The social and political differences that threatened a hundred years ago to • form an impassable barrier between them grow every day less. Against this silent and inevitable drift of things the spirit of narrow isolation on either side the Atlantic struggles in vain. It is possible that the two branches of the Eng- lish people will remain forever separate po- litical existences. It is likely enough that the older of them may again break in twain, and that the English People in the Pacific may assert as distinct a national life as the two English Peoples on either side the At- lantic. But the spirit, the influence, of all these branches will remain one. And in thus remaining one, before half a century is over it will change the face of the world. As two hundred millions of Englishmen fill the valley of the Mississippi, as fifty mil- lions of Englishmen assert their lordship over Australasia, this vast power will tell through Bi"itain on the old world of Europe, whose nations will have shrunk into insig- nificance before it. What the issues of such a world-wide change may be, not even the •wildest dreamer would dare to dream. But one issue is inevitable. In the centuries that lie before us, the primacy of the world will lie with the English People. English in- stitutions, English speech, English thought, will become the main features of the polit- ical, the social, and the intellectual life of mankind. England and America in 1782 alfred tennyson O Thou, that sendest out the man To rule by land and sea, Strong mother of a Lion-line, Be proud of those strong sons of thine Who wrench'd their rights from thee! What wonder, if in noble heat Those men thme arms withstood, Retaught the lesson thou hadst taught. And in thy spirit with thee fought — ^¥lio sprang from English blood ! But Thou rejoice with liberal joy, Lift up thy rocky face, And shatter, when the storms are black. In many a streaming torrent back, The seas that shock thy base! Whatever harmonies of law The growing world assume, Thy work is thine — the single note From that deep chord which Hampden smote Will vibrate to the doom. ■ (1872) 3. THE UPHEAVAL IN FRANCE Storm and Victory ^ THOMAS CARLYLE [From The French Revolution, 1837] But, to the living and the struggling, a new Fourteenth morning dawns. LTnder all roofs of the distracted City is the nodus of a drama, not untragieal, crowding towards solution. The bustlings and prep- arations, the tremors and menaces ; the tears that fell from old eyes ! This day, my sons, ye shall quit you like men. By the memory of your fathers' wrongs, by the hope of your children's rights ! Tyranny impends 1 The Taking of the Bastile, July 14, 1789. in red wrath : help for you Is none, if not in your own right hands. This day you must do or die. From earliest light, a sleepless Permanent Committee has heard the old cry, now wax- ing almost frantic, mutinous : Arms ! Arms ! Provost Flesselles, or what traitors there are among you, may think of those Charleville Boxes. A hundred-and-fifty-thousand of us ; 'and but the third man furnished with so much as a pike! Arms are the one thing needful : with arms we are an unconquerable man-defying National Guard ; without arms, a rabble to be whiffed with grapeshot. Happily the word has arisen, for no one secret can be kept, — that there lie muskets 300 THE GEEAT TRADITION at the Hotel-des-Invalides. Thither will we : King's Proeureur M. Ethys de Corny, and whatsoever of authority a Permanent Com- mittee can lend, shall go with us. Besen- val's Camp is there ; perhaps he will not fire on us; if he kill us, we shall but die. Alas, poor Besenval, with his troops melt- ing away in that manner, has not the small- est humor to fire ! At five o'clock this morn- ing, as he lay dreaming, oblivious, in the Ecole Militaire, a "figure" stood suddenly at his bedside ; "with face rather handsome ; eyes inflamed, speech rapid and curt, air audacious" : such a figure drew Priam's cur- tains ! The message ' and monition of the figure was, that resistance would be hope- less; that if blood fiowed, woe to him who shed it. Thus spoke the figure: and van- ished. "Withal there was a kind of elo- quence that struck one." Besenval admits that he should have arrested him but did not. Who this figure with inflamed eyes, with speech rapid and curt, might be? Be- senval knows, but mentions not. Camille Desmoulins'? Pythagorean Marquis Valadi, inflamed with "violent motions all night at the Palais Royal'"? Fame names him "Young M. Meillar"^ then shuts her lips about him forever. In any case, behold about nine in the morning, our National Volunteers rolling in long white flood, south-westward to the Hotel-des-Invalides; in search of the one thing needful. King's Proeureur M. Ethys de Corny and ofiieials are there; the Cure of Saint-Etienne du Mont marches unpa- cifie at the head of his militant Parish ; the clerks of the Basoche in red coats we see marching, now Volunteers of the Basoche; the volunteers of the Palais Royal: — Na- tional Volunteers, numerable by tens of thousands; of one heart and mind. The King's muskets are the Nation's ; think, old M. de Sombreuil, how, in this extremity, thou wilt refuse them! Old M. de Som- breuil would fain hold parley, send cour- iers ; but it skills not : the walls are scaled, no Invalide firing a shot ; the gates must be flung open. Patriotism rushes in, tumul- tuous, from grunsel up to ridge-tile, through all rooms and passages; rummaging dis- tractedly for arms. What cellar, or what cranny can escape it ? The arms found ; all safe there; lying packed in straw, — appar- ently with a view to being burnt! More ravenous than famishing lions over dead prey, the multitude, with clangor and vo- ciferation, pounces on them; struggling. dashing, clutching: — to the jamming-up, to the pressure, fracture, and probable extinc- tion of the weaker Patriot. And so, with such protracted crash of deafening, most discordant Orchestra-music, the scene is changed; and eight-and-twenty thousand sufficient firelocks are on the shoulders of as many National Guards, lifted thereby out of darkness into fiery light. Let Besenval look at the glitter of these muskets, as they flash by! Gardes Pran- gaises, it is said, have cannon levelled on him; ready to open, if need were, from the other side of the River. Motionless sits he ; "astonished," one may flatter one's self, "at the proud bearing {fiere contenance) of the Parisians." — And now, to the Bastille, ye intrepid Parisians! There grapeshot still threatens : thither all men's thoughts and steps are now tending. Old De Launay, as we hinted, withdrew "into his interior" soon after midnight of Sunday. He remains there ever since, ham- pered, as all military gentlemen are now, in the saddest conflict of uncertainties. The H6tel-de-Ville invites him to admit National Soldiers, which is a soft name for surren- dering. On the other hand, His Majesty's orders were precise. His garrison is but eighty-two old Invalides, reinforced by thir- ty-two young Swiss; his walls indeed are nine feet thick, he has cannon and powder; but, alas, only one day's provision of vic- tuals. The city too is French, the poor gar- rison mostly French. Rigorous old De Lau- nay, think what thou wilt do. All morning, since nine, there has been a cry everywhere: To the Bastille! Repeated "deputations of citizens" have been here, passionate for arms ; whom De Launay has got dismissed by soft speeches through port- holes. Toward noon. Elector Thuriot de la Rosiere gains admittance; finds De Launay indisposed for surrender; nay disposed for blowing up the place rather. Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements: heaps of pav- ing-stones, old 'iron, and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly levelled ; in every embrasure a cannon, — only drawn back a little! But outwards, behold, Thuriot, how the mul- titude flows on, welling through every street : tocsin furiously pealing, all drums beating the generale: the Suburb Saint- Antoine rolling hitherward wholly, as one man ! Such vision (spectral yet real) thou, Thuriot, as from thy Mount of Vision, be- holdest in this moment: prophetic of what other Phantasmagories, and loud-gibbering THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 301* Spectral Realities, which thou yet behold- est not, but shalt ! "Que voulez-vousf" said De Launay, tuniing pale at the sight, with an air of reproach, almost of menace. "Monsieur," said Thuriot, rising into the moral-sublime, "what mean you? Con- sider if I could not precipitate both of us from this height," — say only a hundred feet, exclusive of the walled ditch ! Where- upon De Launay fell silent. Thuriot shows himself from some pinnacle, to comfort the multitude becoming suspicious, fremes- cent : then descends ; departs with protests ; with warning addressed also to the Inval- ides, — on whom, however, it produces but a mixed indistinct impression. The old heads are none of the clearest; besides, it is said, De Launay has been profuse of beverages (prodigue de buissons). They think, they will not fire, — if not fired on, if they can help it; but must, on the whole, be ruled considerably by circumstances. Woe to thee, De Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not, taking some one firm de- "cision, rule circumstances! Soft speeches will not serve; hard grapeshot is question- able; but hovering between the two is un- questionable. Ever wilder swells the tide of men ; their infinite hum Avaxing ever louder, into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray musketry, — which latter, on walls nine feet thick, cannot do execution. The Outer Drawbridge has been lowered for Thuriot; a new deputation of citizens (it is the third, and noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the Outer Court ; soft speeches producing no clearance of these, De Launay gives fire; pulls up his Drawbridge. A slight sputter; — ^whieh has kindled the too combustible chaos ; made it a roaring fire — chaos ! Bursts forth Insurrection, at sight of its own blood (for there were deaths by that sputter of fire), into endless rolling explosion of musketry, distraction, execra- tion ; — and over head, from the Fortress, let one great gun, with its grapeshot, go boom- ing, to show what we could do. The Bastille is besieged! On then, all Frenchmen, that have hearts in your bodies ! . Roar with all your throats, of cartilage and metal, ye Sons of Liberty ; stir spasmodically whatever of utmost fac^ ulty is in you, soul, body, or spirit; for it is the hour ! Smite, thou Louis Tournay, cartwright of the Marais, old-soldier of the Regiment Dauphine; smite at that Outer Drawbridge chain, though the fiery hail whistles round thee! Never, over nave or felloe, did thy axe strike such a stroke. Down with it, man; down with it to Orcus; let the whole accursed Edifice sink thither, and Tyranny be swallowed up forever! Mounted, some say, on the roof of the guard-room, some on bayonets stuck 'into joints of the wall, Louis Tournay smites, brave Aubin Bonnemere (also an old sol- dier) seconding him: the, chain yields, breaks; the huge Drawbridge slams down, thundering {avec fracas). Glorious: and yet, alas, it is still but the outworks. The eight grim Towers, with their Invalide mus- ketry, their paving stones and cannon- mouths, still soar aloft intact; — Ditch yawning- impassable, stone-faced; the inner Drawbridge with its back towards us: the Bastille is still to take. To describe this Siege of the Bastille (thought to be one of the most important in History) perhaps transcends the talent of mortals. Could one but, after infinite read- ing, get to understand so much as the plan of the building! But there is open Espla- nade, at the end of the Rue Saint-Antome ; there are such Forecourts, Cour Avance, Cour de VOrme, arched Gateway (where Louis Tournay now fights) ; then new draw- bridges, dormant-bridges, rampart-bastions, and the gxim Eight Towers: a labyrinthic Mass, high-frowning there, of all ages from twenty years to four hundred and twenty ; — beleaguered, in this its last hour, as we said, by mere Chaos come again! Ordnance of all calibers; throats of all capacities; men of all plans, every man his own engineer: seldom since the war of Pygmies and Cranes was there seen so anomalous a thing. Half- pay Elie is home for a suit of regimentals ; no one would heed him in colored clothes: Hialf-pay Hulin is haranguing Gardes Franeaises in the Place de Greve. Frantic ' Patriots pick up the grapeshots ; bear them, still hot (or seemingly so), to the H6tel-de- Ville. — Paris, you perceive, is to be burnt! Flesselles is pale to the very lijDs, for the roar of the multitude grows deep. Paris wholly has got to the acme of its frenzy; whirled, all ways, by panic madness. At every street-barricade there whirls simmer- ing a minor whirlpool strengthening the barricade — since God knows what is com- ing ; and all minor whirlpools play distract- edly into that grand Fire-Mahlstrom which is lashing round the Bastille. And so it lashes and it roars. Cholat the wine merchant has become an impromptu cannoneer. See Georget, of the Marine 302 THE GREAT TRADITION Service, fresh from Brest, ply the King of Siam's cannon. Singular (if we were not used to the like) : Georget lay, last night, taking his ease at his inn; the King of Siam's cannon also lay, knowing nothing of him, for a hundred years. Yet, now, at the right instant, they have got together, and discourse eloquent music. For, hearing what was toward, Georget sprang from the Brest Diligence, and ran. Gardes Fran- gaises also will be here, with real artillery : were not the walls so thick ! — Upwards from the Esplanade, horizontally from all the neighboring roofs and windows, flashes one irregular deluge of musketry, without ef- fect. The Invalides lie flat, firing com- paratively at their ease from behind stone; hardly through portholes, show the tip of a nose. We fall, shot; and make no im- pression. Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combustible ! Guard-rooms are burnt, In- valides mess-rooms. A distracted "Peruke- maker with two fiery torches" is for burn- ing the "saltpetres of the Arsenal"; — had not a woman run screaming; had not a Patriot, with some tincture of Natural Phil- osophy, instantly struck the wind out of him (butt of musket on pit of stomach), overturned barrels and stayed the devouring element. A young beautiful lady, seized escaping in these Outer Courts, and thought falsely to be De Launay's daughter, shall be burnt in De Launay's sight ; she lies swooned on a paillasse: but again a Patriot, it is brave Aubin Bonnemere the old soldier, dashes in, and rescues her. Straw is burnt ; three cartloads of it, hauled thither, go up in white smoke: almost to the choking of Patriotism itself; so that Elie had, with singed brows, to drag back one cart; and Reole the "gigantic haberdasher" another. Smoke as of Tophet; confusion as of Babel; noise as of the Crack of Doom! Blood flows ; the aliment of new madness. The wounded are carried into the houses of the Rue Cerisaie; the dying leave their last mandate not to yield till the accursed Stronghold fall. And yet, alas, how fall? The walls are so thick. Deputations, three in number, arrive from the H6tel-de-Ville ; Abbe Fauchet (who was of one) can say with what almost superhuman courage of benevolence. These wave their Town-flag in the arched Gateway ; and stand, rolling their drum; but to no purpose. In such Crack of Doom, De Launay cannot hear them, dare not believe them: they return, with justi- fied rage, the whew of lead still singing in their ears. What to do? The Firemen are here, squirting with their fire-pumps on the Invalides cannon, to wet the touchholes ; they unfortunately cannot squirt so high; but produce only clouds of spray. Individu- als of classical knowledge propose cata- pults. Santerre, the sonorous Brewer of the Suburb Saint- Antoine, advises rather that the place be fired, by a "mixture of phosphorus and oil-of-turi3entine spouted up through forcing pumps": Spinola- Santerre, hast thou the mixture ready? Every man his own engineer ! And still the fire-deluge abates not : even women are firing, and Turks; at least one woman (with her sweetheart), and one Turk; Gardes Frangaises have come; real cannon; real cannoneers. Usher Maillard is busy; half- pay Elie, half -pay Hulin rage in the midst of the thousands. How the great Bastille Clock ticks (in- audible) in its Inner Court there, at its ease, hour after hour ; as if nothing special, " for it or the world, were passing ! It tolled One when the firing began; and is now pointing towards Five, and still the firing slakes not. — Far down, in their vaults, the seven prisoners hear muffled din as of earth- quakes; their Turnkeys answer vaguely. Woe to thee, De Launay, with the poor hundred Invalides ! Broglie is distant, and his ears heavy : Besenval hears, but can send no help. One poor troop of the Hussars has crejjt, reconnoitering, cautiously along the Quais, as far as the Pont Neuf. "We are come to join you," said the Captain ; for the crowd seems shoreless. A large-headed dwarfish individual, of smoke-bleared aspect, shambles forward, opening his blue lips, for there is sense in him ; and croaks : "Alight then, and give up your arms !" The Hussar- Captain is too hap23y to be escorted to the Barriers, and dismissed on parole. Who the squat individual was? Men answer. It is M. Marat, author of the excellent pacific Avis au Peuple! Great truly, thou re- markable Dogieech, is this thy day of emer- gence and new-birth: and yet this same day come four years — ! — But let the cur- tains of the future hang. What shall De Launay do? One thing only De Launay could have done: what he said he would do. Fancy him sitting, from the first, with lighted taper, within arm's- length of the Powder-Magazine, motionless. THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 303 like old Roman Senator, or Bronze Lamp- holder; coldly apprising Thuriot, and all men, by a slight motion of his eye, what his resolution was: — Harmless he sat there, while unharmed; but the King's Fortress, meanwhile, could, might, would or should, in nowise be surrendered, save to the King's Messenger : one old man's life is worthless, • so it be lost with honor; but think, ye brawling canaille, how will it be when a whole Bastille springs skyward! — In such statuesque, taper-holding attitude, one fancies De Launay might have left Thuriot, the red Clerks of the Basoche, Cure of Saint Stephen and all the tagrag-and-bob- tail of the world, to work their will. And yet, withal, he could not do it. Hast thou considered how each man's heart is so tremulously responsive to the hearts of all men; hast thou noted how omnipotent is the very sound of many menf How their shriek of indignation palsies the strong soul; their howl of contumely withers with unfelt pangs'? The Ritter Gluck confessed that the ground-tone of the noblest passage, in one of his noblest Operas, was the voice of the Populace he had heard at Vienna, crying to their Kaiser : Bread ! Bread ! Great is the combined voice of men ; the utterance of their instincts which are truer than their thoughts: It is the greatest a man encounters, among the sounds and shadows which make up this World of Time. He who can resist that, has his footing someAvhere beyond Time. De Launay could not do it. Distracted, he hovers between two; hopes in the middle of despair; sur- renders not his Fortress; declares that he will blow it up, seizes torches to blow it up, and does not blow it up. Unhappy old De Launay, it is the- death-agony of the Bastille and thee ! Jail, Jailering, and Jailer, all three, such as they may have been, must finish. For four hours now has the World- Bedlam roared: call it the World-Chimsera, blowing fire ! The poor Invalides have sunk under their battlements, or rise only with reversed muskets : they have made a white flag of napkins ; go beating the chamade, or seeming to beat, for one can hear nothing. The very Swiss at the Portcullis look weary of firing; disheartened in the fire-deluge; a porthole at the drawbridge is opened, as by one that would speak. See Huissier Mail- lard, the shifty man ! On his plank, swing- ing over the abyss of that stone Ditch ; plank resting on Parapet, balanced by weight of Patriots, — he hovers perilous : such a Dove towards such an Ark! Deftly, thou shifty Usher: one man already fell; and lies smashed, far down there, against the ma- sonry ! Usher Maillard falls not : deftly, un- erring he walks, Avith outspread palm. The Swiss holds a paper through the porthole; the shifty LTsher snatches it, and returns. Terms of surrender: Pardon, immunity to all! Are they accepted? — "Foi d'officier, on the word of an officer," answers half-pay Hulin, — or half-pay Elie, for men do not agree on it, — "they are !" Sinks the draw- bridge, — Usher Maillard bolting it when down ; rushes in the living deluge : the Bas- tille is fallen ! Victoire ! La Bastille est prise! . . . Wliy dwell on what follows? Hulin's foi d'officier should have been kept, but could not. The Swiss stand drawn up, disguised in white canvas smocks ; the Invalides with- out disguise ; their arms all piled against the wall. The first rush of victors, in ecstasy that the death-peril is passed, "leaps joy- fully on their necks ;" but new victors rush, and ever new, also in ecstasy not wholly of joy. As we said, it was a living deluge plunging headlong: had not the Gardes Frangaises, in their cool military way, "wheeled round with arms levelled," it would have plunged suicidally, by the hundred or the thousand, into the Bastille-ditch. And so it goes plunging through court and corridor; billowing uncontrollable, fir- ing from windows — on itself ; in hot frenzy of triumph, of grief and vengeance for its slain. The poor Invalides will fare ill ; one Swiss, running off in his white smock, is driven back with a death-thrust. Let all Prisoners be marched to the Townhall to be judged! — Alas, already one poor Invalide has his right hand slashed off; his maimed body dragged to the Place de Greve, and hanged there. This same right hand, it is said, turned back De Launay from the Powder-Magazine, and saved Paris, . . . In the Court all is mystery, not without whisperings of terror; though ye dream of lemonade and epaulettes, ye foolish women ! His Majesty, kept in happy ignorance, per- haps dreams of double-barrels and the Woods of Meudon. Late at night, the Duke de Lianeourt, having official right of en- trance, gains access to the Royal Apart- ments ; unfolds with earnest clearness, in his 304 THE GEEAT TEADITION constitutional way, the Job's news. "Mais," said Poor Louis, "c'est une revolt e/' Why, that is a revolt ! — "Sire," answered Lian- court, "it is not a revolt, — it is a revolution." The Death-Birth of a World thomas carlyle [From The French Bevolution] Here perhaps is the place to fix, a little more precisely, what these two words, French Revolution, shall mean; for, strictly considered, they may have as many mean- ings as there are siDcakers of them. All thing's are in revolution; in change from moment to moment, which becomes sensible from epoch to epoch; in this Time- World of ours there is properly nothing else but revolution and mutation, and even nothing else conceivable. Revolution, you answer, means speedier change. Whereupon one has still to ask: How speedily"? At what degree of si3eed; in what particular points of this variable course, which varies in veloc- ity, but can never stop till Time itself stops, does Revolution begin and end; cease to be ordinary mutation, and again become such ? It is a thing that will depend on definition more or less arbitrary. For ourselves, we answer that French Revolution means here the ojDen violent Re- bellion, and Victory, of disemprisoned An- archy against corrupt worn-out Authority: how Anarchy breaks prison ; bursts up from the infinite Deep, and rages uncontrollable, immeasurable, enveloping a world ; in phasis after phasis of fever-frenzy ; — till the frenzy burning itself out, and what elements of new Order it held (since all Force holds such — developing themselves), the Uncon- trollable be got, if not reimprisoned, yet harnessed, and its mad forces made to work toward their object as sane regulated ones. For as Hierarchies and Dynasties of all kinds, Theocracies, Autocracies, Strumpet- ocracies, have ruled over the world; so it was appointed, in the decrees of Providence, that this same Victorious Anarchy, Jacobin- ism, Sansculottism, French Revolution, Hor- rors of French Revolution, or what else mor- tals name it, should have its turn. The "destructive wrath" of Sanscullotism : this is what we speak, having unhappily no voice for singing. Surely a great Phenomenon: nay it is a transcendental one, overstepping all rules and experience; the crowning Phenomenon of our Modern Time. For here again, most unexpectedly, comes antique Fanaticism in new and newest vesture; miraculous, as' all Fanaticism is. Call it the Fanaticism of "making away with formulas, de humer les formules." The world of formulas, the formed, regulated world, which all habitable world is, — must needs hate such Fanaticism like death ; and be at deadly variance with it. The world of formulas must conquer it ; or, failing that, must die execrating it, anathe- matizing it; — can nevertheless in no wise prevent its being and its having been. The Anathemas are there, and the miraculous thing is there. Whence it cometh? Whither it goeth? These are questions ! When the age of Miracles lay faded into the distance as an incredible tradition, and even the age of Conventionalities was now old; and Man's Existence had for long generations rested on mere formulas which were grown hollow by course of time; and it seemed as if no Reality any longer existed, but only Phan- tasms of realities, and God's Universe were the work of the Tailor and Upholsterer mainly, and men were buckram masks that went about becking and grimacing there, — on a sudden, the Earth yawns asunder, and amid Tartarean smoke, and glare of fierce brightness, rises Sansculottism, many- headed, fire-breathing, and asks : What think ye ©f mef Well niay the buckram masks start together, terror-struck; "into expressive well concerted groups !" It is indeed. Friends, a most singular, most fatal thing. Let whosoever is but buckram and a phantasm look to it : ill verily may it fare with him; here methinks he cannot much longer be. Woe also to many a one who is not altogether buckram, but partly real and human ! The age of Miracles has come back! "Behold the World-Phoenix, in fire- consummation and fire-creation : wide are her fanning wings ; loud is her death-melody, of battle-thunders and falling towns; sky- ward lashes the funeral flame, enveloping all things: it is the Death-Birth of a World!" The Storm matthew arnold [From Ohermann Once More, 1867] But slow that tide of common thought, Which bathed our life, retired; THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCKACY 305 Slow, slow the old world wore to nought, And pulse by pulse expired. Its frame yet stood without a breach When blood and warmth were fled; And still it spake its wonted speech — But every word was dead. And oh, we cried, that on this corse Might fall a freshening storm! Rive its dry bones, and with new force A new-sprung world inform ! — Down came the storm! pass'd O'er France it In sheets of scathing fire; All Europe felt that fiery blast, And shook as it rush'd by her. Down came the storm ! In ruins fell The worn-out world we knew. — It pass'd, that elemental swell ! Again appear'd the blue ; The sun shone in the new-wash'd sky, And what from heaven saw he? Blocks of the past, like icebergs high, Float on a rolling sea ! 4. THE THEORY OF POLITICAL JUSTICE Burke WILLIAM WORDSWORTH [From The Prelude, 1850] Genius of Burke! forgive the pen se- duced By specious wonders, and too slow to tell Of what the ingenuous, what bewildered men. Beginning to mistrust their boastful guides. And wise men, willing to grow wiser, caught. Rapt auditors! from thy most eloquent tongue — Now mute, for ever mute in the cold grave. I see him, — old, but vigorous in age, — Stand like an oak whose stag-horn branches start Out of its leafy brow, the more to awe The younger brethren of the grove. But some — While he forewarns, denounces, launches forth. Against all systems built on abstract rights. Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims Of Institutes and Laws, hallowed by time; Declares the vital power of social ties Endeared by Custom; and with high dis- dain, Exploding upstart Theory, insists Upon the allegiance to which men are born — Some — say at once a froward multitude — Murmur (for truth is hated, where not loved) As the winds fret within the ^olian cave, Galled by their monarch's chain. The times were big With ominous change, which, night by night, provoked Keen struggles, and black clouds of passion raised ; But memorable moments intervened. When Wisdom, like the Goddess from Jove's brain, Broke forth in armor of resplendent words, Startling the Synod. Could a youth, and one In ancient story versed, whose breast had heaved Under the weight of classic eloquence. Sit, see, and hear, unthankful, uninspired? The Character of Burke JOHN morlet In every man there is a certain inevitable connection of opinion. We hold our views by sets and series. If we espouse one, we have unconsciously let in along with this a little, or it may be a long, train of others. A man comes to a certain conclusion upon some greatly controverted point of science. His eye has possibly never turned aside from the straitened bounds of scientific mat- ter, and yet his single conclusion here leads him insensibly to a whole parcel of con- clusions in religious matter or in ethical mat- ter. We ought to remember this in the case of Burke. Few men's opinions hang to- gether so closely and compactly as his did. The fiery glow of his nature fused all his ideas into a tenacious and homogeneous mass. What in more commonplace minds is effected by a process of bad logic, or by what seems to be hazard and caprice, in him was wrought by an inborn ardor of char- acter. His passionate enthusiasm for Order 306 THE GREAT TRADITION — and this is not a jot more strong in the "Reflections," in 1790 than it was in the "Thoughts on the Present Discontents" twenty years before — subjugated him as profoundly in one field as in another, in theology as in philosophy, in speculation as in practical politics. In that restless- ness to which the world is so deeply indebted in some respects, by which it has been so much injured in others, Burke could recognize but scanty merit, wher- ever it was exhibited. Himself the most industrious, the most active-minded of men, he was ever sober in fixing the limits, in cutting the channels of his activity, and he would fain have had others equally mod- erate. Abstract illimitable speculation had no attraction for him in any of its depart- ments. Perceiving that plain and righteous conduct is the end of life in this world, he prayed men not to be over-curious in search- ing for, and handling, and again handling, the theoretic base on which the prerogatives of virtue repose. Perceiving that the happi- ness of a people is the end of its govern- ment he abhorred equally the royal clique who took the end of government to be the gratification of the royal will, the old Whig clique who took it to be the enrichment of old Whigs, and the revolutionists, who, as Burke thought, supposed that the happiness of a people could never be secure save where there is no government, but only anarchy. Perceiving that the belief in a future life with changed conditions adds dignity to mortals in their hours of happiness, and brings comfort in their hours of anguish, and that the belief in a divine mediator may be in the same way a source of elevation and solace, he burned with a holy rage against men who seemed to him as thieves wantonly robbing humanity of its most precious treasures. Provided that there was peace, that is to say, general happi- ness and content, Burke felt that a too great inquisitiveness as to its founda- tions was not only idle, but mischievous and cruel. We have already seen how he considered the comparative strength of the claims upon us of truth and peace to be an open question. "As we have scarcely ever the same cer- tainty in the one as we have in the other, I would, unless the truth were evident indeed, hold fast to peace." In another place, he exclaims in precisely the same spirit, "The bulk of mankind, on their part, are not ex- ceedingly curious concerning any theories, whilst they are really happy; and one sure symptom of an ill-conducted state is the propensity of the people to resort to them." And Burke thought the bulk of mankind in the right. Even in a state of things which the most eager of optimists would have hesitated to look on as a state of peace, Burke was always careful to approach the ailing organ, whether ecclesiastical or politi- cal, with that awe and reverence, as he ex- pressed it, with which a young physician approaches to the cure of the disorders of his aged parent. Every institution or idea under which any mass of men found shelter or comfort, he regarded with this filial awe and affectionate reverence. I feel an in- superable reluctance, he said in one place, in giving my hand to destroy any established institution of Government upon a theory, however plausible it may be. Rightly con- ceiving that a stable equilibrium in society, or peace, as he always called it, is the aim and standard of all things, he was willing to believe in some mysterious finality of Nature, whom he supposed to have estab- lished once for all in 1688 the entire condi- tions of our national health. He habitually confounded existing usage and traditions, to be gently modified and tenderly repaired, if unfortunate occasion should require, with a moral and just equilibrium. The philo- sophic partisan of Order, who entreats men to be sure they get the best out of the sys- tems under which the time constrains them to live, before casting recklessly about for new things, commonly receives something less than justice from the anxious and ar- dent partisans of Progress. And this has perhaps been Burke's lot. Men constitu- tionally, or by habit, unable to realize the pleasures conferred by a reverent love of political, social, and moral order, have dealt little sympathy to one who threw himself so consistently and vehemently as Burke did athwart the revolutionary or critical move- ment of his time. But those of us who are not estopped by vain shibboleths from pro- testing that living, after all, must be the end of life, and that stable peace must be the end of society, may see that Burke's horror of the critical spirit in all its various manifestations, was the intelligible pain of one in the ghastly presence of dissolution, not knowing that the angel of a new life is already at his side He was always a lover of order in his THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 307 most enlarged and liberal moods. He was never more than a lover of order when his deference to the wishes of the people was at its lowest. The institutions to which he was attached during the eight-and-twenty years of his life in the House of Commons, passed through two phases of peril. First, they were oppressed and undermined by the acts of the court, and the resurrection of prerogative in the guise of privilege. Then they were menaced by the democratic flood which overtook England after the furious rising of the jDopular tide in France. We at this distance of time may see that in neither case was the danger so serious and so real as it apjDeared in the eyes of con- temporaries. But in both cases Burke was filled with an alarm that may serve as a measure of the depth aiid sincerity of his reverence for the fabric whose overthrow, as he thought, was gravely threatened. In both cases he set his face resolutely against inno- vation ; in both cases he defied the enemies who came up from two diiferent quarters to assail the English constitution, and to destroy a system under which three genera- tions of Englishmen had been hapjDy and prosperous. He changed his front, but he never changed his ground. "I flatter my- self," he said, with justice, ''that I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty." And again : "The liberty, the only liberty I mean, is a liberty connected with order." The court tried to regulate liberty too severely. It found in him an inflexible opponent. Demagogues tried to remove the regulations of liberty. They encountered in him the bitterest and most unceasing of all remon- strants. The arbitrary majority in the ] House of Commons forgot for whose bene- fit they held power, from whom they de- rived their authority, and in what descrip- tion of government it was that they had a place. Burke was the most valiant and strenuous champion in the ranks of the in- dependent minority. He withstood to the face the King and the King's friends. He withstood to the face Charles Fox and the friends of the people. He may have been wrong in both, or in either, but let us not be told that he turned back in his course; that he was a revolutionist in 1770 and a reactionist in 1790 ; that he was in his sane mind when he opposed the supremacy of the Court, but that his reason was tottering before he opposed the supremacy of the rabble. "A Liberty Connected With Order^' EDMUND burke [Selections from Reflections on the French Revolution, 1790] 1. Of the Nature of Liberty I flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as well as any gentleman of that society, be he who he will; and per- haps I have given as good proofs of my at- tachment to that cause, in the whole course of my public conduct. I think 1 envy liberty as little as they, do, to any other nation. But I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to any thing which relates to hu- man actions, and human concerns, on a sim- ple view of the object as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Cir- cumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every IDolitical principle its distinguishing color, and discriminating effect. The circum- stances are what render every civil and jDolitical scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. Abstractedly speaking, govern- ment, as well as liberty, is good; yet could I, in common sense, ten years ago, have felicitated France on her enjoyment of a government (for she then had a govern- ment) without enquiry what the nature of that government was, or how it was admin- istered? Can I now congratulate the same nation upon its freedom ? Is it because lib- erty in the abstract may be classed amongst the blessings of mankind, that I am seri- ously to felicitate a madman, who has escaped from the protecting restraint and wholesome darkness of his cell, on his restoration to the enjoyment of light and liberty? Am I to congratulate an highway- man and murderer, who has broke prison, upon the recovery of his natural rights? This would be to act over again the scene of the ciiminals condemned to the galleys, and their heroic deliverer, the metaphysic Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance. When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air, is j^lainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judg- ment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agita- 308 THE GEEAT TKADITION tion of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I venture pub- licly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one. Flat- tery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. I should there- fore suspend my congratulations on the new- liberty of France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government ; with public force; with the discipline and obedi- ence of armies; with the collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue; with morality and religion; with the solidity of property; with peace and order; with civil and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things too; and, without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. The ef- fect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will -please them to do, before we risk congratulations, which may be soon turned into complaints. Prudence would dictate this in the case of separate insulated private men; but liberty, when men act in bodies, is power. Considerate people, be- fore they declare themselves, will observe the use which is made of power; and particu- larly of so trying a thing as new power in new persons, of Avhose i^rinciples, tempers, and dispositions they have little or no ex- perience, and in situations where those who appear the most stirring in the scene may possibly not be the real movers. All these considerations, however, were below the transcendental dignity of the Revolution Society. Whilst I continued in the country, from whence I had the honor of writing to you, I had but an imperfect idea of their transactions. On my coming to town, I sent for an account of their proceed- ings, which had been published by their authority, containing a sermon of Dr. Price, with the Duke de Kochefoueault's and the Archbishop of Aix's letter, and several other documents annexed. The whole of that pub- lication, with the manifest design of connect- ing the affairs of France with those of Eng- land, by draAving us into an imitation of the conduct of the National Assembly, gave me a considerable degree of uneasiness. The effect of that conduct upon the power, credit, prosperity, and tranquillity of France, be- came every day more evident. The form of constitution to be settled, for its future polity, became more clear. We are now in a condition to discern, with tolerable exact- ness, the true nature of the object held up to our imitation. If the prudence of reserve and decorum dictates silence in some circum- stances, in others prudence of an higher order may justify us in speaking our thoughts. The beginnings of confusion with us in England are at present feeble enough ; but with you, we have seen an infancy still more feeble, growing by moments into a strength to heap mountains upon mountains, and to wage war with Heaven itself. When- ever our neighbor's house is on fire, it can- not be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own. Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. Solicitous chiefly for the peace of my own country, but by no means unconcerned for yours, I wish to communicate more largely, what was at first intended only for your pri- vate satisfaction. I shall still keep your affairs in my eye, and continue to address myself to you. Indulging myself in the freedom of epistolary intercourse, I beg leave to throw out my thoughts, and express my feelings, just as they arise in my mind, with very little attention to formal method. I set out with the proceedings of the Revo- lution Society; but I shall not confine my- self to them. Is it possible I should? It looks to me as if I were in a great crisis, not of the affairs of France alone, but of all Europe, perhaps of more than Europe. All circumstances taken together, the French revolution is the most astonishing that has hitherto hajDpened in the world. The most wonderful things are brought about in many instances by means the most absurd and ridiculous; in the most ridiculous modes; and apparently, by the most contemptible instruments. Everything seems out of na- ture in this strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all sorts of crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies. In view- ing this monstrous tragi-comic scene, the most opposite jDassions necessarily succeed, and sometimes mix with each other in the mind : alternate laughter and tears ; alter- nate scoi'n and horror. This political Divine dogmatically asserts, that by the principles of the Revolution the people of England have acquired three fundamental rights, all which, with him, compose one system, and lie together in one short sentence; namely, that we have an acquired right THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 309 1. "To choose our own governors." 2. "To cashier them for misconduct." 3. "To frame a government for our- selves." This new, and hitherto unheard-of bill of rights, though made in the name of the whole people, belongs to those gentlemen and their faction only. The body of the people of England have no share in it. They utterly disclaim it. They will resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes. They are bound to do so by the laws of their country, made at the time of that very Revolution, which is appealed to in favor of the fictitious rights claimed by the society which abuses its name. . . • 2. The Nature of the British Constitution It is true that, aided with the powers de- rived from force and opportunity, 'the na- tion was at that time,^ in some sense, free to take what course it pleased for filling the throne; but only free to do so upon the same grounds on which they might have wholly abolished their monarchy, and every other part of their constitution. However, they did not think such bold changes within their commission. It is in- deed difficult, perhaps impossible, to give limits to the mere abstract competence of the supreme power, such as was exercised by parliament at that time; but the limits of a moral competence, subjecting, even in powers more indisputably sovereign, occa- sional will to permanent reason, and to the steady maxims of faith, justice, and fixed fundamental policy, are perfectly intelli- gible, and perfectly binding upon those who exercise any authority, under any name, or under any title, in the state. The house of lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the house of com- mons; no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to , abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom. Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he can- not abdicate for the monarchy. By as strong, or by a stronger reason, the house of commons cannot renounce its share of authority. The engagement and pact of so- ciety, which generally goes by the name of the constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender. The constitutent parts of a state are obliged to hold their public faith with each other, and with all those who derive any serious interest under their 1 i. e., the time of the Revolution. engagements, as much as the whole state is bound to keep its faith with separate com- munities. Otherwise competence and power would soon be confounded, and no law be left but the will of a prevailing force. -On this principle the succession of the crown has always been what it now is, an heredi- tary succession by law : in the old line it was a succession by the common law; in the new, by the statute law, operating on the principles of the common law, not chang- ing the substance, but regulating the mode, and describing the persons. Both these descriptions of law are of the same force, and are derived from an equal authority, emanating from the common agreement and original compact of the state communi sponsione reipubliece, and as such are equally binding on king, and peojDle too, as long as the terms are observed, and they continue the same body politic. It is far from impossible to reconcile, if Ave do not suffer ourselves to be entan- gled in the mazes of metaphysie sophistry, the use both of a fixed rule and an occa- sional deviation ; the sacredness of an hered- itary principle of succession in our gov- ernment, with a power of change in its application in cases of extreme emergency. Even in that extremity (if we take the measure of our rights by our exercise of them at the Revolution) the change is to be confined to the peccant part only: to the part which produced the necessary devia- tion ; and even then it is to be effected with- out a decomposition of the whole civil and political mass, for the purpose of originat- ing a new civil order out of the first ele- ments of society. A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such means it might even risk the loss of that part of the constitution which it wished the most religiously to preserve. The two principles of conservation and cor- rection operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the nation had lost the bond of union in their ancient edifice; they did not, however, dissolve the whole fabric. On the contrary, in both eases they regenerated the deficient part of the oPd constitution through the parts which were not impaired. They kept these old parts exactly as they were, that the part recov- ered might be suited to them. They acted by the ancient organized states in the shape 310 THE GEEAT TRADITION of their old organization, and not by the organic moleculce of a disbanded people. At no time, perhaps, did the sovereign legisla- ture manifest a more tender regard to their fundamental principle of British constitu- tional policy, than at the time of the Revo- lution, when it deviated from the direct line of hereditary succession. The crown was carried somewhat out of the line in which it had before moved; but the new line was de- rived from the same stock. It was still a line of hereditary descent ; still an hereditary descent in the same blood, though an hered- itary descent qualified with protestantism. When the legislature altered the direction, but kept the principle, they showed that they held it inviolable. . . . You will observe, that from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform 2:iolicy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties, as an en- tailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity; as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom without any reference whatever to any other more gen- eral or prior right. By this means our con- stitution preserves an unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We have an inher- itable crown; an inheritable peerage; and an house of commons and a people inherit- ing privileges, franchises, and liberties, from a long line of ancestors. This policy appears to me to be the result of profound reflection ; or rather the happy effect of following nature, which is wisdom without reflection, and above it. A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. Be- sides, the people of England well know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation, and a sure prin- ciple of transmission ; without at all ex- cluding a principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition free; but it secures what it acquires. Whatever advantages are obtained by a state proceeding on these maxims, are locked fast as in a sort of family settlement; grasped as in a kind of mortmain forever. By a constitutional policy, working after the pat- tern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges, in the same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune. the gifts of Providence, are handed down, to us and from us, in the same course and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body com- posed of transitory parts; wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, mould- ing together the great mysterious incorpo- ration of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but in a condition of unchangeable con- stancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. Thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in what we improve, we are never wholly new ; in what we retain we are never wholly obsolete. By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided not by the superstition of anti- quarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy. In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the con- stitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affec- tions; keeping inse^Darable, and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchers, and our altars. Througii the same plan of a conformity to nature in our artificial institutions, and by calling in the aid of her unerring and powerful instincts, to fortify the fallible and feeble contrivances of our reason, we have derived several other, and those no small benefits, from considering our liber- ties in the light of an inheritance. Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity. This idea of a lib- eral descent inspires us with a sense of ha- bitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first ac- quirers of any distinction. By this means our liberty becomes a noble freedom. It carries an imposing and majestic aspect. It has a pedigree and illustrating ancestors. It has its bearings and its ensigns armorial. It has its gallery of portraits; its monu- mental inscriptions; its records, evidences, and titles. We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which nature teaches us to revere individual men; THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCRACY 311 on account of their age; and on account of those from whom they are descended. All your sophisters cannot produce anything better adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we have pursued, who have chosen our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions, for the great conserva- tories and magazines of our rights and privileges. . . . 3. Of the Rights of Men It is no wonder that with these ideas of every thing in their constitution and gov- ernment at home, either in church or state, as illegitimate and usurped, or, at best as a vain mockery, they look abroad with an eager and passionate enthusiasm. Whilst they are possessed by these notions, it is vain to talk to them of the practice of their ancestors, the fundamental laws of their country, the fixed form of a constitution, whose merits are confirmed by the solid test of long experience, and an increasing public strength and national prosperity. They des- pise experience as the wisdom of unlettered men ; and as for the rest, they have wrought underground a mine that will blow up at one grand explosion all examples of an- tiquity, all precedents, charters, and acts of parliament. They have "the rights of men." Against these there can be no prescription; against these no agreement is binding : these admit no temperament, and no compromise : any thing withheld from their full demand is so much of fraud and injustice. Against these their rights of men let no government look for security in the length of its con- tinuance, or in the justice and lenity of its administration. The objections of these speeulatists, if its forms do not quadrate with their theories, are as valid against such an old and beneficent government as against the most violent tyranny, or the greenest usurpation. They are always at issue with governments, not on a question of abuse, but a question of competency, and a question of title. I have nothing to say to. the clumsy subtlety of their political metaphysics. Let them be their amusement in the schools. — ^'Illa se jactet in aula — ^olus, et clauso ventorum carcere regnet." — But let them not break prison to burst like a Levanter, to sweep the earth with their hurricane, and to break up the fountains of the great deep to overwhelm us. Far am I from denying in theory ; full as far is my heart from withholding in prac- tice (if I were of power to give or to with- hold), the real rights of men. In denying their false claims of right, I do not mean to injure those which are real, and are such as their pretended rights would totally destroy. If civil society be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made become his right. It is an institution of beneficence; and law itself is only benefi- cence acting by a rule. Men have a right to live by that rule; they have a right to justice as between their fellows, whether their fellows are in politic function or in ordinary occupation. They have a right to the fruits of their industry; and to the means of making their industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents; to the nourishment and im- provement of their offspring; to instruction in life, and to consolation in death. What- ever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself ; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things. He that has but five shillings in the partnership has as good a right to it as he that has five hundred pound has to his larger proportion. But he has not a right to an equal dividend in the product of the joint stock; and as to the share of power, authority, and direc- tion which each individual ought to have in the management of the state, that I must deny to be amongst the direct original rights of man in civil society; for I have in my contemplation the civil social man, and no other. It is a thing to be settled by conven- tion. If civil society be the offspring of con- vention, that convention must be its law. That convention must limit and modify all the descriptions of constitution which are formed under it. Every sort of legislative, judicial, or executory power are its crea- tures. They can have no being in any other state of things ; and how can any man claim, under the conventions of civil society, rights which do not so much as suppose its exist- ence? Rights which are absolutely repug- nant to it ? One of the first motives to civil society, and which becomes one of its fun- damental rules, is, that no man should he judge in his own cause. By this each person has at once divested himself of the first fun- damental right of uncovenanted man, that 312 THE GREAT TRADITION is, to judge for himself, and to assert his own cause. He abdicates all right to be his own governor. He inclusively, in a great measure, abandons the right of self-defence, the first law of nature. Men cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state together. That he may obtain justice he gives up his right of determining what it is in points the most essential to him. That he may secure some liberty, he makes a sur- render in trust of the whole of it. Government is not made in virtue of nat- ural rights, which may and do exist in total independence of it; and exist in much greater clearness, and in a much greater de- gree of abstract perfection : but their ab- stract perfection is their practical defect. By having a right to every thing, they want every thing. Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom. Among these wants is to be reckoned the want, out of civil society, of a sufficient restraint upon their passions. Society re- quires not only that the passions of indi- viduals should be subjected, but that even in the mass and body as well as in the indi- viduals, the inclinations of men should fre- quently be thwarted, their will controlled, and their passions brought into subjection. This can only be done by a power out of themselves; and not, in the exercise of its function, subject to that will and to those passions which it is its office to bridle and subdue. In this sense the restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights. But as the liberties and the restrictions vary with times and circum- stances, and admit of infinite modifications, they cannot be settled upon any abstract rule; and nothing is so foolish as to discuss them upon that principle. The moment you abate any thing from the full rights of men, each to govern him- self, and suffer any artificial positive limi- tation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government be- comes a consideration of convenience. This it is which makes the constitution of a state, and the due distribution of its powers, a matter of the most delicate and complicated skill. It requires a deep knowledge of human nature and human necessities, and of the things which facilitate or obstruct the various ends which are to be pursued by the mechanism of civil institutions. The state is to have recruits to its strength, and remedies to its distempers. What is the use of discussing a man's abstract right to food or to medieme? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor of metaphysics. The science of constructing a common- wealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experi- ence that can instruct us in that practical science; because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate; but that which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation; and its excellence may arise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse also happens; and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable con- clusions. In states there are often some ob- scure and almost latent causes, things which appear at first view of little moment, on which a very great part of its prosperity or adversity may most essentially depend. The science of government being therefore so practical in itself, and uatended for such practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, how- ever sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again, without having models and patterns of approved utility be- fore his eyes. These metaphysic rights entering into common life, like rays of light which pierce into a dense medium, are, by the laws of nature, refracted from their straight line. Indeed in the gross and complicated mass of human passions and concerns, the primi- tive rights of men undergo such a variety of refractions and reflections that it becomes absurd to talk of them as if they continued in the simplicity of their original direction. The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible com- plexity; and therefore no simple disposi- tion or direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature, or to the quality of his affairs. When I hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed at and boasted of in any new political constitutions, I am at no loss THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 313 to decide that the artificers are grossly ig- norant of their trade, or totally negligent of their duty. The simple governments are fundamentally defective, to say no worse of them. If you were to contemplate society in but one point of view, all these simple modes of polity are infinitely captivating. In effect each would answer its single end much more perfectly than the more complex is able to attain all its complex purposes. But it is better that the whole should be im- perfectly and anomalously answered, than that while some parts are provided for with great exactness, others might be totally neg- lected, or perhaps materially injured, by the overcare of a favorite member. The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes ; and in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false. The rights of men are in a sort of middle^ incapable of definition, but not impossible ■ to be discerned. The rights of men in governments are their ad- vantages; and these are often in balances between differences of good; in compro- mises sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes, between evil and evil. Political reason is a computing principle; adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, mor- ally and not metaphysically or mathemat- ically, true moral denominations. By these theorists the right of the people is almost always sophistically confounded with their power. The body of the commu- nity, whenever it can come to act, can meet with no effectual resistance; but till power and right are the same, the whole body of them has no right inconsistent with virtue, and the first of all virtues, prudence. Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit. . . . 4. Of Chivalry It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphi- ness, at Versailles ; and surely never lighted on this oi'b, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheer- ing the elevated sphere she just began to move in; glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh ! what a revolution ! and what an heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall ! . Little did I dream when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers. I thought ten thou&and swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that thi'eatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, econo- mists, and 'calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more, shall we behold that gen- erous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an ex- alted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone ! It is gone, that sensibility of prin- ciple, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its gross- ness. This mixed system of opinion and senti- ment had its origin in the ancient chivalry; and the principle, though varied in its ap- pearance by the varying state of human affairs, subsisted and influenced through a long succession of generations, even to the time we live in. If it should ever be totally extinguished, the loss I fear will be great. It is this which has given its character to modern Europe. It is this which has dis- tinguished it under all its forms of govern- ment, and distinguished it to its advantage, from the states of Asia, and possibly from those states which flourished in the most brilliant periods of the antique world. It was this which, without confoimding ranks, had produced a noble equality, and handed it down through all the gradations of social life. It was this opinion which mitigated kings into companions, and raised private men to be fellows with kings. Without force, or opposition, it subdued the fierce- ness of pride and power; it obliged sov- ereigns to submit to the soft collar of social esteem, compelled stern authority to submit to elegance, and gave a domination, van- quisher of laws, to be subdued by manners. But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a 314 THE GEEAT TRADITION blind assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering- empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the super-added ideas, fur- nished from the wardrobe of a moral imagi- nation, which the heart owns, and the un- derstanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own esti- mation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion. On this scheme of things, a king is but a man ; a queen is but a woman ; a woman is but an animal; and an animal not of the highest order. All homage paid to the sex in general as such, and without distinct views, is to be regarded as romance and folly. Regicide, and parricide, and sacri- lege, are but fictions of superstition, cor- rupting' jurisprudence by destroying its sim- plicity. The murder of a king, or a queen, or a bishop, or a father, are only common homicide; and if the people are by any chance, or in any way gainers by it, a sort of homicide much the most pardonable, and into which we ought not to make too severe a scrutiny. On the scheme of this barbarous philoso- phy, which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings, and which is as void of solid wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be supported only by their own terrors, and by the con- cern which each individual may find in them from his own private speculations, or can spare to them from his own private inter- ests. In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing Ijut the gallows. Nothing is left which engages the affections on the part of the commonwealth. On the principles of this mechanic philoso- phy, our institutions can never be embodied, if I may use the expression, in persons; so as to create in us love, veneration, admira- tion, or attachment. But that sort of reason which banishes the affections is incapable of filling- their place. These public affections, combined with manners, are required some- times as supplements, sometimes as correct- ives, always as aids to law. The precept given by a wise man, as well as a great critic, for the construction of poems, is equally true as to states. Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto. There ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to rel- ish. To make us love our country, our coun- try ought to be lovely. But power, of some kind or other, will survive the shock in which manners and opinions perish; and it will find other and worse means for its support. The usurpa- tion which, in order to subvert ancient in- stitutions, has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power by arts similar to those by which it has acquired it. When the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of Fealty, which, by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjects from the precau- tions of tyranny, shall be extinct in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be anticipated by preventive murder and preventive confiscation, and that long roll of grim and bloody maxims, which form the political code of all power, not standing on its own honor, and the honor of those who are to obey it. Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle. When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot jDossibly be estimated. From that moment we have no compass to govern us ; nor can we know dis- tinctly to what port we steer. Europe un- doubtedly, taken in a mass, was in a flour- ishing condition the day on which your Revolution was completed. How much of that prosperous state was owing to the spirit of our old manners and opinions is not easy to say; but as such causes cannot be indif- ferent in their operation, we must presume, that, on the whole, their operation was bene- ficial. We are but too apt to consider things in the state in which we find them, without suf- ficiently adverting to the causes by which they have been produced, and possibly may be upheld. Nothing is more certain than that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are connected with manners, and with civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages u^Don two principles; and were indeed the result of both combined; I mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion. The nobility and the clergy, the one by pro- fession, the other by patronage, kept learn- ing in existence, even in the midst of arms and confusions, and whilst governments were rather in their causes than formed. Learn- ing paid back what it received to nobility and to priesthood; and paid it with usury, by enlarging- their ideas, and by furnishing their minds, Happy if they had all con- THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 315 tinued to know their indissoluble union, and their proper place ! Happy if learning, not debauched by ambition, had been satisfied to continue the instructor, and not aspired to be the master ! Along with its natural pro- tectors and guardians, learning will be cast into the mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude. If, as I suspect, modern letters owe more than they are always willing to own to an- cient manners, so do other interests which we value full as much as they are worth. Even commerce, and trade, and manufac- ture, the gods of our economical politicians, are themselves perhaps but creatures; are themselves but effects, which, as first causes, we choose to worship. They certainly grew under the same shade in which learning flourished. They too may decay with their natural protecting principles. With you, for the present at least, they all threaten to disappear together. Where trade and man- ufactures are wanting to a people, and the spirit of nobility and religion remams, sen- timent supplies, and not always ill supplies, their place; but if commerce and the arts should be lost in an experiment to ti'y how well a state may stand without these old fundamental principles, what sort of a thing must be a nation of gToss, stupid, ferocious, and at the same time, poor and sordid bar- barians, destitute of religion, honor, or manly pride, possessing nothing at present, and hoping for nothing hereafter'? I wish you may not be going fast, and by the shortest cut, to that horrible and dis- gustful situation. Already there appears a poverty of conception, a coarseness and vul- garity in all the proceedings of the assembly and of all their instructors. Their liberty is not liberal. Their science is presumptuous ignorance. Their humanity is savage and brutal. It is not clear whether in England we learned those grand and decorous principles, and manners, of which considerable traces yet remain, from you, or whether you took them from us. But to you, I think, we trace them best. You seem to me to be "gentis in- cunabula nostrcE." France has always more or less influenced manners in England; and when your fountain is choked up and pollut- ed, the stream will not run long, or not run clear with us, or perhaps with any nation. This gives all Europe, in my opinion, but too close and connected a concern in what is done in Prance. Excuse me, therefore. if I have dwelt too long on the atrocious spectacle of the sixth of October, 1789, or have given too much scope to the reflections which have arisen in my mind on occasion of the most important of all revolutions, which may be dated from that day, I mean a revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions. As things now stand, with every- thing respectable destroyed without us, and an attempt to destroy within us every prin- ciple of respect, one is almost forced to apologize for harboring the common feel- ings of men. Why do I feel so differently from the Reverend Dr. Price, and those of his lay flock, who will choose to adopt the senti- ments of his discourse? For this plain reason — because it is natural I should; be- cause we are so made as to be affected at such spectacles with melancholy sentiments upon the unstable condition of moral pros- perity, and the tremendous uncertainty of human gTeatness; because in those natural feelings we learn great lessons; because in events like these our passions instruct our reason ; because when kings are hurled from their thrones by the Supreme Director of this great drama, and become the objects of insult to the base, and of pity to the good, we behold such disasters in the moral, as we should behold a miracle in the physical order of things. We are alarmed into reflection; our minds (as it has long since been ob- served) are purified by terror and pity; our weak, unthinking pride is humbled, under the dispensations of a mysterious wisdom. Some tears might be drawn from me, if such a spectacle were exhibited on the stage. I should be truly ashamed of finding in my- self that superficial, theatric sense of painted distress, whilst I could exult over it in real life. With such a perverted mind, I could never venture to show my face at a tragedy. People would think the tears that Garrick formerly, or that Siddons not long since, have extorted from me, were the tears of hypocrisy; I should know them to be the tears of folly. Indeed the theater is a better school of moral sentiments than churches, where the feelings of humanity are thus outraged. Poets who have to deal with an audience not yet graduated in the school of the rights of men, and who must apply themselves to the moral constitution of the heart, would not dare to produce such 'a triumph as a matter of exultation. There, where men follow their 316 THE GEEAT TRADITION natural impulses, they would not bear the odious maxims of a Machiavellian policy, whether aj^plied to the attainment of mon- archical or democratic tyranny. They would reject them on the modern, as they once did on the ancient stage; Avhere they could not bear even the hypothetical proposition of such wickedness in the mouth of a per- sonated tyrant, though suitable to the char- acter he sustained. No theatric audience in Athens would bear what has been borne, in the midst of the real tragedy of this tri- umphal day; a princii^al actor weighing, as it were in scales hung in a shop of horrors, so much actual crime against so much con- tingent advantage, and after putting in and out weights, declaring that the balance was on the side of the advantages. They would not bear to see the crimes of new democracy posted as in a ledger against the crimes of old despotism, and the bookkeepers of poli- tics finding democracy still in debt, but by no means unable or unwilling to pay the balance. In the theater, the first intuitive glance, without any elaborate process of reasoning, would show that this method of political computation would justify every extent of crime. They would see that on these principles, even where the very worst acts were not perjDetrated, it was owing rather to the fortune of the conspirators than to their parsimony in the expenditure of treachery and blood. They would soon see that criminal means once tolerated are soon preferred. They present a shorter cut to the object than through the highway of the moral virtues. Justifying perfidy and murder for public benefit, public benefit would soon become the pretext, and perfidy and murder the end ; until rapacity, malice, revenge, and fear more dreadful than re- venge, could satiate their insatiable ap- petites. Such must be the consequences of losing in the splendor of these triumphs of the rights of men, all natural sense of wrong and right. , . , 5. Of Free Government Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts, for objects of mere occasional in- terest, may be dissolved at pleasure ; but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; be- cause it is not a partnership in things sub- servient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art ; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but be- tween those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower witli the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all iDhysical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not sub- ject to the will of those, who by an obliga- tion above them, and infinitely suiDcrior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municiiDal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a con- tingent imi^rovement, Avholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their sub- ordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and sui:)reme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen but chooses, a necessity para- mount to deliberation, that, admits no dis- cussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; be- cause this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things to which man must be obedient by consent or force. But if that which is only submis- sion to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken; nature is dis- obeyed; and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow. . . . At once to preserve and to reform is quite another thing. When the useful parts of an old establishment are kept, and what is superadded is to be fitted to what is re- tained, a vigorous mind, steady, persevering attention, various powers of comparison and combination, and the resources of !an un- THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCRACY 317 derstanding fruitful in expedients are to be exercised ; they are to be exercised in a con- tinued conflict with the combined force of opposite vices; with the obstinacy that re- jects all improvement, and the levity that is fatigued and disgusted with everything of which it is in possession. But you may object — ''A process of this kind is slow. It is not fit for an assembly, which glories in performing in a few months the work of ages. Such a mode of reforming possibly might take up many years." Without ques- tion it might; and it ought. It is one of the excellencies of a method in which time is amongst the assistants, that its operation is slow, and in some cases almost imper- ceptible. If circumspection and caution are a part of wisdom, when we work only upon inanimate matter, surely they become a part of duty, too, when the subject of our demoli- tion and construction is not brick and tim- ber, but sentient beings, by the sudden alteration of whose state, condition, and hab- its, multitudes may be rendered miserable. But it seems as if it were the prevalent opinion in Paris that an unfeeling heart, and an undoubting confidence, are the sole qualifications for a perfect legislator. Far different are my ideas of that high office. The true lawgiver ought to have an heart full of sensibility. He ought to love and respect his kind and to fear himself. It may be allowed to his temperament to catch his ultimate object with an intuitive glance ; but his movements towards it ought to be delib- erate. Political arrangement, as it is a work for social ends, is to be only wrought by social means. There mind must conspire with mind. Time is required to produce that union of minds which alone can produce all the good we aim at. Our patience will achieve more than our force. If I might venture to appeal to what is so much out of fashion in Paris, I mean, to experience, I should tell you, that in my course I have known, and, according to my measure, have co-operated with great men; and I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business. By a slow but well-sustained progress, the effect of each step is watched ; the good or ill suc- cess of the first, gives light to us in the sec- ond ; and so, from light to light, we are con- ducted with safety through the whole series. "We see that the parts of the system do not clash. The evils latent in the most promising contrivances are provided for as they arise. One advantage is as little as possible sac- rificed to another. We compensate, we reconcile, we balance. We are enabled to unite into a consistent whole the various anomalies and contending principles that are found in the minds and affairs of men. From hence arises, not an excellence in sim- plicity, but one far superior, an excellence in composition. Where the great interests of mankind are concerned through a long suc- cession of generations, that succession ought to be admitted into some share in the coun- cils which are so deeply to affect them. If justice requires this, the work itself requires the aid of more minds than one age can furnish. It is from this view of things that the best legislators have been often satis- fied with the establishment of some sure, solid, and ruling principle in government; a power like that which some of the philosophers have called a plastic nature; and having fixed the principle, they have left it afterwards to its own operation. . . . The effects of the incapacity shown by the popular leaders in all the great members of the commonwealth are to be covered with the "all-atoning name" of liberty. In some peo- ple I see great liberty indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude. But what is liberty without wis- dom, and without virtue ? It is the greatest of all possible evils ; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths. Grand, swelling sen- timents of liberty, I am sure I do not de- spise. They warm the heart; they enlarge and liberalize our minds ; they animate our courage in a time of conflict. Old as I am, I read the fine raptures of Luean and Cor- neille with pleasure. Neither do I wholly condemn the little arts and devices of popu- lai'ity. They facilitate the carrying of many points of moment ; they keep the people to- gether; they refresh the mind in its exer- tions ; and they diffuse occasional gaiety over the severe brow of moral freedom. Every politician ought to sacrifice to the graces; and to join compliance with reason. But in such an undertaking as that in France, all these subsidiary sentiments and artifices are of little avail. To make a government re- quires no great prudence. Settle the seat 318 THE GREAT TRADITION of power; teach obedience; and the work is done. To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide ; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free gov- ernment; that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work, requires much thought ; deep reflection; a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind. This I do not find in those who take the lead in the National Assembly. Perhaps they are not so miserably deficient as they appear, I rather believe it. It would put them below the common level of human understanding. But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no serv- ice. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides of the people. If any of them should hap- pen to propose a scheme of liberty, soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifica- tions, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something- more splendidly popular. Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause. Modera- tion will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards, and compromise as the prudence of traitors ; until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable him to temper and moderate on some occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become active in propa- gating doctrines, and establishing powers, that will afterwards defeat any sober pur- pose at which he ultimately might have aimed. But am I so unreasonable as to see noth- ing at all that deserves commendation in the indefatigable labors of this assembly? I do not deny that among an infinite num- ber of acts of violence and folly, some good may have been done. They who destroy everything certainly will remove some griev- ance. They who make everything new, have a chance that they may establish something beneficial. To give them credit for what they have done in virtue of the authority they have usurped, or which can exctise them in the crimes by which that authority has been acquired, it must appear that the same things could not have been ac- complished without producing such a revo- lution. Most assuredly they might ; because almost every one of the regulations made by them, which is not very equivocal, was either in the cession of the king, voluntarily made at the meeting of the states, or in the con- current instructions to the orders. Some usages have been abolished on just grounds; but they were such that if they had stood as they were to all eternity, they would little detract from the happiness and prosperity of any state. The improvements of the Na- tional Assembly are superficial ; their errors fundamental. Whatever they are, I wish my country- men rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British constitution, than to take models from them for the improve- ment of our own. In the former they have got an invaluable treasure. They are not, I think, without some causes of apprehension and complaint ; but these they do not owe to their constitution, but to their own conduct. I think our happy situation owing to our constitution; but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly ; owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have altered or superadded. Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation, I would not exclude alteration neither ; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve, I should be led to my remedy by a great grievance. In what I did, I should follow the example of our ancestors. I would make the reparation as nearly as possible in the style of the building. A politic caution, a guarded circumspection, a moral rather than a complexional timidity, were among the ruling principles of our forefathers in their most decided conduct. Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind. He that had made them thus fallible, rewarded them for hav- ing in their conduct attended to their nature. Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune, or to retain their be- quests. Let us add, if we please ; but let us preserve what they have left ; and, standing on the firm ground of the British constitu- tion, let us be satisfied to admire rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights the aeronauts of France. I have told you candidly my sentiments. I think they are not likely to alter yours. I do not know that they ought. You are young; you cannot guide, but must follow the fortune of your country. But hereafter THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 319 they may he of some use to you, in some future form which your commonwealth may take. In the present it can hardly remain ; but before its final settlement it may be obliged to pass, as one of our poets says, "through great varieties of untried being." and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood. I have little to recommend my opinions but long observation and much impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness ; and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life. They come from one, al- most the whole of whose iDublie exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others; from one in whose breast no anger durable or vehement has ever been kindled but by what he considered as tyranny; and who snatches from his share in the endeavors which are used by good men to discredit opulent oppression, the hours he has em- ployed on your affairs ; and who in so doing persuades himself he has not departed from his usual office. They come from one who desires honors, distinctions, 'and emolu- ments but little, and who expects them not at all; who has no contempt for fame, and no fear of obloquy; who shuns contention, though he will hazard an opinion : from one who wishes to preserve consistency ; but who would preserve consistency by varying his means to secure the unity of his end; and, when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise. The Rights of Man thomas paine [From Paine's Reply to Burke, 1791] 1. Government Is for the Living The English Parliament of 1688 did a certain thing, which, for themselves and their constituents, they had a right to do', and which it appeared right should be done. But, in addition to this right, which they possessed by delegation, they set up another right hy assumption, that of binding and controlling posterity to the end of time. The case, therefore, divides itself into two parts ; the right which they possessed by delega- tion, and the right which they set up by as- sumption. The first is admitted; but with respect to the second, I reply — There never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any countiy, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the "end of time," or of com- manding forever how the world shall be gov- erned, or who shall govern it; and there- fore all such clauses, acts, or declarations by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the genera- tions which are to follow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or of any other pe- riod, had no more right to dispose of the people of the present day, or to bind or to control them in any shape whatever, than the parliament or the people of the present day have to dispose of, bind, or control those who are to live a hundred or a thou- sand years hence. Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him ; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in di- recting who shall be its governors, or how its government shall be organized, or how administered. I am not contending for nor against any form of government, nor for nor against any party, here or elsewhei^e. That which a whole nation chooses to do it has a right to do. Mr. Burke says. No. Where, then, does the right exist? I am contending for the rights of the living, and against their being willed away and controlled and con- tracted for by the manuscript assumed au- thority of the dead, and Mr. Burke is eon- tending for the authority of the dead over the rights and freedom of the living. There was a time when kings disposed of their crowns by will upon their death-beds, and consigned the people, like beasts of the field, to whatever successor they appointed. This is now so exploded as scarcely to be 320 THE GREAT TRADITION remembered, and so monstrous as hardly to be believed. But the Parliamentary clauses upon which Mr. Burke builds his political church are of the same nature. The laws of every country must be analo- gous to some common principle. In Eng- land no parent or master, nor all the au- thority of Parliament, omnipotent as it has called itself, can bind or control the personal freedom even of an individual beyond the age of twenty-one years. On what ground of I'ight, then, could the Parliament of 1688, or any other Parliament, bind all posterity forever ? , Those who have quitted the world, and those who have not yet arrived at it, are as remote from each other as the utmost stretch of mortal imagination can conceive. What possible obligation, then, can exist between them — what rule or principle can be laid down that of two nonentities, the one out of existence and the other not in, and who never can meet in this world, the one should control the other to the end of time? In England it is said that money cannot be taken out of the pockets of the people without their consent. But who authorized, or who could authorize, the Parliament of 1688 to control and take away the freedom of posterity (who were not in existence to give or to withhold their consent), and limit and confine their right of acting in certain cases forever*? A greater absurdity cannot present itself to the understanding of man than what Mr. Burke offers to his readers. He tells them, and he tells the world to come, that a cer- tain body of men who existed a hundred years ago made a law, and that there does not now exist in the nation, nor ever will, nor ever can, a power to alter it. Under how many subtilties or absurdities has the divine right to govern been imposed on the credulity of mankind? Mr. Burke has dis- covered a new one, and he has shortened his journey to Rome by appealing to the power of this infallible Parliament of former days, and he produces what it has done as of di- vine authority, for that power must cer- tainly be more than human which no human power to the end of time can alter. But Mr. Burke has done some service — not to his cause, but to his country — by bringing those clauses into public view. They serve to demonstrate how necessary it is at all times to watch against the at- tempted encroachment of power, and to pre- vent its running to excess. It is somewhat extraordinary that the offence for which James II. was expelled, that of setting up power by assumption, should be re-acted, under another shape and form, by the Par- liament that expelled him. It shows that the Rights of Man were but imperfectly understood at the Revolution, for certain it is that the right which that Parliament set up by assumption (for by delegation it had not, and could not have it, because none could give it) over the persons and freedom of posterity forever was of the same tyran- nical unfounded kind which James at- tempted to set up over the Parliament and the nation, and for which he was expelled. The only difference is (for in princiiole they differ not) that the one was an usurper over the living, and the other over the un- born ; and as the one has no better authority to stand upon than the other, both of them must be equally null and void, and of no effect. From what, or from whence, does Mr. Burke prove the right of any human power to bind posterity forever? He has pro- duced his clauses, but he must produce also his proofs that such a right existed, and show how it existed. If it ever existed it must now exist, for whatever appertains to the nature of man cannot be annihilated by man. It is the nature of man to die, and he will continue to die as long as he continues to be born. But Mr. Burke has set up a sort of political Adam, in whom all poster- ity are bound forever. He must, therefore, prove that his Adam possessed such a power, or such a right. The weaker any cord is, the less will it bear to be stretched, and the worse is the l^olicy to stretch it, unless it is intended to break it. Had anyone proposed the over- throw of Mr. Burke's positions, he would have proceeded as Mr. Burke has done. He would have magnified the authorities, on purpose to have called the right of them into question; and the instant the question of right was started, the authorities must have been given up. It requires but a very small glance of thought to perceive that although laws made in one generation often continue in force through succeeding generations, yet they continue to derive their force from the eon- sent of the living. A law not repealed con- tinues in force, not because it cannot be re- pealed, but because it is not repealed; and the non-repealing passes for consent. But Mr. Burke's clauses have not even THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 321 this qualification in their favor. They be- come null, by attempting to become immor- tal. The nature of them precludes consent. They destroy the right which they might have, by grounding it on a right which they cannot have. Immortal power is not a human right, and therefore cannot be a right of Parliament. The Parliament of 1688 might as well have passed an act to Have authorized themselves to live forever, as to make their authority live forever. All, therefore, that can be said of those clauses is that they are a formality of words, of as much import as if those who used them had 'addressed a congratulation to themselves, and in the oriental style of antiquity had said : Parliament, live forever ! The circumstances of the world are con- tinually changing, and the opinions of men change also; and as government is for the living, and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it. That which may be thought right and found convenient in one age may be thought wrong and found inconvenient in another. In such cases, who is to decide, the living or the dead? As almost one hundred pages of Mr. Bui'ke's book are employed upon these clauses, it will consequently folloAV that if the clauses themselves, so far as they set up an assumed usurped dominion over poster- ity forever, are unauthoritative, and in their nature null and void ; that all his voluminous inferences, and declamation drawn there- from, or founded thereon, are null and void also; and on this ground I rest tlie matter. We now come more particularly to the affairs of France. Mr. Burke's book has the appearance of being written as instruc- tion to the French nation ; but if I may per- mit myself the use of an extravagant meta- phor, suited to the extravagance of the case, it is darkness attempting to illuminate light. While I am writing this there are acci- dentally before me some proposals for a declaration of rights by the Marquis de la Fayette (I ask his pardon for using his former address, and do it only for distinc- tion's sake) to the National Assembly, on the 11th of July, 1789, three days before the taking of the Bastille, and I cannot but remark with astonishment how opposite the sources are from Avhich that gentleman and Mr. Burke draw their principles. Instead of referring to musty records and mouldy parchments to prove that the rights of the living are lost, "renounced and abdicated forever," by those who are now no more, as Mr. Burke has done, M. de la Fayette ap- plies to the living world, and emphatically says : "Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new foi'ce when they are solemnly recognized by all: — For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it." How dry, barren, and obscure is the source from which Mr. Burke labors ! and how ineffectual, though gay with flowers, are all his declamation and his arguments compared with these clear, con- cise, and soul-animating' sentiments! Few and short as they are, they lead on to a vast field of generous and manly thinking, and do not finish, like Mr. Burke's periods, with music in the ear, and nothing in the heart. As I have introduced M. de la Fayette, I will take the liberty of adding an anecdote respecting his farewell address to the Con- gress of America in 1783, and which oc- curred fresh to my mind, when I saw Mr. Burke's thundering attack on the French Revolution, M. de la Fayette went to America at the early period of the war, and continued a volunteer in her service to the end. His conduct through the whole of that enterprise is one of the most extraordinary that is to be found in the history of a young man, scarcely then twenty years of age. Situated in a country that was like the lap of sensual pleasure, and with the means of enjoying it, how few are there to be found who would exchange such a scene for the woods and wildernesses of America, and pass the flowery years of youth in unprofit- able danger and hardship ! but such is the fact. When the war ended, and he was on the point of taking his final departure, he presented himself to Congress, and contem- plating m his affectionate farewell the Rev- olution he had seen, expressed himself in these words : "May this great monument raised to liberty serve as a lesson to the op- pressor, and an example to the oppressed !" 2. Of "Chivalry'' As to the tragic paintings by which Mr. Burke has outraged his own imagination, and seeks to work upon that of his readers, they are very well calculated for theatrical representation, where facts are manufac- tured for the sake of show, and accommo- dated to produce, through the weakness of sympathy, a weeping effect. But Mr. Burke should recollect that he is writing history, 322 THE GREAT TRADITION and not plays, and that his readers will ex- pect truth, and not the spouting rant of high-toned exclamation. When we see a man dramatically lament- mg in a publication intended to be believed that The age of chivalry is gone! that The glory of Europe is extinguished forever! that The unbought grace of life (if anyone knows what it is), the cheap defence of na- tions, the nurse of manly sentiment and he- roic enterprise is gone! and all this because tLe Quixot age of chivalry nonsense is gone, what opinion can we form of his judgment, or what regard can we pay to his facts'? In the rhapsody of his imagination he has dis- covered a world of wind mills, and his sor- rows are that there are no Quixots to attack them. But if the age of aristocracy, like that of chivalry, should fall (and they had originally some connection) Mr. Burke, the trumpeter of the Order, may continue his parody to the end, and finish with exclaim- ing: Othello's occupation's gone! Notwithstanding Mr. Burke's horrid paintings, when the French Revolution is compared with the Revolutions of other countries, the astonishment will be that it is marked with so few sacrifices; but this astonishment will cease when we reflect that principles, and not persons, were the medi- tated objects of destruction. The mind of the nation was acted upon by a higher stim- ulus than what the consideration of persons could inspire, and sought a higher conquest than could be produced by the downfall of an enemy. Among the few who fell there do not appear to be any that were inten- tionally singled out. They all of them had their fate in the circumstances of the mo- ment, and were not pursued with that long, cold-blooded unabated revenge which pur- sued the unfortunate Scotch in the affair of 1745. Through the whole of Mr. Burke's book I do not observe that the Bastille is men- tioned more than once, and that with a kind of implication as if he were sorry it was pulled down, and wished it were built up again. "We have rebuilt Newgate," says he, "and tenanted the mansion ; and we have prisons almost as strong as the Bastille for those who dare to libel the queens of France." As to what a madman like the person called Lord G[eorge] Gr[ordon] might say, and to whom Newgate is rather a bedlam than a prison, it is unworthy a ra- tional consideration. It was a madman that libelled, and that is sufficient apology; and it afforded an opportunity for confining him, which was the thing that was wished for. But certain it is that Mr. Burke, who does not call himself a madman (whatever other people may do), has libelled in the most unprovoked manner, and in the gross- est style of the most vulgar abuse, the whole representative authority of France, and yet Mr. Burke takes his seat in the British House of Commons ! From his violence and his grief, his silence on some points and his excess on others, it is difficult not to believe that Mr. Burke is sorry, extremely sorry, that arbitrary power, the power of the Pope and the Bastille, are pulled down. Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating reflection that I can find throughout his book, has he bestowed on those who lingered out the most wretched of lives, a life without hope in the most miser- able of prisons. It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt him- self. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke than he is to her. He is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird. Accustomed to kiss the aristocratical hand that hath purloined him from himself, he degenerates into a composition of art, and the genuine soul of nature forsakes him. His hero or his hero- ine must be a tragedy-victim expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of misery, sliding into death in the silence of a dun- geon. As Mr. Burke has passed over the whole transaction of the Bastille (and his silence is nothing in his favor), and has enter- tained his readers with reflections on sup- posed facts distorted into real falsehoods, I will give, since he has not, some account of the circumstances which preceded that trans- action. They will serve to show that less mischief could scarcely have accompanied such an event when considered with the treacherous and hostile aggravations of the enemies of the Revolution. The mind can hardly picture to itself a more tremendous scene than what the city of Paris exhibited at the time of taking the Bastille, and for two days before and after, nor perceive the possibility of its quieting so soon. At a distance this transaction has appeared only as an act of heroism standing on itself, and the close political connection it had with the Revolution is lost in the brilliancy of the achievement. But we are THE EISB OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 323 to consider it as the strength of the parties brought man to man, and contending for the issue. The Bastille was to be either the prize or the prison of the assailants. The downfall of it included the idea of the down- fall of despotism, and this compounded image was become as figuratively united as Bunyan's Doubting Castle and Giant De- spair. The National Assembly, before and at the time of taking the Bastille, was sitting at Versailles, twelve miles distant from Paris. About a week before the rising of the Parisians, and their taking the Bastille, it was discovered that a plot was forming, at the head of which was the Count d'Artois, the king's youngest brother, for demolish- ing the National Assembly, seizing its mem- bers, and thereby crushing, by a coup de main, all hopes and prospects of forming a free government. For the sake of human- ity, as well as freedom, it is well this plan did not succeed. Examples are not wanting to show how dreadfully vindictive and cruel are all old governments, when they are suc- cessful against what they call a revolt. This plan must have been some time in contemplation ; because, in order to carry it into execution, it was necessary to collect a large military force around Paris, and cut off the communication between that city and the National Assembly at Versailles. The troops destined for this service were chiefly the foreign troojDS m the pay of France, and who, for this particular pur- pose, were drawn from the distant prov- inces where they were then stationed. When they were collected to the amount of be- tween twenty-five and thirty thousand, it was judged time to put the plan into execu- tion. The ministry who were then in office, and who were friendly to the Revolution, were instantly dismissed and a new ministry formed of those who had concerted the proj- ect, among whom was Count de Broglio, and to his share was given the command of those troops. The character of this man as de- scribed to me in a letter which I communi- cated to Mr. Burke before he began to write his book, and from an authority which Mr. Burke well knows was good, was that of "a high-flying aristocrat, cool, and capable of every mischief." While these matters were agitating, the National Assembly stood in the most peril- ous and critical situation that a body of men can be supposed to act in. They were the devoted victims, and they knew it. They had the hearts and wishes of their country on their side, but military authority they had none. The guards of Broglio sur- rounded the hall where the Assembly sat, ready, at the word of command, to seize their persons, as had been done the year before to the Parliament of Paris. Had the National Assembly deserted their trust, or had they exhibited signs of weakness or fear, their enemies had been encouraged and their country depressed. When the situa- tion they stood in, the cause they were en- gaged in, and the crisis then ready to burst, which should determine their personal and political fate and that of their country, and probably of Europe, are taken into one view, none but a heart callous with preju- dice or corrupted by dependence can avoid interesting itself in their success. The Archbishop of Vienne was at this time President of the National Assembly — • a person too old to undergo the scene that a few days or a few hours might bring forth. A man of more activity and bolder forti- tude was necessary, and the National As- sembly chose (under the form of a Vice- President, for the Presidency still resided in the Archbishop) M. de la Fayette; and this is the only instance of a Vice-President being chosen. It was at the moment that this storm was pending (July 11th) that a declaration of rights was brought forward by M. de la Fayette, and is the same which is alluded to in p. [311]. It was hastily drawn up, and makes only a part of the more extensive declaration of rights agreed upon and adopted afterwards by the Na- tional Assembly. The particular reason for bringing it forward at this moment (M. de la Fayette has since informed me) was that, if the National Assembly should fall in the threatened destruction that then surrounded it, some trace of its principles might have the chance of sundving the wreck. Everything now was draAving to a crisis. The event was freedom or slavery. On one side, an army of nearly thirty thousand men ; on the other, an unarmed body of citi- zens — for the citizens of Paris, on whom the National Assembly must then immedi- ately depend, were as unarmed and as un- disciplined as the citizens of London are now. The French gniards had given strong symptoms of their being attached to the national cause; but their numbers were small, not a tenth part of the force that Broglio commanded, and their officers were in the interest of Broglio. 324 THE GEEAT TRADITION Matters being now ripe for execution, the jiew ministry made their appearance in of- fice. The reader will carry in his mind that the Bastille was taken the 14th July; the point of time I am now speaking of is the 12th. Immediately on the news of the change of ministry reaching Paris, in the afternoon, all the playhouses and places of entertainment, shops and houses, were shut up. The change of ministry was considered 'as the prelude of hostilities, and the opinion was rightly founded. The foreign troops began to advance towards the city. The Prince de Lambesc, who commanded a body of German cavalry, approached by the Place of Lewis XV, which connects itself with some of the streets. In his march, he insulted and struck 'an old man with a sword. The French are remarkable for their respect to old age ; and the insolence with which it appeared to be done, uniting with the general f ennentation they were in, produced a powerfiil effect, and a eiy of "To arms! to arms!" spread itself in a moment over the city. Arms they had none, nor scarcely anyone who knew the use of them; but desperate resolution, when every hope is at stake, sup- plies, for a while, the want of arms. Near where the Prince de Lambese was drawn up, were large piles of stones collected for build- ing the new bridge, and with these the peo- ple attacked the cavalry. A party of French guards, upon hearing the firing, rushed from their quarters and joined the people; and night coming on, the cavalry retreated. The streets of Paris, being narrow, are favorable for defense, and the loftiness of the houses, consisting of many stories, from which great annoyance might be given, se- cured them against nocturnal entei-p rises ; and the night was spent in providing them- selves with every sort of weapon they could make or procure : guns, swords, blacksmiths' hammers, carpenters' axes, iron crows, pikes, halberts, pitchforks, spits, clubs, etc., etc. The incredible numbers in which they assembled the next morning, and the still more incredible resolution they exhibited, embarrassed and astonished their enemies. Little did the new ministry expect such a salute. Accustomed to slavery themselves, they had no idea that liberty was capable of such inspiration, or that a body of unai^med citizens would dare to face the military force of thirty thousand men. Every mo- ment of this day was employed in collecting arms, concerting plans, and arranging them- selves into the best order which suclf an in- stantaneous movement could afford. Broglio continued lying round the city, but made no further advances this day, and the succeed- ing night passed with as much tranquillity as such a scene could possibly produce. But defence only was not the object of the citizens. They had a cause at stake, on which depended their freedom or their sla- very. They every moment expected an at- tack, or to hear of one made on the National Assembly; and in such a situation, the most prompt measures are sometimes the best. The object that now presented itself was the Bastille; and the eclat of carrying such a fortress in the face of such an army, could not fail to strike terror into the new min- istry, who had scarcely yet had time to meet. By some intercepted correspondence this morning, it was discovered that the Mayor of Paris, M. de Flesselles, who appeared to be in the interest of the citizens, was betray- mg them; and from this discovery, there remained no doubt that Broglio would rein- force the Bastille the ensuing evening. It was therefore necessary to attack it that day; but before this could be done, it was first necessary to procure a better supply of arms than they were then possessed of. There was, adjoining to the city, a large magazine of arms deposited at the Hospital of the Invalids, which the citizens sum- moned to surrender; and as the place was neither defensible, nor attempted much de- fence, they soon succeeded. Thus supplied, they marched to attack the Bastille; a vast mixed multitude of all ages, and of all de- grees, armed with all sorts of weapons. Imagination would fail in describing to itself the appearance of such a procession, and of the anxiety of the events which a few hours or a few minutes might produce. What plans the ministry were forming, were as unknown to the people within the city, as what the citizens were doing was unknown to the ministry ; and what movements Brog- lio might make for the support or relief of the place, were to the citizens equally as un- known. All was mystery and. hazard. That the Bastille was attacked with an enthusiasm of heroism, such only as the highest animation of liberty could inspire, and carried in the space of a few hours, is an event which the world is fully possessed of. I am not undertaking the detail of the attack, but bringing into view the conspir- acy against the nation which provoked it. THE EISE or MODEEN DEMOCEACY 325 and which fell with the Bastille. The prison to which the new ministry were dooming the National Assembly, in addition to its being the high altar and castle of despotism, became the proper object to begin with. This enterprise broke up the new ministry, who began now to fly from the ruin they had prepared for others. The troops of Broglio dispersed, and himself fled also. 3. What Are the "Bights of Man"? Before anything can be reasoned upon to a conclusion, certain facts, principles, or data, to reason from, must be established, admitted, or denied. Mr. Burke, with his usual outrage, abused the Declaration of the Bights of Man, published by the Na- tional Assembly of France, as the basis on which the constitution of France is built. This he calls "paltry and blurred sheets of paper about the rights of man." Does Mr. Burke mean to deny that man has any rights? If he does, then he must mean that there are no such things as rights anywhere, and that he has none himself; for who is there in the world but mant But if Mr. Burke means to admit that man has rights, the question then will be : What are those rights, and how man came by them origi- nally"? The error of those who reason by prece- dents drawn from antiquity, respecting the rights of man, is that they do not go far enough into antiquity. They do not go the whole way. They stop in some of the inter- mediate stages of an hundred or a thousand years, and produce what was then done, as a rule for the present day. This is no au- thority at all. If we travel still farther into antiquity, we shall find a direct contrary opinion and practice prevailing; and if an- tiquity is to be authority, a thousand such authorities may be produced, successively contradicting each other; but if we proceed on, we shall at last come out right; we shall come to the time when man came from the hand of his Maker. "^Hiat was he thenf Man. Man was his high and only title, and a higher cannot be given him. But of titles I shall speak hereafter. We are now got at the origin of man, and at the origin of his rights. As to the man- ner in which the world has been governed from that day to this, it is no farther any concern of ours than to make a proper use of the errors or the improvements which the history of it presents. Those who lived a hundred or a thousand years ago, were then moderns, as we are now. They had their ancients, and those ancients had others, and we also shall be ancients in our turn. If the mere name of antiquity is to govern in the affairs of life, the people who are to live an hundred or a thousand years hence, may as well take us for a precedent, as we make a precedent of those who lived an hundred or a thousand years ago. The fact is, that portions of antiquity, by proving every- thing, establish nothing. It is authority against authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin of the rights of man at the creation. Here our inquiries find a rest- ing-place, and our reason finds a home. If a dispute about the rights of man had arisen at the distance of an hundred years from the creation, it is to this source of authority they must have referred, and it is to this same source of authority that we must now refer. Though I mean not to touch upon any sectarian principle of religion, yet it may be worth observing, that the genealogy of Christ is traced to Adam. Why then not trace the rights of man to the creation of man? I will ansAver the question. Because there have been upstart governments, thrust- ing themselves between, and presumptu- ously working to un-make man. If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should be governed forever, it was the first generation that existed; and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can set any up. The illuminating and divine principle of the equal rights of man (for it has its origin from the Maker of man) relates, not only to the living indi- viduals, but to generations of men succeed- ing each other. Every generation is equal in rights to generations which preceded it, by the same rule that every individual is born equal in rights Avith his contemporary. Every history of the creation, and every traditionaiy account, whether from the let- tered or unlettered world, however they may vary in their opinion or belief of certain particulars, all agTce in establishing one point, the unity of man; by which I mean that men are all of one degree, and conse- quently that all men are born equal, and with equal natural right, in the same man- ner as if posterity had been continued by creation instead of generation, the latter being the only mode by which the former is 326 THE GEEAT TEADITION carried forward; and consequently every child born into the world must be consid- ered as deriving its existence from God. The world is as new to him as it was to the first man that existed, and his natural right in it is of the same kind. The Mosaic account of the creation, whether taken as divine authority or merely historical, is full to this point, the unity or equality of man. The expression admits of no controversy. "And God said. Let us make man in our own image. In the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." The distinction of sexes is pointed out, but no other distinction is even implied. If this be not divine author- ity, it is at. least historical authority, and shows that the equality of man, so far from being a modern doctrine, is the oldest upon record. It is also to be observed that all the re- ligions known in the world are founded, so far as they relate to man, on the unity of man, as being all of one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinc- tions. Nay, even the laws of governments are obliged to slide into this principle, by making degTees to consist in crimes and not in persons. It is one of the greatest of all truths, and of the highest advantage to cultivate. By considering man in this light, and by in- structing him to consider himself m this light, it places him in a close connection with all his duties, whether to his Creator or to the creation, of which he is a part ; and it is only when he forgets his origm, or, to use a more fashionable phrase, his birth and fam- ily, that he becomes dissolute. It is not among the least of the evils of the present existing governments in all parts of Europe that man, considered as man, is thrown back to a vast distance from his Maker, and the artificial chasm filled up with a succession of barriers, or sort of turnpike gates, through which he has to pass. I will quote Mr. Burke's catalogue of barriers that he has set up between man and his Maker. Putting himself in the character of a her- ald, he says : "We fear God — we look with awe to kings — with affection to Parliaments — ^with duty to magistrates — with reverence to priests, and with respect to nobility." Mr. Burke has forgotten to put in ''chiv- alry." He has also forgotten to put in Peter, The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and simple, and consists but of two points. His duty to God, which every man must feel; and with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by. If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected : if not, they will be despised ; and with regard to those to whom no power is delegated, but who assume it, the rational world can know nothing of them. Hitherto we have spoken only (and that but in part) of the natural rights of man. We have now to consider the civil rights of man, and to show how the one originates from the other. Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured. His natural rights are the foundation of all his civil rights. But in order to pursue this distinction with more precision, it will be necessary to mark the different qualities of natural and civil rights. A few words will explain this. Natural rights are those which appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an in- dividual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the natural rights of others. Civil rights are those which ap- pertain to man in right of his being a mem- ber of society. Eveiy civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his mdividual power is not, in all eases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection. From this short review it will be easy to distinguish between that class of natural rights which man retains after entering into society and those which he throws into the common stock as a member of society. The natural rights which he retains are all those in which the power to execute is as perfect in the individual as the right itself. Among this class, as is before mentioned, are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind; consequently religion is one of those rights. The natural rights which are not retained, are all those in which, though the right is perfect in the individual, the power to execute them is defective. They answer not his purjDose. A man, by nat- ural right, has a right to judge in his own THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 327 cause ; and so far as the right of the mind is concerned, he never surrenders it. But what availeth it him to judge, if he has not power to redress? He tlierefore deposits this right in the comiiion stock of society, and takes the arm of society, of which he is a part, in preference and in addition to his own. So- ciety grants him nothing. Every man is a proprietor in society, and draws on the cap- ital as a matter of right. From these premises two or tliree certain conclusions will follow: First, That every civil right grows out of a natural right; or, in other words, is 'a natural right exchanged. Secondly, That civil power properly con- sidered as such is made up of the aggregate of that class of the natural rights of man, which becomes defective in the individual in point of power, and answers not his pur- pose, but when collected to a focus becomes competent to the purpose of every one. Thirdly, That the power produced from the aggregate of natural rights, imperfect in power in the individual, cannot be ap- plied to invade the natural rights which are retained in the individual, and in which the power to execute is as perfect as the right itself. We have now, in a few words, traced man from a natural individual to a member of society, and shown, or endeavored to show, the quality of the natural rights retained, and of those which are exchanged for civil rights. Let us now apply these principles to governments. In casting our eyes over the world, it is extremely easy to distinguish the govern- ments which have arisen out of society, or out of the social compact, from those which have not ; but to place this in a clearer light than what a single glance may afford, it will be proper to take a review of the sev- eral sources from which governments have arisen and on which they have been founded. They may be all comprehended under three heads. First, Superstition. Secondly, Power. Thirdly, the common interest of society and the common rights of man. The first was a government of priestcraft, the second of conquerors, and the third of reason. When a set of artful men pretended, through the medium of oracles, to hold in- tercourse with the Deity, as familiarly as they now march up the back-stairs in Eu- ropean courts, the world was completely under the government of superstition. The I oracles were consulted, and whatever they were made to say became the law; and this sort of government lasted as long as this sort of superstition lasted. After these a race of conquerors arose, whose government, like that of William the Conqueror, was founded in power, and the sword assumed the name of a scepter. Gov- ernments thus established last as long as the power to support them lasts; but that they might avail themselves of every engine in their favor, they united fraud to force, and set up an idol which they called Divine Eight, and which, in imitation of the Pope, who affects to be spiritual and temporal, and in contradiction to the Founder of the Christian religion, twisted itself afterwards mto an idol of another shape, called Church and State. The key of St. Peter and the key of the Treasury became quartered on one another, and the wondering cheated multitude worshiped the invention. When I contemplate the natural dignity of man, when I feel (for Natui'e has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feel- ings) for the honor and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon. We have now to review the governments which arise out of society, in contradistinc- tion to those which arose out of superstition and conquest. It has been thought a considerable ad- vance towards establishing the principles of Fi'eedom to say that Government is a com- pact between those who govern and those who are governed ; but this cannot be true, because it is putting the effect before the cause; for as man must have existed before governments existed, there necessarily w^s a time when governments did not exist, and consequently there could originally exist no governors to form such a compact with. The fact therefore must be that the indi- viduals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which govern- ments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist. 4. Of an Ambitious Norman, and of Titles Before I proceed to consider other parts of the French Constitution, and by way of 328 THE GEEAT TEADITION relieving the fatigue of argument, I will introduce an anecdote which I had from Dr. Franklin. While the Doctor resided in France as Minister from America, during the war, he had numerous proposals made to him by projectors of every country and of every kind, who wished to go to the land that floweth with milk and honey, America ; and among the rest, there was one who offered himself to be king. He introduced his pro- posal to the Doctor by letter, which is now in the hands of M. Beaumarchais, of Paris — stating, first, that as the Americans had dismissed or sent away their King, that they would want another. Secondly,- that him- self was a Norman. Thirdly, that he was of a more ancient family than the Dukes of Normandy, and of a more honorable descent, his line having never been bastardized. Fourthly, that there was already a prece- dent in England of kings coming out of Normandy, and on these grounds he rested his offer, enjoining that the Doctor would forward it to America. But as the Doctor neither did this, nor yet sent him an answer, the projector wrote a second lettei', in which he did not, it is true, threaten to go over and conquer America, but only with great dignity proposed that if his offer was not accepted, an aeknowledgTnent of about £30,000 might be made to him for his gen- erosity! Now, as all arguments respecting succession must necessarily connect that succession with some beginning, Mr. Burke's arguments on this subject go to show that there is no English origin of kings, and that they ai-e descendants of the Norman line in right of the Conquest. It may, there- fore, be of service to his doctrine to make this story known, and to inform him, that in case of that natural extinction to which all mortality is subject. Kings may again be had from Normandy, on more reasonable terms than William the Conqueror ; and con- sequently, that the good people of England, at the revolution of 1688, might have done much better, had such a generous Norman as this known their wants, and they had known his. The chivalrie character which Mr. Burke so much admires, is certainly much easier to make a bargain with than a hard dealing Dutchman. But to return to the matters of the constitution — The French Constitution says. There shall he no titles; and, of consequence, all that class of equivocal generation which in some countries is called "aristocracy'' and in others "nobility," is done away, and the peer is exalted into the Man. Titles are but niek-names, and every nick- name is a title. The thing is perfectly harm- less in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it. It reduces man into the diminutive of man in things which are gi'eat, and the counterfeit of women in things which are little. It talks about its fine blue ribbon like a girl, and shows its new garter like a child. A certain writer, of some antiquity, says: ''When I was a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." It is, properly, from the elevated mind of France that the folly of titles has fallen. It has outgrown the baby clothes of Count and Duke, and breeched itself in manhood. France has not levelled, it has exalted. It has put down the dwarf, to set up the man. The punyism of a senseless word like Duke, Count, or Earl has ceased to please. Even those who possessed them have disowned the gibberish, and as they outgrew the rickets, have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its native home, so- ciety, contemns the gewgaws that separate hina from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand, to contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives immured within the Bastille of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied life of man. Is it, then, any wonder that titles should fall in France? Is it not a greater won- der that they should be kept up anywhere? What are they? What is their worth, and "what is their amount"? When we think or speak of a Judge or a General, we asso- ciate with it the ideas of office and charac- ter; we think of gravity in one and brav- ery in the other ; but when we use the word merely as a title, no ideas associate with it. Through all the vocabulary of Adam there is not such an animal as a Duke or a Count; neither can we connect any certain ideas with the words. Whether they mean strength or weakness, wisdom or folly, a child or a man, or the rider or the horse, is all equivocal. What respect then can be paid to that which describes nothing, and which means nothing? Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical nondescript. But this is not all. If a whole country is disposed to hold them in contempt, all their THE EISE OP MODEEN DEMOCEACY 329 value is gone, and none will own them. It is common opinion only that makes them anything, or nothing, or worse than noth- ing; There is no occasion to take titles away, for they take themselves away when society concurs to ridicule them. This species of imaginary consequence has visi- bly declined in every part of Europe, and it hastens to its exit as the world of reason continues to rise. There was a time when the lowest class of what are called nobility was more thought of than the highest is now, and when a man in armor riding throughout Christendom in quest of adven- tures was more stared at than a modern Duke. The world has seen this folly fall, and it has fallen by being laughed at, and the farce of titles will follow its fate. The patriots of France have discovered in good time that rank and dignity in society must take a new ground. The old one has fallen through. It must now take the substan- tial ground of character, instead of the chimerical ground of titles; and they have brought their titles to the altar, and made of them a burnt-offering to Reason. 5. America and the French Revolution As Mr. Burke has not written on consti- tutions so neither has he written on the French Revolution. He gives no account of its commencement or its progress. He only expresses his wonder. "It looks," says he, "to me, as if I were in a great crisis, not of the affairs of France alone, but of all Europe, perhaps of more than Euro^De. All circumstances taken together, the French Revolution is the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world." As wise men are astonished at foolish things, and other people at wise ones, I know not on which ground to account for Mr. Burke's astonishment; but certain it is, that he does not understand the French Revolution. It has apparently burst forth like a creation from a chaos, but it is no more than the consequence of a mental revo- lution priorily existing in France. The mind of the nation had changed before- hand, and the new order of things has natur- ally followed the new order of thoughts. I will here, as concisely as I can, trace out the growth of the French Revolution, and mark the circumstances that have contrib- uted to produce it. The despotism of Louis XIV, united with the gaiety of his Court, and the gaudy os- tentation of his character, had so humbled, and at the same time so fascinated the mind of France, that the people appeared to have lost all sense of their own dignity, in con- templating that of their Grand Monarch; and the whole reign of Louis XV, remark- able only for weakness and effeminacy, made no other alteration than that of spreading a sort of lethargy over the nation, from which it showed no disposition to rise. The only signs which appeared of the spirit of Liberty during those periods, are to be found in the writings of the French philosophers. Montesquieu, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, went as far as a writer under a despotic government could well proceed; and being obliged to divide himself between principle and prudence, his mind often appears under a veil, and we ought to give him credit for more than he has expressed. Voltaire, who was both the flatterer and the satirist of despotism, took another line. His forte lay in exposing and ridiculing the superstitions which priest-craft, united with state-craft, had interwoven with govern- ments. It was not from the purity of his principles, or his love of mankind (for satire and philanthropy are not naturally con- cordant), but from his strong capacity of seeing folly in its true shape, and his irresistible propensity to expose it, that he made those attacks. They were, how- ever, as formidable as if the motive had been virtuous; and he merits the thanks rather than the esteem of mankind. On the contrary, we find in the writings of Rousseau, and the Abbe Raynal, a love- liness of sentiment in favor of liberty, that excites respect, and elevates the human fac- ulties; but having raised this animation, they do not direct its operation, and leave the mind in love with an object, without de- scribing the means of possessing it. The writings of Quesnay, Turgot, and the friends of those authors, are of the serious kind; but they labored under the same dis- advantage with Montesquieu ; their writings abound with moral maxims of government, but are rather directed to economize and reform the administration of the govern- ment, than the government itself. But all those writings and many others had their weight ; and by the different man- ner in which they treated the subject of government, Montesqtiieu by his judgment and knowledge of laws, Voltaire by his §30 THE GKEAT TEADITION wit, Rousseau and Raynal by their anima- tion, and Quesnay and Turgot by their moral maxims and systems of economy, readers of every class met with something to their taste, and a spirit of political in- quiry began to diffuse itself through the na- tion at the time the dispute between Eng- land and the then colonies of America broke out. In the war which France afterwards en- gaged in, it is very well known that the nation appeared to be before-hand with the French ministry. Each of them had its view; but those views were directed to dif- ferent objects; the one sought liberty, and the other retaliation on England. The French officers and soldiers who after this went to America, were eventually placed in the school of Freedom, and learned the prac- tice as well as the principles of it by heart. As it was impossible to separate the mili- tary events which took place in America from the principles of the American Revo- lution, the publication of those events in France necessarily connected themselves with the principles which produced them. Many of the facts were in themselves prin- ciples ; such as the declaration of American Independence, and the treaty of alliance between France and America, which recog- nized the natural rights of man, and justi- fied resistance to oppression. The then Minister of France, Count Ver- gennes, was not the friend of America ; and it is both justice and gratitude to say, that it was the Queen of France who gave the cause of America a fashion at the French Court. Count Vergennes was the personal and social friend of Dr. Franklin ; and the Doctor had obtained, by his sensible grace- fulness, a sort of influence over him; but with respect to principles Count Vergennes was a despot. The situation of Dr. Franklin, as Min- ister from America to France, should be taken into the chain of circumstances. The diplomatic character is of itself the narrow- est sphere of society that man can act in. It forbids intercourse by the reciprocity of suspicion ; and a diplomatic is a sort of un- connected atom, continually repelling and repelled. But this was not the case with Dr. Franklin. He was not the diplomatic of a Court, but of MAN. His character as a philosopher had been long established, and his circle of society in France was uni- versal. Count Vergennes resisted for a consider- able time the publication in France of American constitutions, translated into the French language : but even in this he was obliged to give way to public opinion, and a sort of propriety in admitting to appear what he had undertaken to defend. The American constitutions were to liberty what a grammar is to language : they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax. The peculiar situation of the then Marquis de la Fayette is another link in the great chain. He served in America as an Ameri- can officer under a commission of Congress, and by the universality of his acquaintance was in close friendship with the civil gov- ernment of America, as well as with the military line. He spoke the language of the country, entered into the discussions on the principles of government, and was always a welcome friend at any election. When the war closed, a vast reinforcement to the cause of Liberty spread itself over France, by the return of the French offi- cers and soldiers. A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all that was wanting to give it real existence was opportunity. Man cannot, properly speaking, make circumstances for his pur- pose, but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur, and this was the case in France. 6. "Made in Germany" Mr. Burke is laboring in vain to stop the progress of knowledge; and it comes with the worse gi'aee from him, as there is a certain transaction known in the city which renders him suspected of being a pensioner in a fictitious name. This may account for some strange doctrine he has advanced in his book, which though he points it at the Revolution Society, is effectually directed against the whole nation. "The King of England," says he, "holds Ms crown (for it does not belong to the Nation, according to Mr. Burke) in con- tempt of the choice of the Revolution So- ciety, who have not a single vote for a king among them either individually or collec- tively; and his Majesty's heirs each in their time and order, will come to the Crown witJi the same contempt of their choice, with which his Majesty has succeeded to that which he now wears." THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 331 As to who is King in England, or else-* where, or whether there is any King at all, or whether the people choose a Cherokee chief, or a Hessian hussar for a King, it is not a matter that I trouble myself about — be that to themselves; but with resjject to the doctrine, so far as it relates to the Rights of Men and Nations, it is as abominable as anything ever uttered in the most enslaved country under heaven. Whether it sounds worse to my ear, by not being accustomed to hear such despotism, than what it does to the ear of another person, I am not so well a judge of ; but of its abominable prin- ciple I am at no loss to judge. It is not the Revolution Society that Mr. Burke means ; it is the Nation, as well in its original as in its representative character; and he has taken care to make himself un- derstood, by saying that they have not a vote either collectively or individually. The Revo- lution Society is composed of citizens of all denominations, and of members of both the Houses of Parliament; and conse- quently, if there is not a right to a vote in any of the characters, there can be no right to any either in the nation or in its Parlia- ment. This ought to be a caution to every country how it imports foreign families to be kings. It is somewhat curious to ob- serve, that although the people of England had been in the habit of talking about kings, it is always a Foreign House of Kings; hating Foreigners yet governed by them. — It is now the House of Brunswick, one of the petty tribes of Germany. It has hitherto been the practice of the English Parliaments to regulate what was called the succession (taking it for granted that the Nation then continued to accord to the form of annexing a monarchical branch of its government; for without this the Parliament could not have had authority to have sent either to Holland or to Hanover, or to impose a king upon the nation against its will). And this must be the utmost limit to which Parliament can go upon this case ; but the right of the Nation goes to the whole ease, because it has the right of changing its whole form of government. The right of a Parliament is only a right in trust, a right by delegation, and that but from a very small part of the Nation ; and one of its Houses has not even this. But the right of the Nation is an original right, as universal as taxation. The na- tion is the paymaster of everything, and everything must conform to its general will. I remember taking notice of a speech in what is called the English House of Peers, by the then Earl of Shelburne, and I think it was at the time he was Minister, which is applicable to this case. I do not di- rectly charge my memory with every par- ticular; but the words and the purport, as nearly as I remember, were these: "That the form of a Government was a matter wholly at the will of the Nation at all times, that if it chose a monarchical form, it had a right to have it so; and if it afterwards chose to be a Republic, it had a right to be a Republic, and to say to a King, 'We have no longer any occasion for you.' " When Mr. Burke says that "His Majesty's heirs and successors, each in their time and order, will come to the crown with the same contempt of their choice with which His Majesty had succeeded to that he wears," it is saying too much even to the humblest individual in the country; part of whose daily labor goes towards making up the million sterling a-year, which the-coun'try gives the person it styles a king. Govern- ment with insolence is despotism; but when contempt is added it becomes worse; and to pay for contempt is the excess of slav- ery. This species of government comes from Germany; and reminds me of what one of the Brunswick soldiers told me, who was taken prisoner by the Americans in the late war: "Ah!" said he, "America is a fine free country, it is worth the people's fight- ing for; I know the difference by know- ing my own: in my country, if the prince says eat straw, we eat straw." God help that country, thought I, be it England or elsewhere, whose liberties are to be pro- tected by German princiiDles of government, and Princes of Brunswick ! 7. A League of Nations From the Revolutions of America and France, and the symptoms that have a\j- peared in other countries, it is evident that the opinion of the world is changing with respect to systems of Government, and that revolutions are not within the compass of political calculations. The progress of time and circumstances, which men assign to the accomplishment of great changes, is too me- chanical to measure the force of the mind, and the rapidity of reflection, by which 332 THE GREAT TRADITION revolutions are generated. All the old gov- ernments have received a shock from those that already appear, and which were once more imiDrobable, and are a greater subject of wonder, than a general revolution in Europe would be now. When we survey the wretched condition of man, under the monarchical and heredi- tary systems of Government, dragged from his home by one power, or driven by an- other, and impoverished by taxes more than by enemies, it becomes evident that those systems are bad, and that a general revo- lution in the principle and construction of Governments is necessary. What is government more than the man- agement of the affairs of a Nation? It is not, and from its nature cannot be, the property of any particular man oy family, but of the whole community, at whose ex- pense it is supported; and though by force and contrivance it has been usurped into an inheritance, the usurpation cannot alter the right of things. Sovereignty, as a mat- ter of right, appertains to the Nation only, and not to any individual ; and a Nation has at all times an inherent indefeasible right to abolish any form of Government it finds inconvenient, and to establish such as ac- cords with its interest, disposition, and hap- piness. The romantic and barbarous dis- tinction of men into Kings and subjects, though it may suit the condition of courtiers, cannot that of citizens; and is exploded by the principle upon which Governments are now founded. Every citizen is a member of the Sovereignty, and, as such, can ac- | knowledge no personal subjection; and his obedience can be only to the laws. When men think of what Government is, they must necessarily suppose it to pos- sess a knowledge of all the objects and ] matters upon which its authority is to be exercised. In this view of Government, the republican system, as established by Amer- ica and France, operates to embrace the whole of a Nation; and the knowledge necessary to the interest of all the parts, is to be found in the center, which the parts by representation form. But the old Gov- ernments are on a construction that excludes knowledge as well as happiness; Govern- ment by Monks, who knew nothing of the world beyond the walls of a Convent, is as consistent as government by Kings. What were formerly called Revolutions, were little more than a change of persons, or an alteration of local circumstances. They rose and fell like things of course, and had nothing in their existence or their fate that could influence beyond the spot that pro- duced them. But what we now see in the world, from the Eevolutions of America and France, are a renovation of the natural order of things, a system of principles as uni- versal as truth and the existence of man, and combining moral with political happiness and national prosperity. ''I. Men are horn, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can he founded only on public utility: "II. The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and im- prescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resis- tance of oppression. ''III. The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty ; nor can any individual^ or ANT BODY OF MEN^ be entitled to any authority which is not expressly derived from it." In these principles, there is nothing to throw a Nation into confusion by i'nflam- ing ambition. They are calculated to call forth wisdom and abilities, and to exercise them for the public good, and not for the emolument or aggrandizement of particular descriptions of men or families. Monarchi- cal sovereignty, the enemy of mankind, and the source of misery, is abolished; and the sovereignty itself is restored to its natural and original place, the Nation. Were this the case throughout Europe, the cause of wars would be taken away. It is attributed to Henry the Fourth of France, a man of enlarged and benevolent heart, that he proposed, about the year 1610, a plan for abolishing war in Europe. The plan consisted in constituting an Euro- pean Congress, or as the French authors style it, a Pacific Republic; by appointing delegates from the several Nations who were to act as a Court of arbitration in any dis- putes that might arise between nation and nation. Had such a plan been adopted at the time it was proposed, the taxes of Eng- land and France, as two of the parties, would have been at least ten million ster- ling annually to each Nation less than they were at the commencement of the French Revolution. To conceive a cause why such a plan has THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCEACY 333 not been adopted (and that instead of a Congress for the purpose of preventing war, it has been called only to terminate a war, after a fruitless expense of several years) it will be necessary to consider the interest of Governments as a distinct interest to that of Nations. Whatever is the cause of taxes to a Na- tion, becomes also the means of revenue to Government. Every war terminates with an addition of taxes, and consequently with an addition of revenue; and in any event of war, in the manner they are now com- menced and concluded, the power, and in- terest of Governments are increased. War, therefore, from its productiveness, as it easily furnishes the pretense of necessity for taxes and appointments to places and offices, becomes a principal part of the system of old Governments ; and to establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches. The frivolous matters upon which war is made, show the disposition and avid- ity of Governments to uphold the system of war, and betray the motives upon which they act. Why are not Republics plunged into war, but because the nature of their Government does not admit of an interest distinct from that of the Nation? Even Holland, though an ill-constructed Republic, and with a commerce extending over the world, existed nearly a century without war: and the in- stant the form of Government was changed in France, the republican principles of peace and domestic prosperity and economy arose with the new Government; and the same consequences would follow the cause in other Nations. As war is the system of Government on the old construction, the animosity which Nations reciprocally entertain, is nothing more than what the policy of their Gov- ernments excites to keep up the spirit of the system. Each Government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue, and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective Nations, and incensing them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government. Instead, therefore, of ex- claiming against the ambition of Kings, the exclamation should be directed against the principle of such Governments ; and instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom of a Nation should apply itself to reform the system. Whether the forms and maxims of Gov- ernments which are still in practice, were adapted to the condition of the world at the period they were established, is not in this case the question. The older they are, the less correspondence can they have with the present state of things. Time, and change of circumstances and opinions, have the same progressive effect in rendering modes of Government obsolete as they have upon customs and manners. — Agriculture, com- merce, manufactures, and the tranquil arts, by which the prosperity of Nations is best promoted, require a different system of Government, and a different species of knowledge to direct its operations, than what might have been required in the former con- dition of the world. As it is not difficult to perceive, from the enlightened state of mankind, that heredi- tary Governments are verging to their de- cline, and that Revolutions on the broad basis of national sovereignty and Govern- ment by representation, are making their way in Europe, it would be an act of wis- dom to anticipate their approach, and pro- duce Revolutions by reason and accommo- dation, rather than commit them to the issue of convulsions. From what we now see, nothing of re- form in the political world ought to be held improbable. It is an age of Revolu- tions, in which everything may be looked for. The intrigue of Courts, by which the system of war is kept up, may provoke a confederation of Nations to abolish it : and an European Congress to patronize the progress of free Government, and promote the civilization of Nations with each other, is an event nearer in probability, than once were the revolutions and alliance of France and America. Political Justice william godwin [From An Inquiry Concerning Political Justice^ 1793] i. Wealth and Poverty First then it is to be observed, that, in the most refined states of Europe, the in- equality of property has arisen to an alarm- ing height. Vast numbers of their inhab- 334 THE GREAT TRADITION itants are deprived of almost every aeeom- modation that can render life tolerable or secure. Their utmost industry scarcely suf- fices for their support. The women and children lean with an insupportable weight upon the efforts of the man, so that a large family has in the lower orders of life be- come a proverbial expression for an uncom- mon degree of poverty and wretchedness. If sickness or some of those casualties which are perpetually incident to an active and la- borious life, be added to these burdens, the distress is greater. It seems to be agreed that in England there is less wretchedness and distress than in most of the kingdoms of the continent. In England the poor rates amovmt to the sum of two millions sterling per annum. It has been calculated that one person in seven of the inhabitants of this country derives at some period of his life assistance from this fund. If to this we add the persons who, from pride, a spirit of independence, or the want of a legal settlement, though in equal distress, receive no such assistance, the pro- portion will be considerably increased. I lay no stress upon the accuracy of this calculation; the general fact is sufficient to give us an idea of the greatness of the abuse. The consequences that result are placed beyond the reach of contradiction, A perpetual struggle with the evils of pov- erty, if frequently ineffectual, must neces- sarily render many of the sufferers desper- ate. A painful feeling of their oppressed situation will itself deprive them of the power of surmounting it. The superiority of the rich, being thus unmercifully exer- cised, must inevitably expose them to re- prisals ; and the poor man will be induced to regard the state of society as a state of war, an unjust combmation, not for protecting every man in his rights and securing to him the means of existence, but for eng'rossing all its advantages to a few favored individ- uals, and reserving for the portion of the rest, want, dependence, and misery. A second source of those destructive pas- sions by which the peace of society is inter- rupted, is to be found in the luxury, the pageantry, and magnificence with which enormous wealth is usually accompanied. Human beings are capable of encountering with cheerfulness considerable hardships, when those hardships are impartially shared with the rest of society, and they are not insulted with the spectacle of indolence and ease in others, no way deserving of greater advantages than themselves. But it is a bigger aggravation of their own calamity, to have the privileges of others forced on their observation, and, while they are per- petually and vainly endeavoring to secure for themselves and their families the poor- est conveniences, to find others reveling in the fruits of their labors. This aggravation is assiduously administered to them under most of the political establishments at pres- ent in existence. There is a numerous class of individuals who, though rich, have nei- ther brilliant talents nor sublime virtues; and however highly they may prize their education, their affability, their superior polish, and the elegance of their manners, have a secret consciousness that they pos- sess nothing by which they can so securely assert their preeminence and keep their in- feriors at a distance, as the splendor of their equipage, the magnificence of their retinue, and the sumptuousness of their entertain- ments. The poor man is struck with this exhibition ; he feels his own miseries ; he knows how unwearied are his efforts to ob- tain a slender pittance of this prodigal waste; and he mistakes opulence for felic- ity. He cannot persuade himself that an embroidered garment may frequently cover an aching heart. 2. Of Perfectibility Lastly, man is perfectible. This propo- sition needs some explanation. By perfectible it is not meant that he is capable of being brought to perfection. But the word seems sufficiently adapted to ex- press the faculty of being continually made better and receiving perpetual improve- ments; and in this sense it is here to be un- derstood. This term, perfectible, thus ex- plained, not only does not imply the capacity of being brought to perfection, but stands in express opposition to it. If we could arrive at perfection, there would be an end of our improvement. There is however one thing of great importance that it does imply : every perfection or excellence that human beings are competent to conceive, human beings, unless in cases that are pal- pably and unequivocally excluded by the structure of their frame, are competent to attain. . . . An opinion has been extensively enter- tained, "that the differences of the human species in different ages and countries, par- ticularly so far as relates to moral princi- THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 335 pies of conduct, are extremely insignifieant and trifling; that we are deceived in this respect by distance and confounded by glare; but that in reality the virtues and vices of men, collectively taken, always have remained, and of consequence, it is said, "al- ways will remain, nearly at the same point." The erroneousness of this opinion will perhaps be more completely exposed by a summary recollection of the actual history of our species, than by the closest deduction of abstract reason. We will in this place simply remind the reader of the great changes which man has undergone as an in- tellectual being, entitling us to infer the probability of improvements not less essen- tial to be realized in future. The conclusion to be deduced from this delineation, that his moral improvements will in some degree keep pace with his intellectual, and his ac- tions correspond with his opinions, must depend for its force upon the train of rea- soning which has already been brought for- ward under that head. Such was man in his original state, and such is man as we at present behold him. Is it possible for us to contemplate what he has already done, without being impressed with a strong presentiment of the improve- ments he has yet to accomplish? There is no science that is not capable of additions; there is no art that may not be carried to still higher perfection. If this be true of all other sciences, why not morals'? If this be true of all other arts, why not social in- stitution'? The very conception of this as possible, is in the highest degree encourag- ing. If we can §till further demonstrate it to be a part of the natural and regular progress of mind, our conndence and our hopes will then be complete. This is the temper with which we ought to engage in the study of political truth. Let us look back, that we may profit by the experience of mankind; but let us not look back as if the wisdom of our ancestors was such as to leave no room for future improvement. 3. The Moral Effects of Aristocracy Of all the principles of justice, there is none so material to the moral rectitude of mankind as this, that no man can be distin- guished but by his personal merit. Why not endeavor to reduce to practice so simple and sublime a lesson? When a man has proved himself a benefactor to the public, when he has already by laudable preference cultivated in himself talents which need only encouragement and public favor to bring them to maturity, let that man be hon- ored. In a state of society where fictitious distinctions are unknown, it is possible he should not be honored. But that a man should be looked up to with servility and awe because the king has bestowed on him a spurious name, or decorated him with a ribbon, that another should wallow in lux- ury because his ancestor three centuries ago bled m the quarrel of Lancaster or York; do we imagine that these iniquities can be practiced without injury'? Let those who entertain this opinion converse a little with the lower order of mankind. They will per- ceive that the unfortunate wretch, who with unremitted labor finds himself incapable adequately to feed and clothe the family, has a sense of injustice rankling at his heart : One whom distress has spited with the world. Is he whom tempting fiends would pitch upon To do such deeds, as make the prosperous men Lift up their hands and wonder who could do them. —Tragedy of Douglas. Such is the education of the human species. Such is the fabric of political society. But let us suppose that their sense of in- justice were less acute than it is here de- scribed, what favorable inference can be drawn from thaf? Is not the injustice reaH If the minds of men be so withered and stupefied by the constancy with which it is practiced, that they do not feel the rigor that grinds them into nothing, how does that improve the picture? Let us for a moment give the reins to re- flection and endeavor accurately to conceive the state of mankind where justice should form the public and general principle. In that case our moral feelings would assume a firm and wholesome tone, for they would not be perpetually counteracted by examples that weaken their energy and confound their clearness. Men would be fearless because they would know that there were no legal snares lying in wait for their lives. They would be courageous because no man would be pressed to the earth that another might enjoy immoderate luxury, because every one would be secured of the just reward of his industry and prize of his exertions. Jeal- ousy and hatred would cease, for they are the offspring of injustice. Every man would speak truth with bis neighbor, there 336 THE GEEAT TEADITION would be no temptation to falsehood and deceit. Mind would find its level, for there would be every thing to encourage and to animate. Science would be unspeakably improved, for understanding would convert it into a real power, no longer an ignis fatuus, shining and expiring by turns, and leading us mto sloughs of sophistry, false science, and specious mistake. All men would be disposed to avow dispositions and actions; none would endeavor to suppress the just eulogium of his neighbor, for, so long as there were tongues to record, the suppression would be impossible ; none fear to detect the misconduct of his neighbor, for there would be no laws converting the sin- cere expression of our convictions into a libel. Let us fairly consider for a moment what is the amount of justice included in the in- stitution of aristocracy. I am born, sup- pose, a Polish prince with an income of $300,000 per annum. You are born a ma- norial serf or a Creolian negro, attached to the soil, and transferable by barter or other- wise to twenty successive lords. In vaiu shall be your most generous efforts and your unwearied industry to free yourself from the intolerable yoke. Doomed by the law of your birth to wait at the gates of the palace you must never enter, to sleep under a ruined weather-beaten roof, while your master sleeps under canopies of state, to feed on putrefied offals while the world is ransacked for delicacies for his table, to labor without moderation or limit under a parching sun while he basks in perpetual sloth, and to be rewarded at last with con- tempt, reprimand, stripes, and mutilation. In fact the ease is worse than this. I could endure all that injustice or caprice could inflict, provided I possessed in the resource of a firm mind the power of looking down with pity on my tyrant, and of knowing that I had that within, that sacred charac- ter of truth, virtue, and fortitude, which all his injustice could not reach. But a slave and a serf are condemned to stupidity and vice, as well as to calamity. Is all this nothing? Is all this necessary for the maintenance of civil order? Let it be recollected that for this distinction there is not the smallest foundation in the nature of things; that, as we have already said, there is no particular mould for the con- struction of lords; and that they are born neither better nor worse than the poorest of their dependents. It is this structure of aristocracy in all its sanctuaries and frag- ments against which reason and philosophy have declared war. It is alike mijust, whether we consider it in the castes of India, the villainage of the feudal system, or the despotism of the patricians of ancient Rome dragging their debtors into personal servi- tude to expiate loans they oould not repay. Mankind will never be in an eminent degree virtuous and happy till each man shall pos- sess that portion of distinction and no more, to which he is entitled by his personal mer- its. The dissolution of aristocracy is equally the interest of the oppressor and the op- pressed. The one will be delivered from the listlessness of tyranny, and the other from the brutalizing operation of servitude. How long shall we be told in vain, "that mediocrity of fortune is the true rampart of personal happiness"? 5. ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION On the French Revolution william cowper [Extracts from Letters, 1790-1793] The French, who like all lively folks are extreme in every thing, are such in their zeal for freedom ; and if it were possible to make so noble a. cause ridiculous, their man- ner of promoting it could not fail to do so. Princes and peers reduced to plain gentle- manship, and gentles reduced to a level with their own lackeys, are excesses of which they will repent hereafter. Differences of rank and subordination are, I believe, of God's appointment, and consequently es- sential to the well-being of society: but what we mean by fanaticism in religion is exactly that which animated their politics; and unless time should sober them, they will, after all, be an unhappy people. Perhaps it deserves not much to be wondered at, that at their first escape from tyrannic shackles they should act extravagantly and treat their kings as they sometimes treated their idols. To these, howevei", they are recon- THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 337 ciled in due time again, but their respect for monarchy is at an end. They want nothing now but a little English sobriety, and that they want extremely; I heartily wish them some wit in their anger, for it were great pity that so many millions should be miserable for want of it. II You can hardly have sent me intelligence that would have gratified me more than that of my two dear friends, Sir John and Lady Throckmorton, having departed from Paris two days before the terrible 10th of August. I have had many anxious thoughts on their account; and am truly happy to learn they have sought a more peaceful region, while it was yet permitted them to do so. They will not, I trust, revisit those scenes of tu- mult and horror while they shall continue to merit that description. We are here all of one mind respecting the cause in which the Parisians are engaged; wish them a free people, and as happy as they can wish them- selves. But their conduct has not always pleased us: we are shocked at their san- guinary proceedings, and begin to fear, my- self in particular, that they will prove themselves unworthy, because incapable of enjoying it, of the inestimable blessings of liberty. My daily toast is, Sobriety and Freedom to the French ; for they seem as destitute of the former as they are eager to secure the latter. Ill This has been a time in which I have heard no news but of the shocking kind, and the public news is as shocking as any. War I perceive — war in procinct — and I cannot but consider it as a prelude to war at home. The national burden is already nearly intol- erable, and the expenses of the war will make it quite so. We have many spirits in the country eager to revolt, and to act a French tragedy on the stage of England. Alas ! poor Louis ! I will tell you what the French have done. They have made me weep for a King of France, which I never thought to do, and they have made me sick of the veiy name of liberty, which I never thought to be. Oh, how I detest them ! Cox- combs, as they are, on this occasion as they ever are on all. Apes of the Spartan and the Roman character, with neither the vir- tue nor the s:ood sense that belonged to it. Is this treason at Eartham*? I hope not. If it is, I must be a traitor. Experiences of an English Idealist william wordsworth [From The Prelude, Books IX-XI; written 1799-1805; pubUshed 1850] 1. First View of the Bevolution ^ Through Paris lay my readiest course, and there Sojourning a few days, I visited In haste, each spot of old or recent fame. The latter chiefly; from the field of Mars Down to the suburbs of St. Antony, And from Mont Martre southward to the Dome Of Genevieve. In both her clamorous Halls, The National Synod and the Jacobins, I saw the Revolutionary Power Toss like a ship at anchor, rocked by storms ; The Arcades I traversed, in the Palace huge Of Orleans; coasted round and round the line Of Tavern, Brothel, Gaming-house, and Shop, Great rendezvous of worst and best, the walk Of all who had a purpose, or had not; I stared and listened, with a stranger's ears. To Hawkers and Haranguers, hubbub wild ! And hissing Factionists with ardent eyes. In knots, or pairs, or single. Not a look Hope takes, or Doubt or Fear is forced to wear, But seemed there present; and I scanned them all, Watched every gesture uncontrollable. Of anger, and vexation, and despite. All side by side, and struggling face to face, With gaiety and dissolute idleness. Where silent zephyrs sported with the dust Of the Bastille, I sate in the open sun. And from the rubbish gathered up a stone. And pocketed the relic, in the guise Of an enthusiast; yet, in honest truth, I looked for something that I could not find. Affecting more emotion than I felt ; For 'tis most certain, that these various sights. However potent their first shock, with me 1 Wordsworth visited France in November, 1791, and remained until December, 1792, an eye witness of some of tlie most stirring scenes of tlie Revolu- tion. 338 THE GEEAT TEADITION Appeared to recompense the traveler's pains Less than the painted Magxlalene of Le Brun, A beauty exquisitely wrought, with hair Disheveled, gleaming eyes, and rueful cheek Pale and bedropped with overflowing tears. [Book IX, lines 42-80.] 2. An Idealist of the Revolution Meantime, day by day, the roads Were croAvded with the bravest youth of France, And all the promjotest of her sj)irits, linked In gallant soldiership, and posting on To meet the war ujDon her frontier bounds. Yet at this very moment do tears start Into mine eyes : I do not say I weep — I wept not then, — but tears have dimmed my sight. In memory of the farewells of that time. Domestic severings, female fortitude At dearest separation, patriot love And self-devotion, and terrestrial hope. Encouraged with a martyr's confidence; Even files of strangers merely seen but once, And for a moment, men from far with sound Of music, martial tunes, and banners spread. Entering the city, here and there a face. Or person singled out among the rest, Yet still a stranger and beloved as such; Even by these jDassing spectacles my heart Was oftentimes uplifted, and they seemed Arguments sent from Heaven to prove the cause Good, pure, which no one could stand up against, Who was not lost, abandoned, selfish, proud. Mean, miserable, wilfully depraved, Hater perverse of equity and truth. Among that band of Officers was one. Already hinted at,^ of other mould — A patriot, thence rejected by the rest, And with an oriental loathing spurned. As of a different caste. A meeker man Than this lived never, nor a more benign. Meek though enthusiastic. Injuries Made Mm more gracious, and his nature then Did breathe its sweetness out most sensibly. As aromatic flowers on Alpine turf. When foot hath crushed them. He through the events Of that great change wandered in perfect faith, 1 Michael Beaupuy, one of the true knights errant of the Revolution, met by Wordsworth dur- ing his sojourn in Blois. As through a book, an old romance, or tale Of Fairy, or some dream of actions wrought Behind the summer clouds. By birth he ranked With the most noble, but unto the poor Among mankind he was in service bound. As by some tie invisible, oaths professed To a religious order. Man he loved As man; and, to the mean and the obscure, And all the homely in their homely works Transferred a courtesy which had no air Of condescension ; but did rather seem A passion and a gallantry, like that Which he, a soldier, in his idler day Had paid to woman : somewhat vain he was, Or seemed so, yet it was not vanity. But fondness, and a kind of radiant joy Diffused around him, while he was intent On works of love or freedom, or revolved Complacently the progress of a cause. Whereof he was a part : yet this was meek And placid, and took nothing from the man That was delightful. Oft in solitude With him did I discourse about the end Of civil government, and its wisest forms; Of ancient loyalty, and chartered rights, Custom and habit, novelty and change; Of self-respect, and virtue in the few For patrimonial honor set apart. And ignorance in the laboring multitude. For he, to all intolerance indisposed, Balanced these eonteinplations in his mind; And I, who at that time was scarcely dipped Into the turmoil, bore a sounder judgment Than later days allowed; carried about me, With less alloy to its integrity. The experience of past ages, as, through help Of books and common life, it makes sure way To youthful minds, by objects over near Not pressed upon, nor dazzled or misled By struggling with the crowd for present ends. But though not deaf, nor obstinate to find Error without excuse upon the side Of them who strove against us, more delight We took, and let this freely be confessed, In painting to ourselves the miseries Of royal courts, and that volui3tuous life Unfeeling, where the man Avho is of soul The meanest thrives the most ; where dig- nity, _ _ _ True personal dignity, abideth not; A light, a cruel, and vain world cut off From the natural inlets of just sentiment. From lowly sympathy and chastening truth ; THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEAGY 339 Where good and evil interchange their names, And thirst for bloody spoils abroad is paired With vice at home. We added dearest themes — Man alid his noble nature, as it is The gift which God has placed within his power, His blind desires and steady faculties Capable of clear truth, the one to break Bondage, the other to build liberty On firm foundations, making social life, Through knowledge spreading and imj^er- ishable. As just in regulation, and as pure As individual in the wise and good. We summoned up the honorable deeds Of ancient Story, thought of each bright spot, That would be found in all recorded time, Of truth preserved and error passed away; Of single spirits that catch the flame from Heaven, And how the multitudes of men will feed And fan each other; thought of sects, how keen They are to i^ut the appropriate nature on, Triumphant over every obstacle Of custom, language, country, love, or hate, And what they do and suffer for their creed ; How far they travel, and how long endure ; How quickly mighty Nations have been formed, From least beginnings ; how, together locked By new opinions, scattered tribes have made One body, spreading wide as clouds in heaven. To aspirations then of our own minds Did Ave appeal; and, finally, beheld A living confirmation of the whole Before us, in a people from the depth Of shameful imbecility uprisen, Fresh as the morning star. Elate we looked Upon their virtues; saw, in rudest men, Self-sacrifice the firmest; generovis love. And continence of mind, and sense of right. Uppermost in the midst of fiercest strife. Oh, sweet it is, in academic groves, Or such retirement. Friend ! as we have known In the green dales beside our Rotha's stream, •Greta, or Derwent, or some nameless rill. To ruminate, with interchange of talk. On rational liberty, and hope in man, Justice and peace. But far more sweet such toil- Toil, say I, for it leads to thoughts ab- struse — If nature then be standing on the brink Of some great trial, and we hear the voice Of one devoted, — one whom circumstance Hath called ujDon to embody his deep sense In action, give it outwardly a shape, And that of benediction, to the Avorld. Then doubt is not, and truth is more than truth, — A hope it is, and a desire ; a creed Of zeal, by an authority Divine Sanctioned, of danger, difficulty, or death. Such conversation, under Attic shades. Did Dion hold with Plato ; ripened thus For a deliverer's glorious task, — and such He, on that ministry already bound, Held with Eudemus and Timonides, Surrounded by adventurers in arms. When those two vessels with their daring freight. For the Sicilian Tyrant's overthrow. Sailed from Zacynthus, — philosophic war. Led by Philosophers. With harder fate, Though like ambition, such was he, Friend ! Of whom I speak. So Beaupuy (let the name Stand near the worthiest of Antiquity) Fashioned his life; and many a long dis- course. With like pei-suasion honored, we main- tained : He, on his part, aceoutered for the worst. He perished fighting, in supreme command, Upon the borders of the unhappy Loire, For liberty, against deluded men. His fellow country-men ; and yet most blessed In this, that he the fate of later times Lived not to see, nor Avhat we now behold. Who have as ardent hearts as he had then. Along that very Loire, with festal mirth Resounding at all hours, and innocent yet Of civil slaughter, was our frequent walk; Or in wide forests of continuous shade. Lofty and over-arched, Avith open space Beneath the trees, clear footing many a mile — ■ A solemn region. Oft amid those haunts, From earnest dialogues I slipped in thought, And let remembrance steal to other times. When o'er those interwoven roots, moss- clad. And smooth as marble or a waveless sea. Some Hermit, from his cell forth-strayed, might pace 340 THE GEEAT TEADITION In sylvan meditation undisturbed; As on the pavement of a Gothic church Walks a lone Monk, when service hath ex- pired, In peace and silence. But if e'er was heard, — Heard, though unseen, — a devious traveler, Retiring or approaching from afar With speed and echoes loud of trampling hoofs From the hard floor reverberated, then It was Angelica thundering through the woods Upon her palfrey, or that gentle maid Erminia, fugitive as fair as she. Sometimes methought I saw a pair of knights Joust underneath the trees, that as in storm Rocked high above their heads; anon, the din Of boisterous merriment, and music's roar, In sudden proclamation, burst from haunt Of Satyrs in some viewless glade, with dance Rejoicing o'er a female in the midst, A mortal beauty, their unhappy thrall. The width of those huge forests, unto me A novel scene, did often in this way Master my fancy while I wandered on With that revered companion. And some- times — When to a convent in a meadow green, By a brook-side, we came, a roofless pile. And not by reverential touch of Time Dismantled, but by violence abrupt — In spite of those heart-bracing colloquies, In spite of real fervor, and of that Less genuine and wrought up within my- self— I could not but bewail a wrong so harsh, And for the Matin-bell to sound no more Grieved, and the twilight taper, and the cross High on the topmost pinnacle, a sign (How welcome to the weary traveler's eyes ! ) Of hospitality and peaceful rest. And when the partner of those varied walks Pointed upon occasion to the site Of Romorentin, home of ancient kings. To the imperial edifice of Blois, Or to that rural castle, name now slipped From my remembrance, where a lady lodged. By the first Francis wooed, and bound to him In chains of mutual passion, from the tower, As a tradition of the country tells. Practiced to commune with her royal knight By cressets and love-beacons, intercourse 'Twixt her high-seated residence and his Far off at Chambord on the plain beneath; Even here, though less than, with the peace- ful house Religious, 'mid those frequent monuments Of Kings, their vices and their better deeds, Imagination, potent to inflame At times with virtuous wrath and noble scorn, Did also often mitigate the force Of civic prejudice, the bigotry, So call it, of a youthful patriot's mind; And on these spots with many gleams I looked Of chivalrous delight. Yet not the less. Hatred of absolute rule, where will of one Is law for all, and of that barren pride In them who, by immunities unjust, Between the sovereign and the people stand, His helper and not theirs, laid stronger hold Daily upon me, mixed with pity too And love ; for where hope is, there love will be For the abject multitude. And when we chanced One day to meet a hunger-bitten girl. Who crept along fitting her languid gait Unto a heifer's motion, by a cord Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane Its sustenance, while the girl with pallid hands Was busy knitting in a heartless mood Of solitude, and at the sight my friend In agitation said, " 'Tis against that That we are fighting," I with him believed That a benignant spirit was abroad Which might not be withstood, that poverty Abject as this would in a little time Be found no more, that we should see the earth Unthwarted in her wish to recompense The meek, the lowly, patient child of toil, All institutes forever blotted out That legalized exclusion, empty pomp Abolished, sensual state and cruel power. Whether by edict of the one or few ; And finally, as sum and crown of all. Should see the people having a strong hand In framing their own laws; whence better days To all mankind. But, these things set apart, Was not this single confidence enough To animate the mind that ever turned A thought to human welfare, — that, hence- forth Captivity by mandate without law THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 341 Should cease ; and open aeeusatiou lead To sentence in the hearing of the worid, And open punishment, if not the air Be free to breathe in, and the heart of man Dread nothing? From this height I shall not stoop To humbler matter that detained us oft In thought or conversation, public acts. And public persons, and emotions wrought Within the breast, as ever-varying winds Of record or i-eport swept over us ; But I might here, instead, repeat a tale Told by my Patriot friend, of sad events, That prove to what low depth had struck the roots, How widely spread the boughs, of that old tree Which, as a deadly mischief, and a f oul And black dishonor, France was weary of. [Book IX, lines 262-552.] 3. Disappointment and Restoration 1 In this frame of mind. Dragged by a chain of harsh necessity. So seemed it, — now I thankfully acknowl- edge, Forced by the gracious providence of Heaven, — To England I returned, else (though as- sured That I both was and must be of small weight, No better than a landsman on the deck Of a ship struggling with a hideous storm) Doubtless, I should have then made com- mon cause With some who perished; haply perished too, A poor mistaken and bewildered offering, — Should to the breast of Nature have gone back, With all my resolutions, all my hopes," A Poet only to myself, to men Useless, and even, beloved Friend! a soul To thee unknown ! Twice had the trees let fall Their leaves, as often Winter had put on His hoary crown, since I had seen the surge Beat against Albion's shore, since ear of mine Had caught the accents of my native speech Upon our native country's sacred ground. A patriot of the world, how could I glide Into communion with her sylvan shades, Erewhile my tuneful haunt ? It pleased me more To abide in the great City, where I found The general air still busy with the stir Of that first memorable onset made By a strong levy of humanity Upon the traffickers in Negro blood; Effort which, though defeated, had recalled To notice old forgotten principles. And through the nation spread a novel heat Of virtuous feeling. For myself, I own That this particular strife had wanted power To rivet my affections ; nor did now Its unsuccessful issue much excite My sorrow ; for I brought with me the faith That, if France prospered, good men would not long Pay fruitless worship to humanity. And this most rotten branch of human shame. Object, so seemed it, of superfluous pains. Would fall together with its parent tree. What, then, were my emotions, when in arms Britain put forth her freeborn strength in league. Oh, pity and shame ! with those confederate Powers ! Not in my single self alone I found, But in the minds of all ingenuous youth. Change and subversion from that hour. No shock Given to my moral natui-e had I known Down to that very moment ; neither lapse Nor turn of sentiment that might be named A revolution, save at this one time ; All else was progress on the self-same path On which, with a diversity of pace, I had been traveling: this a stride at once Into another region. As a light And pliant harebell, swinging in the breeze On some gray rock — its birthplace — so had I Wantoned, fast rooted on the ancient tower Of my beloved country, wishing not A happier fortune than to wither there : Now was I from that pleasant station torn And tossed about in whirlwind. I rejoiced, Yea, afterwards — truth most painful to record ! — E xulted, in the triumph of my soul. When Englishmen by thousands were o'erthrown. Left without glory on the field, or driven, Brave hearts! to shameful flight. It was a grief, — Grief call it not, 'twas anything but that, — A conflict of sensations without name. Of which he only, who may love the sight Of a village steeple, as I do, can judge, 342 THE GEEAT TEADITION When, in the congregation bending all To their great Father, prayers were offered up, Or praises for our country's victories ; And, 'mid the simple worshii^ers, perchance I only, like an uninvited guest Whom no one owned, sate silent, shall I add, Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come. Oh! much have 'they to account for, who could tear. By violence, at one decisive rent. From the best youth in England their dear pride, Their joy, in England; this, too, at a time In which worst losses easily might wear The best of names, when patriotic love Did of itself in modesty give way. Like the Precursor when the Deity Is come Whose harbinger he was ; a time In which apostasy from ancient faith Seemed but conversion to a higher creed; Withal a season dangerous and wild, A time when sage Experience would have snatched Flowers out of any hedge-row to compose A chaplet in contempt of his gray locks. When the proud fleet that bears the red- cross flag In that unworthy service was prepared To mingle, I beheld the vessels lie, A brood of gallant creatures, on the deep ; I saw them in their rest, a sojourner Through a whole month of calm and glassy days In that delightful island which protects Their place of convocation — there I heard, Each evening, pacing by the still seashore, A monitory sound that never failed, — The sunset cannon. While the orb went down In the tranquillity of nature, came That voice, ill requiem ! seldom heard by me Without a spirit overcast by dark Imaginations, sense of woes to come, Sorrow for human kind, and pain of heart. In France, the men, who, for their desper- ate ends, Had plucked up mercy by the roots, were glad Of this new enemy. Tyrants, strong before In wicked pleas, were strong as demons now; And thus, on every side beset with foes, The goaded land waxed mad; the crimes of few • Spread into madness of the many; blasts From hell came sanctified like airs from heaven. The sternness of the just, the faith of those Who doubted not that Providence had times Of vengeful retribution, theirs who throned The human Understanding paramount And made of that their God, the hopes of men Who were content to barter short-lived pangs For a paradise of ages, the blind rage Of insolent tempers, the light vanity Of intermeddlers, steady purposes Of the suspicious, slips of the indiscreet. And all the accidents of life — ^were pressed Into one service, busy with one work. The Senate stood aghast, her prudence quenched. Her wisdom stifled, and her justice scared, Her frenzy only active to extol Past outrages, and shape the way for new, Which no one dared to oppose or mitigate. Domestic carnage now filled the whole year With feast-days; old men from the chim- ney-nook. The maiden from the bosom of her love. The mother from the cradle of her babe. The warrior from the field — all perished, all- Friends, enemies, of all parties, ages, ranks, Head after head, and never heads enough For those that bade them fall. They found their joy. They made it jDroudly, eager as a child, (If like desires of innocent little ones May with such heinous appetites be com- pared). Pleased in some open field to exercise A toy that mimics with revolving wings The motion of a wind-mill ; though the air Do of itself blow fresh, and make the vanes Spin in his eyesight, that contents him not. But, with the plaything at arm's length, he sets His front against the blast, and runs amain, That it may whirl the faster. Amid the depth Of those enormities, even thinking minds Forgot, at seasons, whence they had their being ; Forgot that such a sound was ever heard As Liberty upon earth: yet all beneath THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 343 Her innocent authority was wrought, Nor could have been, without her blessed name. The illustrious wife of Roland, in the hour Of her comiDosure, felt that agony, And gave it vent in her last words.^ Friend ! It was a lamentable time for man. Whether a hope had e'er been his or not; A woeful time for them whose hopes sur- vived The shock; most woeful for those few who still Were flattered, and had trust in human kind: They had the deepest feeling of the grief. Meanwhile the Invaders fared as they de- served : The Herculean Commonwealth had ptit forth her arms, And throttled with an infant godhead's might The snakes about her cradle; that was well, And as it should be; yet no cure for them Whose souls were sick with pain of what would be Hereafter brought in charge against man- kind. Most melancholy at that time, Friend ! Were my day-thoughts, — my nights were miserable ; Through months, through years, long after the last beat Of those atrocities, the hour of sleep To me came rarely charged with natural gifts, Such ghastly visions had I of despair And tyranny, and implements of death ; And innocent victims sinking under fear, And momentary hope, and worn-out prayer, Each in his separate cell, or penned in crowds For sacrifice, and struggling with fond mirth And levity in dungeons, where the dust Was laid with tears. . Then suddenly the scene Changed, and the unbroken dream entan- gled me In long orations, which I strove to plead Before unjust tribunals, — with a voice Laboring,, a brain confounded, and a sense, Death-like, of treacherous desertion, felt In the last place of refuge — my own soul. I "Oh, Liberty, what things are done in thy name." Madame Koland was guillotined, Novem- ber 8, 1793. When I began in youth's delightful prime To yield myself to Nature, when that strong And holy passion overcame me first. Nor day nor night, evening or morn, was free From its oppression. But, Power Su- preme Without Whose call this world would cease to breathe. Who from the Fountain of Thy grace dost fill The veins that branch through every frame of life. Making man what he is, creature divine, In single or in social eminence. Above the rest raised infinite ascents When reason that enables him to be Is not sequestered — what a change is here! How different ritual for this after-worship, What countenance to promote this second love! The first was service paid to things which lie Guarded within the bosom of Thy will. Therefore to serve was high beatitude ; Tumult was therefore gladness, and the fear Ennobling, venerable; sleep secure. And waking thoughts more rich than hap- piest dreams. But as the ancient Prophets, borne aloft In vision, yet constrained by natural laws With them to take a troubled human heart. Wanted not consolations, nor a creed Of reconcilement, then when they de- nounced, On towns and cities, wallowing in the abyss Of their offences, punishment to come; Or saw, like other men, with bodily eyes. Before them, in some desolated place. The wrath consummate and the threat ful- filled; So, with devout humility be it said, So, did a portion of that spirit fall On me uplifted from the vantage-ground Of pity and sorrow to a state of being That through the time's exceeding fierceness saw Glimpses of retribution, terrible. And in the order of sublime behests : But, even if that were not, amid the awe Of unintelligible chastisement, Not only acquiescences of faith Survived, but daring sympathies with power, Motions not treacherous or profane, else why Within the folds of no ungentle breast 344 THE GEEAT TEADITION Their dread vibration to this hour pro- longed ? Wild blasts of music thus could find their way Into the midst of turbulent events ; So that worst tempests might be listened to. Then was the truth received into my heart, That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring, If from the affliction somewhere do not grow Honor which could not else have been, a ' faith, An elevation, and a sanctity. If new strength be not given nor old re- stored, The blame is ours, not Nature's. When a taunt Was taken up by scoffers in their pride. Saying, "Behold the harvest that we reap From popular government and equality," I clearly saw that neither these nor aught Of wild belief engrafted on their names By false philosophy had caused the woe. But a terrific reservoir of guilt And ignorance filled up from age to age. That could no longer hold its loathsome charge, But burst and spread in deluge through the land. And as the desert hath green spots, the sea Small islands scattered amid stormy waves. So that disastrous period did not want Bright sprinklings of all human excellence. To which the silver wands of saints in HeaveUj Might point with rapturous joy. Yet not the less^ For those examples, in no age sui'passed, Of fortitude and energy and love. And human nature faithful to herself Under worst trials, was I driven to think Of the glad times when first I traversed France A youthful pilgrim; above all reviewed That eventide, when under windows bright With happy faces and with garlands hung, And through a rainbow-arch that spanned the street, Triumphal pomp for liberty confirmed, I paced, a dear companion at my side. The town of Arras, whence with promise high Issued, on delegation to sustain Humanity and right, that Robespierre, He who thereafter, and in how short time! Wielded the scepter of the Atheist crew. When the calamity spread far and wide — And this same city, that did then appear To outrun the rest in exultation, groaned Under the vengeance of her cruel son. As Lear reproached the winds — I could al- most Have quarreled with that blameless spectacle For lingering yet an image in my mind To mock me under such a strange reverse. Friend! few happier moments have been mine Than that which told the downfall of this Tribe So dreaded, so abhorred. The day deserves A separate record. Over the smooth sands Of Leven's ample estuary lay My journey, and beneath a genial sun. With distant prospect among gleams of sky And clouds, and intermingling mountain- tops, In one inseparable glory clad. Creatures of one ethereal substance met In consistory, like a diadem Or crown of burning seraphs as they sit In the enipyrean. Underneath that pomp Celestial, lay unseen the pastoral vales Among whose happy fields I had grown up From childhood. On the fulgent spectacle. That neither passed away nor changed, I gazed Enrapt; but brightest things are wont to draw Sad opposites out of the inner heart. As even their pensive influence drew from mine. How could it otherwise? for not in vain That very morning had I turned aside To seek the ground where, 'mid a throng of graves, An honored teacher of my youth was laid, And on the stone were graven by his desire Lines from the churchyard elegy of Gray. This faithful guide, speaking from his death-bed, Added no farewell to his parting counsel, But said to me, "My head will soon lie low" ; And when I saw the turf that covered him. After the lapse of full eight years, those words, With sound of voice and countenance of the Man, Came back upon me, so that some few tears Fell from me in my own despite. But now I thought, still traversing that widespread plain. With tender pleasure of the verses graven Upon his tombstone, whispering to myself: THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 345 He loved the Poets, and, if now alive, Would have loved me, as one not destitute Of promise, nor belying the kind hope That he had formed, when I, at his com- mand. Began to spin, with toil, my earliest songs. As I advanced, all that I saw or felt Was gentleness and peace. Upon a small And rocky island near, a fragment stood (Itself like a sea rock) the low remains (With shells encrusted, dark with briny weeds) Of a dilapidated structure, once A Romish chapel, where the vested priest Said matins at the hour that suited those Who crossed the sands with ebb of morning tide. Not far from that still ruin all the plain Lay spotted with a variegated crowd Of vehicles and travelers, horse and foot. Wading beneath the conduct of their guide In loose procession through the shallow stream Of inland waters; the great sea meanwhile Heaved at safe distance, far retired. I paused, Longing for skill to paint a scene so bright And cheerful, but the foremost of the band As he approached, no salutation given In the familiar language of the day. Cried, "Robespierre is dead !" — nor was a doubt. After strict question, left within my mind That he and his supporters all were fallen.^ Great was my transport, deep my grati- tude To everlasting Justice, by this fiat Made manifest. "Come now, ye golden times," Said I, forth-pouring on those open sands A hymn of triumph : "as the morning comes From out the bosom of the night, come ye : Thus far our trust is verified ; behold ! They who with clumsy desperation brought A river of Blood, and preached that nothing else Could cleanse the Augean stable, by the • might Of their own helper have been swept away; Their madness stands declared and visible; Elsewhere will safety now be sought, and earth March firmly towards righteousness and peace." — 1 Robespierre was guillotined, July 10, 1794. Then schemes I framed more calmly, when 'and how The madding factions might be tranquil- lized. And how through hardships manifold and long The glorious renovation would proceed. Thus interrupted by uneasy burst Of exultation, I pursued my way Along that very shore which I had skimmed In former days, when — spurring from the Vale Of Nightshade, and St. Mary's moldering fane. And the stone abbot, after circuit made In wantonness of heart, a joyous band Of schoolboys hastening to their distant home Along the margin of the moonlight sea — We beat with thundering hoofs the level sand. II From that time forth. Authority in France Put on a milder face ; Terror had ceased, Yet everything was wanting that might give Courage to them who looked for good by light Of rational Experience, for the shoots And hopeful blossoms of a second spring: Yet, in me, confidence was unimpaired; The Senate's language, and the public acts And measures of the Government, though both Weak, and of heartless omen, had not power To daunt me; in the People was my trust. And in the virtues which mine eyes had seen. I knew that wound external could not take Life from the young Republic; that new foes Would only follow, in the path of shame, Their brethren, and her triumphs be in the end Great, universal, irresistible. This intuition led me to confound One vietoi-y with another, higher far, — Triumphs of unambitious peace .at home. And noiseless fortitude. Beholding still Resistance strong as heretofore, I thought That what was in degree the same was like- wise The same in quality, — that, as the worse Of the two spirits then at strife remained Untired, the better, surely, would preserve The heart that first had roused him. Youth maintains. In all conditions of society, Communion more direct and intimate 346 THE GEEAT TEADITION With Nature, — hence, ofttimes, with reason too — Than age or manhood, even. To Nature, then, Power had reverted : habit, custom, law, Had left an interregnum's open sjDaee For her to move about in, uncontrolled. Hence could I see how Babel-like their task. Who, by the recent deluge stupefied, With their whole souls went culling from the day Its petty promises, to build a tower For their own safety; laughed with my compeers At gravest heads, by enmity to France Distempered, till they found, in every blast Forced from the street-disturbing news- man's horn. For her great cause record or prophecy Of utter ruin. How might we believe That wisdom could, in any shape, come near Men clinging to delusions so insane *? And thus, exjDerienee proving that no few Of our opinions had been just, we took Like credit to ourselves where less was due, And thought that other notions were as sound, Yea, could not but be right, because we saw That foolish men opposed them. To a strain More animated I might here give way, And tell, since juvenile errors are my theme, What in those days through Britain was performed To turn all judgments out of their right course ; But this is passion ovei'-near ourselves, Reality too close and too intense, And intermixed with something, in my mind. Of scorn and condemnation personal, That would profane the sanctity of verse. Our Shepherds, this say merely, at that time Acted, or seemed at least to act, like men Thirsting to make the guardian crook of law A tool of murder; they who ruled the State, — Though with such awful proof before their eyes That he, who would sow death, reaps death, or worse, And can reap nothing better, — child-like longed To imitate, not wise enough to avoid; Or left (by mere timidity betrayed) The plain straight road, for one no better chosen Than if their wish had been to undermine Justice, and make an end of Liberty. But from these bitter truths I must return To my own history. It hath been told That I was led to take an eager part In arguments of civil polity. Abruptly, and indeed before my time: I had approached, like other youths, the shield Of human nature from the golden side. And would have fought, even to the death, to attest The quality of the metal which I saw. What there is best in individual man. Of wise in passion, and sublime in power, Benevolent in small societies, And great in large ones, I had oft revolved. Felt deeply, but not thoroughly understood By reason : nay, far from it ; they were yet, As cause was given me afterwards to learn. Not proof against the injuries of the day; Lodged only at the sanctuary's door, Not safe within its bosom. Thus prepared, And with such general insight into evil. And of the bounds which sever it from good, As books and common intercourse with life Must needs have given — to the inexperi- enced mind. When the world travels in a beaten road, Guide faithful as is needed — I began To meditate Avith ardor on the rule And management of nations; what it is And ought to be; and strove to learn how far Their power or weakness, wealth or poverty, Their happiness or misery, depends Upon their laws, and fashion of the State. pleasant exercise of hope and joy ! For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood Upon our side, us who were strong in love ! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very Heaven ! times. In which the meager, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a country in romance! When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights When most intent on making of herself A prime enchantress — to assist the work, Which then was going forward in her name ! Not favored spots alone, but the whole Earth, The beauty wore of promise — that which sets (As at some moments might not be unfelt Among the bowers of Paradise itself) The budding rose above the rose full blown. THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 347 What temper at the prospect did not wake To happiness unthought off The inert Were roused, and lively natures rapt away ! They who had fed their childhood upon dreams, The play-fellows of fancy, who had made All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength Their ministers, — ^who in lordly wise had stirred Among the grandest objects of the sense. And dealt with whatsoever they found there As if they had within some lurking right To wield it ; — they, too, who of gentle mood Had watched all gentle motions, and to these Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild. And in the region of their peaceful selves ; — Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty Did both find, helpers to their hearts' desire. And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish, — Were called upon to exercise their skill. Not in Utopia, — subterranean fields, — Or some secreted island. Heaven knows where ! But in the very world, which is the world Of all of us, — the place where, in the end. We find our happiness, or not at all! Why should I not confess that Earth was then To me, what an inheritance, new-fallen. Seems, when the first time visited, to one Who thither comes to find in it his home ? He walks about and looks upon the spot With cordial transport, molds it and remolds. And is half pleased with things that are amiss, 'Twill be such joy to see them disappear. An active partisan, I thus convoked From every object pleasant circumstance To suit my ends; I moved among mankind With genial feelings still predominant; When erring, erring on the better part. And in the kinder spirit ; jjlacable. Indulgent, as not uninformed that men See as they have been taught — Antiquity Gives rights to error ; and aware, no less, That throwing off oppression must be work As well of License as of Liberty; And above all — for this was more than all — Not caring if the wind did now and then Blow keen upon an eminence that gave Prospect so large into futurity; In brief, a child of Nature, as at first, Diffusing only those affections wider That from the cradle had grown up with me, And losing, in no other way than light Is lost in light, the weak in the more strong. In the main outline, such it might be said Was my condition, till with open war Britain opposed the liberties of France, This threw me first out of the pale of love; Soured and corrupted, upwards to the source. My sentiments; was not, as hitherto, A swallowing up of lesser things in great, But change of them into their contraries; And thus a way was opened for mistakes And false conclusions, in degree as gross. In kind more dangerous. What had been a pride, Was now a shame ; my likings and my loves Ran in new channels, leaving old ones dry; And hence a blow that, in maturer age. Would but have touched the judgment, struck more deep Into sensations near the heart : meantime. As from the first, wild theories were afloat, To whose pretensions, sedulously urged, I had but lent a careless ear, assured That time was ready to set all things right, And that the multitude, so long oppressed. Would be oppressed no more. But when events Brought less encouragement, and unto these The immediate proof of principles no more Could be entrusted, while the events them- selves. Worn out in greatness, stripped of novelty, Less occupied the mind, and sentiments Could through my understanding's natural gTowth No longer keeiD their ground, by faith main- tained Of inward consciousness, and hope that laid Her hand upon her object — evidence Safer, of universal application, such As could not be impeached, was sought else- where. But now, become oppressors in their tutn, Frenchmen had changed a war of self- defense For one of conquest, losing sight of all Which they had struggled for : up mounted now, Openly in the eye of earth and heaven, The scale of liberty. I read her doom. With anger vexed, with disappointment sore, 348 THE geeat tradition But not dismayed, nor taking to the shame Of a false prophet. While resentment rose Striving to hide, what nought could heal, the wounds Of mortified presumption, I adhered More firmly to old tenets, and, to prove Their temper, strained them more; and thus, in heat Of contest, did opinions every day Grow into' consequence, till round my mind They clung, as if they were its life, nay moi'e, The very being of the immortal soul. This was the time, when, all things tend- ing fast To depravation, speculative schemes — That promised to abstract the hopes of Man Out of his feelings, to be fixed thenceforth Forever in a purer element — Found ready welcome. Tempting region that For Zeal to enter and refresh herself. Where passions had the privilege to work. And never hear the sound of their own names. But, speaking more in charity, the dream Flattered the young, pleased with extremes, nor least With that which makes our Reason's naked self The object of its fervor. What delight! How glorious! in self-knowledge and self- rule, To look through all the frailties of the world. And, with a resolute mastery shaking off Infirmities of nature, time, and place. Build social upon personal Liberty, Which, to the blind restraints of general laws Superior, magisterially adopts One guide, the light of circumstances, flashed Upon an independent intellect. Thus expectation rose again; thus hope, From her first ground expelled, grew proud once more. Oft, as my thoughts were turned to human kind, I scorned indifference; but, infiamed with thirst Of a secure intelligence, and sick Of other longing, I pursued what seemed A more exalted nature ; wished that Man Should start out of his earthy, worm-like state. And spread abroad the wings of Liberty, Lord of himself, in undisturbed delight — A noble aspiration ! yet I feel (Sustained by worthier as by wiser thoughts) The aspiration, nor shall ever cease To feel it ; — ^but return we to our course. Enough, 'tis true — could such a plea excuse Those aberrations — had the clamorous friends Of ancient Institutions said and done To bring disgrace upon their very names ; Disgrace, of which, custom and written law, And sundry moral sentiments as props Or emanations of those institutes, Too justly bore a part. A veil had been Uplifted; why deceive ourselves? in sooth, 'Twas even so; and sorrow for the man Who either had not eyes wherewith to see, Or, seeing, had forgotten! A strong shock Was given to old opinions ; all men's minds Had felt its power, and mine was both let loose, Let loose and goaded. After what hath been Already said of patriotic love. Suffice it here to add, that, somewhat stern In temperament, withal a happy man. And therefore bold to look on painful things. Free likewise of the world, and thence more bold, I summoned my best skill, and toiled, intent To anatomize the frame of social life ; Yea, the whole body of society Searched to its heart. Share with me, Friend! the wish That some dramatic tale, endued with shapes Livelier, and flinging out less guarded words Than suit the work we fashion, might set forth What then I learned, or think I learned, of truth. And the errors into which I fell, betrayed By present objects, and by reasonings false From their beginnings, inasmuch as drawn Out of a heart that had been turned aside From Nature's way by outward accidents. And which was thus confounded, more and more Misguided, and misguiding. So I fared, Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds, Like culprits to the bar ; calling the mind. Suspiciously, to establish in plain day THE RISE OF MODEEN DEMOCRACY 349 Her titles and her honors ; now believing, Now disbelieving; endlessly perplexed With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the gTound Of obhgation, what the rule and whence The sanction; till, demanding formal proof, And seeking it in everything, I lost All feeling of conviction, and, in fine. Sick, wearied out with contrarieties, Yielded up moral questions in despair. This was the crisis of that strong disease, This the soul's last and lowest ebb; I drooped, Deeming our blessed reason of least use Where wanted most : "The lordly attributes Of will and choice," I bitterly exclaimed, "What are they but a mockery of a Being Who hath in no concerns of his a test Of good and evil ; knows not what to fear Or hope for, what to covet or to shun; And who, if those could be discerned, would yet Be little profited, would see, and ask Where is the obligation to enforce? And, to acknowledged law rebellious, still. As selfish passion urged, would act amiss ; The dupe of folly, or the slave of crime." Depressed, bewildered thus, I did not walk With scoffers, seeking light and gay revenge From indiscriminate laughter, nor sate down In reconcilement with an utter waste Of intellect ; such sloth I could not brook, (Too well I loved, in that my spring of life, Painstaking thoughts, and truth, their dear reward) But turned to abstract science, and there sought Work for the reasoning faculty enthroned Where the disturbances of space and time — Whether in matters various, properties Inherent, or from human will and power Derived — find no admission. Then it was — Thanks to the bounteous Giver of all good ! — That the beloved Sister in whose sight Those days were passed, now speaking in a voice Of sudden admonition — like a brook That did but cross a lonely road, and now Is seen, heard, felt, and caught at every turn. Companion never lost through many a league- Maintained for me a saving intercourse With my true self; for, though bedimmed and changed Much, as it seemed, I was no further changed Than as a clouded and a waning moon : She whispered still that brightness would return. She, in the midst of all, preserved me still A Poet, made me seek beneath that name, And that alone, my office" upon earth ; And, lastly, as hereafter will be shown. If willing audience fail not. Nature's self, By all varieties of human love Assisted, led me back through opening day To those sweet counsels between head and heart Whence grew that genuine knowledge, fraught with peace. Which, through the later sinkings of this cause, Hath still upheld me, and upholds me now In the catastrophe (for so they dream. And nothing less), when, finally to close And seal up all the gains of Prance, a Pope Is summoned in to crown an Emperor — This last opprobrium, when we see a people. That once looked up in faith, as if to Heaven For manna, take a lesson from the dog Returning to his vomit ; when the sun That rose in splendor, was alive, and moved In exultation with a living pomp Of clouds — his glory's natural retinue — Hath dropped all functions by the gods bestowed, And, turned into a gewgaw, a machine, Sets like an Opera phantom. Thus, Friend ! i Through times of honor and through times of shame Descending, have I faithfully retraced The perturbations of a youthful mind Under a long-lived storm of great events — A story destined for thy ear, who now. Among the fallen of nations, dost abide Where Etna, over hill and valley, easts His shadow stretching towards Syracuse, The city of Timoleon ! Righteous Heaven ! How are the mighty prostrated ! They first, They first of all that breathe should have awaked When the great voice was heard from out the tombs Of ancient heroes. If I suffered grief For ill-required France, by many deemed A trifler only in her proudest day ; 1 Coleridge, to whom the poem is addressed. 350 THE GREAT TRADITION Have been distressed to think of what she once Promised, now is ; a far more sober cause Thine eyes must see of sorrow in a land, To the reanimating influence lost O'f memory, to virtue lost and hope. Though with the wreck of loftier years bestrewn. But indignation works where hope is not, And thou, Friend! wilt be refreshed. There is One great society alone on earth : The noble Living and the noble Dead. [Books X, 221-602; XI, 1-395.] France: An Ode^ samuel taylor coleridge Ye Clouds! that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may con- trol ! Ye Ocean Waves ! that, wheresoe'er ye roll. Yield homage only to eternal laws ! Ye Woods ! that listen to the night-bird's sii:iging, Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, Save when your own imperious branches swinging. Have made a solemn music of the wind ! Where, like a man beloved of God, Through glooms, which never woodman trod, How oft, pursuing fancies holy. My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound. Inspired beyond the guess of folly. By each rude shape and wild unconquera- ble sound! ye loud Waves! and ye Forests high! And ye Clouds that far above me soared ! * Written in February, 1798, and entitled The Recantation; an Ode. Observe that there is neither in Coleridge nor in Wordsworth any recantation of their allegiance to the principle of liberty. His disappointment in France has, how- ever, led Coleridge to the conviction "that those feelings and that grand ideal of Freedom which the mind attains by its contemplation of its indi- vidual nature, and of the sublime surrounding ob- jects (see first stanza), do not belong to men as a society, nor can possibly be either gratified or realized under any form of human government, but belong to the individual man, so far as he is pure, and inflamed with the adoration of God in Nature." This attitude, the refuge of political idealists in despair, looks forward to the point of view of Shelley and Byron. Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Sky! Yea, everything that is and will be free! Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be. With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty. II AVhen France in wrath her giant-limbs up- reared, And with that oath which smote air, earth, and sea. Stamped her strong foot and said she would be free. Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared ! With what a joy my lofty gratulation Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band: And when to whelm the disenchanted nation, Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand. The Monarchs marched in evil day, And Britain join'd the dire array; Though dear her shores and circling ocean, Though many friendships, many youthful loves Had swoln the patriot emotion And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves; Yet still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance, And shame too long delay'd and vain retreat ! For ne'er, Liberty ! with partial aim I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy flame ; But blessed the paeans of delivered France, And hung my head and wept at Britain's name. Ill "And what," I said, ''though Blasphemy's loud scream With that sweet music of deliverance strove ! Though all the fierce and drunken pas- sions wove A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream ! Ye storms, that round the dawning east assembled. The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light !" And when to soothe my soul, that hoped and trembled, The dissonance ceased, and all seemed calm and bright ; THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 351 When France her front deep-scarr'd and gory Concealed with clustering wreaths of glory ; When insupportably advancing, Her arm made mockery of the warrior's ramp ; While timid looks of fury glancing, Domestic treason, crushed beneath her fatal stamp, Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore; Then I reproached my fears that would not flee; "And soon," I said, "shall Wisdom teach her lore In the low huts of them that toil and groan ; And, conquering by her happiness alone, Shall France compel the nations to be free. Till Love and Joy look round, and call the earth their own." Forgive me, Freedom ! O forgive those dreams ! I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament. From bleak Helvetia's icy caverns sent — I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams ! Heroes, that for your peaceful country perished, And ye, that fleeing, spot your mountain snows With bleeding wounds; forgive me, that I cherished One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes! To scatter rage and traitorous guilt Where Peace her jealous home had built ; A patriot-race to disinherit Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear ; And with inexpiable spirit To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer — France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind. And patriot only in pernicious toils ! Are these thy boasts, Champion of human kind? To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway. Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey; To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils From freemen torn; to tempt and to betray ? The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion ! In mad game They burst their manacles and wear the name Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain ! Liberty ! with profitless endeavor Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour; But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain nor ever Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee, (Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee) Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions. And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves, Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions, The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves ! And then I felt thee! — on that sea-cliff's verge. Whose pines, scarce traveled by the breeze above, Had made one murmur with the distant surge Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare. And shot my being through earth, sea, and air. Possessing all things with intensest love, O Liberty ! my spirit felt thee there. 352 THE GEEAT TEADITION II. THE CONFLICT WITH NAPOLEON 1. THE ISSUE The War of Liberty ^ william wordsworth [From The Convention of Cintra, 1809] 1. The Cause If I were speaking of things however weighty, that were long past and dwindled in the memory, I should scarcely venture to use this language; but the feelings are of yesterday — they are of today; the flower, a melancholy flower it is! is still to blow, nor will, I trust, its leaves be shed through months that are to come : for I repeat that the heart of the nation is in this struggle. This just and necessary war, as we have been accustomed to hear it styled from the beginning of the contest in tlae year 1793, had, some time before the Treaty of Amiens, viz., after the subjugation of Switzerland, land not till then, begun to be regarded by the body of the people, as indeed both just and necessary; and this justice and neces- sity were by none more clearly perceived, or more feelingly bewailed, than by those who had most eagerly opposed the war in its commencement, and who continued most bitterly to regret that this nation had ever borne a part in it. Their conduct was herein consistent : they proved that they kept their eyes steadily fixed upon principles; for, though there was a shifting or transfer of hostility in their minds as far as regarded persons, they only combated the same enemy opposed to them under a different shape; 1 Napoleon's aggressions in the Spanish Penln- Bula had roused the national spirit in the peoples of Spain and Portugal, who in 1808 rose against him as one man. The news was hailed with joy in England as the first instance on the continent of a genuinely patriotic opposition to the tyrant. An English army under Sir Arthur Wellesley drove the French from the field of Vimiera and forced a surrender on the 30th of August. By the terms drawn up in the Convention of Cintra, the French army was allowed to evacuate Por- tugal with its arms and baggage. Against the weakness implied in this loss of the fruits of vic- tory Wordsworth and many others protested vehemently. His Tract on the Convention of Cintra, like all his political utterances from 1802 to 1815, was prompted by the realization that the war against Napoleon's military tyranny must be carried to an uncompromising conclusion. For a full account of the significance of Wordsworth's views, particularly his belief in the principle of the autonomy of all peoples, see A. V. Dicey, The Statesmanship of Wordsworth. and that enemy was the spirit of selfish tyranny and lawless ambition. This spirit, the class of persons of whom I have been speaking (and I would now be understood, as associating them with an immense ma- jority of the people of Great Britain, whose affections, notwithstanding all the delusions which had been practiced upon them, were, in the former part of the contest, for a long time on the side of their nominal enemies), this spirit, when it became undeniably em- bodied in the French government, they wished, in spite of all dangers, should be opposed by war; because peace was not to be procured without submission, which could not but be followed by a communion, of which the word of greeting would be, on the one part, insitlt, — and, on the other, degra- dation. The people now wished for war, as their rulers had done before, because open war between nations is a defined Sand effec- tual partition, and the sword, in the hands of the good and the virtuous, is the most intelligible symbol of abhorrence. It was in order to be preserved from spirit-break- ing submissions — from the guilt of seeming to approve that which they had not the power to prevent, and out of a conscious- ness of the danger that such guilt would otherwise actually steal upon them, and that thus, by evil communications and participa- tions, would be w^eakened and finally de- stroyed, those moral sensibilities and ener- gies, by virtue of which alone, their liber- ties, and even their lives, could be preserved, — that the people of Great Britain deter- mined to encounter all perils which could follow in the train of open resistance. There were some, and those deservedly of high character m the country, who exerted their utmost influence to counteract this resolu- tion ; nor did they give to it so gentle a name as want of prudence, but. they boldly termed it blindness and obstinacy. Let them be judged with charity! But there are promptings of wisdom from the penetralia of human nature, which a people can hear, though the wisest of their practical States- men be deaf towards them. This authentic voice, the people of England had heard and obeyed: and, in opposition to French tyr- anny, growing daily more, insatiate and im- THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 353 placable, they ranged themselves zealously under their Government; though they nei- ther forgot nor forgave its transgressions, in having first involved them in a war with a people then struggling for its own liber- ties under a twofold affliction — confounded by inbred faction, and beleaguered by a cruel and imperious external foe. But these remembrances did not vent themselves in reproaches, nor hinder us from being rec- onciled to our Kulers, when a change or rather a revolution in circumstances had imposed new duties : 'and, in defiance of local and personal clamor, it may be safely said that the nation united heart and hand with the Government in its resolve to meet the worst, rather than stoop its head to re- ceive that which, it felt, would not be the garland but the yoke of peace. Yet it was an afflicting alternative; and it is not to be denied that the effort if it had the deter- mination, wanted the cheerfulness of duty. Our condition savored too much of a grind- ing constraint — too much of the vassalage of necessity ; — it had too much of fear, and therefore of selfishness, not to be contem- plated in the main with rueful emotion. We desponded though we did not despair. In fact, a deliberate and preparatory forti- tude — a sedate and stem melancholy, which had no sunshine and was exhilarated only by the lightnings of indignation — this was the highest and best state of moral feeling to which the most noble-minded among us could attain. But, from the moment of the rising of the people of the Pyrenean peninsula, there was a mighty change; we were instantane- ously animated; and, from that moment, the contest assumed the dignity which it is not in the power of any thing but hope to bestow : and, if I may dare to transfer lan- guage, prompted by a revelation of the state of being that admits not of decay or change, to the concerns and interests of our transi- tory planet, from that moment "this cor- ruptible put on incorruption, and this mor- tal put on immortality." This sudden ele- vation was on no account more welcome — was by nothing more endeared than by the returning sense which accompanied it of inward liberty and choice, which gratified our moral yearnings, inasmuch as it would give henceforward to our 'actions as a peo- ple, an origination and direction unquestion- ably moral — as it was free — as it was mani- festly in sympathy with the species — as it admitted therefore of fluctuations of gen- erous feeling — of approbation and of com- placency. We were intellectualized also in proportion; we looked backward upon the records of the human race with pride, and, instead of being afraid, we delighted to look forward into futurity. It was imagined that this new-born spirit of resistance, rising from the most sacred feelings of the human heart, would diffuse itself through many countries; and not merely for the distant future, but for the present, hopes were en- tertained as bold as they were disinterested and generous. Never, indeed, was the fellowship of our sentient nature more intimately felt — never was the irresistible power of justice more gloriously displayed than when the British and Spanish Nations, with an impulse like that of two ancient heroes throwing down their weapons and reconciled in the field, cast off at once their aversions and enmities, and mutually embraced each other — to sol- emnize this conversion of love, not by the festivities of peace, but by combating side by side through danger and under affliction in the devotedness of perfect brotherhood. This was a conjunction which excited hope as fervent as it was rational. On the one side was 'a nation which brought with it sanction and authority, inasmuch as it had tried and approved the blessings for which the other had risen to contend : the one was a people which, by the help of the sur- rounding ocean and its own virtues, had pre- served to itself through ages its liberty, pure and inviolated by a foreign invader; the other a high-minded nation, which a tyrant, presuming on its decrepitude, had, through the real decrepitude of its Government, per- fidiously enslaved. What could be more de- lightful than to think of an intercourse beginning in this manner? On the part of the Spaniards their love towards us was en- thusiasm and adoration; the faults of our national character were hidden from them by a veil of splendor; they saw nothing around us but glory and light; and, on our side, we estimated their character with par- tial and indulgent fondness; — thinking on their past greatness, not as the undermined foundation of a magnificent building, but as the root of a majestic tree recovered fram a long disease, and beginning again to flourish with promise of wider branches and a deeper shade than it had boasted in the fulness of its strength. If in the sensa- tions with which the Spaniards prostrated themselves before the religion of their coun- 354 THE GREAT TRADITION try we did not keep pace with them — if even their loyalty was such as, from our mixed constitution of Government and from other causes, we could not thoroughly sympathize with, — and if lastly, their devotion to the person of their Sovereign appeared to us to have too much of the alloy of delusion, — in all these things we judged them gently; and, taught by the reverses of the French revo- lution, we looked upon these dispositions as more human — more social — and therefore as wiser, and of better omen, than if they had stood forth the zealots of abstract princi- ples, out of the laboratory of unfeeling phi- losophists. Finally, in this reverence for the past and present, we found an earnest that they were prepared to contend to the death for as much liberty as their habits and their knowledge enabled them to re- ceive. To assist them and their neighbors the Portuguese in the attainment of this end, we sent to them in love and in friend- ship a powerful army to aid — to invigorate — and to chastise: — they landed; and the first proof they afforded of their being worthy to be sent on such a service — the first pledge of amity given by them — was the victory of Vimiera; the second pledge (and this was from the hand of their Gen- erals) was the Convention of Cintra. 2. The Relation of National Happiness to National Independence Allowing that the "regni novitas" should either compel or tempt the usurper to do away some ancient abuses, and to accord certain insignificant privileges to the people upon the purlieus of the forest of freedom (for assuredly he will never suffer them to enter the body of it) ; allowing this, and much more ; that the mass of the population would be placed in a condition outwardly more thriving — would be better off (as the phrase in conversation is) ; it is still true that — in the act and consciousness of sub- mission to an imposed lord and master, to a will not growing out of themselves, to the edicts of another people their triumphant enemy — there would be the loss of a sensa- tion within for which nothing external, even though it should come close to the garden and the field — to the door and the fireside, can make amends. The artisan and the mer- chant (men of classes perhaps least attached to their native soil) would not be insensible to this loss ; and the mariner, in his thought- ful mood, would sadden under it upon the wide ocean. The central or cardinal feeling of these thoughts may, at a future time, furnish fit matter for the genius of some patriotic Spaniard to express in his noble language — as an inscription for the sword of Francis the First; if that sword, which was so ingloriously and perfidiously sur- rendered, should ever, by the energies of liberty, be recovered, and deposited in its ancient habitation in the Escurial. The pa- triot will recollect that — if the memorial, then given up by the hand of the Govern- ment, had also been abandoned by the heart of the people, and that indignity patiently subscribed to, — his country would have been lost forever. There are multitudes by whom, I know, these sentiments will not be languidly re- ceived at this day; and sure I am that, a hundred and fifty years ago, they would have been ardently welcomed by all. But, in many parts of Europe (and especially in our own country) men have been pressing forward, for some time, in a path which has betrayed by its f ruitf ulness ; furnishing them constant employment for picking up things about their feet, when thoughts were perishing in their minds. While mechanic arts, manufactures, agriculture, commerce, and all those products of knowledge which are confined to gross — definite — and tangi- ble objects, have, with the aid of experi- mental philosophy, been every day putting on more brilliant colors ; the splendor of the imagination has been fading: sensibility, which was formerly a generous nursling of rude nature, has been chased from its an- cient range in the wide domain of patriot- ism and religion with the weapons of derision by a shadow calling itself good sense : calculations of presumptuous expedi- ency — groping its way among partial and temporary consequences — have been substi- tuted for the dictates of paramount and in- fallible conscience, the supreme embracer of consequences : lifeless and circumspect de- cencies have banished the graceful negli- gence and unsuspicious dignity of virtue. The progress of these arts also, by fur- nishing such attractive stores of outward accommodation, has misled the higher orders of society in their more disinterested exer- tions for the service of the lower. Animal comforts have been rejoiced over, Sas if they were the end of being. A neater and more fertile garden ; a greener field ; implements and utensils more apt ; a dwelling more commodious and better furnished ; — let these THE RISE or MODEEN DEMOCEACY 355 be attained, say the actively benevolent, and we are sure not only of being in the right road, but of having successfully terminated our journey. Now a country may advance, for some time, in this course with apparent profit : these accommodations, by zealous en- couragement, may be attained : and still the peasant or artisan, their master, be a slave in mind; a slave rendered even more abject by the very tenure under which these pos- sessions are held : and — if they veil from us this fact, or reconcile us to it — they are worse than worthless. The springs of emo- tion may be relaxed or destroyed within him ; he may have little thought of the past, and less uaterest in the future. — The great end and difficulty of life for men of all classes, and especially difficult for those who live by manual labor, is a union of peace with mnocent and laudable animation. Not by bread alone is the life of man- sustained ; not by raiment alone is he wai'med; — but by the genial and vernal inmate of the breast, which at once pushes forth and cherishes; by self-support and self-sufficing endeavors; by anticipations, apprehensions, and active remembrances; by elasticity under insult, and firm resistance to injury; by joy, and by love; by pride which his imagination gathers in from afar; by pa- tience, because life wants not promises; by admiration; by gratitude which — debasing him not when his fellow-being is its object — habitually expands itself, for his eleva- tion, in complacency towards his Creator. Now, to the existence of these blessings, national independence is indispensable ; and many of them it will itself produce and maintain. For it is some consolation to those who look back upon the history of the world to know — that, even without civil lib- erty society may possess — diffused through its inner recesses in the minds even of its humblest members — something of dignified enjoyment. But, without national independ- ence, this is impossible. The difference be- tween inbred oppression and that which is from without, is essential; inasmuch as the former does not exclude, from the minds of a people, the feeling of being self -governed ; does not imply (as the latter does, when pa- tiently submitted to) an abandonment of the first duty imposed by the faculty of reason. In reality, where this feeling has no place, a people are not a society, but a herd; man being indeed distinguished among them from the brute ; but only to his disgrace. I am aware that there are too many who think that, to the bulk of the community, this independence is of no value; that it is a refinement with which they feel they have no concern; inasmuch as under the best frame of government, there is an inevitable dependence of the poor upon the rich — of the many upon the few — so unrelenting and imperious as to reduce this other, by com- parison, into a force which has small influ- ence, and is entitled to no regard. Super- add civil liberty to national independence; and this position is overthrown at once : for there is no more certain mark of a sound frame of polity than this; that, in all uidi- vidual instances (and it is upon these gen- eralized that this position is laid down), the dependence is in reality far more strict on the side of the wealthy; and the laboring man leans less upon others than any man in the commu.nity — but the case before us is of a country not internally free, yet sup- posed capable of repelling an external enemy who attempts its subjugation. If a country have put on chains of its own forg- ing, in the name of virtue, let it be con- scious that to itself it is accountable : let it not have cause to look beyond its own lim- its for reproof: and, — in the name of hu- manity, — if it be self-depressed, let it have its pride and some hope within itself. The poorest peasant, in an unsubdued land, feels this pride. I do not appeal to the example of Britain or of Switzerland, for the one is free, and the other lately was free (and, I trust, will ere long be so again) : but talk with the Swede ; and you will see the joy he finds in these sensations. With him animal courage (the substitute for many and the friend of all the manly virtues) has space to move in; and is at once elevated by his imagination, and softened by his affections : it is invigorated also ; for the whole courage of his country is in his breast. In fact, the peasant, and he who lives by the fair reward of his manual labor, has ordinarily a larger proportion of his grati- fication dependent upon these thoughts — than, for the most part, men in other classes have. For he is in his person attached, by stronger roots, to the soil of which he is the growth : his intellectual notices are gen- erally confined within narrower bounds : in him no partial or antipatriotic interests counteract the force of those nobler sympa- thies and antipathies which he has in right of his country ; and lastly the belt or girdle of his mind has never been stretched to utter relaxation by false philosophy, under a con- 356 THE GEEAT TEADITION ceit of making it sit more easily and grace- fully. These sensations are a social inher- itance to him: more important, as he is precluded from luxurious — and those which are usually called refined — enjoyments. Love and admiration must push them- selves out toward some quarter: otherwise the moral man is killed. Collaterally they advance with gxeat vigor to a certain extent — and they are checked: in that direction, limits hard to pass are perpetually encoun- tered : they meet with gladsome help and no obstacles; the tract is interminable. — Perdi- tion to the tyrant who would wantonly cut off an independent nation from its inherit- ance in past ages; turning the tombs and burial-places of the forefathers into dreaded objects of sorrow, or of shame and reproach, for the children! 3. The Grounds of Hope Here then they, with whom I hope, take their stand. There is a spiritual commu- nity binding together the living and the dead; the good, the brave, and the wise, of all ages. We would not be rejected from this community : and therefore do we hope. We look forward with erect mind, thinking and feeling: it is an obligation of duty: take away the sense of it, and the moral being would die within us. Among the most illustrious of that fraternity, whose encouragement we participate, is an Eng- lishman who sacrificed his life in devotion to a cause bearing a stronger likeness to this than any recorded in histoiy. It is the elder Sidney — a deliverer and defender, whose name I have before uttered with rev- erence; who, treating of the war of the Netherlands against Philip the Second, thus writes: "If her Majesty," says he, "were the fountain, I would fear, considering what I daily find, that we should wax dry. But she is but 'a means whom God useth. And I know not whether I am deceived; but I am fully persuaded, that, if she should her- self fail, other springs would rise to help this action. For, methinks, I see the great work indeed in hand against the abusers of the world ; wherein it is not greater fault to have confidence in man's power, than it is too hastily to despair of God's work." The pen which I am guiding has stopped in my hand, and I have scarcely power to proceed. I will lay down one principle ; and then shall contentedly withdraw from the sanctuary. When wickedness acknowledges no limit but the extent of her power, and advances with aggravated impatience like a devour- ing fire, the only worthy or adequate oppo- sition is that of virtue submitting to no cir- cumscription of her endeavors save that of her rights, and aspiring from the impulse of her own ethereal zeal. The Christian ex- hortation for the individual is here the pre- cept for nations — "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in Heaven, is perfect." Sonnets on the Crisis william wordsworth (1802-1811) "Fair Star of Evening" Fair Star of evening, Splendor of the west, Star of my Country! — on the horizon's brink Thou hangest, stooping as might seem, to sink On England's bosom; yet well pleased to rest. Meanwhile, and be to her a glorious crest Conspicuous to the Nations. Thou, I think, Shouldst be my Country's emblem; and should'st wink, Bright Star ! with laughter on her banners, drest In thy fresh beauty. There ! that dusky spot Beneath thee, that is England; there she lies. Blessings be on you both! one hope, one lot, One life, one glory! I, with many a fear For my dear Country, many heartfelt sighs, Among men who do not love her, linger here. On the Extinction of the Venetian Bepuhlic Once did she hold the gorgeous east in fee ; And was the safeguard of the west: the worth Of Venice did not fall below her birth, Venice, the eldest child of Liberty. She was a maiden city, bright and free; No guile seduced, no force could violate ; And, when she took unto herself a Mate, She must espouse the everlasting Sea. And what if she had seen those glories fade, Those titles vanish, and that strength decay ; Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid When her long life hath reached its final day: THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 357 Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade Of that which once was great is passed away. Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland Two voices are there ; one is of the sea, One of the- mountains ; each a mighty voice : In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, They were thy chosen music, Liberty ! There came a tryant, and with holy glee Thou f ought'st against him ; but hast vainly striven : Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven, Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft : Then cleave, cleave to that which still is left; For, high-soiTled Maid, what sorrow would it be That mountain floods should thunder as be- fore, And ocean bellow from his rocky shore, And neither awful voice be heard by thee. September, 1802, Near Dover Inland, within a hollow vale, I stood ; And saw, while sea was calm and air was clear. The coast of France — the coast of France how near! Drawn almost into frightful neighborhood. I shrunk; for verily the barrier flood Was like a lake, or river bright and fair, A span of waters; yet what power is there! What mightiness for evil and for good! Even so doth God protect us if we be Virtuous and wise. Winds blow, and waters roll, . Strength to the brave, and Power, and Deity; Yet in themselves are nothing ! One decree Spake laws to them, and said that by the soul Only, the nations shall be great and free. Written in London, September, 1802^ Friend! I know not which way I must look For comfort, being, as I am, opprest, ^ Written just after Wordsworth's return from France, this sonnet expresses the poet's sense of the contrast between the desolation produced by the Revolution in France and the unwholesome peace of England. To think that now our life is only drest For show; mean handiwork of craftsman, cook, Or groom! — we must run glittering like a brook In the open sunshine, or we are unblest : The wealthiest man among us is the best j No grandeur now in nature or in book Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore: Plain living and high thinking are no more ; The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone ; our peace, our fearful innocence. And pure religion breathing household laws. "Milton! Thou Shouldst Be Living at This Hour" Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee; she is a fen Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower. Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart ; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea; Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way. In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. "It Is Not to Be Thought of It is not to be thought of that the Flood Of British freedom, which, to the open sea Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity Hath flowed, "with pomp of waters unwith- stood," Roused though it be full often to a mood Which spurns the check of salutary bands, That this most famous Stream in bogs and sands Should perish ; and to evil and to good Be lost forever. In our halls is hung Armory of the invincible knights of old : We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake: the faith and morals hold Which Milton held. In everything we are sprung Of earth's first blood, have titles manifold. 358 THE GREAT TRADITION "When I Have Borne in Memory" "When I have borne in memory what has tamed Great Nations, how ennobling thoughts de- part When men change swords for ledgers and desert The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed I had, my Country! — am I to be blamed? Now when I think of thee, and what thou art, Verily, in the bottom of my heart, Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. For dearly must we prize thee; we who find In thee a bulwark for the cause of men ; And I by my affection was beguiled. What wonder if a Poei now and then, Among the many movements of his mind, Felt for thee as a lover or a child ! "There Is a Bondage Worse, Far Worse, to Bear" There is a bondage worse, far worse, to bear Than his who breathes, by roof, and floor, and wall. Pent in, a Tyrant's solitary Thrall: 'Tis his who walks about in the open air, One of a Nation who, henceforth, must wear Their fetters in their souls. For who could be. Who, even the best, in such condition, free From self-reproach, reproach that he must share With Human-nature"? Never be it ours To see the sun how brightly it will shine, And know that noble feelings, manly powers, Instead of gathering strength, must droop and pine; And earth with all her pleasant fruits and flowers Fade, and participate in man's decline. "These Times Strike Monied Worldlings with Dismay" These times strike monied worldlings with dismay : Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air With words of apprehension and despair: While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray. Men unto whom sufficient for the day And minds not stinted or untilled are given, Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven. Are cheerful as the rising sun in May. What do we gather hence but firmer faith That every gift of noble origin Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath ; That virtue and the faculties within Are vital, — and that riches are akin To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death ? "England! the Time Is Come" England! .the time is come when thou should'st wean Thy heart from its emasculating food; The truth should now be better understood ; Old things have been unsettled; we have seen Fair seed-time, better harvest might have been But for thy trespasses ; and, at this day, If for Greece, Egypt, India, Africa, Aught good were destined, thou would'st step between. England! all nations in this charge agree; But worse, more ignorant in love and hate, Far — far more abject, is thine Enemy : Therefore the wise pray for thee, though the freight Of thy offences be a heavy weight: Oh grief that Earth's best hopes rest all with thee ! "Here Pause: The Poet Claims at Least This Praise" Here pause: the poet claims at least this praise. That virtuous Liberty hath been the scope Of his pure song, which did not shrink from hope In the worst moment of these evil days; From hope, the paramount duty that Heaven lays. For its own honor, on man's suffering heart. Never may from our souls one truth de- part — That an accursed thing it is to gaze On prosperous tyrants with a dazzled eye; Nor — touched with due abhorrence of their guilt For whose dire ends tears flow, and blood is spilt. And justice labors in extremity — Forget thy weakness, upon which is built, wretched man, the throne of tyranny ! THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCKACY 359 "Vanguard of Liberty'' Vanguard of Liberty, ye raen of Kent, Ye children of a soil that doth advance Her haughty brow against the coast of France, Now is the time to prove your hardiment! To France be words of invitation sent ! They from their .fields can see the counte- nance Of your fierce war, may ken the glittering lance And hear you shouting forth your brave intent. Left single, in bold parley, ye of yore, Did from the Norman win a gallant wreath ; Confirmed the charters that were yours be- fore ; — No parleying now ! In Britain is one breath ; We all are with you now from shore to shore : Ye men of Kent, 'tis victory or death I "Come Ye— Who, If (Which Heaven Avert ly^ Come ye — ^who, if (which Heaven avert!) the Land Were with herself at strife, would take your stand. Like gallant Falkland, by the Monarch's side. And, like Montrose, make Loyalty your pride — Come ye — ^who, not less zealous, might dis- play Banners at enmity with regal sway. And, like the Pyms and Miltons of that day. Think that a State would live in sounder health If Kingship bowed its head to Common- wealth — Ye too — whom no discreditable fear Would keep, perhaps with many a fruitless tear. Uncertain what to choose and how to steer— And ye — ^who might mistake for sober sense And wise reserve, the plea of indolence — Come ye — whate'er your creed — waken all, Whate'er your temper, at your Country's call; Resolving (this a free-born Nation can) To have one Soul, and joerish to a man. Or save this honored Land from every Lord But British reason and the British sword. "Another Tear!"^ Another year! — another deadly blow! Another mighty Empire overthrown ! And We are left, or shall be left, alone; The last that dare to struggle with the Foe. 'Tis well! from this day forward we shall know That in ourselves our safety must be sought ; That by our own right hands it must be wrought ; That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low. dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer ! We shall exult, if they who rule the land Be men who hold its many blessings dear. Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band, Who are to judge of danger which they fear. And honor which they do not understand. 2. THE DOWNFALL OF TYRANNY Sonnets on Napoleon william wordsworth October, 18G3 When, looking on the present face of things, I see one man, of men the meanest too ! Raised up to sway the world, to do, undo. With mighty Nations for his underlings. The great events with which old story rings Seem vain and hollow ; I find nothing great : 1 Written in 1803 "On the Expected Invasion," Nothing is left which I can venerate; So that a doubt almost within me springs Of Providence, such emptiness at length Seems at the heart of all things. But, great God! I measure back the steps which I have trod ! And tremble, seeing whence proceeds the strength Of such poor Instruments, with thoughts sublime I tremble at the sorrow of the time. ^ Written after tlie overthrow of Prussia In the battle of Jena, October 14, 1806. 360 THE GEEAT TEADITION Anticipation. October, 1803 Shout, for a mighty Victory is won! On British ground the Invaders are laid low; The breath of Heaven has drifted them like snow, And left them lying in the silent sun, Never to rise again ! — the work is done. Come forth, ye old men, now in peaceful show And greet your sons ! drums beat and trum- pets blow! Make merry, wives! ye little children, stun Your grandame's ears with pleasure of your noise ! Clap, infants, clap your hands! Divine must be That triumph, when the very worst, the pain. And even the prospect of our brethren slain. Hath something in it which the heart en- joys :— In glory will they sleep and endless sanctity. Nelson at Trafalgar robert southey [From The Life of Nelson, 1813] On the 9th ^ Nelson sent Collingwood what he called, in his diary, the Nelson- touch. "I send you," said he, "my plan of attack, as far as a man dare venture to guess at the very uncertain position the enemy may be found in : but it is to place you perfectly at ease respecting my inten- tions, and to give full scope to your judg- ment for carrying them into effect. We can, my dear Coll, have no little jealousies. We have only one great object in view, that of annihilating our enemies, and getting a glo- rious peace for our country. No man has more confidence in another than I have in you; and no man will render your services more justice than your very old friend Nel- son and Bronte." The order of sailing was to be the order of battle: the fleet in two lines, with an advanced squadron of eight of the fastest sailing two-deckers. The second in command, having the entire direction of his line, was to break through the enemy, about the twelfth ship from their rear: he would lead through the center, and the ad- vanced squadron was to cut off three or four ahead of the center. This plan was to be adapted to the strength of the enemy, so that they should 'always be one-fourth su- 1 October, 1805. perior to those whom they cut off. Nelson said, "That his admirals and captains, know- ing his precise object to be that of a close and decisive action, would supply any de- ficiency of signals, and act accordingly. In case signals cannot be seen or clearly under- stood, no captain can do wrong, if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy." One of the last orders of this admirable man was, that the name and family of every cffi- eer, seaman, and marine, who might be killed or wounded in action, should be, as soon as possible, returned to him, in order to be transmitted to the chairman of the Patriotic Fund, that the case might be taken into con- sideration, for the benefit of the sufferer or his family. About half -past nine in the morning of the 19th, the Mars, being the nearest to the fleet of the ships which formed the line of communication with the frigates in shore, repeated the signal that the enemy were coming out of port. The wind was at this time very light, with partial breezes, mostly from the S. S. W. Nelson ordered the sig- nal to be made for a chase in the south-east quarter. About two, the repeating ships announced that the enemy were at sea. All night the British fleet continued under all sail, steering to the south-east. At day- break they were in the entrance of the Straits, but the enemy were not in sight. About seven, one of the frigates made sig- nal that the enemy were bearing north. Upon this the Victory hove to ; and shortly afterwards Nelson made sail again to the northward. In the afternoon the wind blew fresh from the south-west, and the English began to fear that the foe might be forced to return to port. A little before sunset, however, Blackwood, in the Euryalus, tele- graphed that they appeared determined to go to the westward, — "And that," said the admiral in his diary, "they shall not do, if it is in the power of Nelson and Bronte to prevent them." Nelson had signified to Blackwood, that he depended upon him to keep sight of the enemy. They were ob- served so well, that all their motions were made knowm to him ; and, as they wore twice, he infei^ed that they were aiming to keep the port of Cadiz open, and would retreat there as soon as they saw the British fleet : for this reason he was very careful not to approach near enough to be seen by them during the night. At daybreak the com- bined fleets were distinctly seen from the 1 Victory's, deck, formed in 'a close line of THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 361 battle ahead, on the starboard tack, about twelve miles to leeward, and standing to the south. Our fleet consisted of twenty-seven sail of the line and four frigates; theirs of thirty-three and seven large frigates. Their superiority was greater in size, and weight of metal, than in numbers. They had four thousand troops on board; and the best riflemen who could be procured, many of them Tyrolese, were dispersed through the ships. Little did the Tyrolese, and little did the Spaniards, at that day, imagine what horrors the wicked tyrant whom they served was preparing for their country ! Soon after daylight Nelson came upon deck. The 21st of October was a festival in his family; because on that day his uncle. Captain Sucklhag, in the Dread- nought, with two other line of battle ships, had beaten off a French squadron of four sail of the line and three frigates. Nelson, with that sort of superstition from which few persons are entirely exempt, had more than once expressed his persuasion that this was to be the day of his battle also ; and he was well pleased at seeing his prediction about to be verified. The wind was now from the west, — light breezes, with a long heavy swell. Signal was made to bear down upon the enemy in two lines; and the fleet set all sail. CoUingwood, in the Royal Sov- ereign, led the lee-line of thirteen ships ; the Victory led the weather-line of fourteen. Having seen that all was as it should be, Nelson retired to his cabin, and wrote this prayer : — "May the Great God, whom I worship, grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious vic- tory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet! For myself individually, I commit my life to Him that made me, and may His blessing alight on my endeavors for serving my country faithfully ! To Him I resign myself, and the just cause which is intrusted to me to defend. Amen, Amen, Amen." . . . Blackwood went on board the Victory about six. He found him in good spirits, but very calm; not in that exhilaration which he had felt upon entering into battle at Aboukir and Copenhagen; he knew that his own life would be particularly aimed at, and seems to have looked for death with almost as sure an expectation as for victory. His whole attention was fixed upon the enemy. They tacked to the northward, and formed their line on the larboard tack; thus bringing the shoals of Trafalgar and St. Pedro under the lee of the British, and keep- ing the port of Cadiz open for themselves. This was judiciously done: and Nelson, aware of all the- advantages which it gave them, made signal to prepare to anchor. Villeneuve was a skillful seaman ; worthy of serving a better master and a better cause. His plan of defense was as well conceived, and as original, as the plan of attack. He formed the fleet in a double line, every alternate ship being about a cable's length to windward of her second ahead and astern. Nelson, certain of a triumphant issue to the day, asked Blackwood what he should consider as a victory. That officer answered, that, considering the handsome way in which battle was offered by the enemy, their apparent determination for a fair trial of strength, and the situation of the land, he thought it would be a glorious result if fourteen were captured. He re- plied: "I shall not be satisfied with less than twenty." Soon afterwards he asked him if he did not think there was a signal wanting. Captain Blackwood made answer that he thought the whole fleet seemed very clearly to understand what they were about. These words were scarcely spoken before that signal was made, which will be remem- bered as long as the language, or even the memory, of England shall endure — Nelson's last signal: — "England expects every man to do his duty!" It was received through- out the fleet, with a shout of answering ac- clamation, made sublime by the spirit which it breathed and the feeling which it ex- pressed. "Now," said Lord Nelson, "I can do no more. We must trust to the Great Disposer of all events, and the justice of our cause. I thank God for this great oppor- tunity of doing my duty." He wore that day, as usual, his admiral's frock coat, bearing on the left breast four stars of the different orders with which he was invested. Ornaments which rendered him so conspicuous a mark for the enemy, were beheld with ominous apprehensions by his officers. It was known that there were riflemen on board the French ships, and it could not be doubted but that his life would be particularly aimed at. They communi- cated their fears to each other ; and the sur- geon, Mr. Beatty, spoke to the chaplain, Dr. Scott, and to Mr. Scott, the public sec- retary, desiring that some person would en- 362 THE GEEAT TEADITION treat him to change his dress, or cover the stars: but they knew that such a request would highly displease him. ''In honor I gained them," he had said when such a thing had been hinted to him formerly, "and in honor I will die with them." Mr. Beatty, however, would not have been deterred by any fear of exciting his displeasure, from speaking to him himself upon a subject in which the weal of England as well as the life of Nelson was concerned, but he was ordered from the deck before he could find an oppor- tunity. This was a point upon which Nel- "son's officers knew that it was hopeless to remonstrate or reason with him; but both Blackwood, and his own captain. Hardy, represented to him how advantageous to the fleet it would be for him to keep out of ac- tion as long as possible; and he consented at last to let the Leviathan and the Temer aire, which were sailing abreast of the Victory, be ordered to pass ahead. Yet even here the last infirmity of this noble mind was in- dulged; for these ships could not pass ahead if the Victory continued to carry all her sail ; and so far was Nelson from shortening sail, that it was evident he took pleasure in pressing on, and rendering it impossible for them to obey his own orders. A long swell was setting into the Bay of Cadiz : our ships, crowding all sail, moved majestically before it, with light winds from the southwest. The sun shone on the sails of the enemy; and their well-formed line, with their numerous three-deckers, made an appearance which any other assailants would have thought for- midable; but the British sailors only ad- mired the beauty and the splendor of the spectacle; and, in full confidence of win- ning what they saw, remarked to each other, what a fine sight yonder ships would make at Spithead ! The French admiral, from the Bucentaure, beheld the new manner in which his enemy was advancing. Nelson and Collingwood each leading his line ; and pointing them out to his officers, he is said to have exclaimed, that such conduct could not fail to be suc- cessful. Yet Villeneuve had made his own dispositions with the utmost skill, and the fleets under his command waited for the at- tack with perfect coolness. Ten minutes be- fore twelve they opened their fire. Eight or nine of the ships immediately ahead of the Victory, and across her bows, fired single guns at her, to ascertain whether she was yet within their range. As soon as Nelson perceived that their shot passed over him, he desired Blackwood and Captain Prowse, of the Sirius, to repair to their respective frigates; and, on their way, to tell all the captains of the line of battleships that he depended on their exertions ; and that, if by the prescribed mode of attack they found it impracticable to get into action immediately, they might adopt whatever they thought best, provided it led them quickly and close- ly alongside an enemy. As they were stand- ing on the front of the poop, Blackwood took him by the hand, saying, he hoped soon to return and find him in possession of twenty prizes. He replied: "God bless you, Blackwood! I shall never see you again." Nelson's column was steered about two points more to the north than CoUingwood's, in order to cut off: the enemy's escape into Cadiz : the lee-line, therefore, was first en- gaged. "See," cried Nelson, pointing to the Royal Sovereign, as she steered right for the center of the enemy's line, cut through it astern of the Santa Anna, three-decker, and engaged her at the muzzle of her guns on the starboard side : "see how that noble fel- low, Collingwood, carries his ship into ac- tion !" Collingwood, delighted at being first in the heat of the fire, and knowing the feel- ings of his commander and old friend, turned to his captain, and exclaimed, "Roth- erham, what would Nelson give to be here!" Both these brave officers, perhaps, at this moment thought of Nelson with gratitude, for a circumstance which had occurred on the preceding day. Admiral Colling'wood, with some of the captains, having gone on board the Victory to receive instructions, Nelson inquired of him where his captain was ? and was told, in reply, that they were not upon good terms with each other. "Terms!" said Nelson; — "good terms with each other!" Immediately he sent a boat for Captain Rotherham ; led him, as soon as he arrived, to Collingwood, and saying, "Look, yonder are the enemy !" bade them "shake hands like Englishmen." The enemy continued to fire a gun at a time at the Victory, till they saw that a shot had passed through her main-topgallant-sail; then they opened their broadsides, aiming chiefly at her rigging, in the hope of dis- abling her before she could close with them. Nelson, as usual, had hoisted several flags, lest one should be shot away. The enemy showed no colors till late in the action, when they began to feel the necessity of having THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCRACY 363 them to strike. For this reason, the Santis- sima Trinidad, Nelson's old acquaintance, as he used to call her, was distinguishable only by her four decks; and to the bow of this opponent he ordered the Victory to be steered. Meantime an incessant raking fire was kept up upon the Victory. The ad- miral's secretary was one of the first who fell: he was killed by a cannon-shot, while conversing with Hardy. Captain Adair, of the marines, with the help of a sailor, en- deavored to remove the body from Nelson's sight, who had a great regard for Mr. Scott ; but he anxiously asked, "Is that poor Scott that's gone?" and being informed that it was indeed so, exclaimed, "Poor fellow!" Presently a double-headed shot struck a party of marines, who were drawn up on the poop, and killed eight of them : upon which Nelson immediately desired Captain Adair to disperse his men round the ship, that they might not suffer so much from being together. A few minutes afterwards a shot struck the fore brace bits on the quarter- deck, and passed between Nelson and Hardy, a splinter from the bit tearing off Hardy's buckle and bruising his foot. Both stopped, and looked anxiously at each other, each supposing the other to be wounded. Nelson then smiled, and said, "This is too warm work. Hardy, to last long." The Victory had not yet returned a single gun : fifty of her men had been by this time killed or wounded, and her main-topmast, with all her studding sails and their booms, shot away. Nelson declared that, in all his battles, he had seen nothing which surpassed the cool courage of his crew on this occa- sion. At four minutes after twelve she opened her fire from both sides of her deck. It was not possible to break the enemy's line without running on board one of their ships : Hardy informed him of this, and asked which he would prefer. Nelson replied: "Take your choice. Hardy, it does not sig- nify much." The master was then ordered to put the helm to port, and the Victory ran on board the Redoubtable, just as her tiller ropes were shot away. The French ship re- ceived her with a broadside; then instantly let down her lower-deck ports, for fear of being boarded through them, and never afterwards fired a great gun during the ac- tion. Her tops, like those of all the enemy's ships, were filled with riflemen. Nelson never placed musketry in his tops ; he had a strong dislike to the practice, not merely because it endangers setting fire to the sails, but also because it is a murderous sort of warfare, by which individuals may suffer and a commander, now and then, be picked off, but which never can decide the fate of a general engagement. Captain Harvey, in the Temeraire, fell on board the Redoubtable on the other side. Another enemy was in like manner on board the Temeraire: so that these four ships formed as compact a tier as if they had been moored together, their heads lying all the same way. The lieutenants of the Vic- tory, seeing this, depressed their gTins of the middle and lower decks, and fired with a diminished charge, lest the shot should pass through, and injure the Temeraire. And be- cause there was danger that the Redoubtable might take fire from the lower-deck guns, the muzzles of which touched her side when they were run out, the fireman of each gun stood ready with a bucket of water, which, as soon as the gun was discharged, he dashed into the hole made by the shot. An inces- sant fire was kept up from the Victory from both sides ; her larboard guns playing upon the Bucentaure and the huge Santissima Trinidad. It had been part of Nelson's prayer that the British fleet might be distinguished by humanity in the victory which he expected. Setting an example himself, he twice gave orders to cease firing upon the Redoubtable, supposing that she had struck, because her great guns were silent ; for, as she carried no flag, there was no means of instantly ascertaining the fact. From this ship, which he had thus twice spared, he received his death. A ball fired from her mizzen-top, which, in the then situation of the two ves- sels, was not more than fifteen yards from that part of the deck where he was stand- ing, struck the epaulette on his left shoulder, — about a quarter after one, just in the heat of the action. He fell upon his face, on the spot which was covered with his poor secretary's blood. Hardy, who was a few steps from him, turning round, saw three men raising him up. "They have done for me at last. Hardy," said he. "I hope not !" cried Hardy. "Yes," he replied ; "my back- bone is shot through." Yet even now, not for a moment losing his presence of mind, he observed, as they were carrying him down the ladder, that the tiller ropes, which had been shot away, were not yet replaced, and ordered that new ones should be rove im- 364 THE GEEAT TEADITION mediately : — then, that he might not be seen by the crew, he took out his handkerchief, and covered his face and his stars. — Had he but concealed these badges of honor from the enemy, England, perhaps, would not have had cause to receive with sorrow the news of the battle of Trafalgar. The cockpit was crowded with wounded and dying men, over whose bodies he was with some difficulty conveyed, and laid upon a pallet in the midshipmen's berth. It was soon perceived, upon examination, that the wound was mortal. This, however, was concealed from all, except Captain Hardy, the chaplain, and the medical attendants. He himself being certain, from the sensa- tion in his back, and the gush of blood which he felt momently within his breast, that no human care could avail him, insisted that the surgeon should leave him, and at- tend to those to whom he might be useful : "For," he said, "you can do nothing for me." All that could be done was to fan him with paper, and frequently to give him lemonade, to alleviate his intense thirst. He was in great pain, and expressed much anxiety for the event of the action, which now began to declare itself. As often as a ship struck, the crew of the Victory hurraed; and at every hurra a visible expression of joy gleamed in the eyes, and marked the counte- nance, of the dying hero. But he became impatient to see Captain Hardy; and as that officer, though often sent for, could not leave the deck, Nelson feared that some fatal cause prevented him, and repeatedly cried: "Will no one bring Hardy to me? He must be killed! He is surely dead!" — An hour and ten minutes elapsed, from the time when Nelson received his wound, be- fore Hardy could come to him. They shook hands in silence; Hardy in vain struggling to suppress the feelings of that most painful and yet sublimest moment. "Well, Hardy," said Nelson, "how goes the day with us V — "Very well," replied Hardy ; "ten ships have struck, but five of their van have tacked, and show an intention of bearing down upon the Victory. I have called two or three of our fresh ships round, and have no doubt of giving them a drubbing." — "I hope," said Nelson, "none of our ships have struck?" Hardy answered, "There was no fear of that." Then, and not till then. Nel- son spoke of himself. "I am a dead man. Hardy," said he ; "I am going fast : — it will be all over with me soon. Come nearer to me. Let my dear Lady Hamilton have my hair, and all other things belonging to me." Hardy observed, that he hoped Mr. Beatty could yet hold out some prospect of life. "Oh, no!" he replied; "it is impossible. My back is shot through. Beatty will tell you so." Captain Hardy then, once more, shook hands with him; and, with a heart almost bursting, hastened upon deck. By this time all feeling below the breast was gone, and Nelson, having made the sur- geon ascertain this, said to him: "You know I am gone. I know it. I feel some- thing rising in my breast" — putting his hand on his left side — "which tells me so." And upon Beatty's inquiring whether his pain was very great, he replied, "So great, that he wished he was dead. Yet," said he, in a lower voice, "one would like to live a little longer too !" And after a few minutes, in the same under-tone, he added : "What would become of poor Lady Hamilton if she knew my situation !" Next to his country she occupied his thoughts. Captain Hardy, some fifty minutes after he had left the cockpit, returned; and, again taking the hand of his dying friend and commander, congratulated him on having gained a com- plete victory. How many of the enemy were taken he did not know, as it was im- possible to perceive them distinctly — ^but fourteen or fifteen at least. "That's well," cried Nelson ; "but I bargained for twenty." And then, in a stronger voice, he said, "An- chor, Hardy; anchor." Hardy, upon this, hinted that Admiral Collingwood would take upon himself the direction of affairs. "Not while I live. Hardy !" said the dying Nelson, ineffectually endeavoring to raise himself from the bed : "do you anchor." His previ- ous order for preparing to anchor had shown how clearly he foresaw the necessity of this. Presently, calling Hardy back, he said to him, in a low voice, "Don't throw me over- board"; and he desired that he might be buried l)y his parents, unless it should please the king to order otherwise. Then, revert- ing to private feelings : "Take care of my dear Lady Hamilton, Hardy; take care of poor Lady Hamilton. — Kiss me, Hardy," said he. Hardy knelt down, and kissed his cheek: and Nelson said, "Now I am satis- fied. Thank God, I have done my duty." Hardy stood over him in silence for a mo- ment or two, then knelt again, and kissed his forehead. "Who is that?" said Nelson; 'and being informed, he replied, "God bless THE RISE or MODERN DEMOCRACY 365 you, Hardy." And Hardy then left him — forever. Nelson now desired to be turned upon his right side, and said: "I wish I had not left the deck; for I shall soon be gone." Death was, indeed, rapidly approaching. He said to the chaplain: "Doctor, I have not been a great sinner"; and, after a short pause, "Remember that I leave Lady Hamilton, and my daughter Horatia, as a legacy to my country." His articulation now became difficult; but he was distinctly heard to say, "Thank God, I have done my duty !" These words he had repeatedly pronounced; and they were the last words he uttered. He ex- pired at thirty minutes after four, — three hours and a quarter after he had received his wound. . . . Once, amidst his sufferings. Nelson had expressed a wish that he were dead ; but im- mediately the spirit subdued the pains of death, and he wished to live a little longer; doubtless that he might hear the completion of the victory which he had seen so glori- ously begun. That consolation — that joy — that triumph, was afforded him. He lived to know that the victory was decisive; and the last guns which were fired at the flying enemy were heard a minute or two before he expired. The ships which were thus fly- ing were four of the enemy's van, all French, under Rear-Admiral Dumanoir. They had borne no part in the action ; and now, when they were seeking safety in flight, they fired not only into the Victory and Royal Sovereign as they passed, but poured their broadsides into the Spanish captured ships ; and they were seen to back their top- sails, for the purpose of firing with more precision. The indignation of the Span- iards at this detestable cruelty from their allies, for whom they had fought so bravely and so profusely bled, may well be con- ceived. It was such, that when, two days after the action, seven of the ships which had escaped into Cadiz came out, in hopes of retaking some of the disabled prizes, the prisoners in the Argonauta, in a body, of- fered their services to the British prize- master, to man the guns against any of the French ships : saying, that if a Spanish ship came alongside, they would quietly go below ; but they requested that they might be al- lowed to fight the French, in resentment for the murderous usage which they had suf- fered at their hands. Such was their ear- nestness, and such the implicit confidence which could be placed in Spanish honor, that the offer was accepted, and they were factually stationed at the lower-deck guns. Dumanoir and his squadron were not more fortunate ' than the fleet from whose de- struction they fled, — they fell in with Sir Richard Strachan, who was cruising for the Rochef ort squadron, and were all taken. In the better days of France, if such a crime could then have been committed, it would have received an exemplary punishment from the French Government ; under Buona- parte, it was sure of impunity, and, perhaps, might be thought deserving of reward. But, if the Spanish court had been independent, it would have become us to have delivered Dumanoir and his captains up to Spain, that they might have been brought to trial, and hanged in sight of the remains of the Spanish fleet. The total British loss in the battle of Trafalgar amounted to 1,587. Twenty of the enemy struck, — unhappily the fleet did not anchor, as Nelson, almost with his dying breath, had enjoined, — a gale came on from the south-west; some of the prizes went down, some went on shore; one effected its escape into Cadiz; others were destroyed; four only were saved, and those by the greatest exertions. The wounded Spaniards were sent ashore, an assurance being given that they should not serve till regularly ex- changed; and the Spaniards, with a gener- ous feeling, which would not, perhaps, have been found in any other people, offered the use of their hospitals for our wounded, pledging the honor of Spain that they should be carefully attended there. When the storm after the action drove some of the prizes upon the coast, they declared that the_ English, who were thus thrown into their hands, should not be considered as pris- oners of war ; and the Spanish soldiers gave up their own beds to their shipwrecked ene- mies. The Spanish vice-admiral, Alava, died of his wounds. Villeneuve was sent to Eng- land, and permitted to return to France. The French Government say that he de- stroyed himself on the way to Paris, dread- ing the consequences of a court-martial ; but there is every reason to believe that the tyrant, who never acknowledged the loss of the battle of Trafalgar, added Villeneuve to the numerous victims of his murderous' policy. It is almost superfluous to add that all the honors which a grateful country could bestow were heaped upon the memory of Nelson. His brother was made an earl, with 366 THE GEEAT TEADITION a grant of £6,000 per year; £10,000 were voted to each of his sisters; and £100,000 for the purchase of an estate. A public funeral was decreed, and a public monu- ment. Statues and monuments also were voted by most of our principal cities. The leaden coffin, in which he was brought home, was cut in pieces, which were distributed as relies of Saint Nelson,— so the gunner of the Victory called them, — and when, at his interment, his flag was about to be lowered into the grave, the sailors who assisted at the ceremony, with one accord rent it in pieces, that each might preserve a fragment while he lived. The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity : men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us ; and it seemed as if we had never, till then, known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero — the greatest of our own, and of all former times — was scarcely taken into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, liad he per- formed his part, that the maritime war, after the battle of Trafalgar, was consid- ered at an end ; the fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but destroyed; new navies must be built, and a new race of sea- men reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him : the gen- eral sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral cer- emonies, public monuments, and posthumous rewards, were all which they could now be- stow upon him, whom the king, the legisla- ture, and the nation, would alike have de- lighted to honor; whom every tongue would have blessed: whose presence in every vil- lage through which he might have passed would have wakened the church bells, have given school-boys a holiday, have drawn chil- dren from their sports to gaze upon him, and "old men from the chimney corner," to look upon Nelson ere they died. The vic- tory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was the glory of the British navy, through Nelson's surpassing genius, that it scarcely seemed to receive any addition from the most signal victory that ever was achieved upon the seas; and the destruction of this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly ap- peared to add to our security or strength; for, while Nelson was living to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves as secure as now, when they were no longer in existence. There was reason to suppose from the ap- pearances upon opening the body, that, in the course of nature, he might have at- tained, like his father, to a good old age. Yet he cannot be said to have fallen prema- turely whose work was done; nor ought he to be lamented, who died so full of honors, and at the height of human fame. The most triumphant death is that of the martyr; the most awful, that of the mai'tyred patriot; the most splendid, that of the hero in the hour of victory : and if the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nel- son's translation, he could scarcely have de- parted in a brighter blaze of glory. He has left us, not indeed his mantle of inspiration, but a name and an example, which are at this hour inspiring hundreds of the youth of England : a name which is our pride, and an example which will continue to be our shield and our strength. Thus it is that the spirits of the great and the wise continue to live and to act after them. Waterloo lord byron [Erom Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 1817.] Stop ! — For thy tread is on an Empire's dust! An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchered below ! Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust? Nor column trophied for triumphal show? None; but the moral's truth tells sim- pler so. As the ground was before, thus let it be ; — How that red rain hath made the harvest grow And is this all the world has gain'd by thee. Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory? THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCRACY 367 And Harold stands upon this place of skulls, The grave of France, the deadly Water- loo; How in an hour the power which gave annuls Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too! In "pride of place" here last the eagle flew. Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain. Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through ; Ambition's life and labors all were vain; He wears the shatter'd links of the world's broken chain. Fit retribution ! Gaul may champ the bit And foam in fetters; — but is Earth more free? Did nations combat to make One submit; Or league to teach all kings true sov- ereignty 1 What! shall reviving Thraldom again be The patch'd-up idol of enlighten'd days? Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze And servile knees to thrones? No: prove .before ye praise! If not, o'er one fallen despot boast no more! In vain fair cheeks were furrow'd with hot tears For Europe's flowers long rooted up before The trampler of her vineyards; in vain, years Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears. Have all been borne, and broken by the accord Of roused-up millions : all that most en- dears Glory, is when the myi'tle wreaths a sword Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord. There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gather'd then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell. Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again. And all went merry as a marriage-bell ; But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! 6 Did ye not hear it? — No; 'twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street; On with the dance! let joy be uncon- fined ; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with fly- ing feet — But, hark! — that heavy sound breaks in once more. As if the clouds its echo would repeat ; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than, be- fore! Arm ! Arm ! it is — it is — the cannon's open- ing roar ! 7 Within a window's niche of that high hall Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear That sound the first amidst the festival. And caught its tone with Death's pro- phetic ear ; And when they smiled because he deem'd it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell: He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell. 8 Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro, And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress. And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago Blush'd at the praise of their own love- liness ; 368 THE GEEAT TEADITION And there were sudden partings, such as press The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise? 9 And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed The mustering squadron, and the clat- tering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar. And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb. Or whispering, with white lips — "The foe! They come ! they come !" 10 And wild and high the "Cameron's gath- ering" rose! The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes: How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills Their mountain-pipe, so fill the moun- taineers With the fierce native daring which in- stills ■ The stirring memory of a thousand years, And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears! 11 And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave, — alas ! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valor, rolling on the foe, And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. 12 Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, The morn the rnarshalling in arms, — the day Battle's magnificently-stern array! The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent, The earth is covered thick with other clay. Which her own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent. Rider and horse, — friend, foe, — in one red burial blent! 13 Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine; Yet one I would select from that proud throng, Partly because they blend me with his line, And partly that I did his sire some wrong. And partly that bright names will hal- low song; And his was of the bravest, and when ' shower'd The death-bolts deadliest the thinn'd files along, Even where the thickest of war's tempest lower'd, They reach'd no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard! 14 There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee. And mine were nothing, had I such to give; But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree. Which living waves where thou didst cease to live, And saw around me the wide field re- vive With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 369 Come forth her work of gladness to con- trive, With all her reckless birds upon the wing, I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not bring. 15 I turn'd to thee, to thousands, of whom each And one as all a ghastly gap did make In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach Forgetf ulness were mercy for their sake ; The Archangel's trump, not Glory's, must awake Those whom they thirst for; though the sound of Fame May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake The fever of vain longing, and the name So honor'd but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim. 16 They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn: The tree will wither long before it fall; The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn; The roof -tree sinks, but moulders on the hall In massy hoariness; the ruin'd wall Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone; The bars survive the captive they enthral ; The day drags through tho' storms keep out the sun; And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on. 17 Even as a broken mirror, which the glass In every f ragTnent multiplies ; and makes A thousand images of one that was, The same, and still the more, the more it breaks; And thus the heart will do. which not forsakes, Living in shatter'd guise, and still, and cold. And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches. Yet withers on till all without is old, Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold. 18 There is a very life in our despair, Vitality of poison, — a quick root Which feeds these deadly branches ; for it were As nothing did we die; but Life will suit Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit, Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore. All ashes to the taste : Did man compute Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er Such hours 'gainst years of life, — say, would he name threescore? 19 The Psalmist number'd out the years of man: They are enough ; and if thy tale be true, Thou, who didst grudge him even that tieeting span. More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo! Millions of tongues record thee, and anew Their children's lips shall echo them, and say— "Here, where the sword united nations drew, Our countrymen were warring on that day!" And this is much, and all which will not pass away. 20 There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men. Whose spirit antithetically mixt One moment of the mightiest, and again On little objects with like firmness fixt. Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt, Thy throne had still been thine, or never been; For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st Even now to reassume the imperial mien, And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene ! 21 Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou! She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now 370 THE GEEAT TRADITION That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and be- came The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert A god unto thyself; nor less the same To the astounded kingdoms all inert. Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert. 22 Oh, more or less than man — in high or low. Battling with nations, flying from the field; Now making monarehs' necks thy foot- stool, now More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield ; An empire thou couldst crush, commaad, rebuild. But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor However deeply in men's spirits skill'd. Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war. Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star. 23 Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turn- ing tide. With that untaught innate philosophy. Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride. Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled With a sedate and all-enduring eye ; — When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favor- ite child. He stood unbow'd beneath the ills upon him piled. 24 Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show That just habitual scorn which could con- temn Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, And spurn the instruments thou wert to use, Till they were turn'd unto thine over- throw : 'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose; So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. 25 If, like a tower upon a headlong rock, Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone. Such scorn of man had help'd to brave the shock; But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne. Their admiration thy best weapon shone; The part of Philip's son was thine, not them (Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) Like stern Diogenes to mock at men; For sceptered cynics earth were far too wide a den! 26 But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire And motion of the soul which will not dwell In its own narrow being, but aspire Beyond the fitting medium of desire; And, but once kindled, quenchless ever- more Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire Of aught but rest; a fever at the core, Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore. 27 This makes the madmen who have made men mad By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs. And are themselves the fools to those they fool; Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule ; THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 371 2b Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, That should their days, surviving perils past, Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast With sorrow and supineness, and so die; Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste With its own flickering, or a, sword laid Which eats into itself, and rusts inglori- ously. 29 He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those be- low. Though high above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath the earth and ocean spread. Bound him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, And thus reward the toils which to those summits led. Waterloo william makepeace thackeray [From Vanity Fair, 1847-48] "Thank Heaven that is over," George thought, bounding down the stair, his sword under his arm, as he ran swiftly to the alarm ground, where the regiment was mus- tered, and whither trooped men and officers hurrying from their billets; his pulse was throbbing and his cheeks flushed : the great game of war was going to be played, and he one of the players. What a fierce ex- citement of doubt, hope, and pleasure! What tremendous hazards of loss or gain! What were all the games of chance he had ever played compared to this one? Into all contests requiring athletic skill and courage, the young man, from his boyhood upwards, had flung himself with all his might. The champion of his school and his regiment, the bravos of his companions had followed him everywhere; from the boys' cricket match to the garrison races, he had won a hundred of triumphs; and wherever he went, women and men had admired and envied him. What qualities are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and valor? Time out of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards and romances ; and from the story of Troy down to today, poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero. I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valor so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship ? So, at the sound of that stirring call to battle, George jumped away from the gen- tle arms in which he had been dallying; not without a feeling of shame (although his wife's hold on him had been but feeble), that he should have been detained there so long. The same feeling of eagerness and excitement was amongst all those friends of his of whom we have had occasional glimpses, from the stout senior Major, who led the regiment into action, to little Stub- ble, the Ensign, who was to bear its colors on that day. The sun was just rising as the march be- gan — it was a gallant sight — the band led the column, playing the regimental march — then came the Major in command, riding upon Py ramus, his stout charger — then marched the grenadiers, their captain at their head: in the center were the colors, borne by the senior and junior Ensigns — then George came marching at the head of his company. He looked up, and smiled at Amelia, and passed on; and even the sound of the music died away. We of peaceful London City have never beheld — and please God never shall wit- ness — such a scene of hurry and alarm, as that which Brussels presented. Crowds rushed to the Namur gate, from which di- rection the noise proceeded, and many rode along the level chaussee, to be in advance of any intelligence from the army. Each man asked his neighbor for news ; and even great English lords and ladies condescended to speak to persons whom they did not know. The friends of the French went abroad, wild with excitement, and prophesy- ing the triumph of their Emperor. The mer- chants closed their shops, and came out to SAvell the general chorus of alarm and 372 THE GEEAT TEADITION clamor. "Women rushed to the churches, and crowded the chapels, and knelt and prayed on the flags and steps. The dull sound of the cannon went on rolling, roll- ing. Presently carriages with travelers be- gan to leave the town, galloping away by the Ghent barrier. The prophecies of the French partisans began to pass for facts. *'He has cut the armies in two," it was said. "He is marching straight on Brussels. He will overpower the English, and be here tonight." "He will overpower the Eng- lish," shrieked Isidor to his master, "and will be here tonight." The man bounded in and out from the lodgings to the street, always returning with some fresh particu- lars of disaster. Jos's face grew paler and paler. Alarm began to take entire pos- session of the stout civilian. All the cham- pagne he drank brought no courage to him. Before sunset he was worked up to such a pitch of nervousness as gratified his friend Isidor to behold, who now counted surely upon the spoils of the owner of the laced coat. The women were away all this time. After hearing the firing for a moment, the stout Major's wife bethought her of her friend in the next chamber, and ran in to watch, and if possible to console Amelia. The idea that she had that helpless and gentle creature to protect, gave additional strength to the natural courage of the honest Irish- woman. She passed five hours by her friend's side, sometimes in remonstrance, sometimes talking cheerfully, oftener in si- lence, and terrified mental supplication. "I never let go her hand once," said the stout lady afterwards, "until after sunset, when the firing was over." Pauline, the tonne, was on her knees at church hard by, pray- ing for son homme a elle. When the noise of the cannonading was over, Mrs. O'Dowd issued out of Amelia's room into the parlor adjoining, where Jos sate with two emptied fiasks, and courage entirely gone. Once or twice he had ven- tured into his sister's bedroom, looking very much alarmed, and as if he would say some- thing. But the Major's wife kept her place, and he went away without disburthening himself of his speech. He was ashamed to tell her that he wanted to fly. But when she made her appearance in the dining- room, where he sate in the twilight in the cheerless company of his empty champagne bottles, he began to open his mind to her. "Mrs. O'Dowd," he said, "hadn't you bet- ter get Amelia ready?" "Are you going to take her out for a walk?" said the Major's lady; "sure she's too weak to stir." "I — I've ordered the carriage," he said, "and — and post-horses; Isidor is gone for them," Jos continued. "What do you want with driving to- night !" answered the lady. "Isn't she better on her bed? I've just got her to lie down." "Get her up," said Jos; "she must get up, I say" : and he stamped his foot ener- getically. "I say the horses are ordered — yes, the horses are ordered. It's all over, and" "And what?" asked Mrs. O'Dowd. "I'm off for Ghent," Jos answered. "Everybody is going; there's a place for you! We shall start in half-an-hour." The Major's wife looked at him with in- finite scorn. "I don't move till O'Dowd gives me the route," said she. "You may go if you like, Mr. Sedley ; but faith, Amelia and I stop here." "She sJiall go," said Jos, with another stamp of his foot. Mrs. O'Dowd put herself with arms akimbo before the bedroom door. "It is her mother you're going to take her to?" she said; "or do you want to go to Mamma, yourself, Mr. Sedley? Good marning — a pleasant journey to ye, sir. Bon voyage, as they say, and take my coun- sel, and shave off them mustachios, or they'll bring you into mischief." "D n!" yelled out Jos, wild with fear, rage, and mortification ; and Isidor came in at this juncture, swearing in his turn. "Pas de chevaux, sacrehleu!" hissed out the furi- ous domestic. All the horses were gone. Jos was not the only man in Brussels seized with panic that day. But Jos's fears, great and cruel as they were already, were destined to increase to an almost frantic pitch before the night was over. It has been mentioned how Pauline, the bonne, had son homme a elle also in the ranks of the army that had gone out to meet the Emperor Napoleon. This Jover was a native of Brussels, and a Belgian hussar. The troops of his nation signalized themselves in this war for anything but courage, and young Van Cutsum, Pauline's admirer, was too good a soldier to disobey his Colonel's orders to run away. Whilst in garrison at Brussels young Regulus (he had been born in the revolutionary times) THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 373 found his great comfort, and passed almost all his leisure moments, in Pauline's kitchen ; and it was with pockets and holsters crammed full of good things from her lar- der, that he had taken leave of his weep- ing sweetheart, to proceed ujoon the cam- paign a few days before. As far as his regiment was concerned, this campaign was over now. They had formed a part of the division under the command of his sovereign apparent, the Prince of Orange, and as respected length of swords and mustachios, and the richness of uniform and equijDments, Regulus and his comrades looked to be as gallant a body of men as ever trumpet sounded for. When Ney dashed upon the advance of the allied troops, carrying one position after the other, until the arrival of the great body of the British army from Brus- sels changed the aspect of the combat of Quatre Bras, the squadrons among which Regulus rode showed the greatest activity in retreating before the French, and were dislodged from one post after another which they occupied with perfect alacrity on their part. Their movements were only checked by the advance of the British in their rear. Thus forced to halt, the enemy's cavalry (whose bloodthirsty obstinacy can- not be too severely reprehended) had at length an opportunity of coming to close quarters with the brave Belgians before them; who preferred to encounter the British rather than the French, and at once turning tail rode through the English regi- ments that were behind them, and scattered in all directions. The regiment in fact did not exist any more. It was nowhere. It had no headquarters. Regulus found him- self galloping many miles from the field of action, entirely alone; and whither should he fly for refuge so naturally as to that kitchen and those faithful arms in which Pauline had so often welcomed him ! At some ten o'clock the clinking of a saber might have been heard up the stair of the house where the Osbornes occupied a story in the Continental fashion. A knock might have been heard at the kitchen door; and poor Pauline, come back from church, fainted almost with terror as she opened it and saw before her her haggard hussar. He looked as pale as the midnight dragoon who came to disturb Leonora. Pauline would have screamed, but that her cry would have called her masters, and dis- , covered her friend. She stifled her scream, then, and leading her hero into the kitchen, gave him beer, and the choice bits from the dinner, which Jos had not had the heart to taste. The hussar showed he was no ghost by the prodigious quantity of flesh and beer which he devoured — and during the mouthfuls he told his tale of disaster. His regiment had performed prodigies of courage, and had withstood for a while the onset of the whole French army. But they were overwhelmed at last, as was the whole British army by this time. Ney destroyed each regiment as it came up. The Belgians in vain interposed to prevent the butchery of the English. The Brunswiekers were routed and had fled — their Duke was killed. It was a general debacle. He sought to drown his sorrow for the defeat in floods of beer. Isidor, who had come into the kitchen, heard the conversation, and rushed out to inform his master. "It is all over," he shrieked to Jos. ''Milor Duke is a prisoner ; the Duke of Brunswick is killed ; the British army is in full flight ; there is only one man escaped, and he is in the kitchen now — come and hear him." So Jos tottered into that apartment, where Regulus still sat on the kitchen table, and clung fast to his flagon of beer. In the best French which he could muster, and which was in sooth of a very ungrammatical sort, Jos besought the hus- sar to tell his tale. The disasters deepened as Regulus sjDoke. He was the only man of his regiment not slain on the field. He had seen the Duke of Brunswick fall, the black hussars fly, the Eeossais pounded down by the cannon. "And the— th?" gasped Jos. "Cut in pieces," said the hussar — upon which Pauline cried out, "0 my mistress, ma bonne petite dame," went off fairly into hysterics, and filled the house with her screams. Wild with terror, Mr. Sedley knew not how or where to seek for safety. He rushed from the kitchen back to the sitting-room, and cast an appealing look at Amelia's door, which Mrs. O'Dowd had closed and locked in his face; but he remembered how scornfully the latter had received him, and after pausing and listening for a brief space at the door, he left it, and resolved to go into the street, for the first time that day. So, seizing a candle, he looked about for his gold-laced cap, and found it lying in 374 THE GEEAT TEADITION its usual place, on a console-table, in the anteroom, placed before a mirror at which Jos used to coquet, always giving his side- locks a twirl, and his cap the proper cock over his eye, before he went forth to make appearance in public. Such is the force of habit, that even in the midst of his terror he began mechanically to twiddle with his hair, and arrange the cock of his hat. Then he looked amazed at the pale face in the glass before him, and esiDecially at his mustachios, which had attained a rich growth in the course of near seven weeks, since they had come into the world. They will mistake me for a military man, thought he, remembering Isidor's warning, as to the massacre with which all the defeated Brit- ish army was threatened; and staggering back to his bed-chamber, he began wildly pulling the bell which summoned his valet. Isidor answered that summons. Jos had sunk in a chair — he had torn off his neck- cloths, and turned down his collars, and was sitting with both his hands lifted to his throat. "Coupez-moi, Isidor," shouted he: "vite! Coupez-moi!" Isidor thought for a moment he had gone mad, and that he wished his valet to cut his throat. "Les moustaches/' gasped Jos ; ^'les mous- taches — coupy, rasy, vite!" — his French was of this sort — voluble, as we have said, but not remarkable for grammar. Isidor swept off the mustachios in no time with the razor, and heard with inex- pressible delight his master's orders that he should fetch a hat and a plain coat. "Ne porty ploo — habit militair — honny — honny a voo, prenny dehors" — were Jos's words, — the coat and cap were at last his property. This gift being made, Jos selected a plain black coat and waistcoat from his stock, and put on a large white neckcloth, and a plain beaver. If he could have got a shovel- hat he would have worn it. As it was, you would have fancied he was a flourishing, large parson of the Church of England. "Venny maintenong," he continued, "sweevy — ally — party — dong la roo." And so having said, he plunged swiftly down the stairs of the house, and passed into the street. Although Regulus had vowed that he was the only man of his regiment, or of the allied army, almost, who had escaped be- ing cut to pieces by Ney, it appeared that his statement was incorrect, and that a good number more of the supposed vic- tims had survived the massacre. Many scores of Regulus's comrades had found their way back to Brussels, and — all agree- ing that they had run away — filled the whole town with an idea of the defeat of the allies. The arrival of the French was expected hourly; the panic continued, and prepara- tions for flight went on everywhere. No horses ! thought Jos, in terror. He made Isidor inquire of scores of persons, whether they had any to lend or sell, and his heart sank within him, at the negative answers returned everywhere. Should he take the journey on foot? Even fear could not ren- der that ponderous body so active. Almost all the hotels occupied by the English in Brussels face the Pare, and Jos wandered irresolutely about in this quarter, with crowds of other people, oppressed as he was by fear and curiosity. Some families he saw more happy than himself, having discovered a team of horses, and rattling through the streets in retreat; others again there were whose ease was like his own, and who could not for any bribes or entreaties procure the necessary means of flight. Amongst these would-be fugitives, Jos re- marked the Lady Bareacres and her daugh- ter, who sat in their carriage in the porte- cochere of their hotel, all their imperials packed, and the only drawback to whose flight was the same want of motive power which kept Jos stationary. Rebecca Crawley occupied apartments in this hotel; and had before this period had sundry hostile meetings with the ladies of the Bareacres family. My Lady Bareacres cut Mrs. Crawley on the stairs when they met by chance; and in all places where the latter's name was mentioned, spoke per- severingly ill of her neighbor. The Countess was shocked at the familiarity of General Tufto with the aide-de-camp's wife. The Lady Blanche avoided her as if she had been an infectious disease. Only the Earl him- self kept up a sly occasional acquaintance with her, when out of the jurisdiction of his ladies. Rebecca had her revenge now upon these insolent enemies. It became known in the hotel that Captain Crawley's horses had been left behind, and when the panic be- gan. Lady Bareacres condescended to send her maid to the Captain's wife her Lady- ship's compliments, and a desire to know THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 375 the price of Mrs. Crawley's horses. Mrs. Crawley returned a note with her compli- ments, and an intimation that it was not her custom to transact bargains with the ladies' maids. This curt reply brought the Earl in per- son to Becky's apartment; but he could get no more success than the first ambas- sador. "Send a lady's maid to me/" Mrs. Crawley cried in great anger; "why didn't my Lady Bareacres tell me to go and sad- dle the horses ! Is it her Ladyship that wants to escape, or her Ladyship's femme de chambre?" And this was all the answer that the Earl bore back to his Countess. What will not necessity do ! The Countess herself actually came to wait upon Mrs, Crawley on the failure of her second envoy. She entreated her to name her own price; she even offered to invite Becky to Bareacres House, if the latter would but give her the means of returning to that residence. Mrs. Crawley sneered at her. "I don't want to be waited on by bailiffs in livery," she said; "you will never get back though most probably — at least not you and your diamonds together. The French will have those. They will be here in two hours, and I shall be half-way to Ghent by that time. I would not sell you my horses, no, not for the two largest dia- monds that your Ladyship wore at the ball." Lady Bareacres trembled with rage and terror. The diamonds were sewed into her habit, and secreted in my Lord's padding and boots. "Woman, the diamonds are at the banker's, and I will have the horses," she said. Rebecca laughed in her face. The infuriate Countess went below, and sate in her carriage ; her maid, her courier, and her husband, were sent once more through the town, each to look for cattle; and woe be- tide those who came last! Her ladyship was resolved on departing the very instant the horses arrived from any quarter — ^with her husband or without him. Rebecca had the pleasure of seeing her Ladyship in the horseless carriage, and keeping her eyes fixed upon her, and be- wailing, in the loudest tone of voice, the Countess's perplexities. "Not to be able to get horses !" she said, "and to have all those diamonds sewed into the carriage cushions ! What a prize it will be for the French when they come! — the carriage and the diamonds, I mean; not the lady!" She gave this information to the landlord, to the servants, to the guests, and the innu- merable stragglers about the courtyard. Lady Bareacres could have shot her from the carriage window. It was while enjoy- ing the humiliation of her enemy that Re- becca caught sight of Jos, who made towards her directly he perceived her. That altered, frightened, fat face, told his secret well enough. He too wanted to fly, and was on the look-out for the means of escape. ''He shall buy my horses," thought Rebecca, "and I'll ride the mare." Jos walked up to his friend, and put the question for the hundredth time during the past hour, "Did she know where horses were to be hadf "What, you fly?" said Rebecca, with a laugh. "I thought you were the champion of all the ladies, Mr. Sedley." "I — I'm not a military man," gasped he. "And Amelia? — Who is to protect that poor little sister of yours?" asked Rebecca. "You surely would not desert her ?" "What good can I do her, suppose — sup- pose the enemy arrive?" Jos answered. "They'll spare the women; but my man tells me that they have taken an oath to give no quarter to the men — the dastardly cow- ards." "Horrid!" cried Rebecca, enjoying his perplexity. "Besides, I don't want to desert her," cried the brother. "She shan't be deserted. There is a seat for her in my carriage, and one for you, dear Mrs. Crawley, if you will come; and if we can get horses" — sighed he — "I have two to sell," the lady said. Jos could have flung himself into her arms at the news. "Get the carriage, Isidor," he cried; "we've found them — we have found them !" "My horses never were in harness," added the lady. "Bullfinch would kick the car- riage to pieces, if you put him in the traces." "But he is quiet to ride?" asked the ci- vilian. "As quiet as a lamb, and as fast as a hare," answered Rebecca. "Do you think he is up to my weight?" Jos said. He was already on his back, in imagination, without ever so much as a thought for poor Amelia, What person who loved a horse-speculation could resist such a temptation? In reply, Rebecca asked him to come into her room, whither he followed her quite 376 THE OEEAT TRADITION breathless to conclude the bargain. Jos seldom spent a half -hour in his life which cost him so much money. Rebecca, meas- uring the value of the goods which she had for sale by Jos's eagerness to purchase as well as by the scarcity of the article, put upon her horses a price so prodigious as to make even the civilian draw back. ''She would sell both or neither," she said reso- lutely. Rawdon had ordered her not to part with them for a price less than that which she specified. Lord Bareacres below would give her the same money — and with all her love and regard for the Sedley family, her dear Mr. Joseph must conceive that poor people must live — nobody, in a word, could be more affectionate, but more' firm about the matter of business. Jos ended by agreeing, as might be sup- posed of him. The sum he had to give her was so large that he was obliged to ask for time: so large as to be a little fortune to Rebecca, who rapidly calculated that with this sum and the sale of the residue of Rawdon's effects, and her pension as a widow should he fall, she would now be absolutely independent of the world, and might look her weeds steadily in the face. Once or twice in the day she certainly had herself thought about flying. But her reason gave her better counsel. "Suppose the French do come," thought Becky, "what can they do to a poor officer's widow ? Bah ! The times of sacks and sieges are over. We shall be let to go home quietly, or I may live pleasantly abroad with a snug little in- come." Meanwhile Jos and Igidor went off to the stables to inspect the newly purchased cat- tle. Jos bade his man saddle the horses at once. He would ride away that very night, that very hour. And he left the valet busy in getting the horses ready, and went homewards himself to prepare for his departure. It must be secret. He would go to his chamber by the back entrance. He did not care to face Mrs. O'Dowd and Amelia and own to them that he was about to run. By the time Jos's bargain with Rebecca was completed, and his horses had been vis- ited and examined, it was almost morning once more. But though midnight was long past, there was no rest for the city: the people were up, the lights in the houses flamed, crowds were still about the doors, and the stffeets were busy. Rumors of vari- ous natures went still from mouth to mouth : one report averred that the Prussians had been utterly defeated; another that it was the English who had been attacked and conquered; a third that the latter had held their ground. This last rumor gradually got strength. No Frenchmen had made their appearance. Stragglers had come in from the army bringing reports more and more favorable : at last an aide-de-camp ac- tually reached Brussels with dispatches for the Commandant of the place, who pla- carded presently through the town an offi- cial announcement of the success of the al- lies at Quatre Bras, and the entire repulse of the French under Ney after a six hours' battle. The aide-de-camp must have ar- rived some time while Jos and Rebecca were making their bargain together, or the lat- ter was inspecting his purchase. When he reached his own hotel, he found a score of its numerous inhabitants on the threshold discoursing of the news ; there was no doubt as to its truth. And he went up to com- municate it to the ladies under his charge. He did not think it was necessary to tell them how he had intended to take leave of them, how he had bought horses, and what a price he had paid for them. But success or defeat was a minor mat- ter to them, who had only thought for the safety of those they loved. Amelia, at the news of the victory, became still more agi- tated even than before. She was for going that mornent to the army. She besought her brother with tears to conduct her thither. Her doubts and terrors had reached their paroxysm ; and the poor girl, who for many hours had been plunged into stupor, raved and ran hither and thither in hysteric in- sanity — a piteous sight. No man writhing in pain on the hard-fought field fifteen miles off, where lay, after their struggles, so many of the brave — no man suffered more keenly than this poor harmless vic- tim of the war. Jos could not bear the sight of her pain. He left his sister in the charge of her stouter female companion, and descended once more to the threshold of the hotel, where everybody still lingered, and talked, and waited for more news. It grew to be broad daylight as they stood here, and fresh news began to arrive from the war, brought by men who had been actors in the scene. Wagons and long country carts laden with wounded came rolling into the town; ghastly groans THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCEAOY 377 came from within them, and haggard faces looked up sadly from out of the straw. Jos Sedley was looking at one of these car- riages with a painful curiosity — the moans of the i3eople within were frightful — the wearied horses could hardly pull the cart. "Stop ! Stop !" a feeble voice cried from the straw, and the carriage stopped opposite Mr. Sedley's hotel. "It is George, I know it is !" cried Amelia, rushing in a moment to the balcony, with a pallid face and loose flowing hair. It was not George, however, but it was the next best thing: it was news of him. It was poor Tom Stubble, who had marched out of Brussels so gallantly twenty-four hours before, bearing the colors of the regi- ment, which he had defended very gallantly upon the field. A French lancer had speared the young Ensign in the leg, who fell, still bravely holding to his flag. At the con- clusion of the engagement, a place had been found for the poor boy in a cart, and he had been brought back to Brussels, "Mr, Sedley, Mr. Sedley!" cried the boy faintly, and Jos came up almost frightened at the appeal. He had not at first dis- tinguished who it was that called him. Little Tom Stubble held out his hot and feeble hand. "I'm to be taken in here," he said. "Osborne — and — and Dobbin said I was; and you are to give the man two Napoleons : my mother will pay you." This young fellow's thoughts during the long feverish hours passed in the cart, had been wandering to his father's parsonage, which he had quitted only a few months before, and he had sometimes forgotten his pain in that delirium. The hotel was large, and the people kind, and "all the inmates of the cart were taken in and placed on various couches. The young Ensign was conveyed upstairs to Os- borne's quarters. Amelia and the Major's wife had rushed down to him, when the latter had recognized him from the balcony. You may fancy the feelings of these women when they were told that the day was over, and both their husbands were safe ; in what mute rapture Amelia fell on her good friend's neck, and embraced her; in what grateful passion of prayer she fell on her knees, and thanked the Power which had saved her husband. Our young lady, in her fevered and nervous condition, could have had no more salutary medicine prescribed for her by any physician than that which chance put in her way. She and Mrs. O'Dowd watched in- cessantly by the wounded lad, whose pains were very severe, and in the duty thus forced upon her, Amelia had not time to brood over her personal anxieties, or to give herself up to her own fears and forebodings after her wont. The young patient told in his simple fashion the events of the day, and the actions of our friends of the gallant — th. They had suffered severely. They had lost very many officers and men. The Major's horse had been shot under him as the regi- ment charged, and they all thought that O'Dowd was gone, and that Dobbin had got his majority, until on their return from the charge to their old gTOund, the Major was discovered seated on Pyramus's carcase, re- freshing himself from a ease-bottle. It was Captain Osborne that cut down the French lancer who had speared the Ensign. Amelia turned so pale at the notion, that Mrs. O'Dowd stopped the young Ensign in his story. And it was Captain Dobbin who at the end of the day, though wounded him- self, took up the lad in his arms and car- ried him to the surgeon, and thence to the cart which was to bring him back to Brus- sels. And it was he who promised the driver two louis if he would make his way to Mr. Sedley's hotel in the city; and tell Mrs. Captain Osborne that the action was over, and that her husband was unhurt and well. "Indeed, but he has a good heart that William Dobbin," Mrs. O'Dowd said, "though he is always laughing at me." Young Stubble vowed there was not such another officer in the army, and never ceased his praises of the senior captain, his mod- esty, his kindness, and his admirable cool- ness in the field. To these parts of the con- versation, Amelia lent a very distracted at- tention: it was only when George was spoken of that she listened, and when he was not mentioned, she thought about him. In tending her patient, and in thinking of the wonderful escapes of the day before, her second day passed away not too slowly with Amelia. There was only one man in the army for her : and as long as he was well, it must be owned that its movements interested her little. All the reports which Jos brought from the streets fell very vague- ly on her ears; though they were sufficient to give that timorous gentleman, and many other people then in Brussels, every disquiet. The French had been repulsed certainly, but 378 THE GKEAT TEADITION it was after a severe and doubtful struggle, and with only a division of the French army. The Empei-or, with the main body, was away at Ligny, where he had utterly an- nihilated the Prussians, and was now free to bring his whole force to bear upon the allies. The Duke of Wellington was re- treating upon the capital, and a great bat- tle must be fought under its walls probably, of which the chances were more than doubt- ful. The Duke of Wellington had but twenty thousand British troops on whom he could rely, for the Germans were raw militia, the Belgians disaffected ; and with this hand- ful his Grace had to resist a hundred and fifty thousand men that had broken into Bel- gium under Napoleon. Under Napoleon! What warrior was there, however famous and skillful, that could fight at odds with him? Jos thought of all these things, and trem- bled. So did all the rest of Brussels — where people felt that the fight of the day before was but the prelude to the greater combat which was imminent. One of the armies opposed to the Emperor was scattered to the winds already. The few English that could be brought to resist him would perish at their posts, and the conqueror would pass over their bodies into the city. Woe be to those whom he found there ! Addresses were prepared, public functionaries assembled and debated secretly, apartments were got ready, and trieolored banners and triumphal emblems manufactured, to welcome the ar- rival of His Majesty the Emperor and King. The emigration still continued, and wherever families could find means of de- parture, they fled. When Jos, on the after- noon of the 17th of June, went to Rebecca's hotel, he found that the great Bareacres car- riage had at length rolled away from the porte-cochere. The Earl had procured a pair of horses somehow, in spite of Mrs. Crawley, and was rolling on the road to Ghent. Louis the Desired was getting ready his portmanteau in that city too. It seemed as if Misfortune was never tired of worry- ing into motion that unwieldly exile. Jos felt that the delay of yesterday had been only a respite, and that his dearly bought horses must of a surety be put into requisition. His agonies were very severe all this day. As long as there was an Eng- lish army between Brussels and Napoleon, there was no need of immediate flight; but he had his horses brought from their distant stables, to the stables in the court-yard of the hotel where he lived ; so that they might be under his own eyes, and beyond the risk of violent abduction. Isidor watched the stable-door constantly, and had the horses saddled, to be ready for the start. He longed intensely for that event. After the reception of the previous day, Rebecca did not care to come near her dear Amelia. . She clipped the bouquet which George had brought her, and gave fresh water to the flowers, and read over the let- ter which he had sent her. "Poor wretch," she said, twirling round the little bit of paper in her fingers, "how I could crush her with this! — And it is for a thing like this that she must break her heart, forsooth — for a man who is stupid — a coxcomb — and who does not care for her. My poor good Rawdon is worth ten of this creature." And then she fell to thinking what she should do if — if anything happened to poor good Raw- don, and what a great piece of luck it was that he had left his horses behind. In the course of this day too, Mrs. Craw- ley, who saw not without anger the Bare- acres party drive off, bethought her of the precaution which the Countess had taken, and did a little needlework for her own ad- vantage; she stitched away the major part of her trinkets, bills, and banknotes about her person, and so prepared, was ready for any event — to fly if she thought flt, or to stay and welcome the conqueror, were he Englishman or Frenchman. And I am not sure that she did not dream that night of becoming a duchess and Madame la Mare- chale, while Rawdon, wrapped in his cloak, and making his bivouac under the rain at Mount Saint John, was thinking, with all the force of his heart, about the little wife whom he had left behind him. The next day was a Sunday. And Mrs. Major O'Dowd had the satisfaction of see- ing both her patients refreshed in health and spirits by some rest which they had taken during the night. She herself had slept on a great chair in Amelia's room, ready to wait upon her poor friend or the Ensign, should either need her nursing. When morning came, this robust woman went back to the house where she and her Major had their billet ; and here performed an elaborate and splendid toilet, befitting the day. And it is very possible that whilst alone in that chamber, which her husband had inhabited, and where his cap still lay on THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOGEACY 379 the pillow, and his cane stood in the corner, one prayer at least was sent up to Heaven for the welfare of the brave soldier, Michael O'Dowd. When she returned she brought her prayer-book with her, and her uncle the Dean's famous book of sermons, out of which she never failed to read every Sab- bath ; not understanding all, haply, not pro- nouncing many of the words aright, which were long and abstruse — for the Dean was a learned man, and loved long Latin words — • but with great gravity, vast emphasis, and with tolerable correctness in the main. How often has my Mick listened to these sermons, she thought, and me reading in the cabin of a calm ! She proposed to resume this exer- cise on the present day, with Amelia and the wounded Ensign for a congregation. The same service was read on that day in twenty thousand churches at the same hour ; and millions of British men and women, on their knees, implored protection of the Father of all. They did not hear the noise which dis- turbed our little congregation at Brussels. Much louder than that which had inter- rupted them two days previously, as Mrs. O'Dowd was reading the service in her best voice, the cannon of Waterloo began to roar. When Jos heard that dreadful ^ound, he made up his mind that he would bear this perpetual recurrence of terrors no longer, and would fly at once. He rushed into the sick man's room, where our three friends had paused in their prayers, and further interrupted them by a passionate appeal to Amelia. "I can't stand it any more, Emmy," he said ; "I won't stand it ; and you must come with me. I have bought a horse for you — never mind at what price — and you must dress and come with me, and ride behind Isidor." "God forgive me, Mr. Sedley, but you are no better than a coward," Mrs. O'Dowd said, laying down the book. "I say come, Amelia," the civilian went on ; "never mind what she says ; why are we to stop here and be butchered by the French- men?" "You forget the -^ — th, my boy," said the little Stubble, the wounded hero, from his bed — "and— and you won't leave me, will you, Mrs. O'Dowd?" "No, my dear fellow," said she, going up and kissing the boy. "No harm shall come to you while I stand by. I don't budge till I get the word from Mick. A pretty figure I'd be, wouldn't I, stuck behind that chap on a pillion?" This image caused the young j^atient to burst out laughing in his bed, and even made Amelia smile. "I don't ask her," Jos shouted out — "I don't ask that — that Irish- woman, but you, Amelia; once for all, will you come?" "Without my husband, Joseph?" Amelia said, with a look of wonder, and gave her hand to the Major's wife. Jos's patience was exhausted. "Good-bye, then," he said, shaking his fist in a rage, and slamming the door by which he retreated. And this time he really gave his order for march: and mounted in the courtyard. Mrs. O'Dowd heard the clat- tering hoofs of the horses as they issued from the gate; and looking on, made many scornful remarks on poor Joseph as he rode down the street with Isidor after him in the laced cap. The horses, which had not been exercised for some days, were lively, and sprang about the street. Jos, a clumsy and timid horseman, did not look to advantage in the saddle. "Look at him, Amelia dear, driving into the parlor window. Such a bull in a china-shop I never saw." And presently the pair of riders disappeared at a canter down the street leading in the direc- tion of the Ghent road, Mrs. O'Dowd pur- suing them with a fire of sarcasm so long as they were in sight. All that day, from morning until past sunset, the cannon never ceased to roar. It. was dark when the cannonading stopped all of a sudden. All of us have read of what occurred dur- ing that interval. The tale is in every Englishman's mouth: and you and I, who were children when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing and re- counting the history of that famous action. Its remembrance rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a cdhtest, ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alternations of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited nations might engage. Centuries hence, we French- 380 ^HE GREAT TRADITION men and Englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still, carrying out bravely the Devil's code of honor. All our friends took their share and fought like men in the great field. All day long, whilst the women were praying ten miles away, the lines of the dauntless English in- fantry were receiving and repelling the furious charges of the French horsemen. Guns which were heard at Brussels were plowing up their ranks, and comrades falling, and the resolute survivors closing in. Towards evening, the attack of the French, repeated and resisted so bravely, slackened in its fury. They had other foes besides the British to engage, or were preparing for a final onset. It came at last : the columns of the Imperial Guard marched up the hill of Saint Jean, at length and at once to sweep the English from the height which they had maintained all day, and spite of all: un- scared by the thunder of the artillery, which hurled death from the English line — the dark rolling column pressed on and up the hill. It seemed almost to crest the eminence, when it began to wave and falter. Then it stopped, still facing the shot. Then at last the Eng- lish troops rushed from the post from which no enemy had been able to dislodge them, and the Guard turned and fled. No more firing was heard at Brussels — the pursuit rolled miles away. Darkness came down on the field and city ; and Amelia was praying for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart. Waterloo william wordsworth The Bard — whose soul is meek as dawning day, Yet trained to judgments righteously severe, Fervid, yet conversant with holy fear. As recognizing one Almighty sway : He — ^whose experienced eye can pierce the array Of past events ; to whom, in vision clear, The aspiring heads of future things appear. Like mountain-tops whose mists have rolled away — Assoiled from all encumbrance of our time, He only, if such breathe, in strains devout Shall comprehend this victory sublime ; Shall worthily rehearse the hideous rout, The triumph hail, which from their peaceful clime Angels might welcome with a choral shout! [1816] II OCCASIONED BY THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO (The last six lines intended for an Inscrip- tion.) Intrepid sons of Albion ! not by you Is life despised ; ah no, the spacious earth Ne'er saw a race who held, by right of birth, So many objects to which love is due : Ye slight not life — to God and Nature true ; But death, becoming death, is dearer far. When duty bids you bleed in open war : Hence hath your prowess quelled that impious crew. Heroes ! — for instant sacrifice prepared ; Yet filled with ardor and on triumph bent 'Mid direst shocks of mortal accident — To you who fell, and you whom slaughter spared To guard the fallen, and consummate the event. Your Country rears this sacred Monument ! [1816] Moscow WILLIAM WORDSWORTH By Moscow self -devoted to a blaze Of dreadful sacrifice ; by Russian blood Lavished in fight with desperate hardihood; The unfeeling Elements no claim shall raise To rob our Human-nature of just praise For what she did and suffered. Pledges sure Of a deliverance absolute and pure She gave, if Faith might tread the beaten ways Of Providence. But now did the Most High Exalt his still small voice; — to quell that Host Gathered his power, a manifest ally ; He, whose heaped waves confounded the proud boast Of Pharoah, said to Famine, Snow, and Frost, "Finish the strife by deadliest victory!" [1822] THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 381 Political Greatness percy bysshe shelley Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame. Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame ; Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts, History is but the shadow of their shame. Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts As to oblivion their blind millions fleet. Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit By force or custom ? Man who man would be. Must rule the empire of himself ; in it Must be supreme, establishing his throne On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy Of hopes and fears, being himself alone. [1821] OZYMANDIAS PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold com- mand, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive (stamped on these life- less things), The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed : And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair !" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. [1819] III. THE FAILUEE OF REVOLUTION: SOLUTIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL PROBLEIVCS 1. THE RETURN TO NATURE The Poet WILLIAM WORDSWORTH If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven, Then, to the measure of that heaven-born light. Shine, Poet ! in thy place, and be content : — The stars pre-eminent in magnitude. And they that from the zenith dart their beams, (Visible though they be to half the earth, Though half a sphere be conscious of their brightness) Are yet of no diviner origin, No purer essence, than the one that burns. Like an untended watch-fire, on the ridge Of some dark mountain: or than those which seem Humbly to hang, like twinkling winter lamps, Among the branches of the leafless trees ; All are the undying offspring of one Sire: Then, to the measure of the light vouch- safed. Shine, Poet ! in thy place, and be content. n A Poet! — He hath put his heart to school. Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff Which Art hath lodged within his hand — must laugh By precept only, and shed tears by rule. Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff. And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool, In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph. How does the Meadow-flower its bloom un- fold? Because the lovely little flower is free Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold ; And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree Comes not by casting in a formal mould. But from its own divine vitality. 382 THE GREAT TRADITION The Poet's Mission william wordsworth [From The Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, 1798, 1815] Taking up the subject, then, upon gen- eral grounds, let me ask what is meant by the word "poet"? What is a poet? To whom does he address himself? And what language is to be expected from him? He is a man speaking to men : a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are sup- posed to be common among mankind ; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and pas- sions as manifested in the goings-on of the universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them. To these qualities he has added, a disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present; an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far from being the same as those produced by real events, yet (especially in those parts of the general sympathy which are pleasing and delightful) do more nearly resemble the passions produced by real events, than anything which, from the mo- tions of their own minds merely, other men are accustomed to feel in themselves; whence, and from practice, he has acquired a greater readiness and power in express- ing what he thinks and feels, and especially those thoughts and feelings which, by his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind, arise in him without immediate external excitement. But, whatever portion of this faculty we may suppose even the greatest poet to pos- sess, there cannot be a doubt but that the language which it will suggest to him must often, in liveliness and truth, fall far short of that which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual pressure of those passions, certain shadows of which the poet thus pro- duces, or feels to be produced, in himsel£ However exalted a notion we would wish to cherish of the bharaeter of a poet, it is obvious, that, while he describes and imi- tates passions, his employment is in some degree mechanical, compared with the free- dom and power of real and substantial ac- tion and suffering. So that it will be the wish of the poet to bring his feelings near to those of the persons whose feelings he describes, nay, for short spaces of time, per- haps, to let himself slip into an entire de- lusion, and even confound and identify his own feelings with theirs ; modifying only the language which is thus suggested to him by a consideration that he describes for a particular purpose, that of giving pleas- ure. Here, then, he will apply the prin- ciple of selection which has been already insisted upon. He will depend upon this for removing what would otherwise be pain- ful or disgusting in the passion; he will feel that there is no necessity to trick out or to elevate nature: and, the more indus- triously he applies this principle, the deeper will be his faith that no words, which his fancy or imagination can suggest, will be to be compared with those which are the emanations of reality and truth. But it may be said by those who do not object to the general spirit of these remarks, that, as it is impossible for the poet to pro- duce upon all occasions language as ex- quisitely fitted for the passion as that which the real passion itself suggests, it is proper that he should consider himself as in the situation of a translator, who does not scruple to substitute excellencies of another kind for those which are unattainable by him; and endeavors occasionally to surpass his original in order to make some amends for the general inferiority to which he feels that he must submit. But this would be to encourage idleness and unmanly despair. Further, it is the language of men who speak of what they do not understand; who talk of poetry as of a matter of amusement and idle pleasure; who will converse with us as gravely about a taste for poetry, as they express it, as if it were a thing as in- different as a taste for rope-dancing, or Frontiniae or Sherry. Aristotle, I have been told, has said that poetry is the most philo- sophic of all writing; it is so: its object is truth, not individual and local, but general, and operative; not standing upon external testimony, but carried alive into the heart by passion ; truth which is its own testimony, which gives competence and confidence to the tribunal to which it appeals, and re- ceives them from the same tribunal. Poetry is the image of man and nature. The ob- stacles which stand in the way of the fidel- THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 383 ity of the biographer and historian and of their consequent utility, are incalculably greater than those which are to be encoun- tered by the poet who comprehends the dig- nity of his art. The poet writes under one restriction only, namely, that of the neces- sity of giving immediate pleasure to a hu- man being possessed of that information which may be expected from him, not as a lawyer, a physician, a mariner, an astron- omer, or a natural philosopher, but as a man. Except this one restriction, there is no object standing between the poet and the image of things; between this, and the biographer and historian there are a thou- sand. Nor let this necessity of producing im- mediate pleasure be considered as a degra- dation of the poet's art. It is far otherwise. It is an acknowledgment of the beauty of the universe, an acknowledgTQent the more sincere, because not formal, but indirect; it is a task light and easy to him who looks at the world in the spirit of love: further, it is a homage paid to the native and naked dignity of man, to the grand elementary principle of pleasure, by which he knows, and feels, and lives, and moves. We have no sympathy but what is propagated by pleasure : I would not be misunderstood ; but wherever we symjDathize with pain, it will be found that the symjDathy is produced and carried on by subtle combinations with pleasure. We have no knowledge, that is, no general principles drawn from the con- templation of particular facts, but what has been built up by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone. The man of science, the chemist and mathematician, whatever diffi- culties and disgusts they may have had to struggle with, know and feel this. How- ever painful may be the objects with which the anatomist's knowledge is connected, he feels that his knowledge is pleasure; and where he has no pleasure he has no knowl- edge. What then does the poet? He con- siders man and the objects that surround him as acting and reacting upon each other, so as to produce an infinite complexity of pain and pleasure; he considers man in his own nature and in his ordinary life as contemplating this with a certain quan- tity of immediate knowledge, with certain convictions, intuitions, and deductions, which from habit acquire the quality of in- tuitions; he considers him as looking upon this complex scene of ideas and sensations. and finding everywhere objects that immedi- ately excite in him sympathies which, from the necessities of his nature, are accompa- nied by an overbalance of enjoyment. To this knowledge which all men carry about with them, and to these sympathies in which without any other discipline than that of our daily life, we are fitted to take delight, the poet principally directs his attention. He considers man and nature as essentially adapted to each other, and the mind of man as naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting qualities of nature. And thus the poet, prompted by this feel- ing of pleasure which accompanies him through the whole course of his studies, con- verses with general nature with affections akin to those, which, through labor and length of time, the man of science has raised up in himself, by conversing with those par- ticular parts of nature which are the ob- jects of his studies. The knowledge both of the poet and the man of science is pleas- ure; but the knowledge of the one cleaves to us as a necessary jDart of our existence, our natural and inalienable inheritance ; the other is a personal and individual acquisi- tion, slow to come to us, and by no habitual and direct sympathy connecting us with our fellow-beings. The man of science seeks truth as a remote and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude : the poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge ; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science. Emphatically may it be said of the poet, as Shakspere hath said of man, "that he looks before and after." He is the rock of defence of human nature; an up- holder and preserver, carrying everywhere with him relationship and love. In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs, in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things violently destroyed, the poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time. The objects of the poet's thoughts are every- where; though the eyes and senses of man are, it is true, his favorite guides, yet he will follow wheresoever he can find an at- mosphere of sensation in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all 384 THE GREAT TEADITION knowledge — it is as immortal as the heart of man. If the labors of men of science should ever create any material revolution, direct or indirect, in our condition, and in the impressions which we habitually receive, the poet will sleep then no more than at present, but he will be ready to follow the steps of the man of science, not only in those general indirect effects, but he will be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the objects of the science itself. The re- motest discoveries of the chemist, the botan- ist, or mineralogist, will be as proper ob- jects of the poet's art as any upon which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to us, and the relations under which they are contemplated by the followers of these respective sciences shall be manifestly and palpably material to us as enjoying and suf- fering beings. If the time should ever come when what is now called science, thus familiarized to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man. — It is not, then, to be supposed that any one, who holds that sublime notion of poetry which I have attempted to convey, will break in upon the sanctity and truth of his pictures by transitory and accidental ornaments, and endeavor to excite admiration of himself by arts, the necessity of which must manifestly depend upon the assumed meanness of his subject. The Divine Life in Man and Nature william wordsworth Expostulation and Reply "Why, William, on that old gray stone, Thus for the length of half a day, Why, William, sit you thus alone, And dream your time away? "Where are your books'? — that light be- queathed To Beings else forlorn and blind! Up ! up ! and drink the spirit breathed From dead men to their kind. "You look round on your Mother Earth, As if she for no purpose bore you; As if you were her first-born birth, And none had lived before you!" One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake. When life was sweet, I know not why. To me my good friend Matthew spake, And thus I made reply : "The eye — it cannot choose but see; We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against or with our will. "Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness. "Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come. But we must still be seeking? " — Then ask not wherefore, here, alone. Conversing as I may, I sit upon this old gray stone. And dream my time away." Lines Composed a Few Miles Above TiNTERN Abbey Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters ! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain- springs With a soft, inland murmur. — Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, ^ That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and con- nect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view i*^ These plots of cottage-ground,, these or- chard tufts. Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose them- selves 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines -^^ Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms. Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, ^^ THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 385 Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire The hermit sits alone. These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din 25 Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration : — feelings too 30 Of unremembered pleasure : such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life. His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, 35 To them I may have owed another gift. Of aspect more sublime ; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery. In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, ^0 Is lightened : — that serene and blessed mood In which the affections gently lead us on, — Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep ^5 In body, and become a living soul : While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy. We see into the life of things. If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh ! how oft — 50 In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world. Have hung upon the beatings of my heart — How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, 55 sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee ! And now, with gleams of half-extin- guished thought. With many recognitions dim and faint. And somewhat of a sad perplexity, ^o The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, ^5 Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first 1 came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led : more like a man "^^ Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days. And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all. — I cannot paint '5 What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock. The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colors, and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, ^o That had no need of a remoter charm. By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is past. And all its aching joys are now no more. And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this ^^ Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would be- lieve. Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing often- times 90 The still, sad music of humanity. Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime, 95 Of something far more deeply interfused. Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns. And the round ocean and the living air. And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; A motion and a spirit, that impels lOO All thinking things, all objects of all thought. And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods. And mountains ; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world 105 Of eye, and ear, — ^both what they half cre- ate. And what perceive; well pleased to recog- nize In nature and the language of the sense. The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse. The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 386 THE GEEAT TRADITION 111 Of all my moral being. Nor perchance, If it were not thus taught, should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay: For thou art with me here upon the banks Of this fair river; thou my dearest friend, ^^^ My dear, dear friend; and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, ^^o My dear, dear sister! and this, prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her ; 'tis her privilege. Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy : for she can so inform ^25 The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues. Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all _ _ 130 The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we be- hold Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; ^^° And let the misty mountain-winds be free To blow against thee: and, in after years. When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, i^ Thy memory be as a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then. If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief. Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, 1^5 And these my exhortations ! Nor, per- chance — If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence — wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful stream i^° We stood together; and that I, so long A worshiper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love — oh! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then for- get, 15^ That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake ! ODE Intimations of Immortality "The Child is father of the Man ; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety." There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight. To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light. The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore ; — Turn wheresoe'er I may. By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. II The Rainbow comes and goes. And lovely is the Rose; The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare ; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth ; But yet I knoAv, where'er I go. That there hath past away a glory from the earth. Ill Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young Iambs bound As to the tabor's sound, , To me alone there came a thought of grief; A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong : The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep ; No more shall grief of mine the season wrong ; THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCEACY 387 I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every beast keep holiday; — Thou child of joy. Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shepherd-boy! IV Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make ; I see The heavens laugh with you in your ju- bilee : My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal. The fullness of your bliss, I feel — I feel it all. Oh evil day ! if I were sullen While Earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning, And the children are culling On every side. In a thousand valleys far and wide. Fresh flowers ; while the sun shines warm. And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm: — I hear, I hear, with joy I hear ! —But there's a tree, of many, one, A single field which I have looked upon. Both of them speak of something that is gone: The pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat : Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream? V Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting. And Cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness. And not in utter nakedness. But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home : Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy ; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away. And fade into the light of common day. VI Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a mother's mind, And no unworthy aim, The homely nurse doth all she can To make her foster-child, her inmate Man, Forget the glories he hath known. And that imperial palace whence he came. vii Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years' darling of a pigmy size! See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses. With light upon him from his father's eyes! See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learned art; A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral ; And this hath now his heart. And unto this he frames his song : Then will he fit his tongue To dialogues of business, love, or strife ; But it will not be long Ere this be thrown aside. And with new joy and pride The little Actor eons another part; Filling from time to time his "humorous stage" With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, That Life brings with her in her equipage; As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation. VIII Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy soul's immensity; Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind, 388 THE GREAT TRADITION That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, Haunted forever by the eternal mind, — Mighty prophet ! Seer blest ! On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ; Thou, over whom thy immortality Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, A presence which is not to be put by; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and. deep almost as life! IX joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive ! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest — Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast : — Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things. Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal na- ture Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised : But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may. Are yet the fountain light of all our day. Are yet a master light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake. To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad en- deavor. Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy. Can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, ■ Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore. And hear the mighty waters rolling ever- more. Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! And let the young lambs bound As to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts today Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower ; Vv^e will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; . In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. XI And ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might ; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual SAvay. I love the Brooks which down their chan- nels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet ; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 389 Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. The World Is Too Much With Us The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers : Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon ; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers ; For this, for everything, we are out of tune ; It moves us not. — Great God ! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. To TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men! Whether the whistling rustic tend his plow Within thy hearing, or thy head be now Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den; — miserable chieftain ! where and when Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow : Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left be- hind Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies; There's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee ; thou hast great allies ; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind. Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont 1 was thy neighbor once, thou rugged Pile ! Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: I saw thee every day; and all the while Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea. So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! So like, so very like, was day to day! Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there ; It trembled, but it never passed away. How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep ; No mood, which season takes away, or brings : I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things. Ah! then, if mine had been the Painter's hand, To express what then I saw; and add the gleam. The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the Poet's dream; I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile Amid a world how different from this ! Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine Of peaceful years ; a chronicle of heaven ; — Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine The very sweetest had to thee been given. A Picture had it been of lasting ease, Elysian quiet, without toil or strife ; No motion but the moving tide, a breeze, Or merely silent Nature's breathing life. Such, in the fond illusion of my heart. Such Picture would I at that time have made : And seen the soul of truth in every part, A steadfast peace that might not be be- trayed. So once it would have been, — 'tis so no more ; I have submitted to a new control : A power is gone, which nothing can restore ; A deep distress hath humanized my Soul. Not for a moment could I now behold A smiling sea, and be what I have been: The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old; This, which I know, I speak with mind serene. Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend, 390 THE GEEAT TEADITION If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore, This work of thine I blame not, but com- mend; This sea in anger, and that dismal shore. 'tis a passionate Work! — yet wise and well, Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labors in the deadly swell. This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear! And this huge Castle, standing here sub- lime, 1 love to see the look with which it braves. Cased in the unfeeling armor of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, and tramp- ling waves. Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind! Such happiness, wherever it be known, Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind. But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer. And frequent sights of what is to be borne ! Such sights, or worse, as are before me here. — Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. Ode to Duty Stern Daughter of the Voice of God! Duty! if that name thou love, Who art a light to guide, a rod ' To check the erring, and reprove ; Thou who art victory and law When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free; And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity ! There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them ; who, in love and truth, Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth; Glad Hearts ! without reproach or blot ; Who do thy work, and know it not : Oh! if through confidence misplaced They fail, thy saving arms dread Power! around them cast. Serene will be our days and bright And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light, And joy its own security. And they a blissful course may hold Even now, who, not unwisely bold, Live in the spirit of this creed; Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need. I, loving freedom, and untried, No sport of every random gust. Yet being to myself a guide. Too blindly have reposed my tr ist : And oft, when in my heart was heard Thy timely mandate, I deferred The task, in smoothe- walks to st^ay; But thee I now would parve more strictly, if I may. Through no disturbance of my soul, Or strong compunction in me wrought, I supplicate for thy control; But in the quietness of thought : Me this unchartered freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance-desires : My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose that ever is the same. Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And fragrance in thy footing treads ; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. To humbler functions, awful Power! I call thee: I myself commend Unto thy guidance from this hour; Oh, let my weakness have an end' Give unto me, made lowly wise. The spirit of self-sacrifice ; The confidence of reason give; And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live! The Mountain Echo Yes, it was the mountain Echo, Solitary, clear, profound. Answering to the shouting Cuckoo, Giving to her sound for sound ! Unsolicited reply To a babbling wanderer sent; Like her ordinary cry, Like — but oh, how different! Hears not also mortal Life? Hear not we, unthinking Creatures! THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 391 Slaves of folly, love, or strife — Voices of two different natures? Have not we too? — yes, we have Answers, and we know not whence; Echoes from beyond the grave, Recognized intelligence! Such rebounds our inward ear Catches sometimes from afar — Listen, ponder, hold them dear; For of God, — of God they are. To A Skylark Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound ? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still ! Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; A privacy of glorious light is thine ; Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Of harmony, with instinct more divine ; Type of the wise who soar, but never roam ; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home! Laodamia "With sacrifice before the rising morn Vows have I made by fruitless hope in- spired ; And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I re- quired : Celestial pity I again implore; — Restore him to my sight — great Jove, re- store !" So speaking, and by fervent love endowed With faith, the Suppliant heavenward lifts her hands; While, like the sun emerging from a cloud, Her countenance brightens — and her eye ex- pands ; 10 Her bosom heaves and spreads, her stature grows ; And she expects the issue in repose. terror! what hath she perceived? — joy! What doth she look on? — ^whom doth she behold? Her Hero slain upon the beach of Troy ? ^^ His vital presence ? his corporeal mold ? It is — if sense deceive her not — 'tis He ! And a God leads him, winged Mercury ! Mild Hermes spake — and touched her with his wand That calms all fear: "Such grace hath crowned thy prayer, ^0 Laodamia ! that at Jove's command Thy Husband walks the paths of upper air : He comes to tarry with thee three hours' space ; Accept the gift, behold him face to face !" Forth sprang the impassioned Queen her Lord to clasp ; ^5 Again that consummation she essayed ; But unsubstantial Form eludes her grasp As often as that eager grasp was made. The Phantom parts — but parts to re-unite, And reassume his place before her sight. ^^ "Protesilaus, lo ! thy guide is gone ! Confirm, I pray, the vision with thy voice: This is our palace, — yonder is thy throne ; Speak, and the floor thou tread'st on will •rejoice. Not to appal me have the gods bestowed ^5 This precious boon ; and blest a sad abode." "Great Jove, Laodamia ! doth not leave His gifts imperfect : — Specter though I be, I am not sent to scare thee or deceive ; But in reward of thy fidelity. '^ And something also did my worth obtain ; For fearless virtue bringeth boundless gain. "Thou knowest, the Delphic oracle foretold That the first Greek who touched the Trojan strand Should die; but me the threat could not withhold : 45 A generous cause a victim did demand ; And forth I leapt upon the sandy plain; A self -devoted chief — by Hector slain." "Supreme of Heroes — bravest, noblest, best! Thy matchless courage I bewail no more, ^ Which then, when tens of thousands were deprest By doubt, propelled thee to the fatal shore ; Thou found'st — and I forgive thee — here thou art — A nobler counselor than my poor heart. 392 THE GEEAT TEADITION "But thou, though capable of sternest deed, ^5 Wert kind as resolute, and good as brave ; And he, whose power restores thee, hath decreed Thou shouldst elude the malice of the grave : Redundant are thy locks, thy lips as fair As when their breath enriched Thessalian air. 60 "No Specter greets me, — no vain Shadow this; Come, blooming Hero, place thee by my side ! Give, on this well-known couch, one nuptial kiss To me, this day, a second time thy bride!" Jove frowned in heaven: the conscious Pareee threw ^^ Upon those roseate lips a Stygian hue. "This visage tells thee that my doom is past : Nor should the change be mourned, even if the joys Of sense were able to return as fast And surely as they vanish. Earth destroys ^o Those raptures duly — Erebus disdains : Cahn pleasures there abide — majestic pains. "Be taught, faithful Consort, to control Rebellious passion : for the Gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul ; '^ A fervent, not ungovernable, love. Thy transports moderate ; and meekly mourn When I depart, for brief is my sojourn — " "Ah wherefore ? — Did not Hercules by force Wrest from the guardian Monster of the tomb 80 Alcestis, a reanimated corse. Given back to dwell on earth in vernal bloom ? Medea's spells dispersed the weight of years, And -35son stood a youth 'mid youthful peers. "The Gods to us are merciful — and they ^^ Yet further may relent : for mightier far Than strength of nerve and sinew, or the sway Of magic potent over sun and star, Is love, though oft to agony distrest. And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast. ^o "But if thou goest, I follow—" "Peace !" he said, — She looked upon him and was calmed and cheered ; The ghastly color from his lips had fled ; In his deportment, shape, and mien, ap- peared Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, ^5 Brought from a pensive though a happy place. He spake of love, such love as Spirits feel In worlds whose course is equable and pure ; No fears to beat, away — no strife to heal — The past unsighed for, and the future sure ; Spake of heroic arts in graver mood 1^1 Revived, with finer harmony pursued ; Of all that is most beauteous — imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams. An ampler ether, a diviner air, 105 And fields invested with purpureal gleams; Climes which the sun, who sheds the bright- est day Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey. Yet there the Soul shall enter which hath earned That privilege by virtue. — "111," said he, "The end of man's existence I discerned. Who from ignoble games and revelry 112 Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight. While tears were thy best pastime, day and night ; "And while my youthful peers before my eyes us (Each hero following his peculiar bent) Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise By martial sports, — or, seated in the tent, Chieftains and kings in council were de- tained ; What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained. "The wished-for wind was given: — I then revolved 121 The oracle, upon the silent sea; And, if no worthier led the way, resolved That, of a thousand vessels, rnine should be The foremost prow in pressing to the strand, — 125 Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand. "Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the p&ng When of thy^ loss I thought, beloved Wife ! On thee too fondly did my memory hang. And on the joys we shared in mortal life, — The paths which we had trod — these foun- tains, flowers ; 131 THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 393 My new-planned cities, and unfinished tow- ers. "But should suspense permit the Foe to cry, 'Behold they tremble ! — haughty their array, Yet of their number no one dares to die"?' In soul I swept the indignity away : l^^ Old frailties then recurred: — but lofty thought. In act embodied, my deliverance wrought. "And Thou, though strong in love, art all too weak In reason, in self-government too slow; i*o I counsel thee by fortitude to seek Our blest re-union in the shades below. The invisible world with thee hath sym- pathized ; Be thy affections raised and solemnized. "Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend — Seeking a higher object. Love was given, Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end; "7 For this the passion to excess was driven — That self might be annulled : her bondage prove The fetters of a dream opposed to love." — Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes reap- pears ! 151 Round the dear Shade she would have clung — 'tis vain: The hours are past — too brief had they been years ; And him no mortal effort can detain: Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly day, 155 He through the portal takes his silent way, .And on the palace-floor a lifeless corse she lay. Thus, all in vain exhorted and reproved, She perished ; and, as for a wilful crime, By the just gods whom no weak pity moved, 160 Was doomed to wear out her appointed time, Apart from happy ghosts, that gather flowers Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers. — Yet tears to human suffering are due; And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown Are mourned by man, and not by man alone, 1^6 As fondly he believes. — Upon the side Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained) A knot of spiry trees for ages grew From out the tomb of him for whom she died ; 170 And ever, when such stature they had gained That Ilium's walls were subject to their view. The trees' tall summits withered at the sight ; A constant interchange of growth and blight! Character of the Happy Warrior Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be? It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought : 5 Whose high endeavors are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright : Who, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, l*^ But makes his moral being his prime care; Who doomed tc go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed,- miserable train! Turns his necessity to glorious gain; In face of these doth exercise a power 15 Which is our human nature's highest dower ; Controls them and subdues, transmutes, be- reaves. Of their bad influence, and their good re- ceives ; By objects, which might force the soul to abate Her feeling, rendered more compassionate; Is placable — because occasions rise ^i So often that demand such sacrifice; More skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure, As tempted more ; more able to endure. As more exposed to suffering and distress; 25 Thence, also, more alive to tenderness. 'T is he whose law is reason ; who depends Upon that law as on the best of friends ; Whence, in a state where men are tempted still To evil for a guard against worse ill, ^^ And what in quality or act is best Doth seldom on a right foundation rest, He labors good on good to fix, and owes To virtue every triumph that he knows; Who, if he rise to station of command, ^5 Rises by open means; and there will stand On honorable terms, or else retire, And in himself possess his own desire; 394 THE GREAT TRADITION Who comprehends his trust, and to the same Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim ; 4u And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state ; Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall. Like showers of manna, if they come at all: Whose powers shed round him in the com- mon strife, ^ Or mild concerns of ordinary life, A constant influence, a peculiar grace; But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind, 50 Is happy as a Lover; and attired With sudden brightness, like a Man in- spired ; And, through the heat of conflict keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he fore- saw; Or if an unexpected call succeed, ^^ Come when it will, is equal to the need : He who, though thus endued as with a sense And faculty for storm and turbulence. Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans To homef elt pleasures and to gentle scenes ; ^o Sweet images ! which, wheresoe'er he be, Are at his heart ; and such fidelity It is his darling passion to approve; More brave for this, that he hath much to love : — 'T is, finally, the Man, who, lifted high 65 Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye. Or left unthought-of in obscurity, — • Who, with a toward or untoward lot. Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not, Plays, in the many games of life, that one '^^ Where what he most doth value must be won: Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray ; Who, not content that former worth stand fast, Looks forward, persevering to the last, '^^ From well to better, daily self-surpast : Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth For ever, and to noble deeds give birth. Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame. And leave a dead unprofitable name, ^^ Finds comfort in himself and in his cause; And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws His breath in confidence of Heaven's ap- plause : This is the happy Warrior ; this is He That every Man in arms should wish to be. 85 On Universal Education [From The Excursion, Book IX, 1815] "0 for the coming of that glorious time When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth And best protection, this imperial Realm, While she exacts allegiance, shall admit An obligation, on her part, to teach 5 Them who are born to serve her and obey; Binding herself by statute to secure For all the children whom her soil maintains The rudiments of letters, and inform The mind with moral and religious truth, ^o Both understood and practiced, — so that none, However destitute, be left to droop By timely culture unsustained ; or run Into a wild disorder; or be forced To drudge through a weary life without the help -15 Of intellectual implements and tools; A savage horde among the civilized, A servile band among the lordly free ! This sacred right, the lisping babe proclaims To be inherent in him, by Heaven's will, 20 For the protection of his innocence; And the rude boy — who, having overpast The sinless age, by conscience is enrolled, Yet mutinously knits his angry brow. And lifts his wilful hand on mischief bent, ^6 Or turns the godlike faculty of speech To impious use — by process indirect Declares his due, while he makes known his need. — This sacred right is fruitlessly announced, This universal plea in vain addressed, 30 To eyes and ears of parents who themselves Did, in the time of their necessity. Urge it in vain ; and, therefore, like a prayer That from the humblest flooir ascends to heaven, ^^ It mounts to reach the State's parental ear ; Who, if indeed she own a mother's heart. And be not most unfeelingly devoid Of gratitude to Providence, will grant The unquestionable good — which, England, safe From interference of external force, ^ May grant at leisure ; without risk incurred THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 395 That what in wisdom for herself she doth, Others shall e'er be able to undo. "Look ! and behold, from Calpe's sunburnt cliffs To the flat margin of the Baltic sea, ^^ Long-reverenced titles cast away as weeds; Laws overturned; and territory split. Like fields of ice rent by the polar wind, And forced to join in less obnoxious shapes ^9 Which, ere they gain consistence, by a gust Of the same breath are shattered and de- stroyed. Meantime the sovereignty of these fair Isles Remains entire and indivisible : And, if that ignorance were removed, which breeds Within the compass of their several shores ^^ Dark discontent, or loud commotion, each Might still preserve the beautiful repose Of heavenly bodies shining in their spheres. — The discipline of slavery is unknown Among us, — hence the more do we require 60 The discipline of virtue ; order else Cannot subsist, nor confidence, nor peace. Thus, duties rising out of good possest And prudent caution needful to avert Impending evil, equally require ^^ That the whole people should be taught and trained. So shall licentiousness and black resolve Be rooted out, and virtuous habits take Their place ; and genuine piety descend. Like an inheritance, from age to age. '^o "With such foundations laid, avaunt the fear Of numbers crowded on their native soil, To the prevention of all healthful growth Through mutual injury! Rather in the law Of increase and the mandate from above "^^ Rejoice ! — and ye have special cause for joy. — For, as the element of air affords An easy passage to the industrious bees Fraught with their burthens ; and a way as smooth For those ordained to take their sounding flight 80 From the thronged hive, and settle where they list In fresh abodes — their labor to renew ; So the wide waters, open to the power, The will, the instincts, and appointed needs Of Britain, do invite her to cast off ^^ Her swarms, and in succession send them forth ; Bound to establish new communities On every shore whose aspect favors hope Or bold adventure; promising to skill And perseverance their deserved reward.' ^o "Yes," he continued, kindling as he spake, "Change wide, and deep, and silently per- formed. This Land shall witness ; and as days roll on, Earth's universal frame shall feel the effect ; Even till the smallest habitable rock. Beaten by lonely billows, hear the songs ^6 Of humanized society; and bloom With civil arts, that shall breathe forth their fragrance, A grateful tribute to all-ruling Heaven. From culture, unexclusively bestowed i*"^ On Albion's noble Race in freedom born, Expect these mighty issues : from the pains And faithful care of unambitious schools Instructing simple childhood's ready ear : Thence look for these magnificent results! — Vast the circumference of hope — and ye Are at its center, British Lawgiyers; 1^7 Ah! sleep not there in shame! Shall Wis- dom's voice From out the bosom of these troubled times Repeat the dictates of her calmer mind, ^^^ And shall the venerable halls ye fill Refuse to echo the sublime decree ? Trust not to partial care a general good ; Transfer not to futurity a work Of urgent need. — Your Country must com- plete 115 Her glorious destiny. Begin even now. Now, when oppression, like the Egyptian plagnie Of darkness, stretched o'er guilty Europe, makes ' The brightness more conspicuous that in- vests The happy Island where ye think and act; Now, when destruction is a prime pursuit. Show to the wretched nations for what end The powers of civil polity were given." Propagakda and Poetry samuel taylor coleridge [From Biographia Literaria, 1817] Toward the close of the first year from the time, that in an inauspicious hour I left the friendly cloisters and the happy grove of quiet, ever honored Jesus College, Cam- bridge, I was persuaded by sundry philan- thropists and Anti-polemists to set on foot a 396 THE GREAT TRADITION periodical work, entitled The Watchman, that according to the general motto of the work, all might know the truth, and that the truth might make us free! In order to exempt it from the stamp-tax, and likewise to contribute as little as possible to the sup- posed guilt of a war against freedom, it was to be published on every eighth day, thirty- two pages, large octavo, closely printed, and price only four-pence. Accordingly with a flaming prospectus,- — "Knowledgeis power," "To cry the state of the political atmos- phere," — and so forth, I set off on a tour to the North from Bristol to Sheffield, for the purpose of procuring customers, preaching by the way in most of the great towns, as a hireless volunteer, in a blue coat and white waistcoat, that not a rag of the woman of Babylon might be seen on me. For I was at that time and long after, though a Trini- tarian (that is ad normam Platonis) in philosophy, yet a zealous Unitarian in re- ligion ; more accurately, I was a Psilan- thropist, one of those who believe our Lord to have been the real son of Joseph, and who lay the main stress on the resurrection rather than on the crucifixion. ! never can I re- member those days with either shame or re- gret. For I was most sincere, most disinter- ested. My opinions were indeed in many and most important points erroneous; but my heart was single. Wealth, rank, life it- self, then seemed cheap to me, compared with the interests of what I believed to be the truth, and the will of my Maker. I cannot even accuse myself of having been actuated by vanity; for in the expansion of my en- thusiasm I did not think of myself at all. My campaign commenced at Birmingham ; and my first attack was on a rigid Calvinist, a tallow-chandler by trade. He was a tall, dingy man, in whom length was so predomi- nant over breadth, that he might almost have been borrowed for a foundry poker. that face! a face /^ar' 'iix^aaivl I have it before me at this moment. The lank, black, twine- like hair, pingui-nitescent, cut in a straight line along the black stubble of his thin gun- powder eye-brows, that looked like a scorched aftermath from a last week's shaving. His coat collar behind in perfect unison, both of color and luster, with the coarse yet glib cordage, which I suppose he called his hair, and which with a bend inward at the nape of the neck, — the only approach to flexure j in his whole figure, — slunk in behind his waistcoat ; while the countenance lank, dark, very hard, and with strong perpendicular furrows, gave me a dim notion of some one looking at me through a used gridiron, all soot, grease, and iron! But he was one of the thoroughbred, a true lover of liberty, and, as I was informed, had proved to the satisfaction of many, that Mr. Pitt was one of the horns of the second beast in The Reve- lations, that spake as a dragon. A person to whom one of my letters of recommenda- tion had been addressed was my introducer. It was a new event in my life, my first stroke in the new business I had undertaken of an author, yea, and of an author trading on his own account. My companion after some im- perfect sentences and a multitude of hum's and ha's abandoned the cause of his client; and I commenced an harangue of half an hour to Phileleutheros, the tallow-chandler, varying my notes, through the whole gamut of eloquence, from the ratiocinative to the declamatory, and in the latter from the pathetic to the indignant. I argued, I de- scribed, I promised, I prophesied; and be- ginning with the captivity of nations I ended with the near approach of the millennium, finishing the whole with some of my own verses describing that glorious state out of the Religious Musings : Such delights As float to earth, permitted visitants ! When in some hour of solemn jubilee The massive gates of Paradise are thrown Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies, And odors snatched from beds of amaranth, And they, that from the crystal river of life Spring up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales ! My taper man of lights listened with perseverant and praiseworthy patience, though, as I was afterwards told, on com- plaining of certain gales that were not alto- gether ambrosial, it was a melting day with him. "And what. Sir," he said, after a short pause, "might the cost be?" "Only four- pence," — (0 ! how I felt the anti-climax, the abysmal bathos of that four-pence!) — "Only four-pence. Sir, each number, to be pub- lished on every eighth day." — "That comes to a deal of money at the end of a year. And how much, did you say, there was to be for the money?" — "Thirty-two pages. Sir, large octavo, closely printed." — "Thirty and two pages? Bless me! why except what I THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 397 does in a family way on the Sabbath, that's more than I ever reads, Sir! all the year round. I am as great a one, as any man in Brummagem, Sir ! for liberty and truth and all them sort of things, but as to this, — no offense, I hope, sir, — I must beg to be ex- cused." So ended my first canvass : from causes that I shall presently mention, I made but one other application in person. This took place at Manchester to a stately and opulent wholesale dealer in cottons. He took my let- ter of introduction, and, having perused it, measured me from head to foot and again from foot to head, and then asked if I had any bill or invoice of the thing. I presented my prospectus to him. He rapidly skimmed and hummed over the first side, and still more rapidly the second and concluding page; crushed it within his fingers and the palm of his hand; then most deliberately and significantly rubbed and smoothed one part against the other ; and lastly putting it into his pocket turned his back on me with an ^'overrun with these articles !" and so without another syllable retired into his counting-house. And, I can truly say, to my unspeakable amusement. This, I have said, was my second and last attempt. On returning baffled from the first, in which I had vainly essayed to repeat the miracle of Orpheus with the Brummagem patriot, I dined with the tradesman who had introduced me to him. After dinner he im- portuned me to smoke a pipe with him, and two or three other illuminati of the same rank. I objected, both because I was en- gaged to spend the evening with a minister and his friends, and because I had never smoked except once or twice in my lifetime, and then it was herb tobacco mixed with Oronooko. On the assurance, -however, that the tobacco was equally mild, and seeing too that it was of a yellow color; — not for- getting the lamentable difficulty I have al- ways experienced, in saying, "No," and in abstaining from what the people about me were doing, — I took half a pipe, filling the lower half of the bowl with salt. I was soon, however, compelled to resign it, in conse- quence of a giddiness and distressful feel- ing in my eyes, which, as I had drunk but a single glass of ale, must, I knew, have been the effect of the tobacco. Soon after, deem- ing myself recovered, I sallied forth to my engagement ; but the walk and the fresh air brought on all the symptoms again, and, I had scarcely entered the minister's drawing- room, and opened a small packet of letters, which he had received from Bristol for me, ere I sank back on the sofa in a sort of swoon rather than sleep. Fortunately I had found just time enough to inform him of the confused state of my feelings, and of the occasion. For here and thus I lay, my face like a wall that is white-washing, deathly pale and with the cold drops of perspiration running down it from my forehead, while one after another there dropjDed in the dif- ferent gentlemen, who had been invited to meet, and spend the evening with me, to the number of froui fifteen to twenty. As the poison of tobacco acts but for a short time, I at length awoke from insensibility, and looked around on the party, my eyes dazzled by the candles which had been lighted in the interim. By way of relieving my em- barrassment one of the gentlemen began the conversation, with "Have you seen a paper today, Mr. Coleridge?" "Sir," I replied, rubbing my eyes, "I am far from convinced that a Christian is permitted to read either newspapers or any other works of merely political and temporary interest." This re- mark, so ludicrously inapposite to, or rather, incongruous with, the purpose for which I was known to have visited Birmingham, and to assist me in which they were all then met, produced an involuntary and general burst of laughter; and seldom indeed have I passed so many delightful hours as I en- joyed in that room from the moment of that laugh till an early hour the next morning. Never, perhaps, in so mixed and numerous a party have I since heard conservation sus- tained with such animation, enriched with such variety of information, and enlivened with such a flow of anecdote. Both then and afterwards they all joined in dissuading me from proceeding with my scheme; assiared me in the most friendly and yet most flat- tering expressions, that neither was the em- ployment fit for me, nor I fit for the em- ployment. Yet, if I determined on perse- vering in it, they promised to exert them- selves to the utmost to procure subscribers, and insisted that I should make no more ap- plications in person, but carry on the can- vass by proxy. The same hosi^itable recep- tion, the same dissuasion, and, that failing, the same kind exertions in my behalf, I met with at Manchester, Derby, Nqttingham, Sheffield, — indeed, at every place in which I took up my sojourn. I often recall with 398 THE GREAT TRADITION affectionate pleasure the many respectable men who interested themselves for me, a perfect stranger to them, not a few of whom I can still name among my friends. They will bear witness for me how opposite even then my principles were to those of Jacobinism or even of democracy, and can attest the strict accuracy of the statement which I have left on record in the tenth and eleventh numbers of The Friend. From this rememberable tour I returned with nearly a thousand names on the sub- scription list of The Watchman; yet more than half convinced that prudence dictated the abandonment of the scheme. But for this very reason I persevered in it ; for I was at that period of my life so completely hag- ridden by the fear of being influenced by selfish motives, that to know a mode of con- duet to be the dictate of prudence was a sort of presumptive proof to my feelings that the contrary was the dictate of duty. Ac- cordingly, I commenced the work, which was announced in London by long bills in letters larger than had ever been seen before, and which, I have been informed, for I did not see them myself, eclipsed the glories even of the lottery puffs. But alas! the publication of the very first number was delayed beyond the day announced for its appearance. In the second number an essay against fast days, with a most censurable application of a text from Isaiah for its motto, lost me near five hundred of my subscribers at one blow. In the two following numbers I made enemies of all my Jacobin and democratic patrons; for, disgusted by their infidehty, and their adoption of French morals with French psilosophy; and perhaps thinking that charity ought to begin nearest home; instead of abusing the government and the Aristocrats chiefly or entirely, as had been expected of me, I leveled my attacks at "modern patriotism," and even ventured to declare my belief that whatever the motives of ministers might have been for the sedi- tion, or as it was then the fashion to call them, the gagging bills, yet the bills them- selves would produce an effect to be desired by all the true friends of freedom, as far as they should contribute to deter men from openly declaiming on subjects, the principles of which they had never bottomed and from "pleading to the poor and ignorant, instead of pleading for them." At the same time I avowed my conviction that national educa- tion and a concurring spread of the Gospel were the indispensable condition of any true political melioration. Thus by the time the seventh number was published, I had the mortification — (but why should I say this, when in truth I cared too little for anything that concerned my worldly interests to be at all mortified about it?) — of seeing the preceding numbers exposed in sundry old iron shops for a penny apiece. At the ninth number I dropped the work. But from the London publisher I could not obtain a shill- ing; he was a and set me at defiance. From other places I procured but little, and after such delays as rendered that little worth nothing ; and I should have been inevitably thrown into jail by my Bristol printer, who refused to wait even for a month, for a sum between eighty and ninety pounds, if the money had not been paid for me by a man by no means affluent, a dear friend, who attached himself to me from my first arrival at Bristol, who has continued my friend with a fidelity unconquered by time or even by my own apparent neglect ; a friend from whom I never received an advice that was not wise, nor a remonstrance that was not gentle and affectionate. Conscientiously an opponent of the first revolutionary war, yet with my eyes thor- oughly opened to the true character and im- potence of the favorers of revolutionary principles in England, principles which I held in abhorrence, — (for it was part of my political creed, that whoever ceased to act as an individual by making himself a mem- ber of any society not sanctioned by his Government, forfeited the rights of a citi- zen) — a vehement Anti-Ministerialist, but after the invasion of Switzerland, a more vehement Anti-Gallican, and still more in- tensely an Anti-Jacobin, I retired to a cot- tage at Stowey, and provided for my scanty maintenance by writing verses for a London morning paper. I saw plainly that litera- ture was not a profession by which I could expect to live ; for I could not disguise from myself that, whatever my talents might or might not be in other respects, yet they were not of the sort that could enable me to be- come a popular writer, and that whatever my opinions might be in themselves, they were almost equidistant from all the three prominent parties, the Pittites, the Fox- ites, and the Democrats. Of the unsaleable nature of my writings I had an amusing memento one morning from our own servant girl. For happening to rise at an earlier THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 399 hour than usual, I observed her putting an extravagant quantity of paper into the grate in order to light the fire, and mildly checked her for her wastefulness; "La, Sir!" (re- plied poor Nanny) "why, it is only Watch- men." I now devoted myself to poetry and to the study of ethics and psychology; and so profound was my admiration at this time of Hartley's Essay on Man, that I gave his name to my first-born. In addition to the gentleman, my neighbor, whose garden joined on to my little orchard, and the cul- tivation of whose friendship had been my sole motive in choosing Stowey for my resi- dence, I was so fortunate as to acquire, shortly after my settlement there, an in- valuable blessing in the society and neigh- borhood of one to whom I could look up with equal reverence, whether I regarded him as a poet, a philosopher, or a man. His conversation extended to almost all subjects, except physics and polities; with the latter he never troubled himself. Yet neither my retirement nor my utter abstraction from all the disputes of the day could secure me in those jealous times from suspicion and obloquy, which did not stop at me, but ex- tended to my excellent friend, whose perfect innocence was even adduced as a proof of his guilt. One of the many busy sycophants of that day, — (I here use the word sycophant in its original sense, as a wretch who flatters the prevailing party by informing against his neighbors, under pretence that they are exporters of prohibited figs or fancies, — for the moral application of the term it matters not which) — one of these sycophantic law- mongrels, discoursing on the politics of the neighborhood, uttered the following deep re- mark : "As to Coleridge, there is not so much harm in him, for he is a whirl-brain that talks whatever comes uppermost; but that ! he is the dark traitor. You never hear HIM say a syllable on the subject." . . . The dark guesses of some zealous Quid- nunc met with so congenial a soil in the grave alarm of a titled Dogberry of our neighborhood, that a spy was actually sent down from the government pour surveillance of myself and friend. There must have been not only abundance, but variety of those "honorable men" at the disposal of Min- isters ; for this proved a very honest fellow. After three weeks' truly Indian perseverance in tracking us, (for we were commonly to- gether,) during all which time seldom were we out of doors, but he contrived to be with- in hearing, — and all the while utterly un- suspected; how indeed could such a suspicion enter our fancies? — he not only rejected Sir Dogberry's request that he would try yet a little longer, but declared to him his belief that both my friend and myself were as good subjects, for aught he could discover to the contrary, as any in His Majesty's dominions. He had repeatedly hid himself, he said, for hours together behind a bank at the seaside, (our favorite seat,) and overheard our con- versation. At first he fancied, that we were aware of our danger ; for he often heard me talk of one Spy Nozy, which he was inclined to interpret of himself, and of a remarkable feature belonging to him ; but he was speed- ily convinced that it was the name of a man who had made a book and lived long ago. Our talk ran most upon books, and we were perpetually desiring each other to look at this, and to listen to that; but he could not catch a word about politics. Once he had joined me on the road; (this occurred as I was returning home alone from my friend's house, which was about three miles from my own cottage,) and, passing himself off as a traveler, he had entered into conversation with me, and talked of purpose in a demo- crat way in order to draw me out. The result, it appears, not only convinced him that I was no friend of Jacobinism ; but, (he added,) I had "plainly made it out to be such a silly as well as wicked thing, that he felt ashamed though he had only put it on." I distinctly remembered the occurrence, and had mentioned it immediately on my return, repeating what the traveler with his Bar- dolph nose had said, with my own answer; and so little did I suspect the true object of my "tempter ere accuser," that I expressed with no small pleasure my hope and belief that the conversation had been of some ser- vice to the poor misled malcontent. This incident therefore prevented all doubt as to the truth of the report, which through a friendly medium came to me from the master of the village inn, who had been ordered to entertain the Government gentleman in his best manner, but above all to be silent con- cerning such a person being in his house. At length he received Sir Dogberry's commands to accompany his guest at the final inter- view; and, after the absolving suffrage of the gentleman honored with the confidence of Ministers, answered, as follows, to the fol- lowing queries : D. Well, landlord ! and what 400 THE GEEAT TEADITION do you know of the person in question 1 L. I see him often pass by with maister my landlord, {that is, the owner of the house,) and sometimes with the newcomers at Holf ord ; but I never said a word to him or he to me. D. But do you not know, that he has distributed papers and handbills of a seditious nature among the common people? L. No, your Honor ! I never heard of such a thing. D. Have you not seen this Mr. Cole- ridge, or heard of his haranguing and talk- ing to knots and clusters of the inhabitants f — What are you grinning at, sir? L. Beg your Honor's pardon ! but I was only think- ing, how they'd have stared at him. If what I have heard be true, your Honor! they would not have understood a word he said. When our Vicar was here, Dr. L., the master of the great school and Canon of Windsor, there was a great dinner party at maister 's ; and one of the farmers, that was there, told us that he and the Doctor talked real Hebrew Greek at each other for an hour together after dinner. D. Answer the ques- tion, sir ! does he ever harangue the people ? L. I hope your Honor ain't angry with me. I can say no more than I know. I never saw him talking with anyone but my land- lord, and our curate, and the strange gentle- man. D. Has he not been seen wandering on the hills towards the Channel, and along the shore, with books and papers in his hand, taking charts and maps of the country ? L. Why, as to that, your Honor ! I own, I have heard; I am sure, I would not wish to say ill of anybody ; but it is certain, that I have heard — D. Speak out, man ! don't be afraid, you are doing your duty to your King and Government. What have you heard? L. Why, folks do say, your Honor ! as how that he is a Poet, and that he is going to put Quantoek and all about here in print; and as they be so much together, I suppose that the strange gentleman has some consarn in the business.— So ended this formidable in- quisition, the latter part of which alone re- quires explanation, and at the same time entitles the anecdote to a place in my literary life. I had considered it as a defect in the admirable poem of The Task, that the sub- ject which gives the title to the work was not, and indeed could not be, carried on beyond the three or four first pages, and that, throughout the poem, the connections are frequently awkward, and the transitions abrupt and arbitrary. I sought for a sub- ject that should give equal room and free- dom for description, incident, and impas- sioned reflections on men, nature, and so- ciety, yet supply in itself a natural connec- tion to the parts, and unity to the whole. Such a subject I conceived myself to have found in a stream, traced from its source in the hills among the yellow -red moss and coni- cal glass-shaped tufts of bent, to the first break or fall, where its drops become audi- ble, and it begins to form a channel ; thence to the peat and turf barn, itself built of the same dark squares as it sheltered; to the sheepfold; to the first cultivated plot of ground; to the lonely cottage and its bleak garden won from the heath; to the hamlet, the villages, the market-town, the manufac- tories, and the seaport. My walks therefore were almost daily on top of Quantoek, and among its sloping coombes. With my pen- cil and memorandum-book in my hand, I was making studies, as the artists call them, and often molding my thoughts into verse, with the objects and imagery immediately before my senses. Many circumstances, evil and good, intervened to prevent the completion of the poem, which was to have been entitled The Brook. Had I finished the work, it was my purpose in the heat of the moment to have dedicated it to our then committee of public safety as containing the charts and maps, with which I was to have supplied the French Government in aid of their plans of invasion. And these too for a tract of coast that, from Clevedon to Minehead, scarcely permits the approach of a fishing-boat ! During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbors, our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sym- pathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modify- ing colors of imagination. The sudden charm which accidents of light and shade, which moonlight or sunset diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of combining both. These are the poetry of nature. The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural ; and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real. And THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 401 real in this sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency. For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life; the characters and incidents were to be such as will be found in every village and its vicinity where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them when they present themselves. In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical Ballads; in which it was agreed that my endeavors should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Words- worth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us ; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude, we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand. With this view I wrote the Ancient Mariner, and was preparing, among other poems, the Dark Ladie, and the Christabel, in which I should have more nearly realized my ideal than I had done in my first at- tempt. But Mr. Wordsworth's industry had proved so much more successful, and the number of his poems so much greater, that my compositions, instead of forming a bal- ance, appeared rather an interpolation of heterogeneous matter. Mr. Wordsworth added two or three jDoems written in his own character, in the impassioned, lofty, and sus- tained diction which is characteristic of his genius. Christabel: Part the First samuel taylor coleridge [From Christabel, 1797] 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock. And the owls have awaken'd the crowing cock; Tu-whit !— Tu-whoo ! And hark, again ! the crowing cock. How drowsily it ci^ew. Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff bitch; From her kennel beneath the rock She maketh answer to the clock. Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour ; Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud ; Some say, she sees my lady's shroud. Is the night chilly and dark? The night is chilly, but not dark. The thin gray cloud is spread on high, It covers but not hides the sky. The moon is behind, and at the full ; And yet she looks both small and dull. The night is chill, the cloud is gray : 'Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way. The lovely lady, Christabel, Whom her father loves so well. What makes her in the wood so late, A furlong from the castle gatef She had dreams all yesternight Of her own betrothed knight; And she in the midnight wood will pray For the weal of her lover that's far away. She stole along, she nothing spoke. The sighs she heaved were soft and low. And naught was green v;pon the oak. But moss and rarest misletoe : She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, And in silence prayeth she. The lady sprang up suddenly. The lovely lady, Christabel ! It moan'd as near, as near can be, But what it is she cannot tell. — On the other side it seems to be, Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree. The night is. chill; the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek — There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan. That dances as often as dance it can. Hanging so light, and hanging so high. On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. 402 THE GEEAT TEADITION Hush, beating heart of Christabel ! Jesu, Maria, shield her well! She folded her arms beneath her cloak. And stole to the other side of the oak. What sees she there *? There she sees a damsel bright, Drest in a silken robe of white. That shadowy in the moonlight shone: The neck that made that white robe wan, Her stately neck, and arms were bare ; Her blue-vein'd feet unsandal'd were; And wildly glitter'd here and there The gems entangled in her hair. I guess, 'twas frightful there to see A lady so richly clad as she — Beautiful exceedingly ! "Mary mother, save me now !" Said Christabel, "and who art thou?" The lady strange made answer meet. And her voice was faint and sweet : — "Have pity on my sore distress, I scarce can speak for weariness : Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear !" Said Christabel, "How earnest thou here*?" And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet Did thus pursue her answer meet: — "My sire is of a noble line. And my name is Geraldine : Five warriors seized me yestermorn, Me, even me, a maid forlorn: They choked my cries with force and fright, And tied me on a palfrey white. The palfrey was as fleet as wind, And they rode furiously behind. They spurr'd amain, their steeds were white : And once we cross'd the shade of night. As sure as Heaven shall rescue me, I have no thought what men they be; Nor do I know how long it is (For I have lain entranced, I wis) Since one, the tallest of the five, Took me from the palfrey's back, A weary woman, scarce alive. Some mutter'd words his comrades spoke : He placed me underneath this oak; He swore they would return with haste; Whither they went I cannot tell — I thought I heard, some minutes past. Sounds as of a castle bell. Stretch forth thy hand," thus ended she, "And help a wretched maid to flee." Then Christabel stretch'd forth her hand, And comforted fair Geraldine : "0 well, bright dame, may you command The service of Sir Leoline; And gladly our stout chivalry Will he send forth, and friends withal, To guide and guard you safe and free Home to your noble father's hall." She rose: and forth with steps they pass'd That strove to be, and were not, fast. Her gracious stars the lady blest, And thus spake on sweet Christabel: "All our household are at rest, The hall as silent as the cell; Sir Leoline is weak in health, And may not well awaken'd be, But we will move as if in stealth ; And I beseech your courtesy. This night, to share your couch with me." They cross'd the moat, and Christabel Took the key that fitted well; A little door she open'd straight. All in the middle of the gate ; The gate that was iron'd within and with- out, Where an army in battle array had march'd out. The lady sank, belike through pain. And Christabel with might and main Lifted her up, a weary weight. Over the threshold of the gate: Then the lady rose again. And moved, as she were not in pain. So, free from danger, free from fear, They cross'd the court: right glad they were. And Christabel devoutly cried To the lady by her side : "Praise we the Virgin all divine, Who hath rescued thee from thy distress!" "Alas, alas!" said Geraldine, "I cannot speak for weariness." So, free from danger, free from fear, They cross'd the court : right glad they were. Outside her kennel the mastitf old Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold. The mastiff old did not awake, Yet she an angry moan did make. And what can ail the mastiff bitch? Never till now she utter'd yell Beneath the eye of Christabel. Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch : For what can ail the mastiff bitch ? They pass'd the hall, that echoes still. Pass as lightly as you will. THE RISE or MODERN DEMOCRACY 403 The brands were flat, the brands were dying, Amid their own white ashes lying; But when the lady pass'd, there eame A tongue of light, a fit of flame; And Christabel saw the lady's eye. And nothing else saw she thereby, Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall. Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall. "0 softly tread," said Christabel, "My father seldom sleepeth well." Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare. And, jealous of the listening air, They steal their way from stair to stair. Now in glimmer, and now in gloom, And now they pass the Baron's room. As still as death, with stifled breath ! And now have reach'd her chamber door ; And now doth Geraldine press down The rushes of the chamber floor. The moon shines dim in the open air. And not a moonbeam enters here. But they without its light can see The chamber carved so curiously. Carved with figures strange and sweet, All made out of the carver's brain. For a lady's chamber meet : The lamp with twofold silver chain Is fasten'd to -an angel's feet. The silver lamp burns dead and dim; But Christabel the lamp will trim. She trimm'd the lamp, and made it bright, And left it swinging to and fro. While Geraldine, in wretched plight. Sank down upon the floor below. "0 weary lady, Geraldine, I pray you, drink this cordial wine ! It is a wine of virtuous powers ; My mother made it of wild flowers." "And will your mother pity me. Who am a maiden most forlorn*?" Christabel answer'd— "Woe is me! She died the hour that I was born. I have heard the gray-hair'd friar tell, How on her death-bed she did say. That she should hear the castle-bell Strike twelve upon my wedding-day. mother dear ! that thou wert here !" "I would," said Geraldine, "she were!" But soon, with alter'd voice, said she — "Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine! I have power to bid thee flee." Alas! what ails poor Geraldine? Why stares she with unsettled eye? Can she the bodiless dead espy ? And why with hollow voice cries she, "Off, woman, off! this hour is mine — Though thou her guardian spirit be. Off, woman, off ! 'tis given to me." Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side, And raised to heaven her eyes so blue — "Alas !" said she, "this ghastly ride — Dear lady! it hath wilder'd you!" The lady wiped her moist cold brow, And faintly said, " 'Tis over now !" Again the wild-flower wine she drank: Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright, And from the floor, whereon she sank, The lofty lady stood upright : She was most beautiful to see. Like a lady of a far countree. And thus the lofty lady spake — "All they, who live in the upper sky. Do love you, holy Christabel! And you love them, and for their sake, ALnd for the good which me befell, Even I in my degree will try. Fair maiden, to requite you well. But now unrobe yourself; for I Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie." Quoth Christabel, "So let it be!" And as the lady bade, did she. Her gentle limbs did she undress, And lay down in her loveliness. But through her brain, of weal and woe. So many thoughts moved to and fro. That vain it were her lids to close; So half-way from the bed she rose, And on her elbow did recline. To look at the lady Geraldine. Beneath the lamp the lady bow'd. And slowly roU'd her eyes around; Then drawing in her breath aloud. Like one that shudder'd, she unbound The cincture from beneath her breast : Her silken robe, and inner vest, Dropt to her feet, and full in view. Behold ! her bosom and half her side — A sight to dream of, not to tell ! shield her ! shield sweet Christabel ! Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs : Ah! what a stricken look was hers! 404 THE GEEAT TEADITION Deep from within she seems half-way To lift some weight with sick assay, And eyes the maid and seeks delay; Then suddenly, as one defied, Collects herself in scorn and pride. And lay down by the maiden's side ! — And in her arms the maid she took, Ah wel-a-day ! And with low voice and doleful look These words did say : "In the touch of this bosom there work- eth a spell, Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel ! Thou knowest tonight, and wilt know to- morrow, This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow ; But faintly thou warrest, For this is alone in Thy power to declare, That in the dim forest Thou heard'st a low moaning, And found'st a bright lady, surpassingly fair : And didst bring her home with thee, in love and in charity. To shield her and shelter her from the damp air." Dejection.: An Ode samuel taylor coleridge [1802] 1 Well ! If the Bard v/as weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade Than those which mold yon cloud in lazy flakes. Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes Upon the strings of this ^olian lute, Which better far were mute; For lo ! the new-moon winter bright ! And overspread with phantom light, (With swimming phantom light o'er- spread But rimmed and circled by a silver thread) I see the old moon in her lap, foretelling The coming-on of rain and squally blast. And oh ! that even now the gust were swell- ing, And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast ! Those sounds which oft have raised me, v/hilst they awed, And sent my soul abroad. Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give. Might startle this dull pain, and make it live ! A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear, A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet, no relief. In word, or sigh, or tear — Lady! in this wan and heartless mood. To other thoughts by yonder throstle wooed, All this long eve, so balmy and serene, Have I been gazing on the western sky, And its peculiar tint of yellow green. And still I gaze — and with how blank an eye ! And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars. That give away their motion to the stars ; Those stars, that glide behind them or be- tween, Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen: Yon crescent moon, as fixed as if it grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue; 1 see them all so excellently fair, I see, not feel, how beautiful they are ! My genial spirits fail ; And what can these avail To lift the smothering weight from off my breast? It were a vain endeavor, Though I should gaze for ever On that green light that lingers in the west : I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within. Lady, we receive but what we give, And in our life alone does Nature live: Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud ! And would we aught behold, of higher worth. Than that inanimate cold world allowed THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 405 To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd, Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the earth — And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth. Of all sweet sounds the life and element! pure of heart ! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music in the soul may be ! What, and wherein it doth exist. This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist. This beautiful and beauty-making power. Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given, Save to the pure, and in their purest hour. Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower, Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power, Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower, A new earth and new heaven. Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud — Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud — We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the echoes of that voice. All colors a suffusion from that light. 6 There was a time when, though my path was rough. This joy within me dallied with distress. And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence Fancy made me dreams of happi- ness : For hope grew round me, like the twining vine. And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine. But now afflictions bow me down to earth : Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth; But oh ! each visitation Suspends what Nature gave me at my birth. My shaping spirit of Imagination. For not to think of what I needs must feel, But to be still and patient, all I can; And haply by abstruse research to steal From my own nature all the natural man — This was my sole resource, my only plan : Till that which suits a part infects the whole, And now is almost grown the habit of my soul. Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind Reality's dark dream! I turn from you, and listen to the wind, Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream Of agony by torture lengthened out That lute sent forth! Thou wind, that ravest without. Bare crag, or mountain-tarn, or blasted tree, Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb. Or lonely house, long held the witches' home, Methinks were fitter instruments for thee, Mad Lutanist! who in this month of show- ers. Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers, Makest Devils' Yule, with worse than win- try song. The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among. Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds! Thou mighty Poet, even to frenzy bold ! What tell'st thou now about? 'Tis of the rushing of an host in rout. With groans of trampled men, with smart- ing wounds — At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold! But hush! there is a pause of deepest si- lence ! And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd. With groans and tremulous shudderings — all is over — It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud ! A tale of less affright. And tempered with delight. As Otway's self had framed the tender lay; 'Tis of a little child Upon a lonesome wild, Not far from home, but she hath lost her way: And now moans low in bitter grief and fear. And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear. 406 THE GEEAT TRADITION 8 'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep : Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep ! Visit her, gentle Sleep ! with wings of heal- ing, And may this storm be but a mountain birth. May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling, Silent as though they watched the sleep- ing Earth! With light heart may she rise, Gay fancy, cheerful eyes, Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice; To her may all things live, from pole to pole, Their life the eddying of her living soul! simple spirit, guided from above, Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice. Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice. 2. THE FREE PERSONALITY Prometheus lord byron I Titan ! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise; What was thy pity's recompense? A silent suffering, and intense ; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, All that the proud can feel of pain, The agony they do not show, The suffocating sense of woe, Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless. II Titan ! to thee the strife was given Between the suffering and the will, Which torture where they cannot kill ; And the inexorable Heaven, And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate, Which for its pleasure doth create The things it may annihilate. Refused thee even the boon to die : The wretched gift eternity Was thine — and thou hast borne it well. All that the Thunderer wrung from thee, Was but the menace which flung back On him the torments of thy rack; The fate thou didst so well foresee. But would not to appease him tell; And in thy Silence was his Sentence, And in his Soul a vain repentance. And evil dread so ill dissembled That in his hand the lightnings trembled. III. Thy Godlike crime was to be kind. To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness. And strengthen man with his own mind ; But baffled as thou wert from high. Still in thy patient energy, In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not con- vulse, A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign To mortals of their fate and force ; Like thee, Man is in part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source ; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny; His wretchedness, and his resistance. And his sad unallied existence: To which his Spirit may oppose Itself — an equal to all woes. And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory. Sonnet on Chillon lord byron Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind ! Brightest in dungeons. Liberty! thou art, For there thy habitation is the heart — The heart which love of thee alone can bind ; And when thy sons to fetters are con- signed — To fetters, and the damp vault's . dayless gloom. THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 407 Their country conquers with their mar- tyrdom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place, And thy sad floor an altar — for 'twas trod, Until his very steps have left a trace Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, By Bonnivard ! May none those marks efface ! For they appeal from tyranny to God. Solitude lord byeon [From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III, 1817] Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, The mirror where the stars and mountains view The stillness of their aspect in each trace Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue; There is too much of man here, to look through With a fit mind the might which I be- hold; But soon in me shall Loneliness renew Thoughts hid, but not less cherish'd than of old, Ere mingling with the herd had penn'd me in their fold. To fly from, need not be to hate, man- kind; All are not fit with them to stir and toil, Nor is it discontent to keep the mind Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil In the hot throng, where we become the spoil Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil. In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong 'Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong. There, in a moment, we may plunge our years In fatal penitence, and in the blight Of our own soul turn all our blood to tears. And color things to come with hues of Night : The race of life becomes a hopeless flight To those that walk in darkness; on the sea The boldest steer but where their ports invite. But there are wanderers o'er Eternity Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be. Is it not better, then, to be alone, And love Earth only for its earthly sake'? By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake, Which feeds it as a mother who doth make A fair but froward infant her own care. Kissing its cries away as these awake; — Is it not better thus our lives to wear. Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or bear ? I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me: and to me. High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture; I can see Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, Class'd among creatures, when the soul can flee. And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. And thus I am absorb'd, and this is life : I look upon the peopled desert past, As on a place of agony and strife. Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was cast, To act and suffer, but remount at last With a fresh pinion; which I feel to spring. Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the blast Which it would cope with, on delighted wing, Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling. And when, at length, the mind shall be all free From what it hates in this degraded form. Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be Existent ^bfippier in the fly and worm, — When elements to elements conform, 408 THE GEEAT TEADITION And dust is as it should be, shall I not Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm ? The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot? Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot? Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part Of me and of my soul, as I of them ? Is not the love of these deep in my heart With a pure passion? should I not con- temn All objects, if compared with these? and stem A tide of suffering rather than forego Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm Of those whose eyes are only turn'd be- low, Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow ? It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen. Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear Precipitously steep ; and drawing near. There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more ; He is an evening reveller, who makes His life an infancy, and sings his fill; At intervals, some bird from out the brakes Starts into voice a moment, then is still. There seems a floating whisper on the hill, But that is fancy, for the starlight dews All silently their tears of love instil, Weeping themselves away, till they in- fuse Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven ! If in your bright leaves we would read the fate Of men and empires, — 'tis to be for- given. That in our aspirations to be great. Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state. And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are A beauty and a mystery, and create In us such love and reverence from afar. That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star. All heaven and earth are still — though not in sleep. But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep : — All heaven and eai'th are still: from the high host Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain- coast. All is concenter'd in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and Defense. Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone ; A ti'uth which through our being then doth melt. And purifies from self: it is a tone. The soul and source of music, which makes known Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone. Binding all things with beauty; — 'twould disarm The specter Death, had he substantial power to harm. Not vainly did the early Persian make His altar the high places and the peak Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak, Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare Columns and idol dwellings, Goth or Greek, With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air. Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer Thy sky is changed ! — and such a change ! O night. THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 409 And storm, and darkness, ye are won- drous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud. But every mountain now hath found a tongue. And Jura answers, through her misty shroud. Back to the Joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! The Onwaed March of Freedom lord byron [From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage^ Canto IV, 1818] Can tyrants but by tyrants eonquer'd be, And Freedom find no champion and no child Such as Columbia saw arise when she Sprung forth a Pallas, arm'd and un- defiled? Or must such minds be nourish'd in the wild, Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled On infant Washington? Has Earth no more Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore? But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, And fatal have her Saturnalia been To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime ; Because the deadly days which we have seen, And vile Ambition, that built up between Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, And the base pageant last upon the scene, Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst — his second fall. Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying. Screams like the thunder-storm against the wind; Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying. The loudest still the tempest leaves be- hind ; Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and lit- tle worth, But the sap lasts, — and still the seed we find Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North ; So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth. The Ocean lord byron [From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV, 1818] There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore. There is society, where none intrudes. By the deep Sea, and music in its roar : I love not Man the less, but Nature more. From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin — his con- trol Stops with the shore; — ^upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor dotli remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain. He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan. Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise And shake him from thee: the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all de- spise, 410 THE GEEAT TRADITION Spurning him from tliy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy play- ful spray And howling, to his gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay. And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake. And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war : These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their de- cay Has dried up realms to deserts: — not so thou. Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play- Time writes no wrinkle on thy azure brow — Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Al- mighty's form Glasses it-self in tempests : in all time. Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm. Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving ; — ^boundless, endless, and sublime — The image of Eternity — the throne Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fath omless, alone. And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joj Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wanton'd with thy breakers — ^they to me Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear. For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. The Renegade Poets ^ lord byron [From Don Juan, 1819] Bob Southey ! You're a poet — Poet laure- ate. And representative of all the race. Although 'tis true that you turned out a Tory at Last, — yours has lately been a common case, — And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? With all the Lakers, in and out of place? A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye ! "Which pye being open'd they began to sing," (This old song and new simile holds good,) "A dainty dish to set before the King," Or Regent, who admires such kind of food ; — And Coleridge, tpo, has lately taken wing, But like a hawk encumber'd with his hood, — Explaining metaphysics to the nation — I wish he would explain his Explanation. You, Bob ! are rather insolent, you know, At being disappointed in your wish To supersede all warblers here below, And be the only Blackbird in the dish ; * This scornful dedication was prompted by Byroa's hatred of what he regarded as the apos- tasy of the Lake poets from the cause of freedom, also by his critical disapproval of their poetry, and finally by personal animosity toward Southey. For the judgment on Wordsworth, which was shared by Shelley and other radical poets, com- pare Browning's The Lost Leader. THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 411 And then you overstrain yourself, or so, And tumble downward like the flying fish Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob, And fall for lack of moisture quite a-dry. Bob! And Wordsworth, in a rather long "Ex- cursion," (I think the quarto holds five hundred pages,) Has given a sample from the vasty version Of his new system to perplex the sages; 'Tis poetry — at least by his assertion. And may appear so when the dog-star rages — And he who understands it would be able To add a story to the Tower of Babel. You — Gentlemen ! by dint of long seclusion From better company, have kept your own At Keswick, and, through still continued fusion Of one another's minds, at last have grown To deem as a most logical conclusion, That Poesy hath wreaths for you alone : There is a narrowness in such a notion. Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for ocean. I would not imitate the petty thought. Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice, For all the glory your conversion brought, Since gold alone should not have been its price. You have your salary; was't for that you wrought ? And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise. You're shabby fellows — ^true — ^but poets still, And duly seated on the immortal hill. Your bays may hide the boldness of your brows — Perhaps some virtuous blushes ; — let them go— • To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs — And for the fame you would engross be- low, The field is universal, and allows Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow: Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe will try 'Gainst you the question with posterity. For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses, Contend not with you on the winged steed, I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses. The fame you envy, and the skill you need; And recollect a poet nothing loses In giving to his brethren their full meed Of merit, and complaint of present days Is not the certain patji to future praisa He that reserves his, laurels for posterity (Who does not often claim the bright reversion) Has generally no great crop to spare it, he Being only injured by his own assertion; And although here and there some glorious rarity Arise like Titan from the sea's immer- sion. The major part of such appellants go To — God knows where — for no one else can know. If, fallen in evil days on evil tongnies, Milton appeal'd to the Avenger, Time, If Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs, And makes the word "Miltonic" mean "sublime," He deign'd not to belie his soul in songs. Nor turn his very talent to a crime; He did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son, But closed the tyrant-hater he begun. Think'st thou, could he — the blind Old Man — arise Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more The blood of monarchs with his prophecies, Or be alive again — again all hoar With time and trials, and those helpless eyes. And heartless daughters — worn — and pale — and poor. Would Jie adore a sultan ? he obey The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh? Cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid mis- creant ! Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore. And thus for wider carnage taught to pant, Transferr'd to gorge upon a sister shore, The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want. With just enough of talent, and no more. To lengthen fetters by another fix'd, And offer poison long already mix'd. 412 THE GKEAT TRADITION An orator of such set trash of phrase Ineffably — legitimately vile, That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, Nor foes — all nations — condescend to smile, — Not even a sprightly blunder's spark caa blaze From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil. That turns and turns to give the world a notion Of endless torments and perpetual motion. A bungler even in its disgusting trade. And botching, patching, leaving still be- hind Something of which its masters are afraid, States to be curb'd, and thoughts' to be confined, Conspiracy or Congress to be made — Cobbling at manacles for all mankind — A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains. With God and man's abhorrence for its gains. If we may judge of matter by the mind, Emasculated to the marrow It Hath but two objects, how to serve, and bind. Deeming the chain it wears even men may fit, Eutropius of its many masters, — ^blind To worth as freedom, wisdom as to wit. Fearless — because no feeling dwells in ice, Its very courage stagnates to a vice. Where shall I turn me not to view its bonds, For I will never feel them; — Italy! Thy late reviving Roman soul desponds Beneath the lie this State-thing breath'd o'er thee — Thy clanking chain, and Erin's yet green wounds Have voices — tongues to cry aloud for me. Europe has slaves — allies — kings — armies still. And Southey lives to sing them very ill. Meantime — Sir Laureate — I proceed to dedi- cate In honest simple verse, this soi]g to you. And, if in flattering strains I do not predi- cate, 'Tis that I still retain my ''buff and blue" ; My politics as yet are all to educate : Apostasy's so fashionable, too. To keep one creed's a task grown quite Herculean ; Is it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian ? The Isles op Greece lord byron [From Don Juan, Canto III] The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, — Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung ! Eternal summer gilds them yet. But all, except their sun, is set. The Scian and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute. Have found the fame your shores refuse: Their place of birth alone is mute To sounds which echo further west Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest." The mountains look on Marathon — And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dreamed that Greece might still be free ; For, standing on the Persian's grave, I could not deem myself a slave. A king sat on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below. And men in nations;— all were his! He counted them at break of day — And when the sun set, where were they? And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now — The heroic bosom beats no more ! And must thy lyre, so long divine. Degenerate into hands like mine? 'T is something, in the dearth of fame, Though linked among a fettered race, To feel at least a patriot's shame. Even as I sing, suffuse my face ; For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush — for Greece a tear. Must we but weep o'er days more blest? Must we but blush? — Our fathers bled. Earth ! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead ! THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 413 Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylae! What silent still? and silent all? Ah ! no ; — the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, And answer, "Let one living head, But one arise, — we come, we come!" 'Tis but the living who are dumb. In vain — in vain : strike other chords : Fill high the cup with Samian wine ! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, And shed the blood of Scio's vine! Hark! rising to the ignoble call — How answers each bold Bacchanal ! You have the Pjrrrhic dance as yet : Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave — Think ye he meant them for a slave ? Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! We will not think of themes like these ! It made Anacreon's song divine ; He served — but served Polyerates — A tyrant; but our masters then Were still, at least, our countrymen. The tjTant of the Chersonese Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades ! Oh ! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine I On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore, Exists the remnant of a line Such as the Doric mothers bore ; And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, The Heraeleidan blood might own. Trust not for freedom to the Franks, They have a king who buys and sells ; In native swords and native ranks. The only hope of courage dwells : But Turkish force, and Latin fraud. Would break your shield, however broad. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! Our virgins dance beneath the shade — I see their glorious black eyes shine ; But gazing on each glowing maid. My own the burning tear-drop laves, To think such breasts must suckle slaves. Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine — Dash down yon cup of Samian wine! The Vision of Judgment (1822) ^ lord byron In the first year of freedom's second dawn Died George the Third; although no ty- rant, one Who shielded tyrants, till each sense with- drawn Left him nor mental nor external sun : A better farmer ne'er brush'd dew from lawn, A worse king' never left a realm undone ! He died — but left his subjects still behind, One half as mad — and t'other no less blind. He died! — his death made no great stir on earth, His burial made some pomp ; there was profusion Of velvet, gilding, brass, and no great dearth Of aught but tears — save those shed by collusion. For these things may be bought at their true worth ; Of elegy there was the due infusion — Bought also; and the torches, cloaks, and banners, Heralds, and relics of old Gothic manners, Form'd a sepulchral melodrame. Of all The fools who floek'd to swell or see the show. Who cared about the corpse? The funeral Made the attraction, and the black the woe. There throbb'd not there a thought which pierced the pall; And, when the gorgeous coffin was laid low. It seem'd the mockery of hell to fold The rottenness of eighty years in gold. ^ This satire was written as an answer to the Poet Laureate Southey's official elegy on George III, A Vision of Judgment, 1821, in which is given an account of the assumption of the monarch Into Heaven. The second selection is a part of a debate between Satan and the Archangel Michael concerning George Ill's title to salvation., Wit- nesses are summoned, including Junius. Ai the close Southey appears and begins to read his poem. 414 THE GEEAT TEADITION So mix his body with the dust! It might Return to what it must far sooner, were The natural compound left alone to fight Its way back into earth, and fire, and air; But the unnatural balsams merely blight What nature made him at his birth, as bare As the mere million's base unmummied clay- Yet all his spices but prolong decay. He's dead — and upper earth with him has done: He's buried; save the undertaker's bill, Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone For him, unless he left a German will; But Where's the proctor who will ask his son? In whom his qualities are reigning still. Except that household virtue, most uncom- mon. Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman. Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate, And nodded o'er his keys ; when lo ! there came A wond'rous noise he had not heard of late — A rushing sound of wind, and stream, and flame; In short, a roar of things extremely great, Which would have made aught save a saint exclaim; But he, with first a start and then a wink, Said, "There's another star gone out, I think!" But ere he could return to his repose, A cherub flapp'd his right wing o'er his eyes — At which Saint Peter yawn'd, and rubb'd his nose; "Saint porter," said the angel, "prithee rise !" Waving a goodly wing, which glow'd, as glows An earthly peacock's tail, with heavenly dyes : To which the saint replied, "Well, what's the matter? Is Lucifer come back with all this clatter?" "No," quoth the cherub, "George the Third is dead." "And who is George the Third?" replied the apostle: ''What George? what Third?" "The king of England," said The angel. "Well! he won't find kings to jostle Him on his way; but does he wear his head? Because the last we saw here had a tussle, And ne'er would have got into heaven's good graces. Had he not flung his head in all our faces. II "He ^ came to his scepter young ; he leaves it old: Look to the state in which he found his realm. And left it ; and his annals too behold, How to a minion first he gave the helm: How grew upon his heart a thirst for gold. The beggar's vice, which can but over- whelm The meanest hearts; and for the rest, but glance Thine eye along America and France. " 'Tis true, he was a tool from first to last, (I have the workmen safe), but as a tool So let him be consumed. From out the past Of ages, since mankind have known the rule Of monarchs — from the bloody rolls amass'd Of sin and slaughter — from the Cassars' school. Take the worst pupil; and produce a reign More drench'd with gore, more cumber'd with the slain. "He ever warr'd with freedom and the free : Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes. So that they utter'd the word 'Liberty !' Found George ,the Third their first op- ponent. Whose History was ever stain'd as his will be With national and individual woes? I grant his household abstinence; I grant His neutral virtues, which most monarchs want ; "I know he was a constant consort; own He was a decent sire, and middling lord. All this is much, and most upon a throne; As temperance, if at Apicius' board. Is more than at an anchorite's supper shown. 1 George III. THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 415 I grant him all fh'e kindest can accord; And this was well for him, but not for those Millions who found him what oppression chose. "The New World shook him off; the Old yet groans Beneath what he and his prepared, if not Completed: he leaves his heirs on many thrones To all his vices, without what begot Compassion for him — his tame virtues; drones Who sleep, or despots who have now for- got A lesson which shall be re-taught them, wake Upon the thrones of earth; but let them quake !" Ill He ^ ceased, and drew forth an MS ; and no Persuasion on the part of devils, or saints, Or angels, now could stop the torrent; so He read the first three lines of the con- tents ; But at the fourth, the whole spiritual show Had vanish'd, with variety of scents. Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they sprang. Like lightning, off from his "melodious twang." Those grand heroics acted as a spell : The angels stopp'd their ears and plied their pinion. The devils ran howling, deafen'd, down to hell; The ghosts fled, gibbering, for their own dominion, 1 i. e., Southey, who had given a long defense of his work. (For 'tis not yet decided where they dwell, And I leave every man to his own opin- ion;) Michael took refuge in his trump — but lo! His teeth were set on edge, he could not blow! Saint Peter, who has hitherto been known For an impetuous saint, upraised his keys, And at the fifth line knock'd the poet down ; Who fell like Phaeton, but more at ease, Into his lake, for there he did not drown, A different web being by the Destinies Woven for the laureat's final wreath, when- e'er Reform shall happen either here or there. He first sank to the bottom — like his works, But soon rose to the surface — like him- self; For all corrupted things are buoy'd, like corks. By their own rottenness, light as an elf. Or wish that flits o'er a morass: he lurks. It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf. In his own den, to scrawl some "Life," or "Vision," As Welborn says — "the devil turn'd pre- cisian." As for the rest, to come to the conclusion Of this true dream, the telescope is gone Which kept my optics free from all de- lusion. And show'd me what I in my turn have shown ; All I saw farther, in the last confusion. Was, that King George slipp'd into heaven for one. And when the tumult dwindled to a calm, I left him practicing the hundredth psalm. 3. A VISION OF PERFECTION Hymn to Intellectual Beauty percy bysshe shelley The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen amongst us,- — vis- iting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower ; — Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance; Like hues and harmonies of evening, — Like clouds in starlight widely spread, — Like memory of music fled, — Like aught that for its gTace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. 416 THE GEEAT TEADITION Spirit of Beauty^ that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, — where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? Ask why the sunlight not forever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river. Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown. Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom, — why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope? No voice from some sublimer world hath ever To sage or poet these responses given — Therefore the names of Daemon, Ghost, and Heaven, Remain the records of their vain endeavor, Frail spells — whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone — like mist o'er mountains driven. Or music by the night wind sent, Through strings of some still instru- ment, Or moonlight on a midnight stream. Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent. Man were immortal, and omnipotent. Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art. Keep with thy glorious train firm state with- in his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies. That wax and wane in lovers' eyes — Thou — that to human thought art nourish- ment. Like darkness to a dying flame ! Depart not as thy shadow came, Depart not — lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality. While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed, I was not heard — I saw them not — When musing deeply on the lot Of life, at the sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring News of birds and blossoming, — Sudden, thy shadow fell on me ; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy ! I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine — have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave : they have in visioned bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight Outstretched with me the envious night — They know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou — awful Loveliness^ Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past — there is a harmony In autumn, and a luster in its sky. Which through the summer is not heard or seen. As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! Thus let thy power, which like the truth Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply Its calm — to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee. Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind. Ode to the West Wind percy bysshe shelley I 0, wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being. Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 417 Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes : 0, thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low. Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odors plain and hill : Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver ; hear, 0, hear ! II Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed. Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst : 0, hear 1 III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams. Beside a pumice isle in Baise's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them ! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear. And tremble and despoil themselves: 0, hear! IV If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear ; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee ; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, 0, uncontrollable ! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision ; I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh ! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : What if my leaves are falling like its own ! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone. Sweet thoug'h in sadness. Be thou. Spirit fierce. My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ! And, by the incantation of this verse. Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among man- kind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy ! 0, Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 418 THE GEEAT TEADITION Englakd in 1819 percy btsshe shelley An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,i— Princes,^ the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn, — mud from a muddy spring, — Rulers ^ who neither see, nor feel, nor know, But leech-like to their fainting country cling. Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, — A people starved and stabbed in the un- tilled field,— An army, which liberticide and prey Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield Golden and sangniine laws which tempt and slay; Religion Christless, Godless — a book sealed ; A Senate,* — Time's worst statute unre- pealed, — Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day. The Power of Man percy bysshe shelley [From Prometheus Unbound, 1819] Man, oh, not men ! a chain of linked thought. Of love and might to be divided not. Compelling the elements with adamantine stress ; As the sun rules, even with a tyrant's gaze. The unquiet republic of the maze Of planets, struggling fierce towards heav- en's free wilderness — Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul. Whose nature is its own divine control, Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea; Familiar acts are beautiful through love ; Labor, and joain, and grief, in life's green grove Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gen- tle they could be ! His Avill, with all mean passions, bad delights, ^ George III. =» The Prince of Wales. * The Ministry, principally Castlereagh. * The House of Lords. And selfish cares, its trembling satellites, A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey. Is as a tempest-winged ship, whose helm Love rules, through waves which dare not overwhelm. Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sov- ereign sway. All things confess his strength. Through the cold mass Of marble and of color his dreams pass; Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their children wear ; Language is a perpetual Orphic song, Which rules with Daedal hai-mony a throng Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shapeless were. The lightning is his slave ; heaven's utmost deep Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on ! The tempest is his steed, he strides the air ; And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare, Heaven, hast thou secrets ? Man unveils me ; I have none. A Vision of the Future ^ [From Prometheus Unbound] Prometheus. We feel what thou hast heard and seen ; yet speak. Spirit of the Hour. Soon as the sound had ceased whose thunder filled The abysses of the sky and the wide earth, There was a change : the impalpable thin air And the all-circling sunlight were trans- formed. As if the sense of love dissolved in them Had folded itself round the sphered world. My visicto then grew clear, and I could see Into the mysteries of the universe : Dizzy as with delight I floated down ; Winnowing' the lightsome air with languid plumes, My coursers sought their birthplace in the sun, Where they henceforth will live exempt from toil Pasturing flowers of vegetable fire; And where my moonlike car will stand within 1 This passage is a poetic rendering of Godwin's Political Justice. THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 419 A temple, gazed upon by Phidian forms Of thee, and Asia, and the Earth, and me, And you, fair nymphs, looking the love we feel, — In memory of the tidings it has borne, — Beneath a dome fretted with graven flowers. Poised on twelve columns of resplendent stone, And open to the bright and liquid sky. Yoked to it by an amphisbenie snake The likeness of those winged steeds will mock The flight from which they find repose. Alas, Whither has wandered now my partial tongue When all remains untold which ye would hear? As I have said I floated to the earth : It was, as it is still, the pain of bliss To move, to breathe, to be; I wandering went Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind. And first was disappointed not to see Such mighty change as I had felt within Expressed in outward things; but soon I looked, And behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked One with the other even as spirits do — None fawned, none trampled ; hate, disdain, or fear, Self-love or self -contempt, on human brows. No more inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell, ''All hope abandon ye who enter here"; None frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear Gazed on another's eye of cold command, Until the subject of the tyrant's will Became, worse fate, the abject of his own. Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death. None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak ; None, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart The sparks of love and hope till there re- mained Those bitter ashes, a soul self -consumed. And the wretch crept a vampire among men. Infecting all with his own hideous ill; None talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes. Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy With such a self -mistrust as has no name. And women, too, frank, beautiful, and kind As the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew On the wide earth, passed; gentle, radiant forms. From custom's evil taint exempt and pure; Speaking the wisdom once they could not think, Looking emotions once they feared to feel, And changed to all which once they dared not be. Yet being now, made earth like heaven ; nor pride. Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill shame. The bitterest of those drops of treasured gall, Spoilt the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love. Thrones, altars, judgment-seats, and prisons, wherein. And beside which, by wretched men were borne Scepters, tiaras, swords, and chains, and tomes Of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignoi-ance, Were like those monstrous and barbaric shapes. The ghosts of a no-more-remembered fame, Which, from their unworn obelisks, look forth In triumph o'er the palaces and tombs Of those who were their conquerors : molder- ing round Those imaged to the pride of kings aJid priests, A dark yet mighty faith, a power as wide As is the world it wasted, and are now But an astonishment ; even so the tools And emblems of its last captivity. Amid the dwellings of the peopled earth, Stand, not o'erthrown, but unregarded now. And those foul shapes, abhorred by god and man, Which, under many a name and many a form. Strange, savage, ghastly, dark, and execra- ble. Were Jupiter, the tyrant of the world ; And which the nations, panic-stricken, served With blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and love Dragged to his altars soiled and garlandless. And slain among men's unreclaiming tears. Flattering the thing they feared, which fear was hate. Frown, moldering fast, o'er their abandoned shrines : 420 THE GEEAT TEADITION The painted veil, by those who were, called life, Which mimicked, as with colors idly spread, All men believed and hoped, is torn aside ; The loathsome mask has fallen, the man re- mains Seepterless, free, uneircumscribed, but man Equal, unelassed, tribeless, and nationless, Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king Over himself ; just, gentle, wise : but man Passionless ; no, yet free from guilt or pain, Which were, for his will made or suffered them ; Nor yet exempt, tho' ruling them like slaves. From chance, and death, and mutability, The clogs of that which else might oversoar The loftiest star of unascended heaven. Pinnacled dim in the intense inane. The Day! percy bysshk shelley [From Prometheus Unbound] This is the day, which down the void abysm At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heav- en's despotism, And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep : Love, from its awful throne of patient power In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour Of dead endurance, from the slippery, steep, And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs And folds over the world its healing wings. Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endur- ance, These are the seals of that most firm assur- ance Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength ; And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, Mother of many acts and hours, should free The serpent that would clasp her with his length ; These are the spells by which to reassume An empire o'er the disentangled doom. To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite ; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent ; To love, and bear ; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contem- plates ; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory. Titan, is to be Good, great, and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory. The World's Great Age Begiks Anew^ percy bysshe shelley The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return. The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn : Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam. Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. A brighter Hellas rears its mountains From waves serener far ; A new Peneus rolls his fountains Against the morning star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. A loftier Argo cleaves the main, Fraught with a later prize ; Another Orpheus sings again, And loves, and weeps, and dies. A new Ulysses leaves once more Calypso for his native shore. Oh, write no more the tale of Troy, If earth Death's scroll must be! Nor mix with Laian rage the joy Which dawns upon the free : Although a subtler Sphinx renew Riddles of death Thebes never knew. Another Athens shall arise. And to remoter time Bequeath, like sunset to the skies. The splendor of its prime ; And leave, if nought so bright may live, All earth can take or Heaven can give. Saturn and Love their long repose Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell, than One who rose, Than many unsubdued : Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, But votive tears and symbol flowers. ' Hellas, the dramatic poem from which this selection is taken, is an idealized account of the revolt in Greece. The temporary failure of the rising is converted into a prophecy not only of the ultimate triumph of this cause but of the great cause of humanity of which it constitutes a part. In this lyric Shelley is influenced by the Platonic notion of the great cycle in human affairs which will in its revolution bring back the golden age of Greece, elevated to a still higher plane. THE EISE OE MODEEN DEMOCKACY 421 Oh, cease ! must hate and death return ? Cease ! must men kill and die ? Cease ! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last ! Adonais percy btsshe shelley I weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 0, weep for Adonais ! though our tears Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head! And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure com- peers, ^ And teach them thine own sorrow ! Say : "With me Died Adonais; till the Future dares Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be An echo and a light unto eternity." Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 10 When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies In darkness *? where was lorn Urania When Adonais died ? With veiled eyes, 'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise She sate, while one, with soft enamored breath, 15 Rekindled all the fading melodies. With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death. 0, weep for Adonais — ^he is dead! Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep ! • 20 Yet wherefore ? Quench within their burn- ing bed Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep ; For he is gone, where all things wise and fair Descend ; — oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 25 Will yet restore him to the vital air ; Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair. Most musical of mourners, weep again ! Lament anew, Urania ! — He died, — Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 30 Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride. The priest, the slave, and the liberticide, Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite Of lust and blood ; he went, unterrified, Lito the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite 35 Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light. Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! Not all to that bright station dared to climb ; And happier they their happiness who knew, Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 40 In which suns perished ; others more sub- lime. Struck by the envious wrath of man or God, Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime ; And- some yet live, treading the thorny road. Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode. 45 But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished. The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew. Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished. And fed with true love tears, instead of dew; Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! ^o Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last. The bloom, whose petals, nipped before they blew. Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste; The broken lily lies — the storm is overpast. To that high Capital, where kingly Death, 55 Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay. He came ; and bought, with price of purest breath, A gTave among the eternal. — Come away ! Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day Is yet his fitting charnel-roof ! while still ^0 He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay ; Awake him not ! surely he takes his fill Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. 422 THE GEEAT TEADITION He will awake no more, oh, never more ! — Within the twilight chamber spreads apace, ^^ The shadow of white Death, and at the door Invisible Corruption waits to trace His extreme way to her dim dwelling- place ; The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface "^^ So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law Of change, shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. 0, weep for Adonais ! — The quick Dreams, The passion-winged Ministers of thought. Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams '^^ Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught The love which was its miTsie, wander not, — Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain. But droop there, whence they sprung ; and mourn their lot Eound the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, ^^ They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again. And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head. And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries : "Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead; See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies f^ A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain." Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise ! She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. ^^ One from a lucid urn of starry dew Washed his light limbs as if embalming them ; Another clipped her profuse locks, and threw The wreath upon him, like an anadem, Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem ; ^^ Another in her wilful grief would break Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem A greater loss with one which was more weak; And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. Another Splendor on his mouth alit, ^^^ That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit. And pass into the panting heart beneath With lightning and with music : the damp death Quenched its caress upon his icy lips ; 105 And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath Of moonlight vapor, which the cold night clips. It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse. And others came . . . Desires and Adorations, Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies, Splendors, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations m Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phan- tasies ; And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, 11^ Came in slow pomp; — the moving pomp might seem Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. All he had loved, and molded into thought, From shape, and hue, and odor, and sweet sound. Lamented Adonais. Morning sought ^^o Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound. Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground. Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day; Afar the melancholy thunder moaned. Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, ^^ And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay. Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless moun- tains. And feeds her grief with his remembered lay, THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 423 And will no more reply to winds or foun- tains, Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, ^^^ Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day; Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear Than those for whose disdain she pined away Into a shadow of all sounds : — a drear Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. ^^ Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown, For whom should she have waked the sullen year? To Phcebus was not Hyacintii so dear l^o Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both Thou, Adonais : wan they stand and sere Amid the faint companions of their youth. With dew all turned to tears ; odor, to sigh- ing ruth. Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightin- gale, 145 Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain; Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, 150 As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain Light on his head who pierced thy in- nocent breast. And scared the angel soul that was its earth- ly guest! Ah, woe is me ! Winter is come and gone, But grief returns with the revolving year; 155 The airs and streams renew their joyous tone; The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear ; Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier; The amorous birds now pair in every brake. And build their mossy homes in field and brere ; ^^ And the green lizard, and the golden snake, Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake. Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst. As it has ever done, with change and motion i^^ From the great morning of the world when first God daAvned on Chaos; in its stream im- mersed The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light ; All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst ; Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight 170 The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. The leprous corpse touched by this spirit tender Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath ; Like incarnations of the stars, when splendor Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death "5 And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath ; Naught we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows Be as a sword consumed before the sheath By sightless lightning? — th' intense atom glows A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. i^*^ Alas ! that all we loved of him should be. But for our grief, as if it had not been, And grief itself be mortal ! Woe is me ! Whence are we, and why are we ? of what scene The actors or spectators? Great and mean i^^ Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow. As long as skies are blue, and fields are green. 424 THE OESAT TRADITION Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow. Re will awake, no more, oh, never more! i^^ "Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mother, rise Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core, A wound more fierce than his with tears and sighs." And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes. And all the Echoes whom their sister's song ""^ Had held in holy silence, cried: "Arise!" Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung, From her ambrosial rest the fading Splen- dor sprung. She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs Out of the East, and follows wild and drear . 200 The golden Day, which, on eternal wings, Even as a ghost abandoning a bier. Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania; So saddened round her like an atmos- phere 2*^^ Of stormy mist ; so swept her on her way Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. ' Out of her secret Paradise she sped. Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel. And human hearts, which to her aery tread _ _ 210 Yielding not, wounded the invisible Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell: And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they. Rent the soft Form they never could re- pel. Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 215 Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. In the death chamber for a moment Death, Shamed by the presence of that living Might, Blushed to annihilation, and the breath Revisited those lips, and life's pale Hght 220 Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight. "Leave me not wild and drear and com- fortless. As silent lightning leaves the starless night ! Leave me not !" cried Urania : her distress Roused Death : Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress. 225 "Stay yet awhile ! speak to me once again; Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live; And in my heartless breast and burning brain That word, that kiss shall all thoughts else survive. With food of saddest memory kept alive, 230 Now thou art dead, as if it were a part Of thee, my Adonais ! I would give All that I am to be as thou now art! But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart ! "Oh gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, 235 Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart Dare the unpastured dragon in his den? Defenceless as thou wert, oh where was then Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear? 240 Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere. The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like deer. "The herded wolves, bold only to pursue; The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead; 24E The vultures to the conqueror's banner true, Who feed where Desolation first has fed, And whose wings rain contagion; — how they fled. When like Apollo, from his golden bow, The Pythian of the age one arrow sped 25C And smiled! — the spoilers tempt no sec- ond blow ; THE EISE or MODEEN DEMOCEACY 425 They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low. "The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn ; He sets, and each ephemeral insect then Is gathered into death without a dawn, 255 And the immortal stars awake again; So is it in the world of living men: A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light 260 Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's aw- ful night." Thus ceased she : and the mountain shep- herds came. Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent; The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame Over his living head like Heaven is bent, 265 An early but enduring monument, Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song In sorrow ; from her wilds lerne sent The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue. 270 Midst others of less note, came one frail Form, A phantom among men, companionless As the last cloud of an expiring storm Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess, Had gazed on Nature's naked loveli- ness, 275 Aetseon-like, and now he fled astray With feeble steps o'er the world's wilder- ness. And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey. A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift — 280 A Love in desolation masked; — a Power Girt round with weakness ; — it can scarce uplift The weight of the superincumbent hour; It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, A breaking billow; — even whilst we speak 285 Is it not broken ? On the withering flower The killing sun smiles brightly; on a cheek The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break. His head was bound with pansies over- blown. And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue; 290 And a light spear topped with a cypress cone. Round whose rude shaft dark ivy tresses grew Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew. Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart Shook the weak hand that grasped it ; of that crew 295 He came the last, neglected and apart ; A herd-abandoned deer, struck by the hun- ter's dart. All stood aloof, and at his partial moan Smiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band Who in another's fate now wept his own ; 300 As, in the accents of an unknown land, He sung new sorrow ; sad Urania scanned The Stranger's mien, and murmured: "Who art thou?" He answered not, but with a sudden hand Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 305 Which was like Cain's or Christ's — Oh ! that it should be so! What softer voice is hushed over the dead? Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown ? What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed. In mockery of monumental stone, ^'^^ The heavy heart heaving without -a moan? If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise, Taught, soothed, loved, honored the de- parted one. Let me not vex with inharmonious sighs The silence of that heart's accepted sacri- fice. 315 Our Adonals has drunk poison — oh! What deaf and viperous murderer could crown 426 THE GEEAT TRADITION Life's early cup with sucli a draught of woe? The nameless worm would now itself dis- own: It felt, yet could escape the magic tone ^20 Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong, But what was howling in one breast alone. Silent with expectation of the song, Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame! 325 Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me. Thou noteless blot on a remembered name! But be thyself, and know thyself to be ! And ever at thy season be thou free To spill the venom when thy fangs o'er- flow: 330 Remorse and Self -contempt shall cling to thee; Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow. And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now. Nor let us weep that our delight is fled Far from these carrion kites that scream below ; ^^^ He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead; Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. — Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 340 Through time and change, unquenchably the same, Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame. Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — He hath awakened from the dream of life— 'Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep 345 With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings. — We decay Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief Convulse us and consume us day by day, 350 And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay. He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall de- light. Can touch him not and torture not again ; 355 From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain ; Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn. With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 360 He lives, he wakes — 'tis Death is dead, not he; Mourn not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn, Turn all thy dew to splendor, for from thee The spirit thou lamentest is not gone; Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan ! 365 Cease ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air, Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair ! He is made one with Nature : there is heard 370 His voice in all her music, from the moan Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird; He is a presence to be felt and known In darkness and in light, from herb and stone. Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 375 Which has withdrawn his being to its own; Which wields the world with never wea- ried love. Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. THE EISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 427 He is a portion of the loveliness Which once he rnade more lovely : he doth bear 380 His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there All new successions to the forms they wear; Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; ^^^ And bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light. The splendors of the firmament of time May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not; Like stars to their appointed height they climb ^^ And death is a low mist which cannot blot The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, And love and life contend in it, for what Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there ^^^ And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. The inheritors of unfulfilled renown Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton Rose pale, his solemn agony had not ^^ Yet faded from him ; Sidney, as he fought And as he fell and as he lived and loved, . Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot. Arose ; and Lucan, by his death approved : Oblivion, as they rose, shrank like a thing reproved. ^°^ And many more, whose names on Earth are dark But whose transmitted effluence cannot die So long as fire outlives the parent spark, Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. "Thou art become as one of us," they cry. 410 "It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long Swung blind in unascended majesty. Silent alone amid an Heaven of Song. Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!" Who mourns for Adonais? oh, come forth, 415 Fond wretch! and know thyself and him aright. Clasp with thy panting soul the pendu- lous Earth; As from a center, dart thy spirit's light Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might Satiate the void circumference : then shrink 420 Even to a point within our day and night ; And keep thy heart light, lest it make thee sink. When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink. Or go to Rome, which is the sepulcher, O, not of him, but of our joy: 't is naught 425 That ages, empires, and religions there Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought ; For such as he can lend, — they borrow not Glory from those who made the world their prey; And he is gathered to the kings of thought 430 Who waged contention with their time's decay. And of the past are all that cannot pass away. Go thou to Rome, — at once the Paradise, The grave, the city, and the wilderness; And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise 435 And flowering weeds and fragrant copses dress The bones of Desolation's nakedness Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, 440 A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. And gray walls molder round, on which dull Time Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary br' nd ; And one keen pyramid with wedge sub- lime. Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 445 This refuge for his memory, doth stand Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath. 428 THE GREAT TRADITION A field is spread, on which a newer band Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death, Welcoming him we lose with scarce ex- tinguished breath. 450 Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet To have outgrown the sorrow which con- signed Its charge to each; and if the seal is set. Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind. Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou find 455 Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, Of tears and gall. From the world's bit- ter wind Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. What Adonais is, why fear we to become? The One remains, the many change and pass; 460 Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-colored glass. Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! 465 Follow where all is fled! — Rome's azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. Why linger? why turn back, why shrink, my Heart? Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here 470 They have departed; thou shouldst now depart ! A light is past from the revolving year. And man, and woman; and what still is dear Attracts to crush, repels to make th:e wither. The soft sky smiles, — the low wind whis- pers near; 475 'T is Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither, No more let Life divide what Death can join together. That Light whose smile kindles the Uni- verse, That Beauty in which all things work and move, That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse 480 Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love' Which, through the web of being blindly wove By man and beast and earth and air and sea, Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, 485 Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven. Far from the shore, far from the trem- bling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 490 The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar : Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star. Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. A Dirge PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Rough wind, that moanest loud Grief too sad for song; Wild wind, when sullen cloud Knells all the night long; Sad storm, whose tears are vain, Bare woods, whose branches strain, Deep caves and dreary main, Wail, for the world's wrong ! THE EISE OF MODEEN DEMOCEACY 429 4. THE IMMORTALITY OF BEAUTY Beauty john keat.s [From Endymion, 1818] A thing of beauty is a joy for ever; Its loveliness increases ; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreath- ing A flowery band to bind us to the earth. Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days. Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep ; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season ; the mid-forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms : And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead ; All lovely tales that we have heard or read : An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. Nor do we merely feel these essences For one short hour ; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite. Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'er- east. They always must be with us, or we die. La Belle Dame Sans Merci john" keats what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full. And the harvest's done. 1 see a lily on thy brow With ang-uish moist and fever dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. ''I met a lady in the. meads. Full beautiful — a fairy's child ; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. "I made a garland for her head. And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love. And made sweet moan. "I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long. For sideways would she lean, and sing A fairy's song. "She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew. And sure in language strange she said — • 'I love thee true.' "She took me to her elfin grot. And there she wept and sigh'd full sore, And there I shut her wild, wild eyes. With kisses four. "And there she lulled me asleep. And there I dream'd — ah ! woe betide ! — The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side. "I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried — 'La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!' "I saw their starved lips in the gloom, With horrid warning gaped wide; And I awoke, and found me here On the cold hill's side. "And this is why I sojourn here. Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing." 430 THE GEEAT TRADITION Ode to a Nightingale john keats My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk. Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot. But being too happy in thine happi- ness,^ That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees. In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows number- less, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. for a draught of vintage ! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth. Tasting of Flora and the country green. Dance, and Provengal 3ong, and sunburnt mirth ! for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippo- crene. With beaded bubbles winking at the brim. And purple-stained mouth ; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen. And with thee fade away into the for- est dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget, What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and specter- thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes. Or new Love pine at them beyond to- morrow. Away ! away ! for I will fly to thee. Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and re- tards : Already with thee ! tender is the night. And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays ; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs. But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglan- tine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves ; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on sum- mer eves. Darkling I listen ; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath ; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain. While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — To thy high requiem become a sod. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown : Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home. She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; The same that ofttimes hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn. THE RISE OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 431 Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self ! Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley -glades : Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music: — Do I wake or sleep ? . Ode on a Grecian Urn john keats Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness. Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme : What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these"? What maid- ens loth ? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy ? Heard melodies are sweet, but those un- heard Are sweeter ; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd. Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare ; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss. Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve ; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair! Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu : And, happy melodist, unwearied. Forever piping songs forever new; More happy love ! more happy, happy love ! Forever warm and still to be enjoy'd. Forever panting, and forever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies. And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore. Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! witli brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought With forest branches and the trodden weed ; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity : Cold Pastoral ! When old age shall this generation waste. Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is .all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. On First Looking into Chapman's Homer john keats Much have I travel'd in the realms of And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne ; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken ; 432 THE GREAT TRADITION Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise- Silent, upon a peak in Darien, When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be john keats When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain ; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance ; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the fairy power Of unreflecting love ! — then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. NINETEENTH CENTURY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS 1. DEMOCRACY AND NATIONALISM 1. UTILITARIAN IDEAS OF LIBERTY On Liberty^ john stuart mill [From On Liberty, 1859] 1. The Principle The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which 1 1 do not know whether then or at any other time so short a book ever instantly produced so wide and so important an effect on contemporary thought as did Mill's On Liberty in that day of intellectual and social fermentation (1859). It was like the effect of Emerson's awakening at the Phi Beta Kappa Society in New England in 1837. The thought of writing it first came into his head in 1855, as he was mounting the steps of the Capitol at Rome, the spot where the thought of the greatest of all literary histories had started into the mind of Gibbon just a hundred years before. He had been inclining towards over- government, both social and political ; there was also, he says, a moment when, by reaction from a contrary excess, "I might have become a less thorough Radical and Democrat than I am." It was the composition of this book and the influence under which it grew that kept him right. Mill believed that no symmetry, no uniformity of cus- tom and convention, but bold, free expansion in every field, was demanded by all the needs of human life, and the best instincts of the modern mind. For this reason, among others, he thought Carlyle made a great mistake in presenting Goethe as the example to the modern world of the lines on which it should shape itself. "You might as well," he said (1854), "attempt to cut down Shakespeare to a Greek drama, or a Gothic cathe- dral to a Greek temple." For this bold, free ex- pansion to which Goethe's ideals were the oppo- site, these two hundred brief pages, without being in any sense volcanic, are a vigorous, argumenta- tive, searching, noble, and moving appeal. The little volume belongs to the rare books that after hostile criticism has done its best are still found to have somehow added a cubit to man's stature. —From Becollections by Viscount Mcrley, mankind are warranted, individually or col- lectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self -pro- tection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opin- ions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him or entreating him, but not compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. It is, perhaps, necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood and woman- hood. Those who are still in a state to re- quire being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury. For the same reason, we may leave out of considera- tion those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The early difficulties in 433 434 THE GEEAT TEADITION the way of spontaneous progress are so great that there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler full of the spirit of improvement is war- ranted in the use of any expedients that will attain an end, perhapy otherwise un- attainable. Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no appli- cation to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal dis- cussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. But as soon as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long since reached in all nations with whom we need here con- cern ourselves), compulsion, either in the direct form or in that of pains and penal- ties for non-compliance, is no longer ad- missible as a means to their own good, and justifiable only for the security of others. It is proper to state that I forego any advantage which could be derived to my argument from the idea of abstract right, as a thing independent of utility. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progres- sive being. Those interests, I contend, au- thorize the subjection of individual spon- taneity to external control, only in respect to those actions of each which concern the interest of other people. If any one does an act hurtful to others, there is a prima facie case for punishing him, by law, or, where legal penalties are not safely appli- cable, by general disapprobation. There are also many positive acts for the bene- fit of others, which he may rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evi- dence in a court or justice ; to bear his fair share in the common defence, or in any other joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which he enjoys the pro- tection, and to perform certain acts of in- dividual beneficence, such as saving a fel- low creature's life, or interposing to protect the defenceless against ill-usage, things which wherever it is obviously a man's duty to do, he may rightfully be made respon- sible to society for not doing. A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. The latter case, it is true, requires a much more cautious exercise of compul- sion than the former. To make any one answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable for not pre- venting evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception. Yet there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to justify that exception. In all things which regard the external relations of the individual, he is de jure amenable to those whose interests are concerned, and if need be, to society as their protector. There are often good reasons for not holding him to the responsibility; but these reasons must arise from the spe- cial expediences of the case: either be- cause it is a kind of ease in which he is on the whole likely to act better, when left to his own discretion, than when con- trolled in any way in which society have it in their power to control him ; or because the attempt to exercise control would pro- duce other evils, greater than those which it would prevent. When such reasons as these preclude the enforcement of respon- sibility, the conscience of the agent him- self should step into the vaeaAt judgment seat, and protect those interests of others which have no external protection; judging himself all the more rigidly, because the case does not admit of his being made account- able to the judgment of his fellow creatures. But there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest; com- prehending all that portion of a person's life and conduct which affects only himself, or, if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary, and undeceived consent and participation. When I say only himself, I mean directly, and in the first instance : for whatever affects himself, may affect others through himself; and the objection which may be grounded on this contingency will receive consideration in the sequel. This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward do- main of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; ab- solute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 435 of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other peo- ple; but, being almost of as much impor- tance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Sec- ondly, the principle requires liberty of taste and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow without impediment from our fel- low-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among indi- viduals; freedom to unite for any purpose not involving harm to others : the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived. No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected is free, what- ever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gain- ers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest. Though this doctrine is anything but new, and, to some persons, may have the air of a truism, there is no doctrine which stands more directly opposed to the general ten- dency of existing opinion and practice. So- ciety has expended fully as much effort in the attempt (according to its lights) to compel people to conform to its notion of personal, as of social excellence 2. Liberty of Thought and Discussion The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by when any defence would be necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the securi- ties against corrupt or tyrannical govern- ment. No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legisla- ture or an executive, not identified in in- terest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear. This aspect of the question, besides, has been so often and so triumphantly en- forced by preceding writers, that it needs not be specially insisted on in this place. Though the law of England, on the subject of the press, is as servile to this day as it was in the time of the Tudors, there is little danger of its being actual- ly put in force against political dis- cussion, except during some temporary panic, when fear of insurrection drives ministers and judges from their jDropriety ; and speaking generally, it is not, in con- stitutional countries, to be apprehended that the government, whether completely respon- sible to the people or not, will often attempt to control the expression of opinion, ex- cept when in doing so it makes itself the organ of the general intolerance of the public. Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the peo- ple, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such co- ercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegiti- mate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposi- tion to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one per- son than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opin- ion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation ; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opin- ion is right, they are deprived of the op- portunity of exchanging error for truth : if wrong they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer preception and livelier impression of truth, .produced by its col- lision with error. .... 436 THE GEEAT TEADITION 3. Trade The principles asserted in these pages must be more generally admitted as the basis for discussion of details, before a consistent application of them to all the various de- partments of government and morals can be attempted with any prospect of advantage. The few observations I propose to make on questions of detail, are designed to illus- trate the principles, rather than to follow them out to their consequences. I offer, not so much applications, as specimens of application; which may serve to bring into greater clearness the meaning and limits of the two maxims which together form the en- tire doctrine of this Essay, and to assist the judgment in holding the balance between them, in the cases where it appears doubt- ful which of them is applicable to the case. The maxims are, first, that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interest of no person but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other people, if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only measures by which so- ciety can justifiably express its dislike or disapprobation of his conduct. Secondly, that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interest of others, the individual is ac- countable, and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishments, if society is of opinion that the one or the. other is requisite for its protection. In the first place, it must by no means be supposed, because damage or probability of damage, to the interest of others, can alone justify the interference of society, that therefore it always does justify such interference. In many cases, an individual, in pursuing a legitimate object, necessarily and therefore legitimately causes pain or loss to others, or intercepts a good which they had a reasonable hope of obtaining. Such oppositions of interest between indi- viduals often arise from bad social institu- tions, but are unavoidable while those in- stitutions last ; and some would be unavoid- able under any institutions. Whoever suc- ceeds in an overcrowded profession, or in a competitive examination; whoever is pre- ferred to another in any contest for an object which both desire, reaps benefit from the loss of others, from their wasted exer- tion and their disappointment. But it is, by common admission, better for the general interest of mankind, that persons should pursue their objects undeterred by this sort gf consequences. In other words, society admits no right, either legal or moral, in the disappointed competitors, to immunity from this kind of suffering; and feels called on to interfere, only when means of success have been employed which it is contrary to the general interest to permit — namely, fraud or treachery and force. Again, trade is a social act. Whoever un- dertakes to sell any description of goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons, and of society in general ; and thus his conduct, in principle, comes within the jurisdiction of society: accordingly, it was once held to be the duty of governments, in all cases which were considered of im- portance, to fix prices, and regailate the proc- esses of manufacture. But it is now recog- nized, though not till after a long struggle, that iDoth the cheapness and the good qual- ity of commodities are most effectually pro- vided for by leaving the producers and sell- ers perfectly free, under the sole check of equal freedom to the buyers for supplying themselves elsewhere. This is the so-called doctrine of Free Trade, which rests on grounds different from, though equally solid with, the principle of individual liberty as- serted in this Essay. Restrictions on trade, or on production for purposes of trade, are indeed restraints ; and all restraint, qua re- straint, is an evil : but the restraints in qiies- tion affect only that part of conduct which society is competent to restrain, and are wrong solely because they do not really pro- duce the results which it is desired to pro- duce by them. As the principle of indi- vidual liberty is not involved in the doctrine of Free Trade, so neither is it in most of the questions which arise respecting the limits of that doctrine: as for example, what amount of public .control is admissible for the prevention of fraud by adulteration ; how far sanitary precautions, or arrange- ments to protect work-people employed in dangerous occupations, should be enforced on employers. Such questions involve con- siderations of liberty, only in so far as leaving people to themselves is always bet- ter, cceteris paribus, than controlling them: but that they might be legitimately eon- trolled for these ends, is in principle unde- niable. On the other hand, there are ques- tions relating to interference with trade, which are essentially questions of liberty; NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 437 such as the Maine Law/ ah-eady touched upon ; the prohibition of the importation of opium into China ; the restriction of the sale of poisons; all eases, in short, where the object of the interference is to make it pos- sible or difficult to obtain a particular com- modity. These interferences are objection- able, not as infringements on the liberty of the producer or seller, but on that of the buyer 4. Paternalism I have reserved for the last place a large class of questions respecting the limits of government interference, which, though closely connected with the subject of this Essay, do not, in strictness, belong to it. These are cases in which the reasons against interference do not turn upon the principle of liberty : the question is jiot about restrain- ing the actions of individuals, but about helping them: it is asked whether the gov- ernment should do, or cause to be done, something for their benefit, instead of leav- ing it to be done by themselves, individually, or in voluntary combination. The objections to government interference, when it is not such as to involve infringe- ment of liberty, may be of three kinds. The first is, when the thing to be done is likely to be better done by individuals than by the government. Speaking generally, there is no one so fit to conduct any business, or to determine how or by whom it shall be conducted, as those who are personally inter- ested in it. This principle condemns the interferences, once so common, of the legis- lature, or the officers of government, with the ordinary processes of industry. But this part of the subject has been sufficiently en- larged upon by political economists, and is not particularly related to the principles of this Essay. The second objection is more nearly allied to our subject. In many cases, though indi- viduals may not do the particular thing so well, on the average, as the officers of gov- ernment, it is nevertheless desirable that it should be done by them, rather than by the government, as a means to their mental edu- cation — a mode of strengthening their active faculties, exercising their judgment, and giving them a familiar knowledge of the subject with which they are thus left to deal. ^ Prohibition, enforced by law in the state of Maine. This is a principal, though not the sole, recommendation of jury trial (in cases not political) ; of free and jDopular local and municipal institutions, of the conduct of in- dustrial and philanthropic enterprises by voluntary associations. These are not ques- tions of liberty, and are connected with that subject only by remote tendencies ; but they are questions of development. It belongs to a different occasion from the present to dwell on these things as parts of national education; as being, in truth, the peculiar training of a citizen, the practical part of the political education of a free people, tak- ing them out of the narrow circle of per- sonal and family selfishness, and accustom- ing them to the comprehension of joint in- terests, the management of joint concerns — habituating t4iem to act from public or semi-public motives, and guide their con- duct by aims which unite instead of isolating them from one another. Without these habits and powers, a free constitution can neither be worked nor preserved, as is exemplified by the too-often transitory na- ture of political freedom in countries where it does not rest upon a sufficient basis of local liberties. The management of purely local business by the localities, and of the great enterprises of industry by the union of those who voluntarily supply the pecuni- ary means, is further recommended by all the advantages which have been set forth in this Essay as belonging to individuality of development, and diversity of modes of ac- tion. Government operations tend to be everywhere alike. With individuals and vol- untary associations, on the contrary, there are varied experiments, and endless di- versity of experience. What the State can usefully do, is to make itself a central de- pository, and active circulator and diffuser of the experience resulting from many trials. Its business is to enable each experimentalist to benefit by the experiments of others, in- stead of tolerating no experiments but its own. The third, and most cogent reason for re- stricting the interference of government, is the great evil of adding unnecessarily' to its power. Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government, causes its influence over hojoes and fears to be more widely diffused, and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aims at becoming 438 THE GEEAT TEADITION the government. If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government; if in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all tha.t now devolves on them, became departments of the central administi*ation, if the employes of all these different enter- prises were appointed and paid by the gov- ernment and looked to the government for every rise in life ; not all the freedom of the press and popular' constitution of the leg- islature would make this or any other coun- try free otherwise than in name. And the evil would be greater, the more efficiently and scientifically the administrative ma- chinery was constructed — the more skillful the arrangements for obtaining tiie best qualified hands and heads with which to work it. In England it has of late been proposed that all the members of the civil service of government should be selected by competitive examination, to obtain for those employments the most intelligent and in- structed persons procurable; and much has been said and written for and against this proposal. One of the arguments most in- sisted on by its opponents is that the occu- pation of a permanent official servant of the State does not hold out sufficient pros- pects of emolument and importance to at- tract the highest talents, which will always be able to find a more inviting career in the professions, or in the service of companies and other public bodies. One would not have been surprised if this argument had been used by the friends of the proposition, as an answer to its principal difficulty. Coming from the opponents it is strange enough. What is urged as an objection is the safety- valve of the proposed system. If indeed all the high talents of the country could be drawn into the service of the government, a proposal tending to bring about that result might well inspire uneasiness. If every part of the business of society which requires organized concert, or large and comprehen- sive views, were in the hands of the gov- ernment, and if government offices were uni- versally filled by the ablest men, all the en- larged culture and practiced intelligence in the country, except the purely speculative, would be concentrated in a numerous bureau- cracy, to whom alone the rest of the com- munity would look for all things : the multi- tude for direction and dictation in all they had to do; the able and aspiring for per- sonal advancement. To be admitted into the ranks of this bureaucracy and when ad- mitted, to rise therein, would be the sole objects of ambition. Under this regime, not only is the oul^pide public ill-qualified, for want of practical experience, to criticize or check the mode of operation of tlie bureau- cracy, but even if the accidents of despotic or the natural working of popular institu- tions occasionally raised to ihe summit a ruler or rulers of reforming inclinations, no reform can be effected wliich is contrary to the interest of the bureaucracy. Such is the melancholy condition of the Russian empire, as is shown in the accounts of those who have had sufficient opportunity of observa- tion. The Czar himself is powerless against the bureaucratic body ; he can send any one of them to Siberia, but he cannot govern without them, or against their will. On every decree of his they have a tacit veto, by merely refraining from carrying it into effect. In countries of more advanced civili- zation and of a more insurrectionary spirit, the public, accustomed to expect everything to be done for them by the State, or at least to do nothing for themselves without asking from the State not only leave to do it, but even how it is to be done, naturally hold the State responsible for evil which befalls them, and if the evil exceeds their amount of pa- tience they rise against the government and make what is called a revolution ; whereupon somebody else, with or without legitimate authority from tie nation vaults into the seat, issues his orders to the bureaucracy, and everything goes on much as it did before; the bureaucracy being unchanged, and nobody else being capable of taking their place. A very different spectacle is exhibited among a people accustomed to transact their own business. In France, a large part of the people having been engaged in military service, many of whom have at least the rank of noncommissioned officers, there are in every popular insurrection several per- sons competent to take the lead, and im- provise some tolerable plan of action. What the French are in military affairs the Ameri- «ans are in every kind of civil business; let them be left without a government, every body of Americans is able to improvise one, and to carry on that or any other public business with a sufficient amount of intel- ligence, order, and decision. This is what NINETEENTH CENTURY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 439 every free people ought to be : and a people capable of this is certain to be free; it will never let itself be enslaved by any man or body of men because these are able to seize and pull the reins of the central adminis- tration. No bureaucracy can hope to make such a people as this do or undergo any- thing that they do not like. But where everything is done through the bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is really adverse can be done at all. The constitu- tion of such countries is an organization of the experience and practical ability of the nation into a disciplined body for the pur- pose of governing the rest; and the more perfect that organization is in itself, the more successful in drawing to itself and educating for itself the persons of greatest capacity from all ranks of the community, the more complete is the bondage of all, the members of the bureaucracy included. For the governers are as much the slaves of their organization and discipline, as the gov- erned of the governors, A Chinese mandarin is as much the tool and creature of a despotism as the humblest cultivator. An individual Jesuit is to the utmost degree of abasement the slave of his order, though the order itself exists for the collective power and importance of its members A government cannot have too much of the kind of activity which does not impede, but> aids and stimulates, individual exertion and development. The mischief begins when, instead of calling forth the activity and pow- ers of individuals and bodies, it substitutes its own activity for theirs ; when, instead of informing, advising, and, upon occasion, de- nouncing, it makes them work in fetters, or bids them stand aside and does their work instead of them. The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interests of their mental expansion and elevation to a little more of administrative skill, or of that semblance of it which prac- tice gives, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for bene- ficial purposes — will find that with small men no great thing can really be accom- plished; and that the perfection of ma- chinery to which it has sacrificed everything will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish. 2. THE PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES OF BRITISH LIBERALISM The Spirit of Liberalism viscount morley [From Becollections , 1917] Alike with those who adore and those who detest it, the dominating force in the living mind of Europe for a long generation after the overthrow of the French monarchy in 1830 has been that marked way of looking at things, feeling them, for which with a hundred kaleidoscopic turns, the accepted name is Liberalism. It is a summary term with many extensive applications; people are not always careful to sort them out, and they are by no means always bound to one another. There are as many differences in Liberalism in different ages and communi- ties as there are in the attributes imputed to that great idol of the world which has been glorified under the name of Republic, though the system of the American Republic is one thing, and the working principles of the French Republic are another, and the republic in the north of the American con- tinent has little in common with either sys- tem or spirit in the republics of the south. Respect for the dignity and worth of the individual is its root. It stands for pursuit of social good against class interest or dynastic interest. It stands for the subjec- tion to human judgment of all claims of external authority, whether in an organized Church, or in more loosely gathered societies of believers, or in books held sacred. In law-making it does not neglect the higher characteristics of human nature, it attends to them first. In executive administration, though judge, gaoler, and perhaps the hang- man will be indispensable, still mercy is counted a wise supplement to terror. Gen- eral Gordon spoke a noble word for Lib- eralist ideas when he upheld the sovereign duty of trying to creep under men's skins — only another way of putting the Golden Rule. The whole creed is a good deal too comprehensive to be written out here, and it is far more than a formalized creed. 440 THE GEEAT TEADITION Treitsehke, the greatest of modern absolut- ists, lays it down that everything new that the nineteenth century has erected is the work of Liberalism. Needless to say that we use the mighty word in its large, far-spread- ing, continental sense, not merely in the zone of English politics and party. It is worth noting that a strange and important liber- alizing movement of thought had awakened the mind of New England with Emerson for its noble and pure-hearted preacher in 1837. The duty of mental detachment, the supreme claim of the individual conscience, spread from religious opinion to the conduct of life and its interwoven social relations. Not a reading man, Emerson said with a twinkle of good humor, but has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat-pocket. The Blithedale Romance and Walclen are enough to tell us what this strange disquiet came to. In deeper, graver, more extensive shape, the like new-born ideals of simplification, re- lease, enlarged outlook as to Labor, Prop- erty, War, Political Rule, excited like a flaming comet the reflective imagination all over Europe in 1848. It was inevitable that this deep conflict of theory, idea, social aim, should come to a head in polities. They go to the root of gov- ernment and order; and government and order are obviously in the essence of men as political beings, whether in rulers holding in their hands the direction of a nation's fate, or in that great general mass described in Burke's imposing phrase as "those whom providence has doomed to live on trust." But if government and order are of the very essence, so, too, are conscience, principle, the thinker, the teacher, the writer. To treat these elements of the social structure as strictly secondary and subordinate is the contradiction of Liberalism. Napoleon was the master type. If thinkers thought wrong, or gave an inconvenient ply to conscience, or "carried a principle to lengths that were troublesome, it was like mutiny in the regi- ment. If the spiritual power gave itself airs before the temporal, you would lock it up at Savona or elsewhere until it came to its senses. For all this today's name is Militarism, the point-blank opposite of Lib- eralism in its fullest and profoundest sense, whatever the scale and whatever the dis- guise. Dr. Johnson, though the best of men, marked a sad divergence from the Liberal- ism that reigned in the century after him when he said, "I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of govern- ment rather than another : it is of no moment to the happiness of the individual." ^ The strange, undying passion for the word Re- public, and all the blood and tears that have been shed in adoration of that symbolic name, give the verdict of the world against him. Progress of the Nation Under the Liberal Regime john bright [From an Address before the Working- men's Club at Rochdale, January 2, 1877] What I am here for tonight is rather to enter into counsel with you than to lecture or to preach to you, and I want to speak to you on points about which working-men are very often forgetful. Many of them— the younger generation no doubt — are very ignorant about the change in the working-man's condition during the generation with which I have been connected, I mean during the last forty years. I venture to say that there can scarcely be anything more worthwhile a working-man's examining and comprehending than the change which has taken place in the condition of his class. When you speak of a working-man, you mean of course a man who is accustomed regularly to some useful employment or work. To be a man at all he must have food, and to be a healthy man one would say that it was necessary he should have a free market for the purchase of his food. To be a working-man he must have materials with which to work, and it would seem reasonable that he should have a free market for the purchase of materials. More than that, as far as possible, he should have a free market for the sale of his materials. A great many people in this country — I hope a diminishing number — think that because other countries do not allow us to send our goods into their market free of duty, there- fore we should not allow them to send their goods to this market free of duty. They think two bad things are better than one. They remind me very much of what it would be if a man had got a sound box on one side of his head and he was to go about complaining that nobody gave him another sound box on the other side. Now, we will go back for a moment to a 1 Compare Pope's identical opinion in An Essay on Man. NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS 441 period which I remember very well, and which many in this meeting must remember. We will go back to the year 1840. At that time there was great distress in the coun- try. The duties upon goods coming into this country were almost beyond counting. I believe there were at least 1,200 articles on which, by the law of England, taxes were levied when the goods came into Liverpool, or London, or Hull, or Glasgow, or any other of the ports of the kingdom. Every- thing was taxed, and everything was limited and restricted. Even bread, the common food of the people, was taxed, almost more highly than anything else. Now, you may imagine — nay, you cannot imagine — but you may try to imagine in what kind of fetters all our industry was chained at that time. And you may try to imagine, but now in this day you cannot imagine, what was the amount of pauperism, suffering, and abject misery perpetually prevailing among the great body of the working-classes in the United Kingdom. I shall only refer to two articles, and from them you may learn what was the state of things with regard to others. I shall ask your attention to two articles only, those of corn and sugar. Up to the year 1846 — that is, just thirty years ago — everybody who is fifty years of age ought to remember all about it very well — up to 1846 corn was in reality prohibited from coming to this coun- try from abroad, until our own prices had risen so high by reason of a deficient harvest that people began to complain and began to starve, and it was let in at these very high prices in order in some degree to mitigate starvation, and to make famine less un- safe. It was in these times that Ebenezer Elliott, the Sheffield poet — the Corn-law- Rhymer — wrote his burning and scathing condemnation of this law. Many of you here are no doubt weavers employed in the cotton or woolen trade of this town, and have read the touching lines in which he is showing how the Corn Law is striking here and there almost everybody, blasting his prosperity and his hopes, and condemn- ing him and his family to daily suffering. He turns at last to the weaver, and he says : — Bread-taxed weaver, all may see What that tax hath done for thee, And thy children vilely led. Singing hymns for shameful bread. Till the stones of every street Know their little naked feet. And then looking upon the growth of crime, the conspiracies that were constantly afloat, the insurrections which were looked towards by people as a relief, he then addresses the ancient monarchy of his country. He says : — What shall bread tax do for thee Venerable monai'chy? Dreams of evil spare my sight; Let that horror rest in night. He knew, and everybody knew who compre- hended the character and operation of that law, that if it should continue to afflict the people as it did through thirty years of its existence, there was no institution in this country, not even its venerable monarchy, that could stand the strain that that law would bring to bear upon it. But there was another fact shown by the figures of that time — that not only pau^Derism increased, and crime increased, but mortality increased. Strong men and women were stricken down by the law, but the aged and little children were its constant and most numerous victims. I recollect, in one of those fine speeches which the late Mr. Fox — I mean Mr. Fox who for many years, as you recollect, and not long ago, was one of the representatives of the neighboring town of Oldham — I recollect an observation, or a passage in a speech of Mr. Fox, spoken, I think, from the boards of Covent Garden Theater, at one of our great meetings, where he said, refer- ring to the mortality among the people, and the death-rate rapidly increasing when the harvest failed, and when foreign food was prohibited, "The Corn Law is the harvest of Death as well as of the landowner, and Monopoly says to Corruption, 'Thou art my brother.' " Under the Government of Sir Robert Peel, in 1846, the law was repealed, and three years afterwards — in 1849 — all the duties on these articles were taken off, excej)t a shilling per quarter, which has been more recently abolished. Since this happened there has been no fall of rents throughout the kingdom. In point of fact the prosperity of the coun- try has been so increased that the rent of land throughout the country is now higher than it was when that Corn Law was in 442 THE GEEAT TEADITION existence, and the farmers, who were always complaining during the existence of that law, have scarcely ever been heard to com- plain in the least since it was abolished. They complained for a year or two because they had been greatly frightened, but there has never been, I will say, within the last hundred years a period when the farmers of this country have made less complaint to the public or to Parliament than they have dur- ing the last thirty years since the law for their protection was abolished. And what happened to the laborer? The wages of farm-laborers have risen on the whole much more, I believe, than fifty per cent, through- out the whole country; and in some coun- ties and districts, I believe, the farm-laborer at this moment is receiving double the wages he was when this law was in existence. We ought to learn from this what a grand thing it is to establish our la^v■s upon a basis of freedom and justice. It blesses him who gives and him who takes. It has blessed all our manufacturing districts with a steadiness of employment and an abundance they never knew before, and it has blessed not less the very class who in their dark error and blind- ness thought that they could have profited by that which was so unjust, so cruel to the bulk of their countrymen. There is only one other point to which I shall refer as to changes in the law, and that is with regard to the extension of the borough franchise. You know what a ter- rible thing it was in prospect, how many people said we were going to Americanize our institutions. They did not know what that meant, but they used the phrase, and what harm has happened? They said that property would not be safe, and how every- body would overturn everybody else. And what has happened? The most conspicuous fact throughout the country is, that there is universal content in all the borough popula- tion among those to whom the franchise had been extended. At this moment there are no conspiracies. Your workmen's club is not a political club to get up some movement against the law or the monarchy. There is nothing of that kind now. In time past, even those very persons who were so much afraid of us did not hold their property and their privileges by so secure a tenure as they have held them since the passing of the law. Nay, the monarch of these realms, popular as she has been ; popular as she has always deserved to be ; still, I will undertake to say of her, I say it without hesitation, and without fear of contradiction, that there were times within the last thirty years, and since she came to the throne, when there was a great deal less of an honest and true loy- alty than is to be found in this country at the present time. And you have not only got the franchise, but you have got the ballot to secure you from any compulsion with regard to its exercise. I recollect a peer, whose name you would know very well if I were to mention it, who went about in a state of almost men- tal agony, saying, "If this Ballot Bill be passed the whole influence of property will be gone." But what has happened? The influence of property, so far as it is a just influence, exists now, and is exercised now, and any exercise which it had before the ballot was conferred was an exercise that it ought not to have had, and was a tyranny over all those upon whom it was exer- cised. But I want to tell the working-men of this workman's club what some of them do not — • at least what some woi'kmen do not appear altogether to appreciate or comprehend — • that they are now the full citizens of a free country, and that on them a great responsi- bility is devolved. Is it not a grand his- tory, that of the last forty years? Are not the changes such as all of us may be proud of, that they have been effected with so lit- tle, in fact with no disturbance? You can- not point, probably, to a revolution of vio- lence in any country of late times where there has been so much done of permanent good, in the same period, as has been done for the people of this country by the wise changes in our law. And yet, I dare say, history will not say very much of these changes. The fact is, history busies itself with other matters. It will tell our children, I dare say, of conquests in India, of annexa- tion, it may be in the Punjab, of Chinese wars — ^wars which were as discreditable to us as they have been unprofitable. It will tell your children of the destruction of Sebastopol, and perhaps it may tell them that everything for which Sebastopol was destroyed has been surrendered, or is being now surrendered, by an English minister at Constantinople. But of all these changes which have saved the nation from anarchy, and an English monarchy from ruin, history will probably say but little. Blood shines more upon her pages, and the grand and NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 443 noiseless triumphs of peace and of wise and just legislation too often find but scanty memorial from her hands. But now there may be those who will put this question to me. Some of my critics tomorrow or the day after will say, What has this to do with working-men's clubs'? Why talk polities to a meeting Avhich is un- derstood not to be a jDolitical meeting? I have not been talking politics. These ques- tions which I have been discussing were poli- ties a few years ago when the contest was raging round us whether they should be set- tled justly or not. Now they are not poli- ties, they are not matters of controversy, they are matters of history, and I am treat- ing you to a chapter of history. But then they will say, Why tell us the old story, and go back to the Corn Law and the Sugar monopoly? They will say I wanted to glorify myself before my fellow-townsmen because I had taken a humble part, with hundreds of thousands of others, in carry- ing these measures. No, I tell you the old story because there are many in this room wiio are too young to have known much about it, and it is a great and salutary les- son for the members of the workmen's club, and for workmen everywhere to have spoken and read to them. It tells them of freedom, and how freedom was won, and what free- dom has done for them, and it points the way to other paths of freedom which yet lie open before them. I conclude what I have to say with only one other point, and that is on the question of education. I believe that workmen have need to be taught, to have it pointed out to them, how much their own family comfort and the success and happiness of their chil- dren depends on this — that they should do all they can to give their children such edu- cation as is in their power. One of the American States is the State of Massa- chusetts, and it probably is the most edu- cated and intellectual. It has a system of general education. Massachusetts was founded about 250 years ago. From that time to this it has had a system — a very ex- tended system — of public schools. Eight generations of its population have had the advantage of being educated in these schools. The men who were driven from this country by the tyranny of monarch and archbishop founded this school system — the men of whom the poet I have already quoted speaks in these terms, describing them as — The Fathers of New England who unbound In wild Columbia Europe's double chain. Meaning the chain of a despotic monarchy and of a despotic and persecuting Church. Suppose we had had in this country all that time schools for the education of your chil- dren, to what a position this country would have risen by this time. I want to ask working-men to do their utmost to support the school system. Be it a school belonging to a sect, or be it a school belonging to the School Board; if it be a convenient or a possible school for your children, take care that your children go to school, so that Parliament in voting 2,500,- OOOZ. for the purpose of education — 2,500,- 0001. to which you subscribe by the taxes — shall have the cordial and the enthusiastic support of the people in forwarding educa- tion to the greatest possible degree in their power. DeiDend upon it if you support the school the school will compensate you. You know, I dare say, a passage, which is one of the many striking passages which you- may find in the writings of Shakespeare — where he says, speaking of children that are rebellious and troublesome — How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is. To have a thankless child. I ask working-men, and I might ask it of every class to a certain extent, how much of the unhappiness of families, how much of the grief and gloom which often over- shadow the later years of parents come from what I may call the rebellion of children against their parents' authority, and against the moral law. If you will send your chil- dren to school, encourage them in their learn- ing, make them feel that this is a great thing for them to possess, the generation to come will be much superior to the generations that have passed, and those who come after us will see that prospering, of which we can only look forward to see the beginnings in the efforts which are now being made. And more than this, besides making your fami- lies happier, besides doing so much for the success of your children in life, you will also produce this great result, that you will do much to build up the fabric of the great- ness and the glory of your country upon the sure foundation of an intellig,ent' and a Christian people. 444 THE GEEAT TEADITION Why I Am a Liberal ROBERT BROWNING "Why?" Because all I haply can and do, All that I am now, all I hope to be, — Whence comes it save from fortune set- ting free Body and soul the purpose to pursue, God traced for both 1 If fetters, not a few. Of prejudice, convention, fall from me. These shall I bid men — each in his degree Also God-guided — bear, and gayly tool But little do or can the best of us : That little is achieved thro' Liberty. Who then dares hold, emancipated thus, His fellow shall continue bound 1 not I, Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why." The Lost Leader robert brow^ning Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat — Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us. Lost all the others she lets us devote ; They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver. So much was theirs who so little allowed : How all our cojDper had gone for his service ! Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud ! We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him. Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our pattern to live and to die ! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us. Burns, Shelley, were with us, — they watcli from their graves ! He alone breaks from the van and the free- men, — He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! We shall march prospering, — not through his presence; Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre ; Deeds will be done, — ^while he boasts his quiescence. Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire : Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more. One task more declined, one more footpath untrod. One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels. One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins : let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain. Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight. Never glad, confident morning again ! Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly. Menace our heart ere we master his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us. Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! 3. FREEDOM AND THE EMPIRE Home-Thoughts, prom Abroad robert browning Oh, to be in England Now that April's there. And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England — now! And after April, when May follows. And the whitethroat builds, and all the swal- lows! Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge— That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over. Lest you should think he never could re- capture The first fine careless rapture ! NINETEENTH CENTURY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS 445 And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower — Far brighter than this gaudy melon- flower ! Home-ThoughtS;, from the Sea robert browning Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died away ; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray; "Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?" — say. Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray. While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. You AsK^E, Why, Tho' III at Ease ALFRED TENNYSON You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease, Within this region I subsist, Whose spirits falter in the mist. And languish for the purple seas. It is the land that freemen till. That sober-suited Freedom chose, The land, where girt with friends or foes A man may speak the thing he will ; A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown. Where Freedom slowly broadens down From precedent to precedent ; Where faction seldom gathers head. But, by degrees to fullness wrought. The strength of some diffusive thought Hath time and space to work and spread. Should banded unions persecute Opinions, and induce a time When single thought is civil crime, And individual freedom mute; Tho' power should make from land to land The name of Britain trebly great — Tho' every channel of the State Should fill and choke with golden sand — Yet waft me from the harbor-mouth, Wild wind ! I seek a warmer sky. And I will see before I die The palms and temples of the South. Of Old Sat Freedom on the Heights alfred tennyson Of old sat Freedom on the heights. The thunders breaking at her feet ; Above her shook the starry lights; She heard the torrents meet. There in her place she did rejoice, Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind. But fragments of her mighty voice Came rolling on the wind. Then stepped she down thro' town and field To mingle with the human race, And part by part to men reveal'd The fulness of her face — Grave mother of majestic works, From her isle-altar gazing down. Who, God-like, gTasps the triple forks, And, king-like, wears the crown. Her open eyes desire the truth. The wisdom of a thousand years Is in them. May perpetual youth Keep dry their light from tears ; That her fair form may stand and shine. Make bright our days and light our dreams. Turning to scorn with lips divine The falsehood of extremes ! Love Thou Thy Land alfred tennyson Love .thou thy land, with love far-brought From out the storied past, and used Within the present, but transfused Thro^i&ite^g. time by power of thought; True love turn'd round on fixed poles, Love, that endures not sordid ends, For English natures, freemen, friends. Thy brothers, and immortal souls. 446 THE GREAT TRADITION But pamper not a hasty time, Nor feed with crude imaginings The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings That every sophister can lime. Deliver not the tasks of might To weakness, neither hide the ray From those, not blind, who wait for day, Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light. Make knowledge circle with the winds; But let her herald. Reverence, fly Before her to whatever sky Bear seed of men and growth of minds. Watch what main-currents draw the years : Cut Prejudice against the grain. But gentle words are always gain; Regard the weakness of thy peers. Nor toil for title, place, or touch Of pension, neither count on praise — It grows to guerdon after-days. Nor deal in watch-words overmuch ; Not clinging to some ancient saw. Not master'd by some modern term. Not swift nor slow to change, but firm ; And in its season bring the law, That from Discussion's lip may fall With Life that, working strongly, binds — Set in all lights by many minds, To close the interests of all. For Nature also, cold and warm, And moist and dry, devising long. Thro' many agents making strong. Matures the individual form. Meet is it changes should control Our being, lest we rust in ease. We all are changed by still degTees, All but the basis of the soul. So let the change which comes be free To ingroove itself with that which flies. And work, a joint of state, that plies Its office, moved with sympathy. A saying hard to shape in act ; For all the past of Time reveals A bridal dawn of thunder-peals. Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact. Even now we hear with inward strife A motion toiling in the gloom — The Spirit of the years to come Yearning to mix himself with Life. A slow-develop'd strength awaits Completion in a painful school; Phantoms of other forms of rule, New Majesties of mighty States — The warders of the growing hour, But vague in vapor, hard to mark; And round them sea and air are dark With great contrivances of Power. Of many changes, aptly join'd. Is bodied forth the second whole. Regard gradation, lest the soul Of Discord race the rising wind ; A wind to puff your idol-fires. And heap their ashes on the head; To shame the boast so often made, That we are wiser than our sires. 0, yet, if Nature's evil star Drive men in manhood, as in youth, To follow flying steps of Truth Across the brazen bridge of war — If New and Old, disastrous feud. Must ever shock, like armed foes. And this be true, till Time shall close, That Principles are rain'd in blood; Not yet the wise of heart would cease To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt. But with his hand against the hilt, Would pace the troubled land, like Peace ; Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay, Would serve his kind in deed and word. Certain, if knowledge bring the sword. That knowledge takes the sword away — Would love the gleams of good that broke From either side, nor veil his eyes ; And if some dreadful need should rise Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke. Tomorrow yet would reap today, As we bear blossom of the dead; Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay. NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 447 Ode on the Death op the Duke op Wellington alfred tennyson Bury the Great Duke With an empire's lamentation ; Let us bury the Great Duke To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation ; Mourning when their leaders fall, Warriors carry the warrior's pall, And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. II Where shall we lay the man whom we de- plore? Here, in streaming London's central roar. Let the sound of those he wrought for, And the feet of those he fought for, Echo round his bones for evermore. Ill Lead out the pageant : sad and slow. As fits an universal woe. Let the long, long procession go. And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, And let the mournful martial music blow; The last great Englishman is low. IV Mourn, for to us he seems the last, Remembering all his greatness in the past, No more in soldier fashion will he greet With lifted hand the gazer in the street. friends, our chief state-oracle is mute ! Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, Whole in himself, a common good. Mourn for the man of amplest influence. Yet clearest of ambitious crime, Our greatest yet with least pretence, Great in council and great in war, Foremost captain of his time. Rich in saving common-sense. And, as the greatest only are. In his simplicity sublime. good gray head which all men knew, voice from which their omens all men drew, iron nerve to true occasion true, fallen at length that tower of strength Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew ! Such was he whom we deplore. The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er. The great World-victor's victor will be seen All is over and done. Render thanks to the Giver, England, for thy son. Let the bell be toll'd. Render thanks to the Giver, And render him to the mold. Under the cross of gold That shines over city and river, There he shall rest forever Among the wise and the bold. Let the bell be toll'd. And a reverent people behold The towering ear, the sable steeds. Bright let it be with its blazon'd deeds, Dark in its funeral fold. Let the bell be toll'd, And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd; And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll'd Thro' the dome of the golden cross ; And the volleying cannon thunder his loss; He knew their voices of old. For many a time in many a clime His captain's-ear has heard them boom Bellowing victory, bellowing doom. When he with those deep voices wrought, Guarding realms and kings from shame, With those deep voices our dead captain taught The tyrant, and asserts his claim In that dread sound to the great name Which he has worn so pure of blame. In praise and in dispraise the same, A man of well-attemper'd frame. civic muse, to such a name, To such a name for ages long, To such a name. Preserve a broad approach of fame, And ever-echoing avenues of song ! VI "Who is he that eometh, like an honor'd guest. With banner and with music, with soldier and with priest, With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest ?" — Mighty Seaman, this is he 448 THE GEEAT TRADITION Was great by land as thou by sea. Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, The greatest sailor since our world began. Now, to the roll of muffled drums, To thee the greatest soldier comes; For this is he Was great by land as thou by sea. His foes were thine; he kept us free; 0, give him welcome, this is he Worthy of our gorgeous rites, And worthy to be laid by thee; For this is England's greatest son, He that gain'd a hundred fights, Nor ever lost an English, gun ; This is he that far aM^ay Against the myriads of Assay e Clash'd with his fiery few and won ; And underneath another sun, Warring on a later day. Round affrighted Lisbon drew The treble works, the vast designs Of his labor'd rampart-lines. Where he greatly stood at bay, Whence he issued forth anew. And ever great and greater grew. Beating from the wasted vines Back to France her banded swarms, Back to France with countless blows, Till o'er the hills her eagles flew Beyond the Pyrenean pines, FoUow'd up in valley and glen With blare of bugle, clamor of men, Roll of cannon and clash of arms, And England pouring on her foes. Such a war had such a close. Again their ravening eagle rose In anger, wheel'd on Europe-shadowing wings. And barking for the thrones of kings; Till one that sought but Duty's iron crown On that loud Sabbath shook the spoiler down ; A day of onsets of despair ! Dash'd on every rocky square, Their surging charges foam'd themselves away ; Last, the Prussian trumpet blew; Thro' the long-tormented air Heaven flash'd a sudden jubilant ray, And down we swept and charged and over- threw. So great a soldier taught us there What long-enduring hearts could do In that world-earthquake, Waterloo! Mighty Seaman, tender and true, And pure as he from taint of craven guile. saviour of the silver-coasted isle, shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, If aught of things that here befall Touch a spirit among things divine. If love of country move thee there at all, Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine ! And thro' the centuries let a' people's voice In full acclaim, A people's voice, The proof and echo Do. all human fame, - A people's voice, when they rejoice At civic revel and pomp and game. Attest their great commander's claim With honor, honor, honor, honor to him, Eternal honor to his name. VII A people's voice! we are a people yet. Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget. Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers, Thank Him who isl'd us here, and roughly set His Briton in blown seas and storming showers. We have a voice with which to pay the debt Of boundless love and reverence and regret To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. And keep it ours, God, from brute con- trol ! Statesmen, guard us, gTiard the eye, the soul Of Europe, keep our noble England whole, And save the one true seed of freedom sown Betwixt a people and their ancient throne. That sober freedom out of which there springs Our loyal passion for our temperate kings ! For, saving that, ye help to save mankind Till public wrong be crumbled into dust. And drill the raw world for the march of mind. Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just. But wink no more in slothful overtrust. Remember him who led your hosts ; He bade you guard the sacred coasts. Your cannons molder on the seaward wall; His voice is silent in your council-hall For ever ; and whatever tempests lour For ever silent ; even if they broke In thunder, silent; yet remember all He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke ; Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 449 Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power; Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow Thro' either babbling world of high and low; Whose life was work, whose language rife With rugged maxims hewn from life; Who never spoke against a foe; Whose eighty winters freeze with one re- buke All great self-seekers trampling on the right. Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named ; Truth-lover was our English Duke ! Whatever record leap to light He never shall be shamed. VIII Lo ! the leader in these glorious wars Now to glorious burial slowly borne, Follow'd by the brave of other lands. He, on whom from both her open hands Lavish Honor shower'd all her stars, And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. Yea, let all good things await Him who cares not to be great But as he saves or serves the state. Not once or twice in our rough island-story That path of. duty was the way to glory. He that walks it, only thirsting For the right, and learns to deaden Love of self, before his journey closes. He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting Into glossy purples, which out-redden All voluptuous garden-roses. Not once or twice in our fair island-story The path of duty was the way to glory. He, that ever following her commands. On with toil of heart and knees and hands. Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won His path upward, and prevail'd, Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled Are close upon the shining table-lands To which our God himself is moon and sun. Such was he: his work is done. But while the races of mankind endure Let his great example stand Colossal, seen of every land, And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure; Till in all lands and. thro' all human story The path of duty be the way to glory. And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame For many and many an age proclaim At civic revel and pomp and game. And when the long-illumined cities flame, Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame, With honor, honor, honor, honor to him. Eternal honor to his name. IX Peace, his triumph will be sung By some yet unmolded tongue Far on in summers that we shall not see. Peace, it is a day of pain For one about whose patriarchal knee Late the little children clung, peace, it is a day of pain For one upon whose hand and heart and brain Once the weight and fate of Europe hung. Ours the pain, be his the gain ! More than is of man's degree Must be with us, watching here At this, our great solemnity. Whom we see not we revere; We revere, and we refrain From talk of battles loud and vain. And brawling memories all too free For such a wise humility As befits a solemn fane: We revere, and while we hear The tides of Music's golden sea Setting toward eternity. Uplifted high in heart and hope are we. Until we doubt not that for one so true There must be other nobler work to do Than when he fought at Waterloo, And Victor he must ever be. For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill And break the shore, and evermore Make and break, and work their will, Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roU^ Round us, each with different powers, And other forms of life than ours, What know we greater than the soul ? On God and Godlike men we build our trust. Hush, the Dead March wails in the peo- ple's ears; The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears; The black earth yawns; the mortal disap- pears ; Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; He is gone who seem'd so great. — Gone, but nothing can bereave him Of the force he made his own Being here, and we believe him Something far advanced in State, 450 THE GEEAT TEADITION And that he wears a truer crown Than any wreath that man can weave him. Speak no more of his renown, Lay your earthly fancies down, And in the vast cathedral leave him. God accept him, Christ receive him ! (1852) Hands All Round alfred tennyson First pledge our Queen this solemn night, Then drink to England, every guest; That man's the best Cosmopolite Who loves his native country best. May freedom's oak for ever live With stronger life from day to day; That man's the true Conservative Who lops the molder'd branch away. Hands all round! God the traitor's hope confound! To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends. And the great name of England, round and round. To all the loyal hearts- who long To keep our English Empire whole! To all our noble sons, the strong New England of the Southern Pole! To England under Indian skies. To those dark millions of her realm ! To Canada whom we love and prize. Whatever statesman hold the helm. Hands all round! God the traitor's hope confound! To this great name of England drink, my friends. And all her glorious empire, round and round. To all our statesmen so they be True leaders of the land's desire ! To both our Houses, may they see Beyond the borough and the shire ! We sail'd wherever ship could sail. We founded many a mighty state ; Pray God our greatness may not fail Thro' craven fears of being great ! Hands all round! God the traitor's hope confound ! To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends. And the great name of England, round and round! To THE Queen ALFRED TENNYSON [Epilogue, Idylls of the King] loyal to the royal in thyself. And loyal to thy land, as this to thee — Bear witness, that rememberable day. When, pale as yet, and fever-worn, the Prince Who scarce had pluck'd his flickering life again From halfway down the shadow of the grave, Past with thee thro' thy people and their love. And London roll'd one tide of joy thro' all Her trebled millions, and loud leagues of man And welcome! witness, too, the silent cry. The prayer of many a race and creed, and clime — Thunderless lightnings striking under sea From sunset" and sunrise of all thy realm. And that true North, whereof we lately heard A strain to shame us "keep you to your- selves ; So loyal is too costly! friends — your love Is but a burthen: loose the bond, and go." Is this the tone of empire? here the faith That made us rulers 1 this, indeed, her voice And meaning, whom the roar of Hougou- mont Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven ? What shock has fool'd her since, that she should speak So feebly? wealthier — wealthier — hour by hour ! The voice of Britain, or a sinking land, Some third-rate isle half-lost among her seas? There rang her voice, when the full city peal'd Thee and thy Prince! The loyal to their crown Are loyal to their own far sons, who love Our ocean-empire with her boundless homes For ever-broadening England, and her throne In our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle, That knows not her own greatness: if she knows And dreads it we are fall'n. — But thou, my Queen, Not for itself, but thro' thy living love For one to whom I made it o'er his grave NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 451 k Sacred, accept this old imperfect tale, New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul Rather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost. Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak. And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's, one Touch'd by the adulterous finger of a time That hover'd between war and wantonness, And crownings and dethronements : take withal Thy poet's blessing, and his trust that Heaven Will blow the tempest in the distance back From thine and ours: for some are scared, who mark, Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm, Waverings of every vane with every wind, And wordy trucklings to the transient hour, And fierce or careless looseners of the faith, And Softness breeding scorn of simple life, Or Cowardice, the child of lust for gold, Or Labor, with a groan and not a voice. Or Art with poisonous honey stol'n from France, And that which knows, but careful for it- self. And that which knows not, ruling that which knows To its own harm: the goal of this great world Lies beyond sight : yet — if our slowly-grown And crown'd Republic's crowning common- sense. That saved her many times, not fail — their fears Are morning shadows huger than the shapes That cast them, not those gloomier which forego The darkness of that battle in the West, Where all of high and holy dies away. (1873) A Song in Time of Order (1852) ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE Push hard across the sand. For the salt wind gathers breath ; Shoulder and wrist and hand, Push hard as the push of death. The wind is as iron that rings. The foam-heads loosen and flee; It swells and welters and swings, The pulse of the tide of the sea. And up on the yellow cliff The long corn flickers and shakes; Push, for the wind holds stiff. And the gunwale dips and rakes. Good hap to the fresh fierce weather, The quiver and beat of the sea! While three men hold together The kingdoms are less by three. Out to the sea with her there. Out with her over the sand. Let the kings keep the earth for their share ! We have done with the sharers of land. They have tied the world in a tether. They have bought over God with a fee ; While three men hold together, The kingdoms are less by three. We have done with the kisses that sting, The thief's mouth red from the feast, The blood on the hands of the king. And the lie at the lips of the priest. Will they tie the winds in a tether. Put a bit in the jaws of the sea? While three men hold together, The kingdoms are less by three. Let our flag run out straight in the wind! The old red shall be floated again When the ranks that are thin shall be thinned. When the names that were twenty are ten; When the devil's riddle is mastered And the galley-bench creaks with a Pope, We shall see Buonaparte the bastard Kick heels with his throat in a rope. While the shepherd sets wolves on his sheep And the emperor halters his kine. While Shame is a watchman asleep And Faith is a keeper of swine. Let the wind shake our flag like a feather, Like the plumes of the foam of the sea ! While three men hold together, The kingdoms are less by three. All the world has its burdens to bear, From Cayenne to the Austrian whips; 452 THE GEEAT TEADITION Forth, with the rain in our hair And the salt sweet foam in our lips : In the teeth of the hard glad weather, In the blown wet face of the sea ; While three men hold together. The kingdoms are less by three. An Appeal algernon charles swinburne Art thou indeed among these. Thou of the tyrannous crew. The kingdoms fed upon blood, O queen from of old of the seas, England, art thou of them too That drink of the poisonous flood, That hide under poisonous trees? Nay, thy name from of old, Mother, was pure, or we dreamed; Purer we held thee than this. Purer fain would we hold ; So goodly a glory it seemed, A fame so bounteous of bliss. So more precious than gold. A praise so sweet in our ears. That thou in the tempest of things As a rock for a refuge shouldst stand. In the blood-red river of tears Poured forth for the triumph of kings; A safeguard, a sheltering land, In the thunder and torrent of years. Strangers came gladly to thee. Exiles, chosen of men, Safe for thy sake in thy shade, Sat down at thy feet and were free. So men spake of thee then; Now shall their speaking be stayed? Ah, so let it not be! Not for revenge or affright, Pride, or a tyrannous lust. Cast from thee the crown of thy praise. Mercy was thine in thy might ; Strong when thou wert, thou wert just ; Now, in the wrong-doing days, Cleave thou, thou at least, to the right. How should one charge thee, how sway. Save by the memories that were? Not thy gold nor the strength of thy ships, Nor the might of thine armies at bay. Made thee, mother, most fair; But a word from republican lips Said in thy name in thy day. Hast thou said it, and hast thou forgot? Is thy praise in thine ears as a scoff? Blood of men guiltless was shed. Children, and souls without spot, Shed, but in places far off; Let slaughter no more he, said Milton; and slaughter was not. Was it not said of thee too, Now, but now, by thy foes. By the slaves that had slain their France And thee would slay as they slew — "Down with her walls that enclose Freemen that eye us askance. Fugitives, men that are true !" This was thy praise or thy blame From bondsman or freeman — to be Pure from pollution of slaves, Clean of their sins, and thy name Bloodless, innocent, free; Now if thou be not, thy waves Wash not from off thee thy shame. Freeman he is not, but slave. Whoso in fear for the State Cries for surety of blood, Help of gibbet and grave ; Neither is any land great Whom, in her fear-stricken mood. These things only can save. Lo! how fair from afar. Taintless of tyranny, stands Thy mighty daughter, for years Who trod the winepress of war, — Shines with immaculate hands ; Slays not a foe, neither fears;. Stains not peace with a scar. Be not as tyrant or slave, England ; be not as these, Thou that wert other than they. Stretch out thine hand, but to save ; Put forth thy strength, and release : Lest there arise, if thou slay, Thy shame as a ghost from the grave. Recessional (1897) rudyard kipling God of our fathers, known of old — Lord of our far-flung battle line — Beneath whose awful hand we hold NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 453 Dominion over palm and pine — Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget ! The tumul't and the shouting dies — The Captains and the Kings depart — Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget ! Far-called, our navies melt away — On dune and headland sinks the fire — Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget ! If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe — Such boasting as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law — Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget ! For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard — All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding calls not Thee to guard. For frantic boast and foolish word. Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord! Amen. 4. INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES At the Sunrise in 1848 dante gabriel rossetti God said. Let there be light ! and there was light. Then heard we sounds as though the Earth did sing And the Earth's angel cried upon the wing: We saw priests fall together and turn white : And covered in the dust from the sun's sight, A king was spied, and yet another king. We said: "The round world keeps its bal- ancing : On this globe, they and we are opposite, — If it is day with us, with them 't is night. Still, Man, in thy just pride, remember this : Thou hadst not made that thy sons' sons shall ask What the word king may mean in their day's task. But for the light that led: and if light is, It is because God said. Let there be light." Sat Not the Struggle Nought Availeth arthur hugh clough Say not the struggle nought availeth, The labor and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth. And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed. Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers. And, but for you, possess the field. For while the tired waves, vainly breaking. Seem here no painful inch to gain. Far back, through creeks and inlets making. Comes silent, flooding in, the main. And not by eastern windows only. When daylight comes, comes in the light. In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly. But westward, look, the land is bright. (1849) The Italian in England robert brov^ning That second time they hunted me From hill to plain, from shore to sea. And Austria, hounding far and wide Her blood-hounds through the country-side, Breathed hot and instant on my trace, — I made six days a hiding-place Of that dry green old aqueduct Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked The fire-flies from the roof above, Bright creeping through the moss they love : — How long it seems since Charles was lost! Six days the soldiers crossed and crossed The country in my very sight; And when that peril ceased at night, The sky broke out in red dismay With signal fires; well, there I lay 454 THE GREAT TRADITION Close covered o'er in my recess, Up to the neck in ferns and cress, Thinking on Metternich our friend, And Charles's miserable end, And much beside, two days; the third. Hunger o'ercame me when I heard The peasants from the village go To work among the maize; you know. With us in Lombardy, they bring Provisions packed on mules, a string With little bells that cheer their task. And casks, and boughs on every cask To keep the sun's heat from the wine; These I let pass in jingling line, And, close on them, dear noisy crew, The peasants from the village, too; For at the very rear would troop Their wives and sisters in a group To help, I knew. When these had passed, I threw my glove to strike the last. Taking the chance : she did not start. Much less cry out, but stooped apart, One instant rapidly glanced round, And saw me beckon from the ground. A wild bush grows and hides my crypt; She picked my glove up while she stripped A branch off, then rejoined the rest With that; my glove lay in her breast. Then I drew breath; they disappeared: It was for Italy I feared. An hour, and she returned alone Exactly where my glove was thrown. Meanwhile came many thoughts; on me Rested the hopes of Italy. I had devised a certain tale Which, when 't was told her, could not fail Persuade a peasant of its truth ; I meant to call a freak of youth This hiding, and give hopes of pay, And no temptation to betray. But when I saw that woman's face, Its calm simplicity of grace, Our Italy's own attitude In which she walked thus far, and stood, Planting each naked foot so firm, To crush the snake and spare the worm — At first sight of her eyes, I said, "I am that man upon whose head They fix the price, because I hate The Austrians over us ; the State Will give you gold — oh, gold so much — If you betray me to their clutch, And be your death, for aught I know, If once they find you saved their foe. Now, you must bring me food and drink, And also paper, pen, and ink, And carry safe what I shall write To Padua, which you'll reach at night Before the duomo shuts; go in, And wait till Tenebrse begin; Walk to the third confessional. Between the pillar and the wall, And kneeling whisper. Whence cornea peace? Say it a second time, then cease ; And if the voice inside returns, From Christ and Freedom; what concerns The cause of Peace? —for answer, slip My letter where you placed your lip; Then come back happy we have done Our mother service — I, the son. As you the daughter of our land !" Three mornings more, she took her stand In the same place, with the same eyes: I was no surer of sunrise Than of her coming. We conferred Of her own prospects, and I heard She had a lover — stout and tall, She said — then let her eyelids fall, "He could do much" — as if some doubt Entered her heart, — then, passing out, "She could not speak for others, who Had other thoughts; herself she knew; And so she brought me drink and food. After four days, the scouts pursued Another path ; at last arrived The help my Paduan friends contrived To furnish me: she brought the news. For the first time I could not choose But kiss her hand, and lay my own Upon her head — "This faith was shown To Italy, our mother ; she Uses my hand and blesses thee." She followed down to the sea-shore; I left and never saw her more. How very long since I have thought Concerning — much less wished for — aught Beside the good of Italy, For which I live and mean to die ! I never was in love; and since Charles proved false, what shall now con- vince My inmost heart I have a friend? However, if I pleased to spend Real wishes on myself — say, three — I know at least what one should be. I would grasp Metternich until I felt his red wet throat distil In blood ' through these two hands. And next — Nor much for that am I perplexed — NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 455 Charles, perjured traitor, for his part, Should die slow of a broken heart Under his new employers. Last — Ah, there, what should I wish? For fast Do I grow old and out of strength. If I resolved to seek at length My father's house again, how seared They all would look, and unprepared! My brothers live in Austria's pay — Disowned me long ago, men say ; And all my early mates who used To praise me so — perhaps induced More than one early step of mine — Are turning wise : while some ojDine "Freedom grows license," some suspect "Haste breeds delay," and recollect They always said, such premature Beginnings never could endure ! So, with a sullen "All's for best," The land seems settling to its rest. I think then, I should wish to stand This evening in that dear, lost land, Over the sea the thousand miles, And know if yet that woman smiles With the calm smile ; some little farm She lives in there, no doubt; what harm If I sat on the door-side bench. And, while her spindle made a trench Fantastically in the dust, Inquired of all her fortunes — just Her children's ages and their names, And what may be the husband's aims For each of them. I'd talk this out, And sit there, for an hour about, Then kiss her hand once more, and lay Mine on her head, and go my way. So much for idle wishing — how It steals the time ! To business now. (1845) Thk Patriot robert browning It was roses, roses, all the way. With myrtle mixed in my path like mad : The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway. The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, A year ago on this very day. The air broke into a mist with bells, The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels — But give me your sun from yonder skies !" They had answered, "And afterward what else?" Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun To give it my loving friends to keep ! Naught man could do, have I left undone : And you see my harvest, what I reap This very day, now a year is run. There's nobody on the house-tops now — Just a palsied few at the windows set ; For the best of the sight is, all allow. At the Shambles' Gate — or, better yet, By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. I go in the rain, and, more than needs, A rope cuts both my wrists behind ; And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, For they fling, whoever has a mind. Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. Thus I entered, and .thus I go ! In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. "Paid by the world, what dost thou owe Me ?" — God might question ; now instead, 'T is God shall repay : I am safer so. (1855) On the Monument Erected to Mazzini^ at Genoa algernon charles swinburne Italia, mother of the souls of men. Mother divine Of all that serv'd thee best with sword or pen, All sons of thine, Thou knowest that here the likeness of the best Before thee stands: The head most high, the heart found faith- fulest. The purest hands. Above the fume and foam of time that flits,' The soul, we know. Now sits on high where Alighieri sits With Angelo. Not his own heavenly tongue hath heavenly speech Enough to say What this man was, whose praise no thought may reach, Nor words can weigh. 1 Inspirer of the Italian revolt against Austria In 1848. 456 THE GEEAT TEADITION Since man's first mother brought to mortal birth Her first-born son, Such grace befell not ever man on earth As crowns this One. Of God nor man was ever this thing said: That he could give Life back to her who gave him, that his dead Mother might live. But this man found his mother dead and slain, With fast-seal'd eyes, And bade the dead rise up and live again, And she did rise: And all the world was bright with her through him : But dark with strife, Like heaven's own sun that storming clouds bedim. Was all his life. Life and the clouds are vanish'd; hate and fear Have had their span Of time to hurt and are not: He is here. The sunlike man. City superb, that hadst Columbus first For sovereign son, Be prouder that thy breast hath later nursed This mightier One. Glory be his for ever, while his land Lives and is free, controlling breath and sovereign hand He bade her be. Earth shows to heaven the names by thou- sands told That crown her fame. But highest of all that heaven and earth behold, Mazzini's name. To Louis Kossuth* ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE Light of our fathers' eyes, and in our own Star of the unsetting sunset ! for thy name, * Leader of the Hungarian revolt and president of the Republic in Hungary until its overthrow by Francis Joseph and the forces of Russia. Kos- suth fled to America in 1849. That on the front of noon "was as a flame In the great year nigh twenty years agone When all the heavens of Europe shook and shone With stormy wind and lightning, keeps its fame And bears its witness all day through the same; Not for past days and great deeds past alone, Kossuth, we praise thee as our Landor praised, But that now too we know thy voice up- raised, Thy voice, the trumpet of the truth of God, Thine hand, the thunder-bearer's, raised to smite As with heaven's lightning for a sword and rod Men's heads abased before the Muscovite. France 1870i george meredith We look for her that sunlike stood Upon the forehead of our day. An orb of nations, radiating food For body and for mind alway. Where is the Shape of glad array; ^ The nervous hands, the front of steel. The clarion tongue? Where is the bold proud face? We see a vacant place; We hear an iron heel. O she that made the brave appeal ^^ For manhood when our time was dark, And from our fetters struck the spark Which was as lightning to reveal New seasons, with the swifter play Of pulses, and benigner day ; She that divinely shook the dead From living man; that stretched ahead Her resolute forefinger straight. And marched towards the gloomy gate Of earth's Untried, gave note, and in 20 The good name of Humanity Called forth the daring vision! she, She likewise half corrupt of sin. Angel and Wanton! Can it be? Her star has foundered in eclipse, 25 The shriek of madness on her lips; Shreds of her, and no more, we see. 15 1 Written at the moment of France's humilia- tion by Germany, when Paris was in the hands of the enemy. NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 457 There is a horrible convulsion, smothered din, As of one that in a grave-cloth struggles to be free. Look not on spreading boughs ^^ For the riven forest tree. Look down where deep in blood and mire Black thunder plants his feet and plows The soil for ruin ; that is France : Still thrilling like a lyre, ^ Amazed to shivering discord from a fall Sudden as that the lurid hosts recall Who met in Heaven the irreparable mis- chance. that is France ! The brilliant eyes to kindle bliss, ^ The shrewd quick lips to laugh and kiss. Breasts that a sighing world inspire, And laughter-dimpled countenance Whence soul and senses caught desire! Ever invoking fire from Heaven, the fire ^^ Has seized her, unconsumable, but framed For all the ecstasies of suffering dire. Mother of Pride, her sanctuary shamed: Mother of Delicacy, and made a mark For outrage : Mother of Luxury, stripped stark : 50 Mother of Heroes, bondsmen; through the rains, Across her boundaries, lo the league-long chains ! Fond mother of her martial youth; they pass, They are specters in her sight, are mown as grass ! Mother of Honor, and dishonored : Mother ^^ Of Glory, she condemned to crown with bays Her victor, and be fountain of his praise. Is there another curse? There is another: Compassionate her madness : is she not Mother of Reason? she that sees them mown, 60 Like grass, her young ones! Yea, in the low groan. And under the fixed thunder of this hour Which holds the animate world in one foul blot Tranced circumambient while relentless Power Beaks at her heart and claws her limbs down-thrown, 65 She, with the plunging, lightnings overshot, With madness for an armor against pain. With milkless breasts for little ones athirst. And round her all her noblest dying in vain, Mother of Reason is she, trebly cursed, '^*^ To feel, to see, to justify the blow; Chamber to chamber of her sequent brain Gives answer of the cause of her great woe. Inexorably echoing through the vaults, " 'T is thus they reap in blood, in blood who sow : '^5 This is the sum of self-absolved faults." Doubt not that through her grief, with sight supreme. Through her delirium and despair's last dream, Through pride, through bright illusion and the brood Bewildering of her various Motherhood, ^^ The high strong light within her, though she bleeds. Traces the letters of returned misdeeds. She sees what seed long sown, ripened of late, Bears, this fierce crop ; and she discerns her fate From origin to agony, and on 85 As far as the wave washes long and wan Off one disastrous impulse: for of waves Our life is, and our deeds are pregnant graves Blown rolling to the sunset from the dawn. Ah, what a dawn of splendor, when her sowers 90 Went forth and bent the necks of popula- tions, And of their terrors and humiliations Wove her the starry wreath that earthward lowers Now in the figure of a burning yoke ! Her legions traversed North and South and East, »5 Of triumph they enjoyed the glutton's feast : They grafted the green sprig, they lopped the oak. They caught by the beard the tempests, by the scalp The icy precipices, and clove sheer through The heart of horror of the pinnacled Alp, lOO Emerging not as men whom mortals knew. They were the earthquake and the hurri- cane. The lightnings and the locusts, plagues of blight, Plagues of the revel : they were Deluge rain. And dreaded Conflagration ; lawless Might. 105 458 THE GEEAT TEADITION Death writes a reeling line along the snows, Where under frozen mists they may be tracked, Who men and elements provoked to foes, And Gods: they were of God and Beast compact : Abhorred of all. Yet, how they sucked the teats "o Of Carnage, thirsty issue of their dam, Whose eagles, angrier than their oriflamme, Flushed the vext earth with blood, green earth forgets. The gay young generations mask her grief; Where bled her children hangs the loaded sheaf. 115 Forgetful is green earth; the Gods alone Remember everlastingly : they strike Remorselessly, and ever like for like. By their great memories the Gods are known. They are with her now, and in her ears, and known. i^o 'Tis they that cast her to the dust for Strength, Their slave, to feed on her fair body's length, That once the sweetest and the proudest shone ; Scoring for hideous dismemberment Her limbs, as were the anguish-taking breath 125 Gone out of her in the insufferable descent From her high chieftainship ; as were she death. Who hears a voice of justice, feels the knife Of torture, drinks all ignominy of life. They are with her, and the painful Gods might weep, 1^0 If ever rain of tears came out of Heaven To flatter Weakness and bid Conscience sleep. Viewing the woe of this Immortal, driven For the soul's life to drain the maddening cup Of her own children's blood implacably : 1^ Unsparing even as they to furrow up The yellow land to likeness of a sea: The bountiful fair land of vine and grain. Of wit and grace and ardor, and strong roots, Fruits perishable, imperishable fruits; 1"^ Furrowed to likeness of the dim gray main Behind the black obliterating cyclone. Behold, the Gods are with her, and are known. Whom they abandon, misery persecutes No more: them half -eyed apathy may loan 145 The happiness of the pitiable brutes. Whom the just Gods abandon have no light. No ruthless light of introspective eyes That in the midst of misery scrutinize The heart and its iniquities outright. i^o They rest, they smile and rest; they have earned perchance Of ancient service quiet for a term; Quiet of old men dropping to the worm ; And so goes out the soul. But not of France. She cries for grief, and to the gods she cries, 155 For fearfully their loosened hands chastise. And mercilessly they watch the rod's caress Ravage her flesh from scourges merciless. But she, inveterate of brain, discerns That Pity has as little place as Joy 1^0 Among their roll of gifts; for Strength she yearns. For Strength, her idol once, too long her toy. Lo, Strength is of the plain root- Virtues born: Strength shall ye gain by service, prove in scorn. Train by endurance, by devotion shape. 1^^ Strength is not won by miracle or rape. It is the offspring of the modest years, The gift of sire to son, through those sound laws Which we name Gods, which are the right- eous cause. The cause of man, and Manhood's minis- ters. 170 Could France accept the fables of her priests. Who blest her banners in this game of beasts. And now bid hope that Heaven will in- tereeede To violate its laws in her sore need. She would find comfort in their opiates. 1'^^ Mother of Reason ! can she cheat the Fates ? Would she, the champion of the open mind, The Omnipotent's first gift — the gift of growth — Consent even for a night-time to be blind, And sink her soul on the delusive sloth 1^0 For fruits ethereal and material, both. In peril of her place among mankind"? The Mother of the many Laughters might Call one poor shade of laughter in the light NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 459 Of her unwavering lamp to mark what things 1^^ The world puts faith in, careless of the truth : What silly puppet-bodies danced on strings, Attached by credence, we appear in sooth. Demanding intercession, direct aid. When the whole tragic tale hangs on a for- feit blade ! 190 She swung the sword for centuries; in a day It slipped her, like a stream cut from its source. She struck a feeble hand, and tried to pray. Clamored of treachery, and had recourse To drunken outcries in her dream that Force 195 Needed but to hear her shouting to obey. Was she not formed to conquer ? The bright plumes Of crested vanity shed graceful nods: Transcendent in her foundries. Arts and looms, Had France to fear the vengeance of the Gods? 200 Her Gods were then the battle-roll of names Sheathed in the records of old war; with dance And song she thrilled her warriors and her dames, Embracing her Dishonorer : gave him France From head to foot, France present and to come, 205 So she might hear the trumpet and the drum — Bellona and Bacchante! rushing forth On those stout marching Schoolmen of the North. Inveterate of brain, well knows she why Strength failed her, faithful to himself the first; 210 Her dream is done, and she can read the sky, And she can take into her heart the worst Calamity to drug the shameful thought Of days that made her as the man she served, A name of terror, but a thing unnerved ; 215 Buying the trickster, by the trickster bought. She for dominion, he to patch a throne. Behold the Gods are with her now, and known : And to know them, not suffering for their sake, Is madness to the souls that may not take 220 The easy way of death, being divine. Her frenzy is not Reason's light extinct In fumes of foul revenge and desperate sense, But Reason rising on the storm intense, Three-faced, with present, past, and future linked ; 225 Informed three-fold with duty to her line. By sacrifice of blood must she atone, (Since thus the foe decrees it) to her own: That she who cannot supplicate, nor cease. Who will not utter the false word for Peace, 230 May burn to ashes, with a heart of stone, Whatso has made her of all lands the flower, To spring in fiame for one redeeming hour, For one propitious hour arise from prone. Athwart Ambition's path, and have and wrench 235 His towering stature from the bitter trench. Retributive, by her taskmasters shown, — The spectral trench where bloody seed was sown. 240 245 Henceforth of her the Gods are known, Open to them her breast is laid. Inveterate of brain, heart-valiant. Never did fairer creature pant Before the altar and the blade! Swift fall the blows, and men upbraid, And friends give echo blunt and cold, The echo of the forest to the axe. Within her are the fii-es that wax For resurrection from the mold. She snatched at Heaven's flame of old, And kindled nations : she was weak : 250 Frail sister of her heroic prototype. The Man ; for sacrifice unripe. She too must fill a Vulture's beak. Once more, earthly fortune, speak! Has she a gleam of victory? one Outshining of her old historic sun? For a while ! for an hour ! And sunlight on her banner seems A miracle conceived in dreams. The faint reflux of orient beams Through a lifting shower. 255 260 Now is she in the vulture-grasp of Power, And all her sins are manifest to men. Now may they reckon with punctilious pen Her list of misdemeanors, and her dower Of precious gifts that gilded the rank fen Where lay a wanton greedy to devour. 267 460 THE GEEAT TEADITION Now is she in the vulture-grasp of Power. The harlot sister of the man sublime, Prometheus, she, though vanquished will not cower. 270 Offending Heaven, she groveled in the slime ; Offending Man, she aimed beyond her time ; Offending Earth, her Pride was like a tower. like the banner on the tower, Her spirit was, and toyed and curled 275 Among its folds to lure the world — It called to follow. But when strong men thrust The banner on the winds, 't was flame, And pilgrim-generations tread its dust, And kiss its track. Disastrously unripe, 280 Imperfect, changeful, full of blame. Still the Gods love her, for that of high aim Is this good France, the bleeding thing they stripe. She shall rise worthier of her prototype Through her abasement deep ; the pain that runs 285 From nerve to nerve some victory achieves. They lie like circle-strewn soaked Autumn- leaves Which stain the forest scarlet, her fair sons ! And of their death her life is : of their blood From many streams now urging to a flood, _ 290 No more divided, France shall rise afresh. Of them she learns the lesson of the flesh : — The lesson writ in red since first Time ran A hunter hunting down the beast in man : That till the chasing out of its last vice, 295 The flesh was fashioned but for sacrifice. Cast hence the slave's delights, the wan- ton's lures, France ! and of thy folly pay full price ; The limitary nature that immures A spirit dulled in clay shall break, as thrice 300 It has broken on a night of blood and tears, To give thy ghost free breath, and joy thy peers. Immortal mother of a mortal host! Thou suffering of the wounds that will not slay, Wounds that bring death but take not life away ! — ^^^ Stand fast and hearken while thy victors boast : Hearken, and loathe that music evermore. Slip loose thy garments woven of pride and shame : The torture lurks in them, with them the blame Shall pass to leave thee purer than be- fore. 310 Undo thy jewels, thinking whence they came, For what, and of the abominable name Of her who in imperial beauty wore. O Mother of a fated fleeting host Conceived in the past days of sin, and born 315 Heirs of disease and arrogance and scorn. Surrender, yield the weight of thy great ghost. Like wings on air, to what the Heavens proclaim With trumpets from the multitudinous mounds Where peace has filled the hearing of thy sons: • 320 Albeit a pang of dissolution rounds Each new discernment of the undying Ones, Stoop to these graves here scattered thick and wide Along thy fields, as sunless billows roll; These ashes have the lesson for the soul. 325 "Die to thy Vanity, and to thy Pride, And to thy Luxury: that thou may'st live. Die to thyself," they say, "as we have died From dear existence, and the foe forgive. Nor pray for aught save in our little space To warm good seed to greet the fair earth's face." 331 mother! take their counsel, and so shall The broader world breathe in on this thy home, Light clear for thee the counter-changing dome. Fire lift thee to the heights meridional, 335 Strength give thee, like an ocean's vast ex- panse Off mountain cliffs, the generations all, Not whirling in their narrow rings of foam, But like a river forward. Soaring France ! Now is Humanity on trial in thee: 340 Now may'st thou gather humankind in fee: Now prove that Reason is a quenchless scroll ; Make of calamity thine aureole. And bleeding lead us through the troubles of the sea. NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS 46i America sidney dobell Men say, Columbia, we shall hear thy guns. But in what tongue shall be thy battle-cry? Not that our sires did love in years gone by, When all the Pilgrim Fathers were little sons In merrie homes of Englaunde 1 Back, and see Thy satehel'd ancestor! Behold, he runs To mine, and, elasp'd, they tread the equal lea To the same village-school, where side by side They spell "our Father." Hard by, the twin-pride Of that gray hall whose ancient oriel gleams Thro' yon baronial pines, with looks of light Our sister-mothers sit beneath one tree. Meanwhile our Shakespeare wanders past and dreams His Helena and Hermia. Shall we fight? Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us ! ye Who north or south, on east or western land. Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth, Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God For God ; ye who in eternal youth Speak with a living and creative flood This universal English, and do stand Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand Heroic utterance — parted, yet a whole. Far, yet unsevered, — children brave and free Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be Lords of an Empire wide as Shakespeare's soul. Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme, And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream. (1855) To Walt Whitman in America ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE Send but a song oversea for us. Heart of their hearts who are free, Heart of their singer, to be for us More than our singing can be; Ours, in the tempest at error. With no light but the twilight of terror; Send us a song oversea! Sweet-smelling of pine leaves and grasses, And blown as a tree through and through With the winds of the keen mountain- passes, And tender as sun-smitten dew; Sharp-tongued as the winter that shakes The wastes of your limitless lakes. Wide-eyed as the sea-line's blue. strong-winged soul with prophetic Lips hot with the bloodbeats of song, With tremor of heartstrings magnetic, With thoughts as thunders in throng. With consonant ardors of chords That pierce men's souls as with swords And hale them hearing along. Make us, too, music, to be with us As a word from a world's heart warm. To sail the dark as a sea with us. Full-sailed, outsinging the storm, A song to put fire in our ears Whose burning shall burn up tears. Whose sign bid battle reform; A note in the ranks of a clarion, A word in the wind of cheer. To consume as with lightning the carrion That makes time foul for us here ; In the air that our dead things infest A blast of the breath of the west. Till east way as west way is clear. Out of the sun beyond sunset, From the evening whence morning shall be. With the rollers in measureless onset. With the van of the storming sea. With the world-wide wind, with the breath That breaks ships driven upon death, With the passion of all things free. With the sea-steeds footless and frantic, White myriads for death to bestride In the charge of the ruining Atlantic, Where deaths by regiments ride, With clouds and clamors of waters. With a long note shriller than slaughter's On the furrowless fields world-wide. With terror, with ardor and wonder. With the soul of the season that wakes When the weight of a whole year's thunder In the tidestream of autumn breaks. Let the flight of the wide-winged word Come over, come in and be heard. Take form and flre for our sakes. For a continent bloodless with travail Here toils and brawls as it can, 462 THE GEEAT TRADITION And the web of it who shall unravel Of all that peer on the plan ; Would fain grow men, but they grow not, And fain be free, but they know not One name for freedom and man. One name, not twain for division; One thing, not twain, from the birth ; Spirit and substance and vision. Worth more than worship is worth ; Unbeheld, unadored, undivined, The cause, the center, the mind, The secret and sense of the earth. Here as a weakling in irons, Here as a weanling in bands, As a prey that the stake-net environs. Our life that we looked for stands; And the man-child naked and dear. Democracy, turns on us here Eyes trembling, with tremulous hands. It sees not what season shall bring to it Sweet fruit of its bitter desire ; Few voices it hears yet sing to it, Few pulses of hearts reaspire: Foresees not time, nor forebears The noises of imminent years, Earthquake, and thunder, and fire: When crowned and weaponed and curbless It shall walk without helm or shield The bare burnt furrows and herbless Of war's last flame-stricken field, Till godlike, equal with time. It stand in the sun sublime. In the godhead of man revealed. Round your people and over them Light like raiment is drawn. Close as a garment to cover them Wrought not of mail nor of lawn : Here, with hope hardly to wear, Naked nations and bare Swim, sink, strike out for the dawn. Chains are here, and a prison, Kings, and subjects, and shame : If the God upon you be arisen. How should our songs be the same? How in confusion of change. How shall we sing, in a strange Land songs praising his name? God is buried and dead to us, Even the spirit of earth. Freedom : so have they said to us, Some with mocking and mirth, Some with heartbreak and tears : And a God without eyes, without ears. Who shall sing of him, dead in the birth? The earth-god Freedom, the lonely Face lightening, the footprint unshod, Not as one man crucified only Nor scourged with but one life's rod : The soul that is substance of nations. Reincarnate with fresh generations; The great god Man, which is God, But in weariest of years and obscurest Doth it live not at heart of all things, The one God and one spirit, a purest Life, fed from unstanchable springs? Within love, within hatred it is, And its seed in the stripe as the kiss, And in slaves is the germ, and in kings. Freedom we call it, for holier Name of the soul's there is none ; Surelier it labors, if slowlier. Than the meters of star or of sun; Slowlier than life unto breath, Surelier than time unto death. It moves till its labor be done. Till the motion be done and the measure Circling through season and clime. Slumber and sorrow and pleasure. Vision of virtue and crime ; Till consummate with conquering eyes, A soul disembodied, it rise From the body transfigured of time. Till it rise and remain and take station With the stars of the world that rejoice; Till the voice of its heart's exultation Be as theirs an invariable voice. By no discord of evil estranged, By no pause, by no breach in it changed. By no clash in the chord of its choice. It is one with the world's generations. With the spirit, the star, and the sod: With the kingless and king-stricken nations, With the cross, and the chain, and the rod ; The most high, the most secret, most lonely, The earth-soul Freedom, that only Lives, and that only is God. NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 463 11. THE CRUSADE AGAINST MATERIALISM 1. THE GOSPEL OF WORK The Inheritance THOMAS CARLTLE [From Past and Present, 1843, Book II, chapter xvii] It is all work and forgotten work, this peopled, clothed, articulate-speaking, high- towered, wide-acred World. The hands of forgotten brave men have made it a World for us; — they, — honor to them; they, in spite of the idle and the dastard. This Eng- lish Land, here and now, is the summary ol what was found of wise, and noble, and ac- cordant with God's Truth, in all the genera- tions of English Men. Our English Speech is speakable because there were Hero-Poets of our blood and lineage ; speakable in pro- portion to the number of these. This Land of England has its conquerors, possessors, which change from epoch to epoch, from day to day ; but its real conquerors, creators, and eternal proprietors are these following, and their representatives if you can find them : All the Heroic Souls that ever were in Eng- land, each in their degree; all the men that ever cut a thistle, drained a puddle out of England, contrived a wise scheme in Eng- land, did or said a true and valiant thing in England. I tell thee, they had not a ham- mer to begin with; and yet Wren built St. Paul's : not an articulated syllable ; and yet there have come English Literatures, Eliza- bethan Literatures, Satanic-School, Cock- ney-School, and other Literatures; — once more, as in the old time of the Leitourgia, a most waste imbroglio, and world-wide jungle and jumble; waiting terribly to be "well-edited" and "well-burnt!" Arachne started with forefinger and thumb, and had not even a distaff; yet thou seest Man- chester, and Cotton Cloth, which will shelter naked backs, at twopence an ell. Work? The quantity of done and for- gotten work that lies silent under my feet in this world, and escorts and attends me, and supports and keeps me alive, whereso- ever I walk or stand, whatsoever I think or do, gives rise to reflections ! Is it not enough, at any rate, to strike the thing called "Fame" into total silence for a wise man ? For fools and unrefleetive persons, she is and will be very noisy, this "Fame," and talks of her "immortals" and so forth: but if you will consider it, what is she ? Abbot Samson was not nothing because nobody said anything of him. Or thinkest thou, the Right Honorable Sir Jabez Windbag can be made something by Parliamentary Majorities and Leading Articles? Her "immortals !" Scarcely two hundred years back can Fame recollect articulately at all; and there she but maun- ders and mumbles. She manages to recol- lect a Shakespeare or so; and prates, con- siderably like a goose, about him; — and in the rear of that, onwards to the birth of Theuth, to Hengst's Invasion, and the bosom of Eternity, it was all blank; and the re- spectable Teutonic Languages, Teutonic Practices, Existences, all came of their own accord, as the grass springs, as the trees grow; no Poet, no work from the inspired heart of a Man needed there ; and Fame has not an articulate word to say about it! Or ask her, What, with all conceivable ap- pliances and mnemonics, includingapotheosis and human sacrifices among the number, she carries in her head with regard to a Wodan, even a Moses, or other such ? She begins to be uncertain as to what they were, whether , spirits or men of mold, — gods, charlatans: begins sometimes to have a misgiving that they were mere sjnnbols, ideas of the mind; perhaj^s nonentities and Letters of the Alphabet ! She is the noisiest, inarticulately babbling, hissing, screaming, foolishest, un- musiealest of fowls that fly; and needs no "trumpet," I think, but her own enormous goose-throat, — measuring several degrees of celestial latitude, so to speak. Her "wings," in these days, have grown far swifter than ever; but her goose-throat hitherto seems only larger, louder, and foolisher than ever. She is transitory, futile, a goose-goddess : — if she were not transitory, what would be- come of us ! It is a chief comfort that she forgets us all; all, even to the very Wodans; and grows to consider us, at last, as probably nonentities and Letters of the Alphabet. Yes, a noble Abbot Samson resigns him- self to Oblivion too; feels it no hardship, but a comfort; counts it as a still resting- place, from much sick feet and fever and stupidity, which in the night-watches often 464 THE GREAT TRADITION made his strong heart sigh. Your most sweet voices, making one enormous goose- voice, Bobus and Company, how can they be a guidance for any Son of Adamf In silence of you and the like of you, the "small still voices" will speak to him better; in which does lie guidance. My friend, all speech and rumor is short- lived, foolish, untrue. ' Genuine Work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal, as the Almighty Founder and Woi'ld- Builder himself. Stand thou by that; and let ''Fame" and the rest of it go prating. Heard are the Voices, Heard are the Sages, The Worlds and the Ages : Choose well ; your choice is Brief and yet endless. Here eyes do regard you, In Eternity's stillness : Here is all fulness, Ye brave, to reward you ; Work, and despair not. Happiness, and Labor thomas carlyle [Ibid., Book III, chapters iv and vi] Truly, I think the man who goes about pothering and uproaring for his "happi- ness," — pothering, and were it ballot-box- ing, poem-making, or in what way soever fussing and exerting himself, — he is not the nian that will help us to "get our knaves and dastards arrested !" No ; he rather is on the way to increase the number, — by at least one unit and his tail ! Observe, too, that this is all a modern affair; belongs not to the old heroic times, but to these dastard new times. "Happiness our being's end and aim," all that very paltry speculation is at bottom, if we will count well, not yet two centuries old in the world. The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking much about was happiness enough to get his work done. Not "I can't eat!" but "I can't work!" that was the burden of all wise complaining among men. It is, after all, the one unhap- piness of a man, That he cannot work ; that he cannot get his destiny as a man fulfilled. Behold, the day is passing swiftly over, our life is passing swiftly over; and the night Cometh, wherein no man can work. The night once come, our happiness, our unhap- piness, — it is all abolished; vanished, clean gone ; a thing that has been : "not of the slightest consequence" whether we were hap- py as eupeptic Curtis, as the fattest pig of Epicurus, or unhappy as Job with potsherds, as musical Byron with Giaours and sensibili- ties of the heart ; as the unmusical Meat-jack with hard labor and rust ! But our work, — ■ behold that is not abolished, that has not vanished: our work, behold, it remains, or the want of it remains; — for endless Times and Eternities, remains; and that is now the sole question with us f orevermore ! Brief brawling Day, with its noisy phantasms, its poor paper-crowns tinsel-gilt, is gone; and divine everlasting Night, with her star- diadems, with her silences and her veracities, is come! What hast thou done, and how? Happiness, unhappiness: all that was but the wages thou hadst; thou hast spent all that, in sustaining thyself hitherward ; not a coin of it remains with thee, it is all spent, eaten : and now thy work, where is thy work? Swift, out with it; let us see thy work ! Of a truth, if man were not a poor hungry dastard, and even much of a blockhead, withal, he would cease criticizing his victuals to such extent ; and criticize himself rather, what he does Avith his victuals ! . . . And now to observe with what bewildering obscurations and impediments all this as yet stands entangled, and is yet intelligible to no man ! How, with our gross Atheism, we hear it not to be the Voice of God to us, but regard it merely as a Voice of earthly Profit-and-Loss. And have a Hell in Eng- land, — the Hell of not making money. And coldly see the all-conquering valiant Sons of Toil sit enchanted, by the million, in their Poor-Law Bastille, as if this were Nature's Law; — mumbling to ourselves some vague janglement of Laissez-faire, Supply-and- demand, Cash-payment the one nexus of man to man : Free-trade, Competition, and Devil take the hindmost, our latest Gospel yet preached ! As if, in truth, there were no God of Labor ; as if godlike Labor and brutal Mam- monism were convertible terms. A serious, most earnest Mammonism grown Midas- eared; an unserious Dilettantism, earnest about nothing, grinning with inarticulate, in- credulous, incredible jargon about all things, NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS 465 as the enchanted Dilettanti do by the Dead Sea ! It is mournful enough, for the present hour; were there not an endless hope in it withal. Giant Labor, truest emblem there is of God the World- Worker, Demiurgus, and Eternal Maker; noble Labor, which is yet to be the King of this Earth, and sit on the highest throne, — staggering hitherto like a blind irrational giant, hardly allowed to have his common place on the street-pavements; idle Dilettantism, Dead-Sea Apism crying out, "Down with him ; he is dangerous !" Labor must become a seeing rational giant, with a soul in the body of him, and take his place on the throne of things, — leaving his Mammonism, and several other adjuncts, on the lower steps of said throne. Plugson op Undershot thomas carlyle [Ibid., Book III, chapter x] One thing I do know: Never, on this Earth, was the relation of man to man long carried on by Cash-payment alone. If, at any time, a philosoiDhy of Laissez-faire, Competition, and Supply-and-demand, start up as the exponent of human relations, expect that it will soon end. Such philosophies will arise : for man's philosophies are usually the "supplement of his practice" ; some ornamental Logic-var- nish, some outer skin of Articulate Intelli- gence, with which he strives to render his dumb Instinctive Doings presentable when they are done. Such philosophies will arise ; be preached as Mammon-Gospels, the ulti- mate Evangel of the World ; be believed with what is called belief, with much superficial bluster, and a kind of shallow satisfaction real in its way; — but they are ominous gos- pels ! They are the sure and even swift, forerunner of great changes. Expect that the old System of Society is done, is dying and fallen into dotage, when it begins to rave in that fashion. Most Systems that I have watched the death of, for the last three thousand years, have gone just so. The Ideal, the True and Noble that was in them having faded out, and nothing now remain- ing but naked Egoism, vulturous Greediness, they cannot live; they are bound and in- exorably ordained by the oldest Destinies, Mothers of the Universe, to die. Curious enough; they thereupon, as I have pretty generally noticed, devised some light com- fortable kind of "wine-and-walnuts philoso- phy" for themselves, this of Supply-and- demand or another ; and keep saying, during hours of mastication and rumination, which they call hours of meditation: "Soul, take thy ease ; it is all well that thou art a vulture- soul"; — and pangs of dissolution come upon them, oftenest before they are aware! Cash-payment never was, or could except for a few years be, the union-bond of man to man. Cash never yet paid one man fully his deserts to another ; nor could it, nor can it, now or henceforth to the end of the world. I invite his Grace of Castle-Rackrent to re- flect on this; — does he think that a Land Aristocracy when it becomes a Land Auc- tioneership can have long to live? Or that Sliding-seales will increase the vital stamina of it? The indomitable Plugson too, of the respected Firm of Plugson, Hunks and Com- pany, in St. Dolly Undershot, is invited to reflect on this; for to him also it will be new, perhaps even newer. Bookkeeping by double entry is admirable, and records sev- eral things in an exact manner. But the Mother-Destinies also .keep their Tablets; in Heaven's Chancery also there goes on a recording ; and things, as my Moslem friends say, are "written on the iron leaf." Your Grace and Plugson, it is like, go to Church occasionally: did you never in vacant moments, with perhaps a dull parson droning to you, glance into your New Testa- ment, and the cash-account stated four times over, by a kind of quadruple entry, — in the Four Gospels there ? I consider that a cash- account, and balance-statement of work done and wages paid, worth attending to. Precisely such, though on a smaller scale, go on at all moments under this Sun; and the statement and balance of them in the Plug- son Ledgers and on the Tablets of Heaven's Chancery are discrepant exceedingly; — which ought really to teach, and to have long since taught, an indomitable common-sense Plugson of Undershot, much more an unat- tackable wweommon-sense Grace of Rack- rent, a thing or two ! — In brief, we shall have to dismiss the Cash-Gospel rigorously into its own place : we shall have to know, on the threshold, that either there is some infinitely deeper Gospel, subsidiary, ex- planatory, and daily and hourly corrective, to the Cash one; or else that the Cash one itself and all others are fast traveling! For all human things do require to have 466 THE GEEAT TKADITION an ideal in them; to have some Soul in them, as we said, were it only to keep the Body unputrefied. And wonderful it is to see how the Ideal or Soul, place it in what ugliest Body you may, will irradiate said Body with its own nobleness; will grad- ually, incessantly, mold, modify, new-form or reform said ugliest Body, and make it at last beautiful, and to a certain degree divine! — Oh, if you could dethrone that Brute-god Mammon, and put a Spirit-god in his place! One way or other, he must and will have to be dethroned. Fighting, for example, as I often say to myself, Fighting with steel murder-tools is surely a much uglier operation than Work- ing, take it how you will. Yet even of Fighting, in religious Abbot Samson's days, see what a Feudalism there had grown, — a "glorious Chivalry," much besung down to the present day. Was not that one of the "impossiblest" things ? Under the sky is no uglier spectacle than two men with clenched teeth, and hell-fii'e eyes, hacking one another's flesh, converting precious living bodies, and priceless living souls, into nameless masses of putrescence, useful only for turnip- manure. How did a Chivalry ever come out of that; how anything that was not hideous, scandalous, infernal? It will be a question worth considering by and by. I remark, for the present, only two things : first, that the Fighting itself was not, as we rashly suppose it, a Fighting without cause, but more or less with cause. Man is created to fight; he is perhaps best of all definable as a born soldier; his life "a battle and a march," under the right General. It is for- ever indispensable for a man to fight : now with Necessity, Avith Barrenness, Scarcity, with Puddles, Bogs, tangled Forests, un- kempt Cotton ; — now also with the hallucina- tions of his poor fellow Men. Hallucinatory visions rise in the head of my poor fellow man; make him claim over me rights which are not his. All fighting, as we noticed long ago, is the dusty conflict of strength, each thinking itself the strongest, or, in other words, the justest ; — of Mights which do in the long-run, and forever will in this just Universe in the long-run, mean Rights. In conflict the perishable part of them, beaten sufficiently, flies off into dust; this process ended, appears the imperishable, the true and exact. And now let us remark a second thing: how, in these baleful operations, a noble devout-hearted Chevalier will comport him- self, and an ignoble godless Bucanier and Chactaw Indian. Victory is the aim of each. But deep in the heart of the noble man it lies forever legible, that as an Invisible Just God made him, so will and must God's Jus- tice and this only, were it never so invisible, . ultimately prosper in all controversies and enterprises and battles whatsoever. What an Influence; ever-present, — like a Soul in the rudest Caliban of a body; like a ray of Heaven, and illuminative creative Fiat- Lux, in the wasted terrestrial Chaos ! Blessed divine Influence, traceable even in the horror of Battlefields and garments rolled in blood: how it ennobles even the Battlefield ; and, in place of a Chactaw Massacre, makes it a Field of Honor ! A Battlefield too, is great. .Considered well, it is a kind of Quintessence of Labor; Labor distilled into its utmost concentration ; the significance of years of it compressed into an hour. Here too thou shalt be strong, and not in muscle only, if thou wouldst prevail. Here too thou shalt be strong of heart, noble of soul ; thou shalt dread no pain or death, thou shalt not love ease or life; in rage, thou shalt remember mercy, justice ; — thou shalt be a Knight and not a Chactaw, if thou wouldst prevail! It is the rule of all battles, against hallucinat- ing fellow Men, against unkempt Cotton, or whatsoever battles they may be, which a man in this world has to fight. Howel Davies dyes the West-Indian Seas with blood, piles his decks with plunder ; approves himself the expertest Seaman, the daringest Seafighter: but he gains no last- ing victory; lasting victory is not possible for him. Not, had he fleets larger than the combined British Navy all united with him in bucaniering. He, once for all, cannot prosper in his duel. He strikes down his man : yes ; but his man, or his man's repre- sentative, has no notion to lie struck down; neither, though slain ten times, will he keep so lying ; — nor has the Universe any notion to keep him so lying ! On the contrary, the Universe and he have, at all moments, all manner of motives to start up again, and desperately flght again. Your Napoleon is flung out, at last, to St. Helena; the latter end of him sternly compensating the begin- ning. The Bucanier strikes down a man, a hundred or a million men : but what profits it? He has one enemy never to be struck down ; nay two enemies : Mankind and the Maker oLMen, On the great scale or on the NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 467 small, in fighting of men or fighting of dif- ficulties, I will not embark my venture with Howel Davies : it is not the Bucanier, it is the Hero only that can gain victory, that can do more than seem to succeed. These things will deserve meditating; for they apply to all battle and soldiership, all struggle and effort whatsoever in this Fight of Life. It is a poor Gospel, Cash-Gospel or whatever name it have, that does not, with clear tone, uncontradictable, carrying conviction to all hearts, forever keep men in mind of these things. Unhappily, my indomitable friend Plug- son of Undershot has, in a great degree, for- gotten them ; — as, alas, all the world has ; as, alas, our very Dukes and Soul-Overseers have, whose special trade it was to remem- ber them ! Hence these tears. — Plugson, who has indomitably spun Cotton merely to gain thousands of pounds, I have to call as yet a Bucanier and Chactaw ; till there come something better, still more indomitable from him. His hundred Thousand-pound Notes, if there be nothing other, are to me but as the hundred Scalps in a Chactaw wig- wam. The blind Plugson : he was a Captain of Industry, born member of the Ultimate genuine Aristocracy of this Universe, could he have known it ! These thousand men that Bpan and toiled round him, they were a regi- ment whom he had enlisted, man by man; to make war on a very genuine enemy: Bareness of back, and disobedient Cotton- fiber, which will not, unless forced to it, con- sent to cover bare backs. Here is a most genuine enemy ; over whom all creatures will wish him victory. He enlisted his thousand men; said to them, "Come, brothers, let us have a dash at Cotton !" They follow with cheerful shout ; they gain such a victory over Cotton as the Earth has to admire and clap hands at: but, alas, it is yet only of the Bucanier or Chactaw sort, — as good as no victory! Foolish Plugson of St. Dolly Undershot : does he hope to become illustri- ous by hanging up the scalps in his wigwam, the hundred thousands at his banker's, and saying. Behold my scalps'? Why, Plugson, even thy own host is all in mutiny : Cotton is conquered; but the "bare backs" — are worse covered than ever ! Indomitable Plug- son, thou must cease to be a Chactaw; thou and others ; thou thyself, if no other ! Did William the Norman Bastard, or any of his Taillefers, IroncuUers, manage so? Ironcutter; at the end of the campaign, did not turn-off his thousand fighters, but said to them: "Noble fighters, this is the land we have gained; be I Lord in it, — what we will call Law-ward, maintainer and keeper of Heaven's Laws: be I Law-ward, or in brief orthoepy Lord in it, and be ye Loyal Men around me in it; and we will stand by one another, as soldiers round a captain, for again we shall have need of one another!" Plugson, bucanier-like, says to them : "Noble spinners, this is the Hundred Thousand we have gained, wherein I mean to dwell and plant vineyards; the hundred thousand is mine, the three and sixpence daily was yours : adieu, noble spinners ; drink my health with this groat each, which I give you over and above!" The entirely unjust Captain of Industry, say I ; not Chevalier, but Bucanier ! "Commercial Law" does indeed acquit him ; asks, with wide eyes, What else? So too Howel Davies asks, Was it not according to the strictest Bucanier Custom? Did I dejDart in any jot or tittle from the Laws of the Bucaniers? After all, money, as they say, is miracu- lous. Plugson wanted victory ; as Chevaliers and Bucaniers, and all men alike do. He found money recognized, by the whole world with one assent, as the tru^e symbol, exact equivalent and synonym of victory; — and here we have him, a grimbrowed, indomita- ble Bucanier, coming home to us with a "victory," which the whole world is ceasing to clap hands at ! The whole world, taught somewhat impressively, is beginning to recognize that such victory is but half a victory ; and that now, if it please the Pow- ers, we must — have the other half ! Money is miraculous. What miraculous facilities has it yielded, will it yield us ; but also what never-imagined confusions, ob- scurations has it brought in ; down almost to total extinction of the moral-sense in large masses of mankind! "Protection of prop- erty," of what is "mine," means with most men protection of money, — the thing which, had I a thousand padlocks over it, is least of all mine; is, in a manner, scarcely worth calling mine ! The symbol shall be held sacred, defended everywhere with tip-staves, ropes, and gibbets; the thing signified shall be composedly cast to the dogs. A human being who has worked with human beings clears all scores with them, cuts himself with triumphant completeness forever loose from them, by paying down certain shillings and pounds. Was it not the wages, I 468 THE GREAT TRADITION promised you'? There they are, to the last sixpence, — according to the Laws of the Bucaniers! — Yes, indeed; — and, at such timeg, it becomes imperatively necessary to ask all persons, bucaniers and others, Whether these same respectable Laws of the Bucaniers are written on God's eternal Heavens at all, on the inner Heart of Man at all; or on the respectable Bucanier Log- book merely, for the convenience of bucanier- ing merely? What a question; — ^whereat Westminster Hall shudders to its driest parchment ; and on the dead wigs each par- ticular horsehair stands on end ! The Laws of Laissez-faire, Westminster, the laws of industrial Captain and industrial Soldier, how much more of idle Captain and industrial Soldier, will need to be remodeled, and modified, and rectified in a hundred and a hundred ways, — and not in the Sli ding- scale direction, but in the totally opposite one ! With two million industrial Soldiers already sitting in Bastilles, and five million pining on potatoes, methinks Westminster cannot begin too soon ! — A man has other obligations laid on him, in God's Universe, than the jDayment of cash : these also West- minster, if it will continue to exist and have board-wages, must contrive to take some ch:irge of: — by Westminster or by another, they must and will be taken charge of; be, with whatever difficulty, got articulated, got enforced, and to a certain approximate extent put in practice. And, as I say it, it cannot be too soon ! For Mammonism, left to itself, has become Midas-eared; and with all its gold mountains, sits starving for want of bread : and Dilettantism with its partridge- nets, in this extremely earnest Universe of ours, is playing somewhat too high a game. ''A man by the very look of him promises so much" : yes ; and by the rent-roll of him does he promise nothing f — Alas, what a business will this be, which our Continental friends, groping tliis long while somewhat absurdly about it and about it, call "Organization of Labor"; — which must be taken out of the hand of absurd windy persons, and put into the hands of wise, laborious, modest, and valiant men, to begin with it straightway; to proceed with it, and succeed in it more and more, if Europe, at any rate if England, is to con- tinue habitable much longer. Looking at the kind of most noble Corn-Law Dukes or Practical Duces we have, and also of right reverend Soul-Overseers, Christian Spiritual Duces "on a minimum of four thousand five hundred," one's hopes are a little chilled. Courage, nevertheless ; there are many brave men in England ! My indomitable Plugson, — nay is there not even in thee some hope? Thou art hitherto a Bucanier, as it was writ- ten and prescribed for thee by an evil world : but in that grim brow, in that indomitable heart which can conquer Cotton, do there not perhaps lie other ten-times nobler con- quests ? Labor thomas caklyle [Ibid., "Book III, chapter xi] For there is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in Work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in Idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Work, never so Mammonish, mean, is in communication with Nature; the real desire to get Work done will itself lead one more and more to truth, to Nature's appointments and regulations, which are truth. The latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and do it. "Know thyself": long enough has that poor "self" of thine tor- mented thee ; thou wilt never get to "know" it, I believe ! Think it not thy business, this of knowing thyself ; thou art an unknowable individual : know what thou canst work at ; and work at it, like a Hercules! That will be thy better plan. It has been written, "an endless signifi- cance lies in Work" ; a man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, fair seedfields rise instead, and stately cities ; and withal the man himself first ceases to be a jungle and foul unwholesome desert there- by. Consider hoAv, even in the meanest sorts of Labor, the whole soul of a man is com- posed into a kind of real harmony, the in- stant he sets himself to work! Doubt, De- sire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these like helldogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor day worker, as of every man: but he bends himself with free valor against his task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink murmuring far off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glow of Labor in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is made bright blessed flame! NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 469 Destiny, on the whole, has no other way of cultivating us. A formless Chaos, once set it revolving, grows round and ever rounder; ranges itself, by mere force of gravity, into strata, spherical courses; is no longer a Chaos, but a round compacted World. What would become of the Earth, did she cease to revolve? In the poor old Earth, so long as she revolves, all inequali- ties, irregularities disperse themselves; all irregularities are incessantly becoming regu- lar.' Hast thou looked on the Potter's wheel, — one of the venerablest objects; old as the Prophet Ezekiel and far older? Rude lumps of clay, how they spin themselves up, by mere quick whirling, into beautiful cir- cular dishes. And fancy the most assidu- ous Potter, but without his wheel; reduced to make dishes or rather amorphous botches, by mere kneading and baking ! Even such a Potter were Destiny, with a human soul that would rest and lie at ease, that would not work and spin ! Of an idle unrevolving man the kindest Destiny, like the most as- siduous Potter without wheel, can bake and knead nothing other than a botch; let her spend on him what expensive coloring, what gilding and enameling she will, he is but a botch. Not a dish; no, a bulging, kneaded, crooked, shambling, squint-cornered, amor- phous botch, — a mere enameled vessel of dishonor ! Let the idle think of this. Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will follow it ! How, as a free-flowing channel, dug and torn by noble force through the sour mud-swamp of one's ex- istence, like an ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows; — di'aining-off the sour festering water, gradually from the root of the remotest grass-blade; making, instead of pestilential swamp, a green fruitful meadow with its clear-flowing stream. How blessed for the meadow itself, let the stream and its value be great or small! Labor is Life : from the inmost heart of the Worker rises his god-given Force, the sacred celestial Life-essence breathed into him by Almighty God; from his inmost heart awakens him to all nobleness, — to all knowledge, "self-knowledge" and much else, so soon as Work fitly begins. Knowl- edge? The knowledge that will hold good in working, cleave thou to that: for Nature herself accredits that, says Yea to that. Properly thou hast no other knowledge but what thou hast got by working : the rest is yet all a hypothesis of knowledge; a thing to be argued of in schools, a thing floating in the clouds, in endless logic- vortices, till we try it and fix it. "Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by Action alone." And again, hast thou valued Patience, Courage, Perseverance, Openness to light; readiness to own thyself mistaken, to do better next time? All these, all virtues, in wrestling with the dim brute Powers of Fact, in ordering of thy fellows in such wrestle, there and elsewhere not at all, thou wilt continually learn. Set down a brave Sir Christopher in the middle of black ruined Stone-heaps, of foolish unarchitec- tural Bishops, red-tape Officials, idle Nell- Gwyn Defenders of the Faith; and see whether he will ever raise a Paul's Cathe- dral out of all that, yea or no! Rough, rude, contradictory are all things and per- sons, from the mutinous masons and Irish hodmen, up to the idle Nell-Gwyn De- fenders, to blustering red-taj)e Officials, foolish unarcbitectural Bishops. All these things and persons are there not for Christopher's sake and his Cathedral's; they are there for their own sake mainly! Christopher will have to conquer and con- strain all these, — if he be able. All these are against him. Equitable Nature herself, who carries her mathematics and architec- tonics not on the face of her, but deep in the hidden heart of her, — Nature herself is but partially for him; will be wholly against him, if he constrain her not ! His very money, where is it to come from ? The pious munificence of England lies far-scat- tered, distant, unable to sj)eak, and say, "I am here"; — must be spoken to before it can speak. Pious munificence, and all help, is so silent, invisible like the gods; impediment, contradictions manifold are so loud and near! brave Sir Christopher, trust thou in those notwithstanding, and front all these; understand all these; by valiant patience, noble effort, insight, by man's-strength, vanquish and compel all these, — and, on the whole, strike down victoriously the last topstone of that Paul's Edifice; thy monument for certain cen- turies, the stamp "Great Man" impressed very legibly on Portland-stone there! — Yes, all manner of help, and pious re- sponse from Men or Nature, is always what we call silent; cannot speak or come to 470 THE GEEAT TEADITION light, till it be seen, till it be spoken to. Every noble work is at first "impossible." In very truth, for every noble work the possibilities will lie diffused through Im- mensity; inarticulate, undiscoverable ex- cept to faith. Like Gideon thou shalt spread out thy fleece at the door of thy tent; see whether under the wide arch of Heaven there be any bounteous moisture, or none. Thy heart and life-purpose shall be as a miraculous Gideon's fleece, spread out in silent appeal to Heaven: and from the kind Immensities, what from the poor unkind Localities and town and country Parishes there never could, blessed dew- moisture to suffice thee shall have fallen ! Work is of a religious nature : — work is of a brave nature; which it is the aim of all religion to be. All work of man is as the swimmer's : a waste ocean threatens to devour him; if he front it not bravely, it will keep its word. By incessant wise de- fiance of it, lusty rebuke and buffet of it, behold how it loyally supports him, bears him as its conqueror along. "It is so," says Goethe, "with all things that man un- dertakes in this world." Brave Sea-captain, Norse Sea-king, — Columbus, my hero, royalest Sea-king of all ! it is no friendly environment this of thine, in the waste deep waters; around thee mutinous discouraged souls, behind fhee disgrace and ruin, before thee the un- penetrated veil of Night. Brother, these wild water-mountains, bounding from their deep bases (ten miles deep, I am told), are not entirely there on thy behalf! Me- seems they have other work than floating thee forward: — and the huge Winds, that sweep from L^rsa Major to the Tropics and Equators, dancing their giant-waltz through the kingdoms of Chaos and Immensity, they care little about filling rightly or filling wrongly the small shoulder-of-mutton sails in this cockle-skiff of thine! Thou art not among articulate-speaking friends, my brother; thou art among immeasurable dumb monsters, tumbling, howling wide as the world here. Secret, far off, invisible to all hearts but thine, there lies a help in them : see how thou wilt get at that. Patiently thou wilt wait till the mad Southwester spend itself, saving thyself by dextrous science of defense, the while : valiantly, with swift decision, wilt thou strike in, when the favoring East, the Pos- sible, springs up. Mjatiny of men thou wilt sternly repress; weakness, despondency, thou wilt cheerily encourage: thou wilt swallow down complaint, unreason, weari- ness, weakness of others and thyself; — how much wilt thou swallow down! There shall be a depth of Silence in thee, deeper than this Sea, which is but ten miles deep: a Silence unsoundable; known to God only. Thou shalt be a Great Man. Yes, my World-Soldier, thou of the World Marine- service, — thou wilt have to be greater than this tumultuous unmeasured World here round thee is; thou, in thy strong soul, as with wrestler's arms, shalt embrace it, har- ness it down; and make it bear thee on, — to new Americas, or whither God wills! Captains of Industry thomas carlyle [Ibid., Book IV, chapter iv] If I believed that Mammonism with its adjuncts was to continue henceforth the one serious principle of our existence, I should reckon it idle to solicit remedial measures from any Government, the dis- ease being insusceptible of remedy. Gov- ernment can do much, but it can in no wise do all. Government, as the most con- spicuous object in Society, is called upon to give signal of what shall be done; and, in many ways, to preside over, further, and command the doing of it. But the Gov- ernment cannot do, by all its signaling and commanding, what the Society is radically indisposed to do. In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Govern- ment. — The main substance of this immense Problem of Organizing Labor, and first of all of Managing the Working Classes, will, it is very clear, have to be solved by those who stand practically in the middle of it; by those who themselves work and preside over work. Of all that can be enacted by any Parliament in regard to it, the germs must already lie potentially extant in those two Classes, who are to obey such enact- ment. A Human Chaos in which there is no light, you vainly attempt to irradiate by light shed on it : order never can arise there. But it is my firm conviction that the "Hell of England" will cease to be that of "not making money"; that we shall get a NINETEENTH CENTURY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS 471 nobler Hell and a nobler Heaven! I an- ticipate light in the Human Chaos, glim- mering, shining more and more; under manifold true signals from without Tliat light shall shine. Our deity no longer being Mammon, — Heavens, each man will then say to himself: "Why such dead- ly haste to make money? I shall not go to Hell, even if I do not make money! There is another Hell, I am told!" Competition, at railway-speed, in all branches of com- merce and work will then abate : — ^good felt-hats for the head, in every sense, in- stead of seven-feet lath-and-plaster hats on wheels, will then be discoverable! Bubble- periods, with their panics and commercial crises, will again become infrequent ; steady modest industry will take the place of gambling speculation. To be a noble Master, among noble Workers, will again be the first ambition with some few ; to be a rich Master only the second. How the Inventive Genius of England, with the whirr of its bobbins and billy-rollers shoved somewhat into the backgrounds of the brain, will contrive and devise, not cheaper produce exclusively, but fairer dis- tribution of the produce at its present cheapness ! By degrees, we shall again have a Society with something of Heroism in it, something of Heaven's Blessing on it; we shall again have, as my German friend asserts, "instead of Mammon- Feudalism with unsold cotton-shirts and Preservation of the Game, noble, just In- dustrialism and Government by the Wisest !" It is with the hope of awakening here and there a British man to know himself for a man and divine soul, that a few words of parting admonition, to all persons to whom the Heavenly Powers have lent power of any kind in this land, may now be addressed. And first to those same Mas- ter-Workers, Leaders of Industry; who stand nearest and in fact powerfulest, though not most prominent, being as yet in too many senses a Virtuality rather than an Actuality. The Leaders of Industry, if Industry is ever to be led, are virtually the Captains of the World; if there be no nobleness in them, there will never be an Aristocracy more. But let the Captains of Indu'&try consider: once again, are they born of other clay than the old Captains of Slaughter; doomed forever to be no Chiv- alry, but a mere gold-plated Doggery, — what the French well name Canaille, "Dog- gery" with more or less gold carrion at its disposal? Captains of Industry are the true Fighters, henceforth recognizable as the only true ones: Fighters against Chaos, Necessity, and the Devils and Jotuns; and lead on Mankind in that great, and alone true, and universal warfare; the stars in their courses fighting for them, and all Heaven and all Earth saying audibly. Well done! Let the Captains of Industry retire into their own hearts, and ask solemnly. If there is nothing but vulturous hunger, for fine wines, valet reputation, and gilt carriages, discoverable there? Of hearts made by the Almighty God I will not be- lieve such a thing. Deep-hidden under wretchedest God-forgetting Cants, Epi- curisms, Dead-Sea Apisms; forgotten as under foulest fat Lethe mud and weeds, there is yet, in all hearts born into this God's-World, a spark of the Godlike slum- bering. Awake, nightmare sleepers; awake, arise, or be forever fallen ! This is not playhouse poetry; it is sober fact. Our England, our world cannot live as it is. It will connect itself with a God again, or go down with nameless throes and fire- consummation to the Devils. Thou who feelest aught of such a Godlike stirring in thee, any faintest intimation of it as through heavy-laden dreams, follow it, I conjure thee. Arise, save thyself, be one of those that save thy country. Bucaniers, Chactaw Indians, whose su- preme aim in fighting is that they may get the scalps, the money, that they may amass scalps and money: out of such came no Chivalry, and never will ! Out of such came only gore and wreck, infernal rage and mis- ery; desperation quenched in annihilation. Behold it, I bid thee, behold there, and con- sider ! What is it that thou have a hundred thousand-pound bills laid-up in thy strong- room, a hundred scalps hung-up in thy wig- wam ? I value not them or thee. Thy scalps and thy thousand-pound bills are as yet noth- ing, if no nobleness from within irradiate them ; if no Chivalry, in action, or in embryo ever struggling towards birth and action, be there. Love of men cannot be bought by cash- payment; and without love men cannot en- dure to be together. You cannot lead a Fighting World without having it regi- mented, chivalried: the thing, in a day, 472 THE GEEAT TEADITION becomes impossible ; all men in it, the high- est at first, the very lowest at last, dis- cern consciously, or by a noble instinct, this necessity. And can you any more con- tinue to lead a Working World unregi- mented, anarchic? I answer, and the Heavens and Earth are now answering, No ! The thing becomes not ''in a day" im- possible; but in some two generations it does. Yes, when fathers and mothers, in Stockport hunger-cellars, begin to eat their children, and Irish widows have to prove their relationship by dying of typhus-fever ; and amid Governing "Corporations of the Best and Bravest," busy to preserve their game by "bushing," dark millions of God's human creatures start up in mad Chartisms, impracticable Sacred-Months, and Man- chester Insurrections; — and there is a vir- tual Industrial Aristocracy as yet only half- alive, spell-bound amid money-bags and ledgers; and an actual Idle Aristocracy seemingly near dead in somnolent delusions, in trespasses and double-barrels ; "sliding," as on inclined-planes, which every new year they soap with new Hansard's- jargon un- der God's sky, and so . are "sliding," ever faster, towards a "scale" and balance-scale whereon is written Thou art found want- ing: — in such days, after a generation or two, I say, it does become, even to the low and simple, very palpably impossible! No Working World, any more than a Fighting World, can be led on without a noble Chiv- alry of Work, and laws and fixed rules which follow out of that, — far nobler than any Chivalry of Fighting was. As an an- archic multitude on mere Supply-and-de- mand, it is becoming inevitable that we dwindle in horrid suicidal convulsion and self -abrasion, frightful to the imagination, into Chactaw Workers. With wigwams and scalps, — with palaces and thousand- pound bills; with savagery, depopulation, chaotic desolation ! Good Heavens, will not one French Revolution and Reign of Ter- ror suffice us, but must there be two 1 There will be two if needed; there will be twenty if needed; there will be precisely as many as are needed. The Laws of Nature will have themselves' fulfilled. That is a thing certain to me. Your gallant battle-hosts and work-hosts, as the others did, will need to be made loy- ally yours ; they must and will be regulated, methodically secured in their just share of conquest under you; — joined with you in veritable brotherhood, sonhood, by quite other and deeper ties than those of tem- porary day's wages ! How would mere red- coated regiments, to say nothing of chiv- alries, fight for you, if you could discharge them on the evening of the battle, on pay- ment of the stipulated shillings, — and they discharge you on the morning of it! Chel- sea Hospitals, pensions, promotions, rigor- ous lasting covenant on the one side and on the other, are indispensable even for a hired fighter. The Feudal Baron, much more,- — how could he subsist with mere tem- porary mercenaries round him, at six-pence a day; ready to go over to the other side, if sevenpence were offered? He could not have subsisted; — and his noble instinct saved him from the necessity of even try- ing! The Feudal Baron had a Man's Soul in him; to which anarchy, mutiny, and the other fruits of temporary mercenaries, were intolei'able : he had' never been a Baron otherwise, but had continued a Chactaw and Bucanier. He felt it precious, and at last it became habitual, and his fruitful, enlarged existence included it as a necessity, to have men round him who in heart loved him; whose life he watched over with rigor yet with love; who were prepared to give their life for him, if need came. It was beau- tiful ; it was human ! Man lives not other- wise, nor can live contented, anywhere or anywhen. Isolation is the sum-total of wretchedness to man. To be cut off, to be left solitary : to have a world alien, not your world ; all a hostile camp for you ; not a home at all, of hearts and faces who are yours, whose you are ! It is the f right- f ulest enchantment ; too truly a work of the Evil One. To have neither superior, nor inferior, nor equal, united manlike to you. Without father, without child, without brother. Man knows no sadder destiny. "How is each of us," exclaims Jean Paul, "so lonely in the wide bosom of the All!" Encased each as in his transparent "iee- palac.e"; our brother visible in his, making signals and gesticulations to us; — visible, but forever unattainable: on his bosom we shall never rest, nor he on ours. It was not a God that did this; no! Awake, ye noble Workers, warriors in the one true war: all this must be remedied. It is you who are already half -alive, whom I will welcome into life; whom I will con- jure, in God's name, to shake off your en- chanted sleep, and live wholly! Cease to NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 478 count scalps, gold-purses; not in these lies your or our salvation. Even these, if you count only these,, vpill not long be left. Let bucaniering be put far from you; alter, speedily abrogate all laws of the bucaniers, if you would gain any victory that shall endure. Let God's justice, let pity, noble- ness, and manly valor, with more gold- purses or with fewer, testify themselves in this your brief Life-transit to all the Eternities, the Gods, and Silences. It is to you I call; for ye are not dead, ye are already half -alive: there is in you a sleep- less, dauntless energy, the prime-matter of all nobleness in man. Honor to you in your kind. It is to you I call: ye know at least this. That the mandate of God to His creature man is: Work! The future Epic of the World rests not with those that are near dead, but with those that are alive, and those that are coming into life. Look around you. Your world-hosts are all in mutiny, in confusion, destitution; on the eve of fiery wreck and madness ! They will not march farther for you, on the six- pence a day and supply-and-demand prin- ciple : they will not ; nor ought they, nor can they. Ye shall reduce them to order, begin reducing them. To order, to just subordination; noble loyalty in return for noble guidance. Their souls are driven nigh mad; let yours be sane and ever saner. Not as a bewildered, bewildering mob ; but as a firm regimented mass, with real captains over them, will these men march any more. All human interests, combined human en- deavors, and social growths in this world, have, at a certain stage of their develop- ment, required organizing: and Work, the grandest of human interests, does now re- quire it. God knows, the task will be hard : but no noble task was ever easy. This task will wear away your lives, and the lives of your sons and grandsons: but for what purpose, if not for tasks like this, were lives given to men ? Ye shall cease to count your thou- sand-pound scalps, the noble of you shall cease! Nay the very scalps, as I say, will not long be left if you count only these. Ye shall cease wholly to be barbarous vul- turous Chactaws, and become noble Euro- pean Nineteenth-Century Men. Ye shall know that Mammon, in never such gigs and flunky "respectabilities," is not the alone God ; that of himself he is but a Devil, and even a Brute-god. Difficult? Yes, it will be difficult. The short-fiber cotton ; that too was difficult. The waste cotton-shrub, long useless, disobedient, as the thistle by the wayside, — have ye not conquered it: made it into beautiful ban- dana webs; white woven shirts for men; bright-tinted air-garments wherein flit god- desses? Ye have shivered mountains asunder, made the hard iron pliant to you as soft putty: the Forest-giants, Marsh- jotuns bear sheaves of golden-grain; ^gir the Sea-demon himself stretches his back for a sleek highway to you, and on Fire- horses and Windhorses ye career. Ye are most strong. Thor red-bearded, with his blue sun-eyes, with his cheery heart and strong thunder-hammer, he and you have prevailed. Ye are most strong, ye Sons of the icy North, of the far East, — far marching from your rugged Eastern Wildernesses, hither- ward from the gray Dawn of Time! Ye are Sons of the Jotun-land; the land of Difficulties Conquered. Difficult? You must try this thing. Once try it with the un- derstanding that it will and shall have to be done. Try it as ye ti-y the paltrier thing, making of money! I will bet on you once more, against all Jotuns, Tailor-gods, Double-barrelled Law-wards, and Denizens of Chaos whatsoever ! 2. THE POET'S COMMENT The Song of the Shirt thomas hood With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread — Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt. And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the "Song of the Shirt." "Work ! work ! work ! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work — work — work, Till the stars shine through the roof! 474 THE GREAT TRADITION It's Oh ! to be a slave Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If this is Christian work! "Work — v/ork — work, Till the brain begins to swim ; Work — work — work. Till the eyes are heavy and dim ! Seam, and gusset, and band. Band, and gusset, and seam, Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in a dream ! "Oh, Men, with Sisters dear! Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives ! It is not linen you're wearing out But human creatures' lives ! Stitch — stitch — stitch. In poverty, hunger, and dirt. Sewing at once, with a double thread, A Shroud as well as a Shirt. "But why do I talk of Death? That Phantom of grisly bone, I hardly fear its terrible shape, It seems so like my own — It seems so like my own. Because of the fasts I keep ; Oh, God ! that bread should be so dear. And flesh and blood so cheap ! "Work — work — work ! My labor never flags; And what are its wages ? A bed of straw, A crust of bread — and rags. That shattered roof — this naked floor — • A table — a broken chair — And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank For sometimes falling there ! "Work — work — work ! From weary chime to chime, Work — work — work. As prisoners work for crime ! Band, and gusset, and seam, Seam, and gusset, and band. Till the heart is sick, and the brain be- numbed. As well as the weary hand. "Work — work — work. In the dull December light, And work — work — work, When the weather is warm and bright — While underneath the eaves The brooding swallows cling As if to show me their sunny backs And twit me with the spring. "Oh ! but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet — With the sky above my head. And the grass beneath my feet; For only one short hour To feel as I used to feel. Before I knew the woes of want And the walk that costs a meal. "Oh! but for one short hour! A respite however brief! No blessed leisure for Love or Hope, But only time for Grief! A little weeping would ease my heart, But in their briny bed My tears must stop, for every drop ■ Hinders needle and thread!" With fingers weary and worn. With eyelids heavy and red, * A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread — Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, — Would that its tone could reach the Rich ! — " She sang this "Song of the Shirt !" (1843) West LoNDOisr MATTHEV^ ARNOLD Crouch'd on the pavement, close by Bel- grave Square, A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied. A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare. Some laboring men, whose work lay some- where there, Pass'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied -Across, and begg'd, and came back satis- fled. The rich she had let pass with frozen stare. Thought I : "Above her state this spirit towers ; She will not ask of aliens, but of friends, Of sharers in a common human fate. She turns from that cold succor, which at- tends The unknown little from the unknowing great, And points us to a better time than ours." (1867) NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 475 The Day Is Comiistg william morris Come hither, lads, and harken, for a tale there is to tell, Of the wonderful days a-coming, when all shall be better than well. And the tale shall be told of a country, a land in the naidst of the sea, And folk shall call it England in the days that are going to be. There more than one in a thousand in the days that are yet to come. Shall have some hope of the morrow, some joy of the ancient home. For then, laugh not, but listen to this strange tale of mine. All folk that are in England shall be better lodged than swine. Then a man shall work and bethink him, and rejoice in the deeds of his hand. Nor yet come home in the even too faint and weary to stand. Men in that time a-eoming shall work and have no fear For tomorrow's lack of earning and the hunger-wolf anear. I tell you this for a wonder, that no man then shall be glad Of his fellow's fall and mishap to snatch at the work he had. For that which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed. Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed no seed. strange new wonderful justice ! But for whom shall we gather the gain? For ourselves and for each of our fellows, and no hand shall labor in vain. Then all Mine and all Thine shall be Ours, and no more shall any man crave For riches that serve for nothing but to fetter a friend for a slave. And what wealth then shall be left us when none shall gather gold To buy his friend in the market, and pinch and pine the sold? Nay, what save the lovely city, and the lit- tle house on the hill. And the wastes and the woodland beauty, and the happy fields we till; And the homes of ancient stories, the tombs of the mighty dead; And the wise men seeking out marvels, and the poet's teeming head; And the painter's hand of wonder; and the marvelous fiddle-bow. And the banded choirs of music: all those that do and know. For all these shall be ours and all men's; nor shall any lack a share Of the toil and the gain of living in the daj^s when the world grows fair. Ah! such are the days that shall be! But what are the deeds of today. In the days of the years we dwell in, that wear our lives away ? Why, then, and for what are we waiting? There are three words to speak; We will it^ and what is the foeman but the dream-strong wakened and weak? why and for what are we waiting? while oar brothers droop and die, And on every wind of the heavens a wasted life goes by. How long shall they reproach us where crowd oil crowd they dwell. Poor ghosts of the wicked city, the gold- crushed, hungry hell? Through squalid life they labored, in sordid grief they died. Those sons of a mighty mother, those props of England's pride. They are gone; there is none can undo it, nor save our souls from the curse; But many a million cometh, and shall they be better or worse ? It is we must answer and hasten, and open wide the door For the rich man's hurrying terror, and the slow-foot hope of the poor. Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched, and their unlearned discontent. 476 THE GREAT TRADITION We must give it voice and wisdom till the waiting-tide be spent. Come, then, since all things call us, the liv- ing and the dead, And o'er the weltering tangle a glimmering light is shed. Come, then, let us east off fooling, and put by ease and rest. For the Cause alone is worthy till the good days bring the best. Come, join in the only battle wherein no man can fail. Where whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still prevail. Ah! come, cast off all fooling, for this, at least, we know : That the Dawn and the Day is coming, and forth the Banners go. (1885) Northern Farmer : New Style alfred tennyson Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaay? Proputty, proputty, proputty — that's what I 'ears 'em saay. Proputty, proputty, proputty — Sam, thou's an ass for thy paains; Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs nor in all thy braains. Woa — theer's a craw to pluck wi' tha, Sam : yon's parson's 'ouse — Dosn't thou knaw that a man mun be eather a man or a mouse? Time to think on it then ; for thou'll be twen- ty to weeak. Proputty, proputty — woa then, woa — let ma 'ear mysen speak. Me an' thy muther, Sammy, 'as bean a-talkin' o' thee; Thou's bean talkin' to muther, an' she bean a-tellin' it me. Thou'll not marry for munny — thou's sweet upo' parson's lass — Noa — thou'll marry for luvv — an' we boath on us thinks tha an ass. Seea'd her to-daay goa by — Saaint's-daay — they was ringing the bells. She's a beauty, thou thinks — an' soa is scoors o' gells, Them as 'as munny an' all — wot's a beauty ? - — the flower as blaws. But proputty, proputty sticks, an' proputty, proputty, grows. Do'ant be stunt ; taake time. I knaws what maakes tha sa mad. Warn't I craazed fur the lasses mysen when I wur a lad? But I knaw'd a Quaaker feller as often 'as towd ma this: "Doant thou marry for munny, but goa wheer munny is !" An' I went wheer munny war; an' thy muther coom to 'and, Wi' lots o' munny laaid by, an' a nicetish bit o' land. Maaybe she warn't a beauty — I niver giv it a thowt — But warn't she as good to cuddle an' kiss as a lass as 'ant nowt? Parson's lass 'ant nowt, an' she weant 'a nowt when 'e 's dead, Mun be a guvness, lad, or summut, and addle her bread, Why? fur 'e 's nobbut a curate, an' weant niver git hissen clear. An' 'e maade the bed as 'e ligs on afoor 'e coom'd to the shere. An' thin 'e coom'd to the parish wi' lots o' Varsity debt, Stook to his taail they did, an' 'e 'ant got shut on 'em yet. An' 'e ligs on 'is back i' the grip, wi' noan to lend 'im a shove, Woorse nor a far-welter'd yowe; fur, Sam- my, 'e married fur luvv. Luvv? what's luvv? thou can luvv thy lass an' 'er munny too, Maakin' 'em goa togither, as they've good right to do. Couldn I luvv thy muther by cause 'o 'er munny laai'd by? Naay — fur I luvv'd 'er a vast sight moor fur it; reason why. Ay, an' thy muther says thou wants to marry the lass, Cooms of a gentleman burn; an' we boath on us thinks tha an ass. Woa then, proputty, wiltha? — an ass as near as mays nowt — Woa then, wiltha? dangtha! — the bees is as fell as owt. NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 477 Break me a bit o' tlie esh for his 'ead, lad, out o' the fence ! Gentleman burn! what's gentleman burn? is it shillins an' pence'? Proputty, proputty's ivrything 'ere, an', Sammy, I'm blest If it is n't the saame cop yonder, fur them as 'as it 's the best. Tis'n them as 'as munny as breaks into 'ouses an' steals, Them as 'as coats to their backs an' taakes their regular meals. Noa, but it's them as niver knaws wheer a meal's to be 'ad. Taake my word for it Sammy, the poor in a loomp is bad. Them or thir feythers, tha sees, mun 'a bean a laazy lot. Fur work mun 'a gone to the gittin' whin- iver munny was got. Feyther 'ad ammost nowt; leastways 'is munny was 'id. But 'e tued an' moil'd issen dead, an' 'e died a good un, 'e did. Loook thou theer wheer Wrigglesby beck cooms out by the 'ill ! Feyther run oop to the farm, an' I runs oop to the mill; An' I'll run oop to the brig, an' that thou'll live to see; And if thou marries a good un I'll leave the land to thee. Thim's my noations, Sammy, wheerby I means to stick; But if thou marries a bad un, I'll leave the land to Dick. — Coom oop, proputty, projDutty — that's what I 'ears 'im saay — Proputty, proputty, proputty — canter an' canter awaay. (1870) 3. WEALTH AND COMMONWEALTH Traffic^ JOHN RUSKIN My good Yorkshire friends, you asked me down here among your hills that I might talk to you about this Exchange you are going to build: but earnestly and seriously asking you to pardon me, I am going to do nothing of the kind. I cannot talk, or at least can say very little, about this same Exchange. I must talk of quite other things, though not willingly; — I could not deserve your pardon, if when you invited me to speak on one subject, I willfully spoke on another. But I cannot speak, to purpose, of anything about which I do not care; and most simply and sorrowfully I have to tell you in the outset, that I do not care about this Exchange of yours. If, however, when you sent me your in- vitation, I had answered, "I won't come, I don't care about the Exchange of Brad- ford," you would have been justly offended with me, not knowing the reasons of so blunt a carelessness. So I have come down, hop- ing that you will patiently let me tell you why, on this, and many other such occasions, ^A lecture delivered in the Town Hall, Brad- ford, afterwards included in The Crown of Wild Olive. I now remain silent, when formerly I should have caught at the opportunity of speak- ing to a gracious audience. In a word, then, I do not care about this Exchange, — because you don't; and because you know perfectly well I cannot make you. Look at the essential conditions of the case, which you, as business men, know perfectly well, though perhaps you think I forget them. You are going to spend £30,000, which to you, collectively, is noth- ing ; the buying a new coat is, as to the cost of it, a much more important matter of consideration to me than building a new Exchange is to you. But you think you may as well have the right thing for your money. You know there are a great many odd styles of architecture about; you don't want to do anything ridiculous; you hear of me, among others, as a resjoectable archi- tectural man-milliner; and you send for me, that I may tell you the leading fashion ; and what is, in our shops, for the moment, the newest and sweetest thing in pinnacles. Now, pardon me for telling you frankly, you cannot have good architecture merely by asking people's advice on occasion. All good architecture is the expression of na- tional life and character; and it is pro- duced by a prevalent and eager national 478 THE GEEAT TEADITION taste, or desire for beauty. And I want you to think a little of the deep significance of this word "taste"; for no statement of mine has been more earnestly or oftener controverted than that good taste is essen- tially a moral quality. ''No," say many of my antagonists, "taste is one thing, morality is another. Tell us what is pretty : we shall be glad to know that; but we need no ser- mons even were you able to preach them, which may be doubted." Permit me, therefore, to fortify this old dogma of mine somewhat. Taste is not only a part and an index of morality — it is the ONLY morality. The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature is, "What do you like?" Tell me what you like, and I'll tell you what you are. Go out into the street, and ask the first man or woman you meet, what their "taste" is, and if they answer candidly, you know them, body and soul. "You, my friend in the rags, with the unsteady gait, what do you like?" "A pipe and a quartern of gin." I know you. "You, good woman, with the quick step and tidy bonnet, what do you like?" "A swept hearth and a clean tea- table, and my husband opposite me, and a baby at my breast." Good, I know you also. "You, little girl with the golden hair and the soft eyes, what do you like ?" "My canary, and a run among the wood hya- cinths." "You, little boy with the dirty hands and the low forehead, what do you like?" "A shy at the sparrows, and a game at pitch farthing." Good; we know them all now. What more need we ask? "Nay," perhaps you answer : "We need rather to ask what these people and children do, than what they like. If they do right, it is no matter that they like what is wrong ; and if they do wrong, it is no matter that they like what is right. Doing is the great thing; and it does not matter that the man likes drinking, so that he does not drink; nor that the little girl likes to be kind to her canary, if she will not learn her les- sons; nor that the little boy likes throw- ing stones at the sparrows, if he goes to the Sunday School." Indeed, for a short time, and in a provisional sense, this is true. For if, resolutely, people do what is right, in time they come to like doing it. But they only are in a right moral state when they have come to like doing it; and as long as they don't like it, they are still in a vicious state. The man is not in health of body who is always thinking of the bottle in the cupboard, though he bravely bears his thirst ; but the man who heartily enjoys water in the morning and wine in the evening, each in its proper quantity and time. And the entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things — not merely indus- trious, but to love industry — not merely learned, but to love knowledge — not merely pure, but to love purity — not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice. But you may answer or think, "Is the liking for outside ornaments, — for pictures, or statues, or furniture, or architecture, — a moral quality?" Yes, most surely, if a rightly set liking. Taste for any pictures or statues is not a moral quality, but taste for good ones is. Only here again we have to define the word "good." I don't mean by "good," clever — or learned — or difficult in the doing. Take a picture by Teniers, of sots quarreling over their dice : it is an entirely clever picture; so clever that noth- ing in its kind has ever been done equal to it ; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture. It is an expression of delight in the prolonged contemplation of a vile thing, and delight in that is an "unmannered," or "immoral" quality. It is "bad taste" in the profoundest sense — it is the taste of the devils. On the other hand, a picture of Titian's, or a Greek statue, or a Greek coin, or a Turner landscape, expresses delight in the perpetual contemplation of a good and perfect thing. That is an entirely moral quality — it is the taste of the angels. And all delight in fine art, and all love of it, resolve themselves into simple love of that which deserves love. That deserving is the quality which we call "loveliness" — (we ought to have an opposite word, hateliness, to be said of the things which deserve to be hated) ; and it is not an indifferent nor optional thing whether we love this or that ; but it is just the vital function of all our being. What we like determines what we are, and is the sign of what we are; and to teach taste is inevitably to form char- acter. As I was thinking over this, in walking up Fleet Street the other day, my eye caught the title of a book standing open in a bookseller's window. It was — "On the necessity of the diffusion of taste among all classes." "Ah," I thought to myself, "my classifying friend, when you have dif- NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 479 fused your taste, where will your classes be 1 The man who likes what you like, belongs to the same class with you, I think. In- evitably so. You may put him to other work if you choose; but, by the condition you have brought him into, he will dislike the other work as much as you would your- self. You get hold of a scavenger, or a costermonger, who enjoyed the Newgate Calendar for literature, and 'Pop goes the Weasel' for music. You think you can make him like Dante and Beethoven? I wish you joy of your lessons; but if you do, you have made a gentleman of him: — he won't like to go back to his costermonger- ing." And so completely and unexceptionally is this so, that, if I had time tonight, I could show you that a nation cannot be affected by any vice, or weakness, without express- ing it, legibly, and forever, either in bad art, or by want of art ; and that there is no national virtue, small or great, which is not manifestly expressed in all the art which circumstances enable the people -possessing that virtue to produce. Take, for instance, your great English virtue of enduring and patient courage. You have at present in England only one art of any consequence — that is, iron-working. You know thor- oughly well how to cast and hammer iron. Now, do you think in those masses of lava which you build volcanic cones to melt, and which you forge at the mouths of the In- fernos you have created; do you think, on those iron plates, your courage and endur- ance are not written forever — not merely with an iron pen, but on iron parchment? A.nd take also your great English vice — European vice — vice of all the world — vice of all other worlds that roll or shine in heaven, bearing with them yet the atmo- sphere of hell — the vice of jealousy, which brings competition into your commerce, treachery into your councils, and dishonor into yovir wars — that vice which has ren- dered for you, and for your next neigh- boring nation, the daily occupations of ex- istence no longer possible but with the mail upon your breasts and the sword loose in its sheath ; so that at last, you have realized for all the multitudes of the two great peoples who lead the so-called civilization of the earth, — you have realized for them all, I say, in person and in policy, what was once true only of the rough Border riders of your Cheviot hills — They carved at the meal With gloves of steel. And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred; — do you think that this national shame and dastardliness of heart are not written as legibly on every rivet of your iron armor as the strength of the right hands that forged it 1 Friends, I know not whether this thing be the more ludicrous or the more melan- choly. It is quite unspeakably both. Sup- pose, instead of being now sent for by you, I had been sent for by some private gentle- man, living in a suburban house, with his garden separated only by a fruit-wall from his next door neighbor's; and he had called me to consult with him on the furnishing of his drawing room. I begin looking about me, and find the walls rather bare; I think such and such a paper might be desirable — perhaps a little fresco here and there on the ceiling — a damask curtain or so at the win- dows. "Ah," says my employer, "damask curtains, indeed ! That's all very fine, but you know I can't afford that kind of thing just now !" "Yet the world credits you with a splendid income!" "Ah, yes," says my friend, "but do you know, at present, I am obliged to spend it nearly all in steel-traps ?" "Steel-traps! for whom?" "Why, for that fellow on the other side of the wall, you know: we're very good friends, but we are obliged to keep our traps set on both sides of the wall ; we could not possibly keep on friendly terms without them, and our spring guns. The worst of it is, we are both clever fellows enough; and there's never a day passes that we don't find out a new trap, or a new gun-barrel, or something; we spend about fifteen millions a year each in our traps, take it all together; and I don't see how we're to do with less." A highly comic state of life for two private gentle- men ! but for two nations, it seems to me, not wholly comic ? Bedlam would be comic, perhaiDS, if there were only one madman in it; and your Christmas pantomime is comic, when there is only one clown in it; but when the whole world turns clown, and paints itself red with its own heart's blood instead of vermilion, it is something else than comic, I think. Mind, I know a great deal of this is play, and willingly allow for that. You don't know what to do with yourselves for 480 THE GREAT TRADITION a sensation : fox-hunting and cricketing will not carry you through the whole of this unendurably long mortal life : you liked pop- guns when you were school-boys, and rifles and Armstrongs are only the same things better made : but then the worst of it is, that what was play to you when boys, was not play to the sparrows; and what is play to you now, is not play to the small birds of State neither; and for the black eagles, you are somewhat shy of taking shots at them, if I mistake not. I must get back to the matter in hand, however. Believe me, without farther in- stance, I could show you, in all time, that ■ every nation's vice, or virtue, was written ■in its art : the soldiership of early Greece ; the sensuality of late Italy; the visionary religion of Tuscany; the splendid human energy and beauty of Venice. I have no time to do this tonight (I have done it else- where before now) ; but I proceed to apply the principle to ourselves in a more search- ing manner. I notice that among all the new build- ings which cover your once wild hills, churches and schools are mixed in due, that is to say, in large proportion, with your mills and mansions; and I notice also that the churches and schools are almost always Gothic, and the mansions and mills are never Gothic. Will you allow me to ask precisely the meaning of this? For, remember, it is peculiarly a modern phenomenon. When Gothic was invented, houses were Gothic as well as churches ; and when the Italian style superseded the Gothic, churches were Italian as well as houses. If there is a Gothic spire to the cathedral of Antwerp, there is a Gothic belfry to the Hotel de Ville at Brus- sels ; if Inigo Jones builds an Italian White- hall, Sir Christopher Wren builds an Italian St. Paul's. But now you live under one school of architecture, and worship under another. What do you mean by doing this 1 Am I to understand that you are thinking of changing your architecture back to Gothic; and that you treat your churches experimentally, because it does not matter what mistakes you make in a church? Or am I to understand that you consider Gothic a preeminently sacred and beautiful mode of building, which you think, like the fine frankincense, should be mixed for the tab- ernacle only, and reserved for your religious services ? For if this be the feeling, though it may seem at first as if it were graceful and reverent, at the root of the matter, it signifies neither more nor less than that you have separated your religion from your life. For consider what a wide significance this fact has; and remember that it is not you only, but all the people of England, who are behaving thus just now. You have all got into the habit of calling the church "the house of God." I have seen, over the doors of many churches, the legend actually carved, "This is the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Now, note where that legend comes from, and of what place it was first spoken. A boy leaves his father's house to go on a long journey on foot, to visit his uncle; he has to cross a wild hill-desert ; just as if one of your own boys had to cross the wolds to visit an un- cle at Carlisle. The second or third day your boy finds himself somewhere between Hawes and Brough, in the midst of the moors, at sunset. It is stony ground, and boggy; he cannot go one foot farther that night. Down he lies, to sleep, on Wharn- side, where best he may, gathering a few of the stones together to put under his head; — so wild the place is, he cannot get anything but stones. And there, lyiftg un- der the broad night, he has a dream ; and he sees a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reaches the heaven, and the angels of God are seen ascending and descending upon it. And when he wakes out of his sleep, he says, "How dreadful is this place ; surely, this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." This PLACE, observe; not this church; not this city; not this stone, even, which he puts up for a memorial — the piece of flint on which his head has lain. But this place; this windy slope of Wharnside; this moorland hollow, torrent-bitten, snow-blighted; this any place where God lets down the ladder. And how are you to know where that will be? or how are you to determine where it may be, but by being ready for it always? Do you know where the lightning is to fall next? You do know that, partly; you can guide the lightning; but you cannot guide the going forth of the Spirit, which is as that lightning when it shines from the east to the west. But the perpetual and insolent warping of that strong verse to serve a merely eccle- siastical purpose, is only one of the thou- sand instances in which we sink back into NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 481 gross Judaism. We call our churches "tem- ples." Now, you know perfectly well they are not temples. They have never had, never can have, anything whatever to do with temples. They are "synagogues" — "gathering places" — where you gather your- selves together as an assembly; and by not calling them so, you again miss the force of another mighty text — "Thou, when thou prayest, shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the churches" (we should translate it), "that they may be seen of men. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father," — which is, not in chancel nor in aisle, but "in secret." Now, you feel, as I say this to you — I know you feel — as if I were trying to take away the honor of your churches. Not so; I am trying to jarove to you the honor of your houses and your hills; not that the Church' is not sacred — but that the whole Earth is. I would have you feel, what careless, what constant, what infectious sin there is in all modes of thought, whereby, in calling your churches only "holy," you call your hearths and homes "profane"; and have separated yourselves from the heathen by casting all your household gods to the ground, instead of recognizing, in the place of their many and feeble Lares, the presence of your One and Mighty Lord and Lar. "But what has all this to do with our Exchange?" you ask me, impatiently. My dear friends, it has just everything to do with it; on these inner and great questions depend all the outer and little ones; and if you have asked me down here to speak to you, because you had before been inter- ested in anythirrg I have written, you must know that all I have yet said about archi- tecture was to show this. The book I called "The Seven Lamps" was to show that certain right states of temper and moral feeling were the magic powers by which all good architecture, without exception, had been produced. "The Stones of Venice" had, from beginning to end, no other aim than to show that the Gothic architecture of Ven- ice had arisen out of, and indicated in all its features, a state of pure national faith, and of domestic virtue ; and that its Renaissance architecture had arisen out of, and in all its features indicated, a state of concealed national infidelity, and of domestic cor- ruption. And now, you ask me what style is best to build in ; and how can I answer, knowing the meaning of the two styles, but by another question — do you mean to build as Christians or as Infidels ? And still more — do you mean to build as honest Chris- tians or as honest Infidels? as thoroughly and confessedly either one or the other? You don't like to be asked such rude ques- tions. I cannot help it; they are of much more importance than this Exchange busi- ness; and if they can be at once answered, the Exchange business settles itself in a mo- ment. But, before I press them farther, I must ask leave to explain one point clearly. In all my past work, my endeavor has been to show that good architecture is es- sentially religious — the production of a faithful and virtuous, not of an infidel and corrupted peojole. But in the course of doing this, I have had also to show that good architecture is not ecclesiastical. Peo- ple are so apt to look ujDon religion as the business of the clergy, not their own, that the moment they hear of anything depending on "religion," they think it must also have depended on the priesthood; and I have had to take what place was to be occupied between these two errors, and fight both, often with seeming contradiction. Good architecture is the work of good and believ- ing men; therefore, you say, at least some people say, "Good architecture must essen- tially have been the work of the clergy, not of the laity." No — a thousand times no; good architecture has always been the work of the commonalty, not of the clergy. What, you say, those glorious cathedrals — the pride of Europe — did their builders not form Gothic architecture? No; they corrupted Gothic architecture. Gothic was formed in the baron's castle, and the burgher's street. It was formed by the thoughts, and hands, and powers of free citizens and warrior kings. By the monk it was used as an in- strument for the aid of his superstition ; when the superstition became a beautiful madness, and the best hearts of Europe vainly dreamed and joined in their cloister, and vainly raged and i^erished in the cru- sade — through that fury of perverted faith and wasted war, the Gothic rose also to its loveliest, most fantastic, and, finally, most foolish dreams; and, in those dreams, was lost. I hope, now, that there is no risk of your misunderstanding me when I come to the 482 THE GREAT TRADITION gist of what I want to say tonight; — ^when I repeat, that every great national archi- tecture has been the result and exponent of a great national religion. You can't have bits of it here, bits there — ^you must have it everywhere, or nowhere. It is not the monopoly of a clerical company — ^it is not the exponent of a theological dogma — it is not the hieroglyphic writing of an initiated priesthood; it is the manly language of a people inspired by resolute and common purpose, and rendering resolute and com- mon fidelity to the legible laws of an un- doubted God. Now, there have as yet been three dis- tinct schools of European architecture. I say, European, because Asiatic and African architectures belong so entirely to other races and climates, that there is no ques- tion of them here; only, in passing, I will simply assure you that whatever is good or great in Egypt, and Syria, and India, is just good or great for the same reasons as the buildings on our side of the Bos- phorus. We Europeans, then, have had three great religions: the Greek, which was the worship of the God of Wisdom and Power; the Medieval, which was the Wor- ship of the God of Judgment and Con- solation; the Renaissance, which was the worship of the God of Pride and Beauty; these three we have had — they are past, — and now, at last, we English have got a fourth religion, and a God of our own, about which I want to ask you. But I must explain these three old ones first. I repeat, first, the Greeks essentially wor- shiped the God of Wisdom; so that what- ever contended against their religion, — to the Jews a stumbling block, — was, to the Greeks — Foolishness. The first Greek idea of Deity was that expressed in the word, of which we keep the remnant in our words "Dt-urnal" and ''Di-vine" — the god of Day, Jupiter the re- vealer. Athena is his daughter, but espe- cially daughter of the Intellect, springing armed from the head. We are only with the help of recent investigation beginning to penetrate the depth of meaning couched under the Athenaic symbols : but I may note rapidly, that her segis, the mantle with the serpent fringes, in which she often, in the best statues, is represented as folding up her left hand for better guard, and the Gorgon on her shield, are both representa- tive mainly of the chilling horror and sad- ness (turning men to stone, as it were,) of the outmost and superficial spheres of knowledge — that knowledge which sepa- rates, in bitterness, hardness, and sorrow, the heart of the full-grown man from the heart of the child. For out of imperfect knowledge spring terror, dissension, danger, and disdain; but from perfect knowledge, given by the full-revealed Athena, strength and peace, in sign of which she is crowned with the olive spray, and bears the resistless spear. This, then, was the Greek conception of purest Deity, and every habit of life, and every form of his art developed them- selves from the seeking this bright, serene, resistless wisdom; and setting himself, as a man, to do things evermore rightly and strongly; not with any ardent affection or ultimate hope ; but with a resolute and con- tinent energy of will, as knowing that for failure there was no consolation, and for sin there was no remission. And the Greek architecture rose unerring, bright, clearly defined, and self-contained. Next followed in Europe the great Chris- tian faith, which was essentially the religion of Comfort. Its great doctrine is the remis- sion of sins ; for which cause it happens, too often, in certain phases of Christianity, that sin and sickness themselves are partly glori- fied, as if, the more you had to be healed of, the more divine was the healing. The prac- tical result of this doctrine, in art, is a con- tinual contemplation of sin and disease, and of imaginary states of purification from them; thus we have an architecture con- ceived in a mingled sentiment of melancholy and aspiration, partly severe, partly luxuri- ant, which will bend itself to every one of our needs, and every one of our fancies, and be strong or weak with us, as we are strong or weak ourselves. It is, of all architecture, the basest, when base people build it — of all, the noblest, when built by the noble. And now note that both these religions — .Greek and Medieval — perished by falsehood in their own main purpose. The Greek re- ligion of Wisdom perished in a false philoso- phy — "Oppositions of science, falsely so called." The Medieval religion of Consola- tion perished in false comfort ; in remission of sins given lyingly. It was the selling of absolution that ended the Medieval faith; and I can tell you more, it is the selling of absolution which, to the end of time, will mark false Christianity. Pure Christianity NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 483 gives her remission of sins only by ending them ; but false Christianity gets her remis- sion of sins by compounding for them. And there are many ways of compounding for them. We English have beautiful little quiet •ways of buying absolution, whether in low Church, or high, far more cunning than any of Tetzel's trading. Then, thirdly, there followed the religion of Pleasure, in which all Europe gave itself to luxury, ending in death. First, bals masques in every saloon, and then guillo- tines in every square. And all these three worships issue in vast temple building. Your Greek worshiped Wisdom, and built you the Parthenon — the Virgin's temple. The Medieval worshiped Consolation, and built you Virgin temples also — but to our Lady of Salvation. Then the Revivalist worshiped beauty, of a sort, and built you Versailles, and the Vatican. Now, lastly, will you tell me what we worship, and what we build? You know we are speaking always of the real, active, continual, national worship; that by which men act while they live; not that which they talk of when they die. Now, we have, indeed, a nominal religion, to which we pay tithes of property and sev- enths of time ; but we have also a practical and earnest religion, to which we devote nine-tenths of our property and sixth-sev- enths of our time. And we dispute a great deal about the nominal religion ; but we are all unanimous about this practical one, of which I think you will admit that the ruling goddess may be best generally described as the "Goddess of Getting-on," or "Britannia of the Market." The Athenians had an "Athena Agoraia," or Athena of the Market ; but she was a subordinate type of their goddess, while our Britannia Agoraia is the principal type of ours. And all your great architectural works, are, of course, built to her. It is long since you built a great cathedral ; and how you would laugh at me, if I proposed building a cathedral on the top of one of these hills of yours, to make it an Acropolis ! But your railroad mounds, vaster than the walls of Babylon ; your rail- road stations, vaster than the temple of Ephesus, and innumerable; your chimneys how much more mighty and costly than cathedral spires! your harbor piers; your warehouses ; your exchanges ! — all these are built to your gTeat Goddess of "Getting-on" ; and she has formed, and will continue to form, your architecture, as long as you wor- ship her ; and it is quite vain to ask me to tell you how to build to her; you know far better than I. There might indeed, on some theories, be a conceivably good architecture for Ex- changes — that is to say, if there were any heroism in the fact or deed of exchange, which might be typically carved on the out- side of your building. For, you know, all beautiful architecture must be adorned with sculpture or painting; and for sculpture or painting, you must have a subject. And hitherto it has been a received opinion among the nations of the world that the only right subjects for either, were heroisms of some sort. Even on his pots and his flagons, the Greek put a Hercules slaying lions, or an Apollo slaying serpents, or Bacchus slaying melancholy giants, and earth-born despond- encies. On his temples, the Greek put con- tests of great warriors in founding states, or of gods with evil spirits. On his houses and temples alike, the Christian put carvings of angels conquering devils; or of hero- martyrs exchanging this world for another; subjects inappropriate, I think, to our di- rection of exchange here. And the Master of Christians not only left his followers without any orders as to the sculpture of affairs of exchange on the outside of build- ings, but gave some strong evidence of his dislike of affairs of exchange within them. And yet there might surely be a heroism in such affairs; and all commerce become a kind of selling of doves, not impious. The wonder has always been great to me that heroism has never been supposed to be in anywise consistent with the practice of sup- plying people with food, or clothes; but rather with that of quartering one's self upon them for food, and stripping them of their clothes. Spoiling of armor is a heroic deed in all ages; but the selling of clothes, old or new, has never taken any color of magnanimity. Yet one does not see why feeding the hungry and clothing the naked should ever become base business, even when engaged in on a large scale. If one could contrive to attach the notion of conquest to them anyhow ! so that, supposing there were anywhere an obstinate race, who refused to be comforted, one might take some pride in giving them compulsory comfort ! and as it were, ^'occupying a country" with one's gifts, instead of one's armies? If one could only consider it as much a victory to get a barren field sown, as to get an eared field 484 THE GKEAT TRADITION stripped ; and contend who should build vil- lages, instead of who should "carry" them ! Are not all forms of heroism conceivable in doing these serviceable deeds ? You doubt who is strongest? It might be ascertained by push of spade, as well as push of sword. Who is wisest? There are witty things to be thought of in planning other business than campaigns. Who is bravest? There are always the elements to fight with, stronger than men ; and nearly as merciless. The only absolutely and unapproachably heroic element in the soldier's work seems to be — that he is paid little for it — and regu- larly : while you traffickers, and exchangers, and others occupied in presumably benevo- lent business, like to be paid much for it — and by chance. I never can make out how it is that a knight-evrant does not expect to be paid for his trouble, but a peddler-errant always does; — that people are willing to take hard knocks for nothing, but never to sell ribbons cheap ; — that they are ready to go on fervent crusades to recover the tomb of a buried God, but never on any travels to fulfil the orders of a living one; — that they will go anywhere barefoot to preach their faith, but must be well bribed to prac- tice it, and are perfectly ready to give the Gospel gratis, but never the loaves and fishes. If you choose to take the matter up on any such soldierly principle, to do your com- merce, and your feeding of nations, for fixed salaries; and to be as particular about giv- ing people the best food, and the best cloth, as soldiers are about giving them the best gunpowder, I could carve something for you on your exchange worth looking at. But I can only at present suggest decorating its frieze with pendent purses ; and making its pillars broad at the base, for the sticking of bills. And in the innermost chambers of it there might be a statue of Britannia of the Market, who may have, perhaps advisably, a partridge for her crest, typical at once of her courage in fighting for noble ideas, and of her interest in game ; and round its neck the inscription in golden letters, Perdix fovit quae non peperit. Then, for her spear, she might have a weaver's beam; and on her shield, instead of St. George's Cross, the Milanese boar, semi-fleeeed, with the town of Gennesaret proper, in the field, and the legend "In the best market," and her corselet, of leather, folded over her heart in the shape of a purse, with thirty slits in it for a piece of money to go in at, on each day of the month. And I doubt not but that people would come to see your exchange, and its goddess, with applause. Nevertheless, I want to point out to you certain strange characters in this goddess of yours. She differs from the great Greek ' and Medieval deities essentially in two things — first, as to the continuance of her presumed power; secondly, as to the ex- tent of it. 1st, as to the Continuance. The Greek Goddess of Wisdom gave con- tinual increase of wisdom, as the Christian Spirit of Comfort (or Comforter) continual increase of comfort. There was no question, with these, of any limit or cessation of func- tion. But with your Agora Goddess, that is just the most important question. Getting on — but where to ? Gathering together — but how much? Do you mean to gather always — never to spend? If so, I wish you joy of your goddess, for I am just as well off as you, without the trouble of worshiping her at all. But if you do not spend, somebody else will — somebody else must. And it is because of this (among many other such errors) that I have fearlessly declared your so-called science of Political Economy to be no science; because, namely, it has omitted the study of exactly the most im- portant branch of the business — the study of spending. For spend you must, and as much as you make, ultimately. You gather corn : — will you bury England under a heap of grain ; or will you, when you have gath- ered, finally eat? You gather gold: — will you make your house-roofs of it, or pave your streets with it? That is still one way of spending it. But if you keep it, that you may get more, I'll give you more; I'll give you all the gold you want — all you can imagine — if you can tell me what you'll do with it. You shall have thousands of gold pieces ; — thousands of thousands — ^millions — mountains of gold: where will you keep them? Will you put an Olympus of silver upon a golden Pelion — make Ossa like a wart? Do you think the rain and dew would then come down to you, in the streams from such mountains, more blessedly than they will down the mountains which God has made for you, of moss and whinstone ? But it is not gold that you want to gather! What is itl greenbacks? No; not those neither. What is it then — is it ciphers after a capital I? Cannot you practice writing ciphers, and write as many as you want? Write ciphers for an hour every morning, NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS 485 in a big book, and say every evening, I am worth all those naughts more than I was yesterday. Won't that do? Well, what in the name of Plutus is it you want? Not gold, not greenbacks, not ciphers after a capital I? You will have to answer, after all, *'No; we want, somehow or other, money's worth." Well, what is that? Let your Goddess of Getting-on discover it, and let her learn to stay therein. II. But there is yet another question to be asked resi^ecting this Goddess of Getting- on. The first was of the continuance of her power; the second is of its extent. Pallas and the Madonna were supposed to be all the world's Pallas, and all the world's Madonna. They could teach all men, and they could comfort all men. But, look strictly into the nature of the power of your Goddess of Getting-on; and you will find she is the Goddess — not of everybody's get- ting on — but only of somebody's getting on. This is a vital, or rather deathful, distinc- tion. Examine it in your OAvn ideal of the state of national life which this Goddess is to evoke and maintain. I asked you what it was, when I was last here; — you have never told me. JSTow, shall I try to tell you? Your ideal of human life then is, I think, that it should be passed in a pleasant un- dulating world, with iron and coal every- where underneath it. On each pleasant bank of this world is to be a beautiful mansion, with two wings; and stables, and coach- houses; a moderately sized park; a large garden and hothouses ; and pleasant carriage drives through the shrubberies. In this man- sion are to live the favorite votaries of the Goddess; the English gentleman, with his gracious wife, and his beautiful family; always able to have the boudoir and the jewels for the wife, and the beautiful ball dresses for the daughters, and hunters for the sons, and a shooting in the Highlands for himself. At the bottom of the bank, is to be the mill ; not less than a quarter of a mile long, with a steam engine at each end, and two in the middle, and a chimney three hun- dred feet high. In this mill are to be in con- stant employment from eight hundred to a thousand workers, who never drink, never strike, always go to church on Sunday, and always express themselves in respectful lan- guage. Is not that, broadly, and in the main features, the kind of thing you propose to yourselves? It is very pretty indeed^ seen from above ; not at all so pretty, seen from below. For, observe, while to one family this deity is indeed the Goddess of Getting- on, to a thousand families she is the Goddess of not Getting-on. "Nay," you say, "they have all their chance," Yes, so has every one in a lottery, but there must always be the same number of blanks. "Ah ! but in a lottery it is not skill and intelligence which take the lead, but blind chance." What then! do you think the old practice, that "they should take who have the power, and they should keep who can," is less iniquitous, when the power has become power of brains instead of fist ? and that, though we may not take advantage of a child's or a woman's weakness, we may of a man's foolishness? "Nay, but finally, work must be done, and some one must be at the top, some one at the bottom." Granted, my friends. Work must always be, and captains of work must always be ; and if you in the least remember the tone of any of my writings, you must know tliat they are thought unfit for this age, because they are always insisting on need of government, and speaking with scorn of liberty. But I beg you to observe that there is a wide difference between being cap- tains or governors of work, and taking the profits of it. It does not follow, because you are general of an army, that you are to take all the treasure, or land, it wins (if it fight for treasure or land) ; neither, because you are king of a nation, that you are to con- sume all the profits of the nation's work. Real kings, on the contrary, are known in- variably by their doing quite the reverse of this, — by their taking the least possible quan- tity of the nation's work for themselves. There is no test of real kinghood so in- fallible as that. Does the crowned creature live simply, bravely, unostentatiously? probably he is a King. Does he cover his body with jewels, and his table with deli- eates? in all probability he is not a King. It is possible he may be, as Solomon was; but that is when the nation shares his splendor with him. Solomon made gold, not only to be in his own palace as stones, but to be in Jerusalem as stones. But even so, for the most part, these splendid kinghoods expire in ruin, and only the true kinghoods live, which are of royal laborers governing loyal laborers; who, both leading rough lives, establish the true dynasties. Con- clusively you will find that because you are king of a nation, it does not follow that you are to gather for yourself all the wealth of 486 THE GEEAT TEADITION that nation ; neither, beause you are king of a small part of the nation, and lord over the means of its maintenance — over field, or mill, or mine, — are you to take all the produce of that piece of the foundation of national existence for yourself. You will tell me I need not preach against these things, for I cannot mend them. No, good friends, I cannot; but you can, and you will; or something else can and will. Even good things have no abiding power — and shall these evil things persist in vic- torious evil? All history shows, on the con- trary, that to be the exact thing they never can do. Change must come ; but it is ours to determine whether change of growth, or change of death. Shall the Parthenon be in ruins on its rock, and Bolton priory in its meadow, but these mills of yours be the consummation of the buildings of the earth, and their wheels be as the wheels of eternity ? Think you that ''men may come, and men may go," but — mills — go on forever? Not so ; out of these, better or worse shall come ; and it is for you to choose which. I know that none of this wrong is done with deliberate purpose. I know, on the contrary, that you wish your workmen well ; that you do much for them, and that you desire to do more for them, if you saw your way to such benevolence safely. I know that even all this wrong and misery are brought about by a warped sense of duty, each of you striving to do his best ; but un- happily, not knowing for whom this best should be done. And all our hearts have been betrayed by the plausible impiety of the modern ecouomist, that "To do the best for yourself, is finally to do the best for others." Friends, our great Master said not so; and most absolutely we shall find this world is not made so. Indeed, to do the best for others, is finally to do the best for our- selves; but it will not do to have our eyes fixed on that issue. The Pagans had got beyond that. Hear what a Pagan says of this matter; hear what were, perhaps, the last written words of Plato, — if not the last actually written (for this we cannot know), yet assuredly in fact and jDower his parting words — in which, endeavoring to give full crowning and harmonious close to all his thoughts, and to speak the sum of them by the imagined sentence of the Great Spirit, his strength and his heart fail him, and the words cease, broken off forever. They are at the close of the dialogue called "Critias," in which he describes, part- ly from real tradition, partly in ideal dream, the early state of Athens; and the genesis, and order, and religion, of the fabled isle of Atlantis; in which genesis he conceives the same first perfection and final degeneracy of man, which in our own Scriptural tradition is expressed by saying that the Sons of God intermarried with the daughters of men, for he supposes the earliest race to have been indeed the children of God : and to have cor- rupted themselves, until "their spot was not the spot of his children." And this, he says, was the end; that indeed "through many generations, so long as the God's nature in them yet was full, they were submissive to the sacred laws, and carried themselves lov- ingly to all that had kindred with them in divineness; for their uttermost spirit was faithful and true, and in every wise great; so that, in all meekness of wisdom, they dealt with each other, and took all the chances of life; and despising all things except virtue, they cared little what happened day by day, and bore lightly the burden of gold and of possessions ; for they saw that, if only their common love and virtue increased, all these things would be increased together with them; but to set their esteem and ardent pursuit upon material possession would be to lose that first, and their virtue and affec- tion together with it. And by such reason- ing, and what of the divine nature remained in them, they gained all this greatness of which we have already told; but when the God's part of them faded and became ex- tinct, being mixed again and again, and effaced by the prevalent mortality; and the human nature at last exceeded, they then be- came unable to endure the courses of for- tune ; and fell into shapelessness of life, and baseness in the sight of him who could see, having lost everything that was fairest of their honor ; while to the blind hearts which could not discern the true life, tending to happiness, it seemed that they were then chiefly noble and happy, being filled with all iniquity of inordinate possession and power. Whereupon, the God of gods, whose King- hood is in laws, beholding a once just nation thus cast into misery, and desiring to lay such punishment upon them as might make them repent into restraining, gathered to- gether all the gods into his dwelling-place, which from heaven's center overlooks what- ever has part in creation; and having as- sembled them, he said" — The rest is silence. Last words of the chief wisdom of the heathen, spoken of this NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS 487 idol of riches ; this idol of yours ; this golden image high by measureless cubits, set up where your green fields of England are fur- nace-burnt into the likeness of the plain of Dura : this idol, forbidden to us, first of all idols, by our own Master and faith ; forbid- den to us also by every human lip that has ever, in any .age or people, been accounted of as able to speak according to the pur^Doses of God. Continue to make that forbidden deity your principal one, and soon no more art, no more science, no more pleasure will be possible. Catastrophe will come; or worse than catastrophe, slow moldering and withering into Hades, But if you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be striven for — life good for all men as for yourselves — if you can determine some honest and simple order of existence; following those trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking her quiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace ; — then, and so sanctifying wealth into "com- monwealth," all your art, your literature, your daily labors, your domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and increase into one magnificent harmony. You will know then how to build, well enough; you will build with stone well, but with flesh better; temples not made with hands, but riveted of hearts; and that kind of marble, crimson-veined, is indeed eternal. The Soldier^s Duty to His Country john ruskin [From an address delivered at the Royal Military Academy] What I want you to see, and to be assured of, is, that the ideal of soldiership is not mere passive obedience and bravery; that, so far from this, no country is in a healthy state which has separated, even in a small degree, her civil from her military power. All states of the world, however great, fall at once when they use mercenary armies; and although it is a less instant form of error (because involving no national taint of cowardice), it is yet an error no less ultimately fatal — it is the error especially of modern times, of which we cannot yet know all the calamitous consequences — to take away the best blood and strength of the nation, all the soul-substanee of it that is brave, and careless of reward, and scornful of pain, and faithful in trust; and to cast that into steel, and make a mere sword of it; taking away its voice and will; but to keep the worst part of the nation — whatever is cowardly, avaricious, sensual, and faith- less — and to give to this the voice, to this the authority, to this the chief privilege, where there is least capacity, of thought. The fulfilment of your vow for the defense of England will by no means consist in car- rying out such a system. You are not true soldiers, if you only mean to stand at a shop door, to protect shop-boys who are cheating inside. A soldier's vow to his country is that he will die for the guardian- ship of her domestic virtue, of her righteous laws, and of her anyway challenged or en- dangered honor. A state without virtue, without laws, and without honor, he is bound not to defend ; nay, bound to redress by his own right hand that which he sees to be base in her. So stern is the law of Nature and life, that a nation once utterly corrupt can only be redeemed by a military despotism — never by talking, nor by its free effort. And the health of any state consists simply in this: that in it, those who are wisest shall also be strongest; its rulers should be also its soldiers; or, rather, by force of intellect more than of sword, its soldiers its rulers. Whatever the hold which the aristocracy of England has on the heart of England, in that they are still always in front of her battles, this hold will not be enough, unless they are also in front of her thoughts. And truly her thoughts need good captain's read- ing now, if ever! Do you know what, by this beautiful division of labor (her brave men fighting, and her cowards thinking) , she has come at last to think? Here is a bit of paper in my hand, a good one too, and an honest one; quite representative of the best common public thought of England at this moment; and it is holding forth in one of its leaders upon our "social welfare" — upon our "vivid life" — upon the "political su- premacy of Great Britain." And what do you think all these are owing to ? To what our English sires have done for us, and taught us, age after age ? No : not to that. To our honesty of heart, or coolness of head, or steadiness of will? No: not to these. To our thinkers, or our statesmen, or our poets, or our captains, or our martyrs, or the patient labor of our poor? No: not to these; or at least not to these in any chief measure. Nay, says the Journal, "more than any agency, it is the cheapness and abun- 488 THE GEEAT TEADITION dance of our coal whicli liave made us what we are." If it be so, then "ashes to ashes" be our epitaph, and the sooner the better. I tell you, gentlemen of England, if ever you would have your country breathe the pure breath of heaven again, and receive again a soul into her body, instead of rotting into a carcase, blown up in the belly with carbonic acid (and great that way), you must think, and feel, for your England, as well as fight for her: you must teach her that all the true greatness she ever had, or ever can have, she won while her fields were green and her faces ruddy — that greatness is still pos- sible for Englishmen, even though the ground be not hollow under their feet, nor the sky black over their heads; — and that, when the day comes for their country to lay her honors in the dust, her crest will not rise from it more loftily because it is dust of coal. Gentlemen, I tell you, solemnly, that the day is coming when the soldiers of England must be her tutors; and the captains of her army, captains also of her mind. And now, remember, you soldier youths, who are thus in all ways the hope of your country ; or must be, if she have any hope : remember that your fitness for all future trust depends upon what you are now. No good soldier in his old age was ever careless or indolent in his youth. Many a giddy and thoughtless boy has become a good bishop, or a good lawyer, or a good merchant ; but no such an one ever became a good general. I challenge you, in all history, to find a record of a good soldier who was not grave and earnest in his youth. And, in general, I have no patience with people who talk about "the thoughtlessness of youth" indulgently. I had infinitely rather hear of thoughtless old age, and the indulgence due to that. When a man has done his work, and nothing can any way be materially altered in his fate, let him forget his toil, and jest with his fate, if he will ; but what excuse can you find for wilfulness of thought, at the very time when every crisis of future fortune hangs on your decisions ? A youth thought- less ! when all the happiness of his home for- ever depends on the chances, or the passions, of an hour ! A youth thoughtless ! when the career of all his days depends on the oppor- tunity of a moment ! A youth thoughtless ! when his every act is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagination a fountain of life or death! Be thoughtless in any after years, rather than now — though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless, — his death-bed. No thinking should ever be left to be done there. Having, then, resolved that you will not waste recklessly, but earnestly use, these early days of yours, remember that all the duties of her children to England may be summed in two words — industry, and honor. I say first, industry, for it is in this that soldier youth are especially tempted to fail. Yet, surely, there is no reason, because your life may possibly or probably be shorter than other men's, that you should therefore waste more recklessly the portion of it that is granted you ; neither do the duties of your profession, which require you to keep your bodies strong, in any wise involve the keep- ing of your minds weak. So far from that, the experience, the hardship, and the activity of a soldier's life render his powers of thought more accurate than those of other men ; and while, for others, all knowledge is often little more than a means of amuse- ment, there is no form of science which a soldier may not at some time or qther find bearing on business of life and death. A young mathematician may be excused for languor in studying curves to be described only with a pencil; but not in tracing those which are to be described with a rocket. Your knowledge of a wholesome herb may involve the feeding of an army; and ac- quaintance with an obscure point of geogra- phy, the success of a campaign. Never waste an instant's time, therefore ; the sin of idle- ness is a thousand-fold greater in you than in other youths; for the fates of those who will one day be under your command hang upon your knowledge; lost moments now will be lost lives then, and every instant which you carelessly take for play, you buy with blood. But there is one way of wasting time, of all the vilest, because it wastes, not time only, but the interest and energy of your minds. Of all the ungentlemanly habits into which you can fall, the vilest is betting, or interesting yourselves in the issues of bet- ting. It unites nearly every condition of folly and vice ; you concentrate your interest upon a matter of chance, instead of upon a subject of true knowledge; and you back opinions which you have no grounds for forming, merely because they are your own. All the insolence of egotism is in this; and so far as the love of excitement is complicated with NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 489 the hope of winning money, you turn your- selves into the basest sort of tradesmen — those who live by speculation. Were there no other ground for industry, this would be a sufficient one; that it protected you from the temptation to so scandalous a vice. Work faithfully, and you will put yourselves in possession of a glorious and enlarging hap- piness ; not such as can be won by the speed of a horse, or marred by the obliquity of a ball. First, then, by industry you must fulfil your vow to your country; but all industry and earnestness will be useless unless they are consecrated by your resolution to be in all things men of honor; not honor in the common sense only, but in the highest. Rest on the force of the two main words in the great verse, integer vit«, scelerisque purus. You have vowed your life to England; give it her wholly — a bright, stainless, perfect life — a knightly life. Because you have to fight with machines instead of lances, there may be a necessity for more ghastly danger, but there is none for less worthiness of char- acter, than in olden time. You may be true knights yet, though perhaps not equites; you may have to call yourselves "eannonry" instead of "chivalry," but that is no reason why you should not call yourselves true men. So the first thing you have to see to in be- coming soldiers is that you make yourselves wholly true. Courage is a mere rnatter of course among any ordinarily well-born youths; but neither truth nor gentleness is matter of course. You must bind them like shields about your necks; you must write them on the tables of your hearts. Though it be not exacted of you, yet exact it of yourselves, this vow of stainless truth. Your hearts are, if you leave them unstirred, as tombs in which a god lies buried. Vow your- selves crusaders to I'edeem that sacred sepul- cher. And remember, before all things — for no other memory will be so protective of you — that the highest law of this knightly truth is that under which it is vowed to women. Whomsoever else you deceive, whomsoever you injure, whomsoever you leave unaided, you must not deceive, nor injure, nor leave unaided, according to your power, any woman of whatever rank. Be- lieve me, every virtue of the higher phases of manly character begins in this ; — in truth and modesty before the face of all maidens ; in truth and pity, or truth and reverence, to all womanhood. The White-Thorn Blossom john ruskin [From Fors Clavigera] For lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone, The flowers appear on the earth, The time of the singing of birds is come. Arise, O my fair one, my dove. And come. Denmark Hill^ 1st May, 1871. My Friends: It has been asked of me, very justly, why I have hitherto written to you of things you were likely little to care for, in words which it was difficult for you to understand. I have no fear but that you will one day un- derstand all my poor words — the saddest of them perhaps too well. But I have great fear that you may never come to under- stand these written above, which are a part of a king's love-song, in one sweet May, of many long since gone. I fear that for you the wild winter's rain may never pass, the flowers never appear on the earth; that for you no bird may ever sing ; for you no per- fect Love arise and fulfil your life in peace. "And why not for us as for others ?" Will you answer me so and take my fear for you as an insult? Nay, it is no insult; nor am I happier than you. For me the birds do not sing, nor ever will. But they would for you, if you cared to have it so. When I told you that you would never understand that love-song, I meant only that you would not desire to understand it. Are you again indignant with me? Do you think, though you should labor and grieve and be trodden down in dishonor, all your days, at least you can keep that one joy of Love, and that one honor of Home? Had you, indeed, kept that, you had kept all. But no men yet, in the history of the race, have lost it so piteously. In many a country and many an age, women have been compelled to labor for their husbands' wealth or bread; but never until now were they so homeless as to say, like the poor Samaritan, "I have no husband." Women of every country and people have sustained without complaint the labor of fellowship; for the women of the latter days in England it has been reserved to claim the privilege of isolation. This, then, is the end of your universal education and civilization, and contempt of the ignorance of the Middle Ages and of 490 THE GEEAT TEADITION their chivalry. Not only do you declare your- selves too indolent to labor for daughters and vpives, and too poor to support them, but you have made the neglected and dis- tracted creatures hold it for an honor to be independent of you and shriek for some hold of the mattock for themselves. Believe it or not, as you may, there has not been so low a level of thought reached by any race since they grew to be male and female out of star-fish, or chickweed, or whatever else they have been made from by natural selec- tion — according to modern science. That modern science, also, economic and of other kinds, has reached its climax at last. For it seems to be the appointed func- tion of the nineteenth century to exhibit in all things the elect pattern of perfect Folly, for a warning to the farthest future. Thus the statement of principle which I quoted to you in my last letter, from the circular of the Emigration Society, that it is overpro- duction which is the cause of distress, is ac- curately the most foolish thing, not only hitherto ever said by men, but which it is possible for men ever to say, respecting their own business. It is a kind of opposite pole (or negative acme of mortal stupidity) to Newton's discovery of gravitation as an acme of mortal wisdom : as no wise being on earth will ever be able to make such another wise discovery, so no foolish being on earth will ever be capable of saying such another foolish thing, through all the ages. And the same crisis has been exactly reached by our natural science and by our art. It has several times chanced to me, since I began these papers, to have the exact thing shown or brought to me that I wanted for illustration, just in time; and it hap- pened that, on the very day on which I pub- lished my last letter, I had to go to the Ken- sington Museum, and there I saw the most perfectly and roundly ill-done thing which as yet in my whole life I ever saw produced by art. It had a tablet in front of it, bear- ing this inscription : — "Statue in black and white marble, a New- foundland Dog standing on a Serpent, which rests on a marble cushion, the pedestal ornamented with pietra dura fruits in relief. — English, Present Century. No. I." It was so very right for me, the Kensing- ton people having been good enough to num- ber it "I," the thing itself being almost in- credible in its one-ness, and, indeed, such a punctual accent over the iota of Miscrea- tion, so absolutely and exquisitely miscreant, that I am not myself capable of conceiving a Number Two or Three, or any rivalship or association with it whatsoever. The extrem- ity of its unvirtue consisted, observe, mainly in the quantity of instruction which was abused in it. It showed that the persons who produced it had seen everything, and prac- ticed everything; and misunderstood every- thing they saw, and misapplied everything they did. They had seen Roman work, and Florentine work, and Byzantine work, and Gothic work; and misunderstanding of everything had passed through them as the mud does through earthworms, and here at last was their worm-cast of a Production. But the second chance that came to me that day was more significant still. From the Kensington Museum I went to an after- noon tea, at a house where I was sure to meet some nice people. And among the first I met was an old friend who had been hear- ing some lectures on botany at the Kensing- ton Museum, and been delighted by them. She is the kind of person who gets good out of everything, and she was quite right in being delighted; besides that, as I found by her account of them, the lectures were really interesting, and pleasantly given. She had expected botany to be dull, and had not found it so, and "had learned so much." On hearing this I proceeded naturally to in- quire what; for my idea of her was that before she went to the lectures at all she had known more botany than she was likely to learn by them. So she told me that she had learned first of all that "there were seven sorts of leaves." Now I have always a great suspicion of the number Seven; be- cause, when I wrote The Seven Lamps of Architecture, it required all the ingenuity I was master of to prevent them from be- coming Eight, or even Nine, on my hands. So I thought to myself that it would be very charming if there were only seven sorts of leaves, but that, perhaps, if one looked the woods and forests of the world carefully through, it was just possible that one might discover as many as eight sorts; and then where would my friend's new knowledge of botany be ? Sol said, "That was very pret- ty; but what more?" Then my friend told me that the lecturer said "the object of his lectures would be entirely aceomiDlished if he could convince his hearers that there was no such thing as a fiower." Now in that sentence you have the most perfect and ad- NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 491 mirable summary given you of the general temper and purposes of modern science. It gives lectures on Botany, of which the object is to show that there is no such thing as a Flower; on Humanity, to show that there is no such thing as a Man ; and on Theology, to show there is no such thing as a God. No such thing as a Man, but only a Mechan- ism; no such thing as a God, but only a series of Forces. The two faiths are essen- tially one: if you feel yourself to be only a machine, constructed to be a regulator of minor machinery, you will put your statue of such science on your Holborn Viaduct, and necessarily recognize only major ma- chinery as regulating you. I must explain the real meaning to you, however, of that saying of the botanical lec- . turer, for it has a wide bearing. Some fifty years ago the poet Goethe discovered that all the parts of plants had a kind of common nature and would change into each other. Now, this was a true discovery and a nota- ble one; and you will find that, in fact, all plants are composed of essentially two parts — the leaf and root ; one loving the light, the other darkness; one liking to be clean, the other to be dirty ; one liking to grow for the most part up, the other for the most part down; and each having faculties and pur- poses of its own. But the pure one, which loves the light, has, above all things, the pur- pose of being married to another leaf, and having child-leaves and children's children of leaves, to make the earth fair forever. And when the leaves marry, they put on wedding-robes, and are more glorious than Solomon in all his glory, and they have feasts of honey ; and we call them "Flowers." In a certain sense, therefore, you see the botanical lecturer was quite right. There are no such things as Flowers — there are only gladdened Leaves. Nay, farther than this, there may be a dignity in the less happy but unwithering leaf, which is, in some sort, better than the brief lily in its bloom ; which the great poets always knew well, Chaucer before Goethe, and the writer of the First Psalm before Chaucer. The botanical lec- turer was, in a deeper sense than he knew, right. But in the deepest sense of all, the botani- cal lecturer was, to the extremity of wrong- ness, wrong; for leaf and root and fruit exist, all of them, only that there may be flowers. He disregarded the life and pas- sion of the creature, which were its essence. Had he looked for these, he would have rec- ognized that in the thought of Nature her- self there is in a plant nothing else but its flowers. Now, in exactly the sense that modern science declares there is no such thing as a Flower, it has declared there is no such thing as a Man, but only a transitional form of Ascidians and apes. It may or may not be true — it is not of the smallest conse- quence whether it be or not. The real fact is that, rightly seen with human eyes, there is nothing else but Man; that all animals and beings beside him are only made that they may change into him; that the world truly exists only in the presence of Man, acts only in the passion of Man. The essence of Light is in his eyes, the center of Force in his soul, the pertinence of Action in his deeds. And all true science — which my Savoyard guide rightly scorned me when he thought I had not — all true science is savoir vivre. But all your modern science is the contrary of that. It is savoir mourir. And of its very discoveries, such as they are, it cannot make use. That telegraphic signaling was a discov- ery, and conceivably, some day, may be a useful one. And there was some excuse for your being a little proud when, about last sixth of April (Coeur de Lion's death-day, and Albert Diirer's), you knotted a copper wire all the way to Bombay, and flashed a message along it, and back. But what was the message, and what the answer ? Is India the better for what you said to her? Are you the better for what she replied? If not, you have only wasted an all-around-the- world's length of copper wire— which is, in- deed, about the sum of your doing. If you had had perchance, two words of common sense to say, though you had taken weari- some time and trouble to send them, — though you had written them slowly in gold, and sealed them with a hundred seals, and sent a squadron of ships of the line to carry the scroll, and the squadron had fought its way round the Cape of Good Hope, through a year of storms, with loss of all its ships but one, — the two words of common sense would have been worth the carriage, and more. But you have not anything like so much as that to say, either to India or to any other place. You think it a great triumph to make the sun draw brown landscapes for you. That was also a discovery, and some day may be useful. But the sun had drawn landscapes 492 THE GEEAT TEADITION before for you, not in brown, but in green and blue and all imaginable colors, here in England. Not one of you ever looked at them then ; not one of you cares for the loss of them now, when you have shut the sun out with smoke, so that he can draw nothing more except brown biota through a hole in a box. Tlaere was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell, once upon a time, divine as the Vale of Tempe; you might have seen the gods there morning and even- ing — AjDollo and all the sweet Muses of the light — walking in fair procession on the lawns of it and to and fro among the pin- nacles of its crags. You cared neither for gods nor grass, but for cash (which you did not know the way to get) ; you thought you could get it by what the Times calls "Rail- road Enterprise." You Enterprised a Rail- road through the valley — ^j'ou blasted rocks away, heaped thousands of tons of shale into its lovely stream. The valley is gone, and the gods with it ; and now every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton ; which you think a lucrative process of exchange — you Pools Everjrvvhere. To talk at a distance, when you have nothing to say though you were ever so near; to go fast from this place to that, with nothing to do either at one or the other : — these are powers certainly. Much more, power of increased Production, if you in- deed had got it, would be something to boast of. But are you so entirely sure that you have got it — that the mortal disease of plenty, and afflictive affluence of good things, are all you have to dread ? Observe. A man and a woman, with their children, properly trained, are able easily to cultivate as much ground as will feed them, to build as much wall and roof as will lodge them, and to spin and weave as much cloth as will clothe them. They can all be per- fectly happy and healthy in doing this. Supposing that they invent machinery which will build, plow, thresh, cook, and weave, and that they have none of these things any more to do, but may read, or play croquet or cricket, all day long, I believe myself that they will neither be so good nor so happy as without the machines. But I waive my belief in this matter for the time. I will assume that they become more refined and moral persons, and that idleness is in future to be the mother of all good. But observe, I repeat, the power of your machine is only in enabling them to be idle. It will not enable them to live better than they did before, nor to live in greater numbers. Get your heads quite clear on this matter. Out of so much ground only so much living is to be got, with or without machinery. You may set a million of steam-plows to work on an acre, if you like — out of that acre only a given number of grains of corn will grow, scratch or scorch it as you will. So that the question is not at all Avhether, by having more machines, more of you can live. No machines will increase the possibilities of life. Suppose, for instance, you could get the oxen in your plow driven by a goblin, who would ask for no pay, not even a cream bowl (you have nearly managed to get it driven by an iron goblin, as it is) ; well, your furrow will take no more seeds than if you had held the stilts yourself. But instead of holding them you sit, I presume, on a bank beside the field, under an eglantine, — watch the goblin at his work, and read poetry. Meantime, your wife in the house has also got a goblin to weave and wash for her. And she is lying on the sofa, reading poetry. Now, as I said, I don't believe you would be happier so, but I am willing to believe it ; only, since you are already such brave mechanists, show me at least oiie or two places where you are happier. Let me see one small example of approach to this ser- aphic condition. I can show you examples, millions of them, of happy people made happy by their own industry. Farm after farm I can show you, in Bavaria, Switzer- land, the Tyrol, and such other places, -where men and women are perfectly happy and good, without any iron servants. Show me, therefore, some English family, with its fiery familiar, happier than these. Or bring me — for I am not inconvineible by any kind of evidence — ^bring me the testimony of an English family or two to their increased felicity. Or if you cannot do so much as that, can you convince even themselves of it ? They are perhaps happy, if only they knew how happy they were; Virgil thought so, long ago, of simple rustics ; but you hear at present your steam-propelled rustics are crying out that they are anything else than happy, and that they regard their boasted progress "in the light of a monstrous Sham." I must tell you one little thing, however, which greatly perplexes my imagination of the relieved plowman sitting under his rose- bower, reading poetry. I have told it you before, indeed, but I forget where. There NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS 493 was really a great festivity, and expression of satisfaction in the new order of things, down in Cumberland, a little while ago; some first of May, I think it was, a country festival such as the old heathens, who had no iron servants, vised to keep with jDiping and dancing. So I thought, from the lib- erated cou.ntry people — their work all done for them by goblins — we should have some extraordinary piping and dancing. But there was no dancing at all, and they could not even provide their own piping. They had their goblin to pipe for them. They walked in procession after their steam-plow, and their steam-plow whistled to them oc- casionally in the most melodious manner it could. Which seemed to me, indeed, a re- •turn to more than Arcadian simplicity; for in old Arcadia plow-boys truly whistled as they went, for want of thought ; whereas here was verily a large company walking without thought, but not having any more even the capacity of doing their own whistling. But next, as to the inside of the house. Before you got your power-looms, a woman could always make herself a chemise and petticoat of bright and pretty appearance. I have seen a Bavarian peasant-woman at church in Munich, looking a much grander creature, and more beautifully dressed, than any of the crossed and embroidered angels in Hesse's high-art frescoes (which hap- pened to be just above her, so that I could look from one to the other). Well, here you are, in England, served by household demons, with five hundred fingers at least, weaving, for one that used to weave in the days of Minerva. You ought to be able to show me five hundred dresses for one that used to be; tidiness ought to have become five-hundredfold tidier; ta^oestry should be increased into cinque-cento-fold iridescence of tapestry. Not only your peasant-girl ought to be lying on the sofa, reading poetry, but she ought to have in her wardrobe five hundred petticoats instead of one. Is that, indeed, your issue? or are you only on a curiously crooked way to it? It is just possible, indeed, that you may not have been allowed to get the use of the goblin's work — that other people may have got the use of it, and you none; because, perhaps, you have not been able to evoke goblins wholly for your own personal service, but have been borrowing goblins from the capitalist, and paying interest in the "posi- tion of William," on ghostly self-going planes. But suppose you had laid by capi- tal enough, yourselves, to hire all the demons in the world — nay all that are inside of it ; are you quite sure you know what you might best set them to work at, and what "useful things" you should command them to make for you? I told you, last month, that no economist going (whether by steam or ghost) knew what are useful things and what are not. Very few of you know, yourselves, except by bitter experience of the want of them. And no demons, either of iron or spirit, can ever make them. . There are three material things, not only useful but essential to life. No one "knows how to live" till he has got them. These are Pure Air, Water, and Earth. There are three immaterial things, not only useful, but essential to life. No one knows how to live till he has got them also. These are Admiration, Hope, and Love. Admiration — the power of discerning and taking delight in what is beautiful in visible Form and lovely in human Character, and, necessarily, striving to produce what is beautiful in form and to become what is lovely in character. Hope — the recognition, by true foresight, of better things to be reached hereafter, whether by ourselves or others; necessarily issuing in the straightforward and undisap- pointable effort to advance, according to our proper powei-, the gaining of them. Love — both of family and neighbor, faith- ful and satisfied. These are the six chiefly useful things to be got by Political Economy, when it has become a science. I will briefly tell you what modern Political Economy — the great savoir mourir — is doing with them. The first three, I said, are Pure Air, Water, and Earth. Heaven gives you the main elements of these. You can destroy them at your pleas- ure, or increase, almost without limit, the available quantities of them. You can vitiate the air by your manner of life and of death, to any extent. You might easily vitiate it so as to bring such a pesti- lence on the globe as would end all of j^ou. You, or your fellows, German and French, are at present vitiating it to the best of your power in every direction — chiefly at this moment with corpses, and animal and veget- able ruin in war, changing men, horses, and garden-stuff into noxious gas. But every- 494 THE GEEAT TKADITION where, and all day long, you are vitiating it with foul chemical exhalations ; and the hor- rible nests, which you call towns, are little more than laboratories for the distillation into heaven of venomous smokes and smells, mixed with effluvia from decaying animal matter and infectious miasmata from puru- lent disease. On the other hand, your power of purify- ing the air, by dealing properly and swiftly with all substances in corruption, by abso- lutely forbidding noxious manufactures, and by planting in all soils the trees which cleanse and invigorate earth and atmosphere, is literally infinite. You might make every breath of air you draw, food. Secondly, your power over the rain and river-waters of the earth is infinite. You can bring rain where you will, by planting wisely and tending carefully; drought where you will, by ravage of woods and neglect of the soil. You might have the rivers of England as pure as the crystal of the rock ; beautiful in falls, in lakes, in living pools; so full of fish that you might take them out with your hands instead of nets. Or you may do always as you have done now — turn every river of England into a common sewer, so that you cannot so much as baptize an English baby but with filth, unless you hold its face out in the rain; and even that falls dirty. Then for the third, earth, meant to be nourishing for you and blossoming. You have learned about it that there is no such thing as a flower, and as far as your scien- tific hands and scientific brains, inventive of explosive and deathful instead of blos- soming and life-giving dust, can contrive, you have turned the Mother Earth, Demeter, into the Avenger Earth, Tisiphone — with the voice of your brother's blood crying out of it in one wild harmony round all its murderous sphere. That is what you have done for the Three Material Useful Things. Then for the Three Immaterial Useful Things. For Admiration, you have learned contempt and conceit. There is no lovely thing ever yet done by man that you care for, or can understand; but you are per- suaded you are able to do much finer things yourselves. You gather an exhibit together, as if equally instructive, what is infinitely bad with what is infinitely good. You do not know which is which; you instinctively prefer the Bad, and do more of it. You instinctively hate the Good, and destroy it. Then, secondly, for Hope. You have not so much spirit of it in you as to begin any plan which will not pay for ten years; nor so much intelligence of it in you (either politicians or workmen) as to be able to form one clear idea of what you would like your country to become. Then, thirdly, for Love. You were or- dered by the Founder of your religion to love your neighbor as yourselves. You have founded an entire science of Political Economy on what you have stated to be the constant instinct of man — the desire to de- fraud his neighbor. And you have driven your women mad, so that they ask no more for Love nor for fellowship with you, but stand against you, and ask for "justice." Are there any of you who are tired of all this? Any of you. Landlords or Tenants?, Employers or Workmen? Are there any landlords, any masters, who would like bet- ter to be served by men than by iron devils? Any tenants, any workmen, who can be true . to their leaders and to each other ? who can vow to work and to live faithfully, for the sake of the joy of their homes? Will any such give the tenth of what they have, and of what they earn, not to emigrate with, but to stay in England with, and do what is in their hands and hearts to make her a happy England? I am not rich (as people now estimate riches), and great part of what I have is already engaged in maintaining art-work- men, or for other objects more or less of public utility. The tenth of whatever is left to me, estimated as accurately as I can (you shall see the accounts), I will make over to you in perpetuity, with the best security that English law can give, on Christmas Day of this year, with engage- ment to add the tithe of whatever I earn afterwards. Who else will help, with little or much? the object of such fund being to begin, and gradually — no matter how slowly — to increase the buying and secur- ing of land in England, which shall not be built upon, but cultivated by English- men with their own hands and such help of force as they can find in wind and wave. I do not care with how many or how few this thing is begun, nor on what inconsid- erable scale — if it be but in two or three poor men's gardens. So much, at least, I can buy, myself, and give them. If no help come, I have done and said what I NINETEENTH CENTURY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS 495 could, and there will be an end. If any help come to me, it is to be on the follow- ing conditions : We will try to make some small piece of English ground beautiful, peaceful, and fruitful. We will have no steam-engines upon it, and no railroads; we will have no untended or unthought-of creatures on it; none wretched but the sick; none idle but the dead. We will have no liberty upon it, but instant obedience to known law and appointed persons ; no equality upon it, but recognition of every betterness that we can find, and reprobation of every worse- ness. When we want to go anywhere, we will go there quietly and safely, not at forty miles an hour in the risk of our lives ; when we want to carry anything anywhere, we will carry it either on the backs of beasts, or on our own, or in carts or boats. We will have plenty of flowers and vegetables in our gardens, plenty of corn and grass in our fields, — and few bricks. We will have some music and poetry; the children shall learn to dance to it and sing it; per- haps some of the old people, in time, may also. We will have some art, moreover; we will at least try if, like the Greeks, we can't make some pots. The Greeks used to paint pictures of gods on their pots. We, prob- ably, cannot do as much; but we may put some pictures of insects on them, and rep- tiles — butterflies and frogs, if nothing bet- ter. There was an excellent old potter in France who used to put frogs and vipers into his dishes, to the admiration of man- kind; we can surely put something nicer than that. Little by little, some higher art and imagination may manifest themselves among us, and feeble rays of science may dawn for us: — botany, though too dull to dispute the existence of flowers; and his- tory, though too simple to question the na- tivity of men; nay, even perhaps an un- calculating and uncovetous wisdom, as of rude Magi, presenting, at such nativity, gifts of gold and frankincense. Faithfully yours, John Ruskin. 4. THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE Sweetness and Light matthew arnold The disparagers of culture make its mo- tive curiosity ; sometimes, indeed, they make its motive mere exelusiveness and vanity. The culture which is suppx)sed to plume itself on a smattering of Greek and Latin is a culture which is begotten by nothing so intellectual as curiosity; it is valued either out of sheer vanity and ignorance or else as an engine of social and class dis- tinction, separating its holder, like a badge or title, from other people who have not got it. No serious man would call this cul- ture, or attach any value to it, as culture, at all. To find the real ground for the very differing estimate which serious people will set upon culture, we must find some motive for culture in the terms of which may lie a real ambiguity; and such a motive the word curiosity gives us. I have before now pointed out that we English do not, like the foreigners, use this word in a good sense as well as in a bad sense. With us the word is always used in somewhat disapproving sense. A liberal and intelligent eagerness about the things of the mind may be meant by a foreigner when he speaks of curiosity, but with us the word always conveys a certain notion of frivolous and unedifying activity. In the Quarterly Review, some little time ago, was an estimate of the celebrated French critic, M. Sainte- Beuve, and a very inadequate estimate it in my judgment was. And its inadequacy con- sisted chiefly in this : that in our English way it left out of sight the double sense really involved in the word curiosity, think- ing enough was said to stamp M. Sainte- Beuve with blame if it was said that he was impelled in his operations as a critic by curiosity, and omitting either to perceive that M. Sainte-Beuve himself, and many other people with him, would consider that this was praiseworthy and not blameworthy, or to point out why it ought really to be accounted worthy of blame and not of praise. For as there is a curiosity about intellectual matters which is futile, and merely a disease, so there is certainly a curiosity, — a desire after the things of the mind simply for their own sakes and for the pleasure of seeing them as tbey are, — 496 THE GEEAT TEADITION which is, in an intelligent being, natural- and laudable. Nay, and the very desire to see things as they are, implies a balance and regulation of mind which is not often attained without fruitful effort, and which is the very opposite of the blind and dis- eased impulse of mind which is what we mean to blame when we blame curiosity. Montesquieu says : "The first motive which ought to impel us to study is the desire to augment the excellence of our nature, and to render an intelligent being yet more in- telligent." This is the true ground to as- sign for the genuine scientific passion, how- ever manifested, and for culture, viewed simply as a fruit of this passion ; and it is a Avorthy ground, even though we let the term curiosity stand to describe it. But there is of culture another view, in which not solely the scientific passion, the sheer desire to see things as they are, natural and proper in an intelligent being, appears as the ground of it. There is a view in which all the love of our neighbor, the im- pulses towards action, help, and beneficence, the desire for removing human error, clear- ing human confusion, and diminishing hu- man misery, the noble aspiration to leave the world better and happier than w^e found it, — ^motives eminently such as are called social, — come in as part of the grounds of culture, and the main and preeminent part. Culture is then properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection. It moves by the force, not merely or primarily of the scientific passion for pure knowledge, but also of the moral and social passion for doing good. As, in the first view of it, we took for its worthy motto Montesquieu's words: "To render an intelligent being yet more in- telligent !" so, in the second view of it, there is no better motto which it can have than these words of Bishop Wilson: "To make reason and the will of God prevail !" Only, whereas the i3assion for doing good is apt to be overhasty in determining what reason an'd the will of God say, because its turn is for acting rather than thinking and it wants to be beginning to act ; and where- as it is apt to take its own conceptions, which proceed from its own state of development and share in all the imperfections and in- maturities of this, for a basis of action; what distinguishes culture is, that it is pos- sessed by the scientific passion as well as by the passion of doing good; that it demands worthy notions of reason and the will of God, and does not readily suffer its own crude conceptions to substitute themselves for them. And knowing that no action or institution can be salutary and stable which is not based on reason and the will of God, it is not so bent on acting and in- stituting, even with the great aim of dimin- ishing human error and misery ever before its thoughts, but that it can remember that acting and instituting are of little use, un- less we know how and what we ought to act and to institute. " This culture is more interesting and more far-reaching than that other, which is founded solely on the scientific passion for knowing. But it needs times of faith and ardor, times when the intellectual horizon is opening and widening all around us, to flourish in. And is not the close and bounded intellectual horizon within which we have long lived and moved noAv lifting ujD, and are not new lights finding free passage to shine in upon us? For a long time there was no passage for them to make their way in upon us, and then it was of no use to think of adajDting the world's action to them. Where Avas the hope of making reason and the will of God pre- vail among people who had a routine which they had christened reason and the will of God, in which they were inextricably bound, and beyond which they had no power of looking? But now the iron force of ad- hesion to the old routine, — social, political, religious, — has wonderfully yielded ; the iron force of exclusion of all which is new has wonderfully yielded. The danger now is, not that people should obstinately refuse to allow anything but their old rou^tine to pass for reason and the will of God, but either that they should allow some novelty or other to pass for these too easily, or else that they should underrate the importance of them altogether, and think it enough to follow action for its own sake, without troubling themselves to make reason and the will of God prevail therein. Now, then, is the moment for culture to be of service, culture which believes in making reason and the will of God prevail, believes in perfection, is the study and i3ursuit of perfection, and is no longer debarred, by a rigid invincible exclusion of whatever is new, from getting acceptance for its ideas, simply because they are new. NINETEENTH CENTUEY IDEALS AND PEOBLEMS 497 The moment this view of culture is seized, the moment it is regarded not solely as the endeavor to see things as they are, to draw towards a knowledge of the universal order which seems to be intended and aimed at in the world, and which it is a man's happi- ness to go along with or his misery to go counter to, — to learn, in short, the will of God, — the moment, I say, culture is con- sidered not merely as the endeavor to see and learn this, but as the endeavor, also, to make it prevail, the moral, social, and benefi- cent character of culture becomes manifest. The mere endeavor to see and learn the truth for our own joersonal satisfaction is in- deed a commencement for making it pre- vail, a preparing the way for this, which always serves this, and is wrongly, there- fore, stamped with blame absolutely in itself and not only in its caricature and de- generation. But perhaj)s it has got stamped with blame, and disparaged with the du- bious title of curiosity, because in com- parison with this wider endeavor of such great and plain utility it looks selfish, petty, and unprofitable. And religion, the greatest and most im- portant of the efforts by which the hu- man race has manifested its impulse to per- fect itself, — religion, that voice of the deep- est human experience, — does not only en- join and sanction the aim which is the great aim of culture, the aim of setting ourselves to ascertain what perfection is and to make it prevail; but also, in determining gen- erally in what human perfection consists, religion comes to a conclusion identical with that which culture, — culture seeking the determination of this question through all the voices of human experience which have been heard uiDon it, of art, science, poetry, philosophy, history, as well as of religion, in order to give a greater fulness and certainty to its solution, — likewise reaches. Religion says: The kingdom of God is within you; and culture, in like man- ner, places human perfection in an internal condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from our animality. It places it in the ever-increasing efficacy and in the general harmonious expansion of those gifts of thought and feeling, which make the pe- culiar dignity, wealth, and happiness of human nature. As I have said on a former occasion : "It is in making endless additions to itself, in the endless expansion of its pow- ers, in endless growth in wisdom and beauty, that the spirit of the human race finds its ideal. To reach this ideal, culture is an in- dispensable aid, and that is the true value of culture." Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the char- acter of perfection as culture conceives it; and here, too, it coincides with religion. And because men are all members of one great whole, and the sympathy which is in human nature will not allow one member to be indifferent to the rest or to have a perfect welfare independent of the rest, the expansion of our humanity, to suit the idea of perfection which culture forms, must be a general expansion. Perfection, as culture conceives it, is not possible while the individual remains isolated. The in- dividual is required, under pain of being stunted and enfeebled in his own devel- opment if he disobeys, to carry others along with him in his march toAvards perfection, to be continually doing all he can to enlarge and increase the volume of the human stream sweeping thitherward. And, here, once more, culture lays on us the same obli- gation as religion, which says, as Bishop Wilson has admirably put it, that "to pro- mote the kingdom of God is to increase and hasten one's own happiness." But, finally, perfection, — as culture from a thorough, disinterested study of human nature and human experience learns to con- ceive it, — is a harmonious expansioil of all the powers which make the beauty and worth of human nature, and is not consistent with the over-development of any one power at the expense of the rest. Here culture goes beyond religion as religion is generally conceived by us. If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and of harmonious perfection, general per- fection, and perfection which consists in be- coming something" rather than in having something, in an inward condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of circumstances, — it is clear that culture, in- stead of being the frivolous and useless thing which Mr. Bright, and Mr. Frederic Harrison, and many other Liberals are apt to call it, has a very important function to fulfil for mankind. And this function is particularly important in our modern world, of which the whole civilization is, to a much greater degree than the civilization of Greece and Rome, mechanical and external, and tends constantly to become more so. 498 THE GEEAT TEADITION But above all in our own country has cul- ture a weighty part to perform, because here that mechanical character, which civil- ization tends to take everywhere, is shown in the most eminent degree. Indeed nearly all the characters of perfection, as culture teaches us to fix them, meet in this country with some powerful tendency which thwarts them and sets them at defiance. The idea of perfection as an inward condition of the mind and spirit is at variance with the mechanical and material civilization in es- teem with us, and nowhere, as I have said, so much in esteem as with us. The idea of perfection as a general expansion of the human family is at variance with our strong individualism, our hatred of all limits to the unrestrained swing of the individual's per- sonality, our maxim of "every man for himself." Above all, the idea of perfection as a harmonious expansion of human na- ture is at variance with our want of flexi- bility, with our inaptitude for seeing more than one side of a thing, with our intense energetic absorption in the particular pur- suit we happen to be following. So culture has a rough task to achieve in this country. Its preachers have, and are likely long to have, a hard time of it, and they will much oftener be regarded, for a great while to come, as elegant or spurious Jeremiahs than as friends and benefactors. That, however, will not prevent their doing in the end good service if they persevere. And, mean- while, the mode of action they have to pur- sue, and the sort of habits they must fight against, ought to be made quite clear for every one to see, who may be willing to look at the matter attentively and dispas- sionately. Faith in machinery is, I said, our beset- ting danger; often in machinery most ab- surdly disproportioned to the end which this machinery, if it is to do any good at all, is to serve; but always in machinery, as if it had a value in and for itself. What is freedom but machinery? what is popula- tion but machinery"? what is coal but ma- chinery ? what are railroads but machinery ? what is wealth but machinery? what are, even religious organizations but machinery 1 Now almost every voice in England is ac- customed to speak of these things as if they were precious ends in themselves, and therefore had some of the characters of perfection indisputably joined to them, I have before now noticed Mr. Roebuck's stock argument for proving the greatness and happiness of England as she is, and for quite stopjaing the mouths of all gain- sayers. Mr. Roebuck is never weary of reiterating this argument of his, so I do not know why I should be weary of noticing it. ''May not every man in England say what he likes?" — Mr. Roebuck perpetually asks ; and that, he thinks, is quite sufficient, and when every man may say what he likes, our aspirations ought to be satisfied. But the asjjirations of culture, which is the study of perfection, are not satisfied, unless what men say, when they may say what they like, is worth saying,— has good in it, and more good than bad. In the same way the Times, replying to some foreign strictures on the dress, looks, and behavior of the English abroad, urges that the English ideal is that every one should be free to do and to look just as he likes. But culture inde- fatigably tries, not to make what each raw person may like, the rule by which he fash- ions himself; but to draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, graceful, and becoming, and to get the raw person to like that. And in the same way with respect to rail- roads and coal. Every one mvist have ob- served the strange language current during the late discussions as to the possible failure of our supplies of coal. Our coal, thou- sands of people were saying, is the real basis of our national greatness; if our coal runs short, there is an end of the greatness of England. But what is greatness? — culture makes us ask. Greatness is a spiritual con- dition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration ; and the outward proof of pos- sessing greatness is that we excite love, in- terest, and admiration. If England were swallowed up by the sea of tomorrow, which of the two, a hundred years hence, would most excite the love, interest, and admira- tion of mankind, — would most, therefore, show the evidences of having possessed greatness, — the England of the last twenty years, or the England of Elizabeth, of a time of splendid spiritual effort, but when our coal, and our industrial operations de- pending on coal, were very little developed? Well, then, what an unsound habit of mind it must be which makes us talk of things like coal or iron as constituting the great- ness of England, and how salutary a friend is culture, bent on seeing things as they are, and thus dissipating delusions of this NINETEENTH CENTURY IDEALS AND PROBLEMS 499 kind and fixing standards of perfection that are real ! Wealth, again, that end to which our prodigious works for material advantage are directed, — the commonest of commonplaces tells us how men are always apt to regard wealth as a precious end in itself: and cer- tainly they have never been so apt thus to regard it as they are in England at the present time. Never did people believe any- thing more firmly than nine Englishmen out of ten at the i3resent day believe that our greatness and welfare are proved by our be- ing so very rich. Now, the use of culture is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, but really to j)erceive and a matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive and feel that it is so. If it were not for this purging etSeet wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as well as the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to be- coming rich, are just the very people whom we call Philistines. Culture says : "Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voice ; look at them attentively ; observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just like these people by having if?" And thus culture begets a dissatisfaction which is of the highest possible value in. stemming the common tide of men's thoughts in a wealthy and industrial community, and which saves the future, as one may hope, from being vulgarized, even if it cannot save the pres- ent. Population, again, and bodily health and vigor, are things which are nowhere treated in such an unintelligent, misleading, exag- gerated way as in England. Both are really machinery ; yet how mai:iy people all around us do we see rest in them and fail to look beyond them! Why, one has heard people, fresh from reading certain articles of the Times on the Registrar-General's return's of marriages and births in this country, who would talk of our large English families in quite a solemn strain, as if they had something in itself beautiful, elevating, and meritorious in them; as if the British Phil- istine would have only to present himself before the Great Judge with his twelve children, in order to be received among the sheep as a matter of right ! But bodily health and vigor, it may be said, are not to be classed with wealth and population as mere machinery; they have a more real and essential value. True; but only as they are more intimately connected with a perfect spiritual condition than wealth or population are. The moment we disjoin them from the idea of a perfect spiritual condition, and pursue them, as we do pursue them, for their own sake and as ends in themselves, our worship of them becomes as mere worship of machinery, as our worship of wealth or population, and as unintelligent and vulgarizing a wor- ship as that is. Every one with anything like an adequate idea of human perfection has distinctly marked this subordination to higher and spiritual ends of the cultiva- tion of bodily vigor and activity. "Bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is profitable unto all things," says the author of the Epistle to Timothy. And the util- itarian Franklin says just as explicitly: — "Eat and drink such an exact quantity as suits the constitution of thy body, in ref- erence to the services of the mind." But the point of view of culture, keeping the mark of human perfection simply and broadly in view, and not assigning to this perfection, as religion or utilitarianism as- signs to it, a special and limited character, this point of view, I say, of culture is best given by these words of Epictetus : "It is a sign of acfiVLa" says he, — that is, of a nature not finely tempered, — "to give yourselves up to things which relate to the body; to make, for instance, a gTeat fuss about exercise, a great fuss about eating, a great fuss about di'inking, a great fuss about walking, a great fuss about riding. All these things ought to be done merely by the way: the formation of the spirit and character must be our real concern." This is admirable; and, indeed, the Greek word evc^vla, a finely tempered nature, gives exactly the notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive it : a harmonious per- fection, a perfection in which the charac- ters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of 500 THE GEEAT TEADITION things," — as Swift, who of one of the two, at any rate, had himself all too little, most happily calls them in his Battle of the Books, — "the two noblest of things, sweetness and light." The ev4)vr)v7]