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BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY
HAZLITT'S SPIRIT OF THE AGE




It




THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
OR
CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS


FOURTH EDITION
TO WHICH ARE ADDED
FREE THOUGHTS ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND A
LETTER TO WILLIAM GIFFORD
BY
WILLIAM       HAZLITT


EDITED BY W. CAREW HAZLITT.
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS
YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN
1886




CHISWICK PRESS:-C. WHITTINGHAAI AND CO., TOOKS COURT.
CHANCERY LANE.




PREFACE.


T  HE first edition of the SPIRIT OF THE AGE in bookform appeared in an octavo volume of pp. 424 in
1825. The contents had been partly communicated as
separate articles to the New Monthly Magazine. A second
edition, making only pp. 408, and printed in smaller
size and type, came out in the same year. The Characters were differently arranged; an addition to that of
Coleridge was made; a new one on Cobbett was first
introduced; and a few errors of the press were corrected.
In 1858, the author's son produced a third impression,
with a criticism on Canning incorporated.
I have in my possession portions of the original autograph of this interesting work, and I have collated
them, so far as they go; but the MS., while it rectifies
a few mistakes here and there, exhibits (I suspect), on
the whole, readings deliberately rejected by the author
himself in proof. On the other hand, from a copy of
the second issue of 1825, belonging to Mr. C. W.
Reynell, a few verbal changes in Hazlitt's own hand
have been introduced.
"When I told Jeffrey," says Hazlitt, "that I had
composed a work, in which I had in some sort handled




vi


PREFACE.


about a score of leading characters, he remarked: ' Then
yon will have one man against you, and the remaining
nineteen for you.' I have not found it so."
But apart from the intrinsic merit of this series of
literary portraitures, the character of the persons described has a tendency to confer on the volume a standard value, and to stamp it with permanence. Leigh
Hunt, indeed, blamed his old friend for his habit of
assailing indiscriminately both sides in politics, and
thought that it contributed to injure the Liberal cause,
which none could hold dearer than Hazlitt. There was
something in this, of course; and it is curious to observe
how, in the same way, the writer speaks in the handsomest terms of men who, like Campbell, had treated
him with little else than abuse.
Charles Lamb, in a letter to his Quaker correspondent Barton, of February 10, 1825, says: " The Spirit
of the Age is by Hazlitt: The characters of Coleridge,
&c., he had done better in former publications, the
praise and the abuse much stronger, &c., but the new
ones are capitally done. Horne Tooke is a matchless
portrait...   He has laid too many colours on my likeness; but I have had so much injustice done me in my
own name, that I make a rule of accepting as much overmeasure to Elia as gentlemen think proper to bestow."
W. CAREW HAZLITT.
BARNES COMMON, SURREY,
November 1st, 1885.




CONTENTS.
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE,.


JEREMY BENTHAM
3'WILLiAM GODWIN.
MR. COLERIDGE
REV. MR. IRVING.
MR. HORNE TOOKE.
SIR. WALT-ER SCOTT.
LORD ByRcN..
MR. SOUTHET
''MR. WORDSWORTH.
SIR. JAMES MACKINTOSH
MR. MALTHUS.
MR. CANNING..
MR. GIFFORD..
Mft. JEFFREY..
MR. BROUGHAM.-Sir, FASURDETT
SLORD ELDON.-MR. WILBERFORCE
MR.t COBBRTT..
MR. CAMPBELL.-MR. CRABBE.
MR.. T. MOORE.-MR. LE.IGH HUNT
ELIA.-GEOFFREY CRAYON
ADviCE TO A PATRIOT
A LETTER TO WILLIAm GIFFORD, EsQ.


PAGE
*. 43
61.
*. 77v
* * 117 '
1 35~
*  49'
*. 165'
*. 181
*. 201
*. 217
237
*. 253
*. 267
*. 283
*. 299
*. 317
*  333
*  347
*  385




I
I




JEREMY BENTHAM.
B




II




JEREMY BENTHAM.


R. BENTHAM         is one of those persons who
verify the old adage, that "A prophet has most
honour out of his own country." His reputation lies at
the circumference; and the lights of his understanding,are reflected, with increasing lustre, on the other side
of the globe. His name is little known in England,
better in Europe, best of all in the plains of Chili and
the mines of Mexico. He has offered constitutions for
the New World, and legislated for future times. The
people of Westminster, where he lives, hardly dream of
such a person; but the Siberian savage has received
cold comfort from his lunar aspect, and may say to him
with Caliban-" I know thee, and thy dog and thy
bush!"  The tawny Indian may hold out the hand of
fellowship to him across the GREAT PACIFIC. We believe
that the Empress Catherine corresponded with him;
and we know that the Emperor Alexander called upon
him, and presented him with his miniature in a gold
snuff-box, which the philosopher, to his eternal honour,
returned. Mr. Hobhouse is a greater man at the hustings, Lord Rolle at Plymouth Dock; but Mr. Bentham
would carry it hollow, on the score of popularity, at
Paris or Pegu. The reason is, that our author's influence is purely intellectual. He has devoted his life to




4               The Spirit of the Age.
the pursuit of abstract and general truths, and to those
studies" That waft a thought from Indus to the Pole "and has never mixed himself up with personal intrigues
or party politics.  He once, indeed, stuck up a handbill to say that he (Jeremy Bentham) being of sound
mind, was of opinion that Sir Samuel Romilly was the
most proper person to represent Westminster; but this
was the whim    of the moment.     Otherwise, his reasonings, if true at all, are true everywhere alike: his
speculations concern humanity at large, and are not
confined to the hundred or the bills of mortality. It is
in moral as in physical magnitude.    The little is seen
best near: the great appears in its proper dimensions,
only from a more commanding point of view, and gains
strength with time, and elevation from distance!
Mlr. Bentham is very much among philosophers what
La Fontaine was among poets: —in general habits and
in all but his professional pursuits, he is a mere child.
He has lived for the last forty years in a house in
Westminster, overlooking the Park, like an anchoret in
his cell, reducing law to a system, and the mind of man
to a malchine.  He scarcely ever goes out, and sees very
little company.  The favoured few, who have the privilege of the entree, are always admitted one by one.  He
does not like to have witnesses to his conversation. He
talks a great deal, and listens to nothing but facts.
When any one calls upon him, he invites them to take
a turn round his garden with him.'
There are still living a few who recollect seeing Bentham pacing
his garden at a style between a walk and a run, in the way described
in the text. The house where Milton, and afterwards Hazlitt, lived
in York Street, Westminster, overlooked Bentham's grounds. It
has since been demolished.  Hazlitt rented it from Bentham in
1814.-ED.




Jeremy Bentham.                  5
Mr. Bentham is an economist of his time, and sets
apart this portion of it to air and exercise; and there
you may see the lively old man, his mind still buoyant
with thought and with the prospect of futurity, in eager
conversation with some Opposition Member, some expatriated Patriot, or Transatlantic Adventurer, urging
the extinction of Close Boroughs, or planning a code of
laws for some "lone island in the watery waste," his
walk almost amounting to a run, his tongue keeping
pace with it in shrill, cluttering accents, negligent of
his person, his dress, and his manner, intent only on his
grand theme of UTILITY-or pausing, perhaps, for want
of breath and with lack-lustre eye, to point out to the
stranger a stone in the wall at the end of his garden
(overarched by two beautiful cotton-trees) Inscribed to
the Prince of Poets, which marks the house where Milton
'formerly lived. To show how little the refinements of
taste or fancy enter into our author's system, he proposed at one time to cut down these beautiful trees, to
convert the garden where he had breathed the air of
Truth and Heaven for near half a century into a paltry
Chrestomathic School, and to make Milton's house (the
cradle of Paradise Lost) a thoroughfare, like a threestalled stable, for the idle rabble of Westminster to
pass backwards and forwards to it with their cloven
hoofs.
Let us not, however, be getting on too fast-Milton
himself taught school! There is something not altogether dissimilar between Mr. Bentham's appearance
and the portraits of Milton-the same silvery tone, a
few dishevelled hairs, a peevish, yet puritanical expression, an irritable temperament corrected by habit and
discipline. Or in modern times, he is something between
Franklin and Charles Fox, with the comfortable doublechin and sleek thriving look of the one, and the quiver



6


The Spirit of the Age.


ing lip, the restless eye, and animated acuteness of the
other. His eye is quick and lively; but it glances not
from object to object, but from thought to thought.
He is evidently a man occupied with some train of fine
and inward association. He regards the people about
him no more than the flies of a summer. He meditates
the coming age. He hears and sees only what suits his
purpose, or some "foregone conclusion;" and looks out
for facts and passing occurrences in order to put them
into his logical machinery and grind them into the dust
and powder of some subtle theory, as the miller looks
out for grist to his mill! Add to this physiognomical
sketch the minor points of costume, the open shirtcollar, the single-breasted coat, the old-fashioned halfboots and ribbed stockings; and you will find in Mr.
Bentham's general appearance a singular mixture of
boyish simplicity and of the venerableness of age.
In a word, our celebrated jurist presents a striking
illustration of the difference between the philosophical
and the regal look; that is, between the merely abstracted
and the merely personal. There is a lack-adaisical bonhommie about his whole aspect, none of the fierceness
of pride or power; an unconscious neglect of his own
person, instead of a stately assumption of superiority;
a good-humoured, placid intelligence, instead of a lynxeyed watchfulness, as if it wished to make others its
prey, or was afraid they might turn and rend him; he
is a beneficent spirit, prying into the universe, not
lording it over it; a thoughtful spectator of the scenes
of life, or ruminator on the fate of mankind, not a
painted pageant, a stupid idol set up on its pedestal of
pride for men to fall down and worship with idiot fear
and wonder at the thing themselves have made, and
which, without that fear and wonder, would in itself be
nothing.




Jeremy Bentham.


7


Mr. Bentham, perhaps, over-rates the importance of
his own theories. He has been heard to say (without
any appearance of pride or affectation) that " he should
like to live the remaining years of his life, a year at a
time at the end of the next six or eight centuries, to see
the effect which his writings would by that time have
had upon the world."   Alas! his name will hardly live
so long!    Nor do we think, in point of fact, that
Mr. Bentham has given any new or decided impulse to
the human mind. He cannot be looked upon in the
light of a discoverer in legislation or morals.l He has
not struck out any great leading principle or parenttruth, from which a number of others might be deduced,
nor has he enriched the common and established stock
of intelligence with original observations, like pearls
thrown into wine. One truth discovered is immortal,
and entitles its author to be so: for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed.     But Mr.
Bentham's forte is arrangement; and the form of truth,
though not its essence, varies with time and circumstance.  He has methodised, collated, and condensed
all the materials prepared to his hand on the subjects
of which he treats, in a masterly and scientific manner;
but we should find a difficulty in adducing from his
different works (however elaborate or closely reasoned)
any new element of thought, or even a new fact or
illustration.  His writings are, therefore, chiefly valu-. able as books of reference, as bringing down the account
This is scarcely so, as the greater part of the reforms carried
out by Brougham and Romilly had in Bentham their real initiatives.
Yet when lately in the House of Commons his name was mentioned,
a laugh was raised by some of the intelligent and cultivated gentlemen whom the country still sends to Westminster to make up a sham
popular assembly. Brougham alluded to Bentham when he acknowledged that he had sat at the feet of Gamaliel.-ED.




8             The Spirit of the Age.    f
of intellectual inquiry to the present period, and disposing the results in a compendious, connected, and
tangible shape; but books of reference are chiefly serviceable for facilitating the acquisition of knowledge,
and are constantly liable to be superseded and to grow
out of fashion with its progress, as the scaffolding is
thrown down as soon as the building is completed.
MIr. Bentham is not the first writer (by a great many)
who has assumed the principle of UTILITY as the foundation of just laws, and of all moral and political reasoning:-his merit is, that he has applied this principle
more closely and literally; that he has brought all the
objections and arguments, more distinctly labelled and
ticketed, under this one head, and made a more constant and explicit reference to it at every step of his
progress, than any other writer.  Perhaps the weak
side of his conclusions also is, that he has carried this
single view of his subject too far, and not made sufficient allowance for the varieties of human nature, and
the caprices and irregularities of the human will. " He
has not allowed for the wind." It is not that you can
be said to see his favourite doctrine of Utility glittering
everywhere through his system, like a vein of rich,
shining ore (that is not the nature of the material)but it might be plausibly objected that he had struck
the whole mass of fancy, prejudice, passion, sense, whim,
with his petrific, leaden mace, that he had "bound
volatile Hermes," and reduced the theory and practice
of human life to a caput zortuum of reason, and dull,
plodding, technical calculation. The gentleman is himself a capital logician; and he has been led by this circumstance to consider man as a logical animal. We
fear this view of the matter will hardly hold water.
If we attend to the moral man, the constitution of his
mind will scarcely be found to be built up of pure




Jeremy Bentham.


9


reason and a regard to consequences: if we consider
the criminal man (with whom the legislator has chiefly
to do), it will be found to be still less so.
Every pleasure, says Mr. Bentham, is equally a good,
and is to be taken into the account as such in a moral
estimate, whether it be the pleasure of sense or of conscience, whether it arise from the exercise of virtue or
the perpetration of crime. We are afraid the human
mind does not readily come into this doctrine, this
ultima ratio philosophorum, interpreted according to the
letter. Our moral sentiments are made up of sympathies and antipathies, of sense and imagination, of
understanding and prejudice. The soul, by reason of
its weakness, is an aggregating and exclusive principle;
it clings obstinately to some' things, and violently rejects
others. And it must do so, in a great measure, or it
would act contrary to its own nature. It needs helps
and stages in its progress, and "all appliances and
means to boot," which can raise it to a partial conformity to truth and good (the utmost it is capable of)
and bring it into a tolerable harmony with the universe.
By aiming at too much, by dismissing collateral aids,
by extending itself to the farthest verge of the conceivable and possible, it loses its elasticity and vigour, its
impulse and its direction.
The moralist can no more do without the intermediate
use of rules and principles, without the 'vantage ground
of habit, without the levers of the understanding, than
the mechanist can discard the use of wheels and pulleys,
and perform every thing by simple motion. If the mind
of man were competent to comprehend the whole of
truth and good, and act upon it at once, and independently of all other considerations, Mr. Bentham's
plan would be a feasible one, and the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, would be the best pos



10


The Spirit of the Age.


sible ground to place morality upon. But it is not so.
In ascertaining the rules of moral conduct, we must
have regard not merely to the nature of the object, but
to the capacity of the agent, and to his fitness for apprehending or attaining it. Pleasure is that which is so in
itself: good is that which approves itself as such on
reflection, or the idea of which is a source of satisfaction. All pleasure is not, therefore (morally speaking)
equally a good: for all pleasure does not equally bear
reflecting on. There are some tastes that are sweet in
the mouth and bitter in the belly; and there is a
similar contradiction and anomaly in the mind and
heart of man.
Again, what would become of the Hcec olivm nmenmilisse
juvcbit of the poet, if a principle of fluctuation and
reaction is not inherent in the very constitution of our
nature. or if all moral truth is a mere literal truism?
We are not, then, so much to inquire what certain
things are abstractedly or in themselves, as how they
affect the mind, and to approve or condemn them accordingly. The same object seen near strikes us more
powerfully than at a distance: things thrown into
masses give a greater blow to the imagination than
when scattered and divided into their component parts.
A number of mole-hills do not make a mountain, though
a mountain is actually made up of atoms: so moral
truth must present itself under a certain aspect and
from a certain point of view, in order to produce its
full and proper effect upon the mind. The laws of the
affections are as necessary as those of optics. A calculation of consequences is no more equivalent to a sentiment than a seriatim enumeration of square yards or
feet touches the fancy like the sight of the Alps or
Andes.
To give an instance or two of what we mean. Those




Jeremy Bentharm.


11'


who on pure cosmopolite principles, or on the ground
of abstract humanity, affect an extraordinary regard for
the Turks and Tartars, have been accused of neglecting
their duties to their friends and next-door neighbours.
Well, then, what is the state of the question here? One
human being is, no doubt, as much worth in himself,
independently of the circumstances of time or place, as
another; but he is not of so much value to us and our
affections. Could our imagination take wing (with our
speculative faculties) to the other side of the globe or
to the ends of the universe, could our eyes behold whatever our reason teaches us to be possible, could our
hands reach as far as our thoughts and wishes, we
might then busy ourselves to advantage with the Hottentots, or hold intimate converse with the inhabitants
of the Moon; but being as we are, our feelings evaporate in so large a space-we must draw the circle of our
affections and duties somewhat closer-the heart hovers
and fixes nearer home.
It is true, the bands of private, or of local and natural
affection, are often, nay in general, too highly strained,
so as frequently to do harm instead of good: but the
present question is whether we can, with safety and
effect, be wholly emancipated from them? Whether
we should shake them off at pleasure and without
mercy, as the only bar to the triumph of truth and
justice? Or whether benevolence, constructed upon a
logical scale, would not be merely nominal-whether
duty, raised to too lofty a pitch of refinement, might
not sink into callous indifference or hollow selfishness?
Again, is it not to exact too high a strain from humanity, to ask us to qualify the degree of abhorrence
we feel against a murderer by taking into our cool consideration the pleasure he may have in committing the
deed, and in the prospect of gratifying his avarice or his




12


The Spirit of the Age.


revenge? We are hardly so formed as to sympathise
at the same moment with the assassin and his victim.
The degree of pleasure the former may feel, instead of
extenuating, aggravates his guilt, and shows the depth
of his malignity.
Now the mind revolts against this by mere natural
antipathy, if it is itself well-disposed; or the slow progress of reason would afford but a feeble resistance to
violence and wrong. The will, which is necessary to
give consistency and promptness to our good intentions,
cannot extend so much candour and courtesy to the
antagonist principle of evil: virtue, to be sincere and
practical, cannot be divested entirely of the blindness
and impetuosity of passion! It has been made a plea
(half jest, half earnest) for the horrors of war, that they
promote trade and manufactures. It has been said, as
a set-off for the atrocities practised upon the negro
slaves in the West Indies, that without their blood and
sweat, so many millions of people could not have sugar
to sweeten their tea. Fires and murders have been
argued to be beneficial, as they serve to fill the newspapers, and for a subject to talk of-this is a sort of
sophistry that it might be difficult to disprove on the
bar scheme of contingent utility; but on the ground
that we have stated, it must pass for mere irony. What
the proportion between the good and the evil will really
be found in any of the supposed cases, may be a question to the understanding; but to the imagination and
the heart, that is, to the natural feelings of mankind, it
admits of none!
Mr. Bentham, in adjusting the provisions of a penal
code, lays too little stress on the co-operation of the
natural prejudices of mankind, and the habitual feelings
of that class of persons for whom they are more particularly designed.  Legislators (we mean writers on




Jeremy Bentham.


13


legislation) are philosophers, and governed by their
reason: criminals, for whose control laws are made, are
a set of desperadoes, governed only by their passions.
What wonder that so little progress has been made
towards a mutual understanding between the two parties! They are quite a different species, and speak a
different language, and are sadly at a loss for a common
interpreter between them. Perhaps the Ordinary of
Newgate bids as fair for this office as anyone. What
should Mr. Bentham, sitting at ease in his arm-chair,
composing his mind before he begins to write by a
prelude on the organ, and looking out at a beautiful
prospect when he is at a loss for an idea, know of the
principles of action of rogues, outlaws, and vagabonds?
No more than Montaigne of the motions of his cat!
If sanguine and tender-hearted philanthropists have
set on foot an inquiry into the barbarity and the defects
of penal laws, the practical improvements have been
mostly suggested by reformed cut-throats, turnkeys,
and thief-takers.  What even can the Honourable
House who, when the Speaker has pronounced the
well-known, wished-for sounds, "That this House do
now adjourn," retire, after voting a royal crusade or a
loan of millions, to lie on down, and feed on plate in
spacious palaces, know of what passes in the hearts of
wretches in garrets and night-cellars, petty pilferers
and marauders, who cut throats and pick pockets with
their own hands?  The thing is impossible.
The laws of the country are therefore ineffectual and
abortive, because they are made by the rich for the
poor, by the wise for the ignorant, by the respectable
and exalted in station for the very scum and refuse of
the community. If Newgate would resolve itself into
a committee of the whole Press-yard, with Jack Ketch
at its head, aided by confidential persons from the




14


The Spirit of the Age.


county prisons or the Hulks, and would make a clear
breast, some data might be found out to proceed upon;
but as it is, the criminal mind of the country is a book
sealed, no one has been able to penetrate to the inside!
Mr. Bentham, in his attempts to revise and amend our
criminal jurisprudence, proceeds entirely on his favourite
principle of Utility. Convince highwaymen and housebreakers that it will be for their interest to reform, and
they will reform and lead honest lives; according to
Mr. Bentham. He says, "All men act from calculation:
even madmen reason; " and, in our opinion, he might
as well carry this maxim to Bedlam or St. Luke's, and
apply it to the inhabitants, as think to coerce or overawe the inmates of a gaol, or those whose practices
make them candidates for that distinction, by the mere
dry, detailed convictions of the understanding. Criminals are not to be influenced by reason; for it is of the
very essence of crime to disregard consequences both to
ourselves and others.
You may as well preach philosophy to a drunken
man, or to the dead, as to those who are under the
instigation of any mischievous passion. A man is a
drunkard, and you tell him he ought to be sober; he is
debauched, and you ask him to reform; he is idle, and
you recommend industry to him as his wisest course;
he gambles, and you remind him that he may be ruined
by this foible; he has lost his character, and you advise
him to get into some reputable service or lucrative
situation; vice becomes a habit with him, and you
request him to rouse himself and shake it off; he is
starving, and you warn him if he breaks the law, he
will be hanged. None of this reasoning reaches the
mark it aims at. The culprit, who violates and suffers
the vengeance of the laws, is not the dupe of ignorance,
but the slave of passion, the victim of habit or neces



Jeremy Bentham.


15


sity. To argue with strong passion, with inveterate
habit, with desperate circumstances, is to talk to the
winds. Clownish ignorance may indeed be dispelled,
and taught better; but it is seldom that a criminal is
not aware of the consequences of his act, or has not
made up his mind to the alternative. They are, in
general, too knowing by half. You tell a person of this
stamp what is his interest; he says he does not care
about his interest, or the world and he differ on that
particular. But there is one point on which he must
agree with.them, namely, what they think of his conduct, and that is the only hold you have of him. A
man may be callous and indifferent to what happens to
himself; but he is never indifferent to public opinion,
or proof against open scorn and infamy.
Shame, then, not fear, is the sheet-anchor of the law.
He who is not afraid of being pointed at as a thief, will
not mind a month's hard labour. He who is prepared
to take the life of another, is already reckless of his
own. But every one makes a sorry figure in the pillory; and the being launched from the New Drop
lowers a man in his own opinion. The lawless and
violent spirit, who is hurried by headstrong self-will to
break the laws, does not like to have the ground of
pride and obstinacy struck from under his feet. This
is what gives the swells of the metropolis such a dread
of the treadmill-it makes them ridiculous.  It must
be confessed, that this very circumstance renders the
reform of criminals nearly hopeless. It is the apprehension 6f being stigmatized by public opinion, the fear
of what will be thought and said of them, that deters
men from the violation of the laws, while their character remains unimpeached; but honour once lost, all
is lost. The man can never be himself again! A
citizen is like a soldier, a part of a machine, who sub



16


The Spirit of the Age.


mits to certain hardships, privations and dangers, not
for his own ease, pleasure, profit, or even conscience,
but-for shame. What is it that keeps the machine
together in either case? Not punishment or discipline,
but sympathy. The soldier mounts the breach or stands
iu the trenches, the peasant hedges and ditches, or the
mechanic plies his ceaseless task, because the one will
not be called a coward, the other a rogue: but let the
one turn deserter and the other vagabond, and there is
an end of him. The grinding law of necessity, which
is no other than a name, a breath, loses its force; he is
no longer sustained by the good opinion of others, and
he drops out of his place in society, a useless clog!
AMr. Bentham takes a culprit, and puts him into wiat
he calls a Panopticon, that is, a sort of circular prison,
with open cells, like a glass bee-hive. He sits in the
middle, and sees all the other does. He gives him work
to do, and lectures him if he does not do it. He takes
liquor from him, and society and liberty; but he feeds
and clothes him, and keeps him out of mischief; and
when he has convinced him by force and reason together, that this life is for his good, he turns him out
upon the world a reformed man, and as confident of the
success of his handy-work as the shoemaker of that
which he has just taken off the last, or the Parisian
barber in Sterne, of the buckle of his wig. " Dip it in
the ocean," said the perruquier, " and it will stand! "
But we doubt the durability of our projector's patchwork.   Will our convert to the great principle of
Utility work when he is from under Mr. Bentham's
eye, because he was forced to work when under it?
Will he keep sober, because he has been kept from
liquor so long? Will he not return to loose company,
because he has had the pleasure of sitting vis-a-vis with
a philosopher of late? Will he not steal, now that his




Jeremy Bentham.


17


hands are untied? Will he not take the road, now that
it is free to him? Will he not call his benefactor all
the names he can set his tongue to, the moment his
back is turned? All this is more than to be feared.
The charm of criminal life, like that of savage life,
consists in liberty, in hardship, in danger, and in the
contempt of death: in one word, in extraordinary excitement; and he who has tasted of it, will no more
return to regular habits of life, than a man will take to
water after drinking brandy, or than a wild beast will
give over hunting its prey. Miracles never cease, to be
sure; but they are not to be had wholesale, or to order.
Mr. Owen, who is another of these proprietors and
patentees of reform, has lately got an American savage
*   with him, whom he carries about in great triumph and
complacency, as an antithesis to his New View of Society,
and as winding up his reasoning to what it mainly
wanted, an epigrammatic point. Does the benevolent
visionary of the Lanark cotton-mills really think this
natural man will act as a foil to his artificial man?
Does he for a moment imagine that his Address to the
higher and middle classes, with all its advantages of
fiction, makes anything like so interesting a romance as
Hunter's Captivity among the North American Indians?
Has he anything to show, in all the apparatus of New
Lanark and its desolate monotony, to excite the thrill
of imagination like the blankets made of wreaths of
snow under which the wild wood-rovers bury themselves for weeks in winter? Or the skin of a leopard,
which our hardy adventurer slew, and which served
him for great-coat and bedding? Or the rattle-snake
that he found by his side as a bedfellow?  Or his
rolling himself into a ball to escape from him?  Or
his suddenly placing himself against a tree to avoid
being trampled to death by the herd of wild buffaloes,
c




18


The Spirit of the Age.


that came rushing on like the sound of thunder? Or
his account of the huge spiders that prey on bluebottles and gilded flies in green pathless forests; or of
the great Pacific Ocean, that the natives look upon as
the gulf that parts time from eternity, and that is to
waft them to the spirits of their fathers?  After all
this, Mr. Hunter must find Mr. Owen and his parallelograms trite and flat, and will, we suspect, take an
opportunity to escape from them!
Mr. Bentham's method of reasoning, though comprehensive and exact, labours under the defect of most
systems-it is too topical. It includes every thing; but
it includes every thing alike. It is rather like an inventory, than a valuation of different arguments. Every
possible suggestion finds a place, so that the mind is
distracted as much as enlightened by this perplexing
accuracy. The exceptions seem as important as the
rule.  By attending to the minute, we overlook the
great; and in summing up an account, it will not do
merely to insist on the number of items without considering their amount.  Our author's page presents a
very nicely dove-tailed mosaic pavement of legal common-places. We slip and slide over its even surface
without being arrested anywhere. Or his view of the
human mind resembles a map, rather than a picture:
the outline, the disposition is correct, but it wants
colouring and relief. There is a technicality of manner,
which renders his writings of more value to the professional inquirer than to the general reader. Again,
his style is unpopular, not to say unintelligible. He
writes a language of his own that darkens knowledge.
His works have been translated into French-they ought
to be translated into English. People wonder that Mr.
Bentham has not been prosecuted for the boldness and
severity of some of his invectives. He might wrap up




Jeremy Bentham.


19


high treason in one of his inextricable periods, and it
would never find its way into Westminster Hall. He
is i kind of Manuscript author-he writes a cypherhard, which the vulgar have no key to. The construction of his sentences is a curious frame-work with
pegs and hooks to hang his thoughts upon, for his own
use and guidance, but almost out of the reach of everybody else. It is a barbarous philosophical jargon, with
all the repetitions, parentheses, formalities, uncouth nomenclature and verbiage of law-Latin; and what makes
it worse, it is not mere verbiage, but has a great deal of
acuteness and meaning in it, which you would be glad
to pick out if you could.
In short, Mr. Bentham writes as if he was allowed
but a single sentence to express his whole view of a
subject in, and as if, should he omit a single circumstance or step of the argument, it would be lost to the
world for ever, like an estate by a flaw in the title-deeds.
This is over-rating the importance of our own discoveries, and mistaking the nature and object of language
altogether. Mr. Bentham has acquired this disability:
it is not natural to him. His admirable little work
On Usury, published forty years ago, is clear, easy and
vigorous. But Mr. Bentham has shut himself up since
then "in nook monastic," conversing only with followers of his own or with " men of Ind," and has endeavoured to overlay his natural humour, sense, spirit, and
style with the dust and cobwebs of an obscure solitude.
The best of it is, he thinks his present mode of expressing himself perfect, and that whatever may be objected
to his law or logic, no one can find the least fault with
the purity, simplicity, and perspicuity of his style.
Mr. Bentham, in private life, is an amiable and exemplary character. He is a little romantic or so, and has
dissipated part of a handsome fortune on impractical




20


The Spirit of the Age.


speculations. He lends an ear to plausible projectors,
and, if he cannot prove them to be wrong in their premises or their conclusions, thinks himself bound in reason
to stake his money on the venture. Strict logicians are
licenced visionaries. iMr. Bentham is half-brother to the
late Mr. Speaker Abbott.' Proh pudor! He was educated
at Eton, and still takes our novices to task about a
passage in Homer or a metre in Virgil.  He was afterwards at the University, and he has described the
scruples of an ingenuous youthful mind about subscribing
the Articles, in a passage in his Church-of-Englandism,
which smacks of truth and honour both, and does one
good to read it in an age, when " to be honest " (or not
to laugh at the very idea of honesty) "is to be one man
picked out of ten thousand!" Mr. Bentham relieves
his mind sometimes, after the fatigue of study, by playing on a fine old organ, and has a relish for Hogarth's
prints. He turns wooden utensils in a lathe for exercise, and fancies he can turn men in the same manner.
He has no great fondness for poetry, and can hardly
extract a moral out of Shakespear. His house is warmed
and lighted by steam. He is one of those who prefer
the artificial to the natural in most things, and think
the mind of man omnipotent. He has a great contempt
for out-of-door prospects, for green fields and trees, and
is for referring every thing to Utility. There is a little
narrowness in this; for if all the sources of satisfaction
are taken away, what is to become of utility itself? It
is, indeed, the great fault of this able and extraordinary
man, that he has concentrated his faculties and feelings
too entirely on one subject and pursuit, and has not
"looked enough abroad into universality."2


1 Afterward Lord Colchester.
2 Bacon's Advancement of Learning.




WILLIAM GODWIN.




I
0.
i
1-1




WILLIAM GODWIN.


T    HE Spirit of the Age was never more fully shown
than in its treatment of this writer-its love of
paradox and change, its dastard submission to prejudice
and to the fashion of the day. Five-and-twenty years
ago he was in the very zenith of a sultry and unwholesome popularity; he blazed as a sun in the firmament
of reputation; no one was more talked of, more looked
up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth,
justice was the theme, his name was not far off. Now
he has sunk below the horizon, and enjoys the serene
twilight of a doubtful immortality. Mr. Godwin, during
his lifetime, has secured to himself the triumphs and
the mortifications of an extreme notoriety and of a sort
of posthumous fame. His bark, after being tossed in
the revolutionary tempest, now raised to heaven by all
the fury of popular breath, now almost dashed in pieces,
and buried in the quicksands of ignorance, or scorched
with the lightning of momentary indignation, at length
floats on the calm wave that is to bear it down the
stream of time.
Mr. Godwin's person is not known, he is not pointed
out in the street, his conversation is not courted, his
opinions are not asked, he is at the head of no cabal, he
Attention has been directed to the character and writings of
Godwin of late years by the appearance of Mr. C. Kegan Paul's
William Godwin, his Friends and Contemporaries, 1876.-ED.




2 4            The Spirit of the Age.
belongs to no party in the State, he has no train of
admirers, no one thinks it worth his while even to traduce and vilify him, he has scarcely friend or foe, the
world make a point (as Goldsmith used to say) of taking
no more notice of him than if such an individual had
never existed; he is to all ordinary intents and purposes
dead and buried. But the author of Political Justicel
and of Caleb Williams 2 can never die; his name is an
abstraction in letters; his works are standard in the
history of intellect. He is thought of now like any
eminent writer of a hundred-and-fifty years ago, or just
as he will be a hundred-and-fifty years hence.  He
knows this, and smiles in silent mockery of himself,
reposing on the monument of his fame'" --    Sedet, eternumque sedebit
Infelix Theseus."
No work in our time gave such a blow to the philosophical mind of the country as the celebrated Enquiry
concerning Political Justice.  Tom Paine was considered
for the time as a Tom Fool to him, Paley an old woman,
Edmund Burke a flashy sophist. Truth, moral truth,
it was supposed, had here taken up its abode; and these
were the oracles of thought.
" Throw aside your books of chemistry," said Wordsworth to a young man, a student in the Temple, "and
read Godwin on Necessity." Sad necessity! Fatal
reverse! Is truth then so variable? Is it one thing at
twenty and -another at forty? Is it at a burning heat
in 1793, and below zero in 1814? Not so, in the name
of manhood and of common sense! Let us pause here
a little. Mr. Godwin indulged in extreme opinions,
and carried with him all the most sanguine and fearless
First printed in 1793.
2 First printed in 1794.




William Godwin.


25


understandings of the time. What then? Because
those opinions were overcharged, were they therefore
altogether groundless? Is the very God of our idolatry
all of a sudden to become an abomination and an anathema? Could so many young men of talent, of education, and of principle have been hurried away by what
had neither truth nor nature, not one particle of honest
feeling nor the least show of reason in it?  Is the
Modern Philosophy (as it has been called) at one moment
a youthful bride and the next a withered beldame, like
the false Duessa in Spenser? Or is the vaunted edifice
of Reason, like his House of Pride, gorgeous in front,
and dazzling to approach, while "its hinder parts are
ruinous, decayed, and old? " Has the main prop, which
supported the mighty fabric, been shaken, and given
way under the strong grasp of some Samson; or has it
not rather been undermined by rats and vermin? At
one time, it almost seemed, that " if this failed,
The pillar'd firmament was rottenness,
And earth's base built of stubble."
Now scarce a shadow of it remains; it is crumbled to
dust, nor is it even talked of! "What, then, went ye
forth for to see, a reed shaken with the winid?"  Was
it for this that our young gownsmen of the greatest
expectation and promise, versed in classic lore, steeped
in dialetics, armed at all points for the foe, well read,
well nurtured, well provided for, left the University and
the prospect of lawn sleeves, tearing asunder the shackles
of the free-born spirit and the cobwebs of school-divinity,
to throw themselves at the feet of the new Gamaliel,
and learn wisdom from him? Was it for this, that
students at the bar, acute, inquisitive, sceptical (here
only wild enthusiasts) neglected for a while the paths of
preferment and the law as too narrow, tortuous, and




26


The Spirit of the Age.


unseemly to bear the pure and broad light of reason?
Was it for this, that students in medicine missed their
way to Lecturerships and the top of their profession,
deeming lightly of the health of the body, and dreaming
only of the renovation of society and the march of mind?
Was it to this that Mr. Southey's Inscriptions pointed?
to this that Mr. Coleridge's Religious Musings tended?
Was it for this, that Mr. Godwin himself sat with arms
folded, and, " like Cato, gave his little senate laws? "
Or rather, like another Prospero, uttered syllables that
with their enchanted breath were to change the world,
and might almost stop the stars in their courses?
Oh! and is all forgot?   Is this sun of intellect
blotted from the sky? Or has it suffered total eclipse?
Or is it we who make the fancied gloom, by looking
at it through the paltry, broken, stained fragments of
our own interests and prejudices? Were we fools then,
or are we dishonest now? Or was the impulse of the
mind less likely to be true and sound when it arose
from high thought and warm feeling, than afterwards,
when it was warped and debased by the example, the
vices, and follies of the world?
The fault, then, of Mr. Godwin's philosophy, in one
word, was too much ambition —" by that sin fell the
angels!"  He conceived too nobly of his fellows (the
most unpardonable crime against them, for there is
nothing that annoys our self-love so much as being
complimented on imaginary achievements, to which we
are wholly unequal)-he raised the standard of morality
above the reach of humanity, and by directing virtue to
the most airy and romantic heights, made her path dangerous, solitary, and impracticable. The author of the
Political Justice took abstract reason for the rule of conduct and abstract good for its end.  He places the
human mind on an elevation, from which it commands




William Godwin.


27


a view of the whole line of moral consequences; and
requires it to conform its acts to the larger and more
enlightened conscience which it has thus acquired. He
absolves man from the gross and narrow ties of sense,
custom, authority, private and local attachment, in order
that he may devote himself to the boundless pursuit of
universal benevolence.
Mr. Godwin gives no quarter to the amiable weaknesses of our nature, nor does he stoop to avail himself
of the supplementary aids of an imperfect virtue. Gratitude, promises, friendship, family affection give way,
not that they may be merged in the opposite vices or in
want of principle, but that the void may be filled up by the
disinterested love of good and the dictates of inflexible
justice, which is "the law of laws, and sovereign of
sovereigns." All minor considerations yield, in his system, to the stern sense of duty, as they do, in the ordinary and established ones, to the voice of necessity.
Mr. Godwin's theory, and that of more approved reasoners, differ only in this, that what are with them the
exceptions, the extreme cases, he makes the every-day
rule. No one denies that on great occasions, in moments
of fearful excitement, or when a mighty object is at
stake, the lesser and merely instrumental points of duty
are to be sacrificed without remorse at the shrine of
patriotism, of honour, and of conscience.
But the disciple of the New School (no wonder it
found so many impugners even in its own bosom!) is
to be always the hero of duty; the law to which he has
bound himself never swerves nor relaxes; his feeling of
what is right is to be at all times wrought up to a pitch
of enthusiastic self-devotion; he must become the unshrinking martyr and confessor of the public good. If
it be said that this scheme is chimerical and impracticable on ordinary occasions, and to the generality of




28


The Spirit of the Age.


mankind, well and good; but those who accuse the
author of having trampled on the common feelings and
prejudices of mankind in wantonness or insult, or without wishing to substitute something better (and only
unattainable, because it is better) in their stead, accuse
him  wrongfully. We may not be able to launch the
bark of our affections on the ocean-tide of humanity, we
may be forced to paddle along its shores, or shelter in
its creeks and rivulets: but we have no right to reproach
the bold and adventurous pilot, who dared us to tempt
the uncertain abyss, with our own want of courage or of
skill, or with the jealousies and impatience, which deter
us from undertaking, or might prevent us from accomplishing the voyage!
The Enquiry concerning Political Justice (it was urged
by its favourers and defenders at the time, and may
still be so, without either profaneness or levity) is a
metaphysical and logical commentary on some of the
most beautiful and striking texts of Scripture.  Mr.
Godwin is a mixture of the Stoic and of the Christian
philosopher. To break the force of the vulgar objections and outcry that have been raised against the
Modern Philosophy, as if it were a new and monstrous
birth in morals, it may be worth noticing, that volumes
of sermons have been written to excuse the founder of
Christianity for not including friendship and private
affection among its golden rules, but rather excluding
them.1 Moreover, the answer to the question, "Who
is thy neighbour, added to the divine precept, "Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," is the same as in
the exploded pages of our author-" he to whom we
Shaftesbury made this an objection to Christianity, which was
answered by Foster, Leland, and other eminent divines, on the
ground that Christianity had a higher object in view, namely,
general philanthropy.




William Godwin.


29


can do most good." In determining this point, we were
not to be influenced by any extrinsic or collateral considerations, by our own predilections, or the expectations of others, by our obligations to them or any
services they might be able to render us, by the climate
they were born in, by the house they lived in, by rank
or religion, or party, or personal ties, but by the abstract
merits, the pure and unbiassed justice of the case.
The artificial helps and checks to moral conduct were
set aside as spurious and unnecessary, and we came at
once to the grand and simple question-" In what manner we could best contribute to the greatest possible
good? " This was the paramount obligation in all cases
whatever, from which we had no right to free ourselves
upon any idle or formal pretext, and of which each person was to judge for himself, under the infallible authority of his own opinion and the inviolable sanction of
his self-approbation. "There was the rub that made
philosophy of so short life!"  Mr. Godwin's definition
of morals was the same as the admired one of law,
reason without passion; but with the unlimited scope of
private opinion, and in a boundless field of speculation
(for nothing less would satisfy the pretensions of the
New School), there was danger that the unseasoned
novice might substitute some pragmatical conceit of his
own for the rule of right reason, and mistake a heartless indifference for a superiority to more natural and
generous feelings. Our ardent and dauntless reformer
followed out the moral of the parable of the Good Samaritan into its most rigid and repulsive consequences
with a pen of steel, and let fall his "trenchant blade "
on every vulnerable point of human infirmity; but
there is a want in his system of the mild and persuasive\
tone of the Gospel, where "all is conscience and tender heart."




30


The Spirit of the Age.


Man was indeed screwed up by mood and figure into
a logical machine, that was to forward the public good
with the utmost punctuality and effect, and it might go
very well on smooth ground and under favourable circumstances; but would it work up-hill or against the
grain? It was to be feared that the proud Temple of
Reason, which at a distance and in stately supposition
shone like the palaces of the New Jerusalem, might
(when placed on actual ground) be broken up into the
sordid styes of sensuality and the petty huckster's shops
of self-interest! Every man (it was proposed-" so
ran the tenour of the bond ") was to be a Regulus, a
Codrus, a Cato, or a Brutus-every woman a Mother of
the Gracchi.
" ----- It was well said,
And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well."
But heroes on paper might degenerate into vagabonds
in practice, Corinnas into courtezans.1 Thus a refined
and permanent individual attachment is intended to
supply the place and avoid the inconveniences of marriage; but vows of eternal constancy, without church
security, are found to be fragile.
A member of the ideal and perfect commonwealth of
letters lends another a hundred pounds for immediate
and pressing use; and when he applies for it again, the
borrower has still more need of it than he, and retains
it for his own especial, which is tantamount to the
public, good.
The Exchequer of pure reason, like that of the State,
never refunds. The political as well as the religious
fanatic appeals from the overweening opinion and claims
of others to the highest and most impartial tribunal,
namely, his own breast. Two persons agree to live
together in Chambers on principles of pure equality and
This was a home-thrust.-ED.




William Godwin.


31


mutual assistance-but when it comes to the push, one
of them finds that the other always insists on his fetching water from the pump in Hare-court, and cleaning
his shoes for him. A modest assurance was not the
least indispensable virtue in the new perfectibility code;
and it was hence discovered to be a scheme, like other
schemes where there are all prizes and no blanks, for
the accommodation of the enterprizing and cunning, at
the expense of the credulous and honest. This broke
up the system, and left no good odour behind it! Reason has become a sort of bye-word, and philosophy has
"fallen first into a fasting, then into a sadness, then into
a decline, and last, into the dissolution of which we all
complain!"  This is a worse error than the former:
we may be said to have "lost the immortal part of ourselves, and what remains is beastly!"
The point of view from which this matter may be
fairly considered is two-fold, and may be stated thus:In the first place, it by no means follows, because reason
is found not to be the only infallible or safe rule of conduct, that it is no rule at all; or that we are to discard
it altogether with derision and ignominy. On the contrary, if not the sole, it is the principal ground of
action; it is "the guide, the stay and anchor of our
purest thoughts, and soul of all our moral being." In
proportion as we strengthen and expand this principle,
and bring our affections and subordinate, but perhaps
more powerful motives of action into harmony with it,
it will not admit of a doubt that we advance to the goal
of perfection, and answer the ends of our creation, those
ends which not only morality enjoins, but which relgion
sanctions. If with the utmost stretch of reason, man
cannot (as some seemed inclined to suppose) soar up to
the God, and quit the ground of human frailty, yet,
stripped wholly of it, he sinks at once into the brute.




32


The Spirit of the Age.


If it cannot stand alone in its naked simplicity, but
requires other props to buttress it up, or ornaments to
set it off; yet without it the moral structure would fall
flit and dishonoured to the ground.
Private reason -is that which raises the individual
above his mere animal instincts, appetites, and passions:
public reason in its gradual progress separates the
savage from the civilized state. Without the one, men
would resemble wild beasts in their dens; without the
other, they would be speedily converted into hordes of
barbarians or banditti.  Sir Walter Scott, in his zeal to
restore the spirit of loyalty, of passive obedience and
non-resistance as an acknowledgment for his having
been created a Baronet by a Prince of the House of
Brunswick, may think it a fine thing to return in imagination to the good old times, "when in Auvergne
alone there were three hundred nobles whose most ordinary actions were robbery, rape, and murder," when
the castle of each Norman baron was a stronghold from
which the lordly proprietor issued to oppress and plunder the neighbouring districts, and when the Saxon
peasantry were treated by their gay and gallant tyrants
as a herd of loathsome swine-but, for our own parts, we
beg to be excused; we had rather live in the same age
with the author of Waverley and Blackwood's Magazine.
Reason is the meter and alnager in civil intercourse,
by which each person's upstart and contradictory pretensions are weighed and approved or found wanting,
and without which it could not subsist, any more than
traffic or the exchange of commodities could be carried
on without weights and measures. It is the medium of
knowledge and the polisher of manners, by creating
common interests and ideas. Or, in the words of a contemporary writer, " Reason is the queen of the moral
world, the soul of the universe, the lamp of human life,




William Godwin.


33


the pillar of society, the foundation of law, the beacon
of nations, the golden chain let down from heaven,
which links all accountable and all intelligent natures
in one common system-and, in the vain strife between
fanatic innovation and fanatic prejudice, we are exhorted
to dethrone this queen of the world, to blot out this
light of the mind, to deface this fair column, to break
in pieces this golden chain!
"We are to discard and throw from us with loud taunts
and bitter execrations that reason, which has been the
lofty theme of the philosopher, the poet, the moralist,
and the divine, whose name was not first named to be;abused by the enthusiasts of the French Revolution, or
to be blasphemed by the madder enthusiasts, the advocates of Divine Right, but which is coeval with, and
inseparable from the nature and faculties of man-is
the image of his Maker stamped upon him at his birth,
the understanding breathed into him with the breath of
life, and in the participation and improvement of which
alone he is raised above the brute creation and his own
physical nature! "-The overstrained and ridiculous
pretensions of monks and ascetics were never thought
to justify a return to unbridled licence of manners
or the throwing aside of all decency. The hypocrisy,
cruelty and fanaticism, often attendant on peculiar professions of sanctity, have not banished the name of
religion from the world. Neither can " the unreasonableness of the reason " of some modern sciolists so
"unreason our reason," as to debar us of the benefit of
this principle in future, or to disfranchise us of the
highest privilege of our nature.
In the second place, if it is admitted that Reason
alone is not the sole and self-sufficient ground of morals,
it is to Mr. Godwin that we are indebted for having
settled the point. No one denied or distrusted this
D




-34


The Spirit of the Age.


principle (before his time) as the absolute judge and
interpreter in all questions of difficulty; and if this is
no longer the case, it is because he has taken this principle, and followed it into its remotest consequences
with more keenness of eye and steadiness of hand than
any other expounder of ethics. His grand work is (at
least) an experimentumn crucis to show the weak sides and
imperfections of human reason as the sole law of human
action. By overshooting the mark, or by "flying an
eagle flight, forth and right on," he has pointed out the
limit or line of separation, between what is practicable
and what is barely conceivable; by imposing impossible
tasks on the naked strength of the will, he has discovered how far it is or is not in our power to dispense
with the illusions of sense, to resist the calls of affection,
to emancipate ourselves from the force of habit, and
thus, though he has not said it himself, has enabled
others to say to the towering aspirations after good and
to the over-bearing pride of human intellect: " Thus
far shalt thou come, and no farther! "
Captain Parry would be thought to have rendered a
service to navigation and his country, no less by proving
that there is no North-West Passage, than if he had
ascertained that there is one: so Mr. Godwin has rendered an essential service to moral science, by attempting (in vain) to pass the Arctic Circle and Frozen
Regions, where the understanding is no longer warmed
by the affections, nor fanned by the breeze of fancy!
This is the effect of all bold, original, and powerful
thinking, that it either discovers the truth or detects
where error lies; and the only crime with which Mr.
Godwin can be charged as a political and moral reasoner
is, that he has displayed a more ardent spirit and a
more independent activity of thought than others, in
establishing the fallacy (if fallacy it be) of an old popular




William Godwin.


35


prejudice that the Just and True were one, by "championing it to the Outrance," and in the final result
placing the Gothic structure of human virtue on an
humbler, but a wider and safer, foundation than it had
hitherto occupied in the volumes and systems of the
learned.
Mr. Godwin is an inventor in the regions of romance,
as well as a skilful and hardy explorer of those of moral
truth.  Caleb Williams and St. Leonl    are two of the
most splendid and impressive works of the imagination'
that have appeared in our times. It is not merely that,
these novels are very well for a philosopher to have produced-they are admirable and complete in themselves,
and would not lead you to suppose that the author, who
is so entirely at home in human character and dramatic
'situation, had ever dabbled in logic or metaphysics.
The first of these, particularly, is a masterpiece, both as  i
to invention and execution. The romantic and chivalrous principle of the love of personal fame is embodied in the finest possible manner in the character of
Falkland;2 as in Caleb Williams (who is not the first, 2
but the second character in the piece) we see the very/
demon of curiosity personified. Perhaps the art, with
which these two characters are contrived to relieve andl
set off each other, has never been surpassed in any work \
of fiction, with the exception of the immortal satire of
Cervantes.   The restless and inquisitive spirit of Caleb
1 St. Leon originally appeared in 1799, and in the following year
a sort of skit upon it was printed under the title of St. Godwin.-ED.
2 Mr, Fuseli used to object to this striking delineation a want of
historical correctness, inasmuch as the animating principle of the
true chivalrous character was the sense of honour, not the mere
regard to, or saving of, appearances. This, we think, must be an
hypercriticism, from all we remember of books of chivalry and heroes
of romance.




36


The Spirit of the Age.


Williams, in search and in possession of his patron's
fatal secret, haunts the latter like a second conscience,
plants stings in his tortured mind, fans the flame of his
jealous ambition, struggling with agonized remorse;
and the hapless but noble-minded Falkland at length
falls a martyr to the persecution of that morbid and
overpowering interest, of which his mingled virtues and
vices have rendered him the object.
We conceive no one ever began Caleb Williams that
did not read it through: no one that ever read it could
possibly forget it, or speak of it after any length of time
but with an impression as if the events and feelings had
been personal to himself. This is the case also with the
story of St. Leon which, with less dramatic interest and
intensity of purpose, is set off by a more gorgeous and
flowing eloquence and by a crown of preternatural
imagery, that waves over it like a palm-tree! It is the
beauty and the charm of Mr. Godwin's descriptions that
the reader identifies himself with the author; and the
secret of this is, that the author has identified himself
K with his personages.   Indeed, he has created them.
\They are the proper issue of his brain, lawfully begot,
pot foundlings, nor the "bastards of his art."  He is
jnot an indifferent, callous spectator of the scenes which
1hc himself pourtrays, but without seeming to feel them.
There is no look of patch-work and plagiarism, the
beggarly copiousness of borrowed wealth; no tracerywork from worm-eaten manuscripts, from forgotten
chronicles, nor piecing out of vague traditions with
fragments and snatches of old ballads, so that the result
resembles a gaudy, staring transparency, in which you
cannot distinguish the daubing of the painter from the
light that shines through the flimsy colours, and gives
them brilliancy.
Here all is clearly made out with strokes of the




William Godwtk.                37
pencil, by fair, not by factitious means. Our author
takes a given subject from nature 'or froha books, and
then fills it up with the ardent workings of, his own
mind, with the teeming and audible pulses of hjis own
heart. The effect is entire and satisfactory in proportion. The work (so to speak) and the author are one.
We are not puzzled to decide upon their respective pretensions. In reading Mr. Godwin's novels, we know
what share of merit the author has in them. In reading
the Scotch Novels, we are perpetually embarrassed in
asking ourselves this question; and perhaps it is not
altogether a false modesty that prevents the editor from
putting his name in the title-page-he is (for anything
we know to the contrary) only a more voluminous sort
of Allen-a-Dale.
At least, we may claim this advantage for the English
author, that the chains withw*hich he rivets our attention are forged out of his own thoughts, link by link,
blow for blow, with glowing enthusiasm: we see the
genuine ore melted in the furnace of fervid feeling, and
moulded into stately and ideal forms; and this is so far
better than peeping into an old iron shop, or pilfering
from a dealer in marine stores! There is one drawback, however, attending this mode of proceeding,
which attaches generally, indeed, to all originality of
composition; namely, that it has a tendency to a certain
degree of monotony. He who draws upon his own
resources, easily comes to an end of his wealth. Mr.
Godwin, in all his writings, dwells upon one idea or
exclusive view of a subject, aggrandises a sentiment,
exaggerates a character, or pushes an argument to
extremes, and makes up by the force of style and continuity of feeling for what he wants in variety of incident
or ease of manner. This necessary defect is observable
in his best works, and is still more so in Fleetwood and
*... v  %/




38              The, pirit of the Age.
Mandeville; thle one of which, compared with his more
admired performances, is mawkish, and the other morbid. Mr,Adodwin is. also an essayist, an historian-in
short, what is he not, that belongs to the character of
an indefatigable and accomplished author? His Life of
GCaucer would have given celebrity to any man of letters
possessed of three thousand a year, with leisure to write
quartos: as the legal acuteness displayed in his Remarks
on Judge Eyre's Charge to the Jury would have raised
any briefless barrister to the height of his profession.
This temporary effusion did more-it gave a turn to
the trials for high treason in the year 1794, and possibly
saved the lives of twelve innocent individuals, marked
out as political victims to the Moloch of Legitimacy,
which then skulked behind a British throne, and had
not yet dared to stalk forth (as it has done since) from
its lurking-place, in the face of day, to brave the opinion
of the world. If it had then glutted its maw with its
intended prey (the sharpness of Mr. Godwin's pen cut
the legal cords with which it was attempted to bind
them), it might have done so sooner, and with more
lasting effect. The world do not know (and we are not
sure but the intelligence may startle Mr. Godwin himself), that he is the author of a volume of Sermons and
of a Life of Chatham.2
Mr. Fawcett,' (an old friend and fellow-student of
Sketches of History il Six Sermons, 1784, seems to have been his
earliest publication. But his writings were very voluminous. He is
now, of course, chiefly recollected as one of the pioneers of political
reform.-ED.
2 We had forgotten the tragedies of Antonio and Faulkner. Peace
be with their manes! [To the former, Lamb contributed an epilogue
on its performance; but it was a failure. It was published in 1800,
and the other play in 1808.-ED.'
3 The Rev. Joseph Fawcett, whom I have commemorated in the
Memoirs of Hazlitt, 1867.-ED.




William Godwin.


39


our author, and who always spoke of his writings with
admiration tinctured with wonder) used to mention a
circumstance with respect to the last-mentioned work,
which may throw some light on the history and progress
of Mr. Godwin's mind. He was anxious to make his
biographical account as complete as he could, and
applied for this purpose to many of his acquaintance to
furnish him with anecdotes or to suggest criticisms.
Amongst others, Mr. Fawcett repeated to him what he
thought a striking passage in a speech on General Warrants delivered by Lord Chatham, at which he (Mr.
Fawcett) had been present.   "Every man's house"
(said this emphatic thinker and speaker) "has been
called his castle. And why is it called his castle? Is
it because it is defended by a wall, because it is surrounded with a moat?   No, it may be nothing more
than a straw-built shed. It may be open to all the
elements: the wind may enter in, the rain may enter
in-but the king cannot enter in!" His friend thought
that the point was here palpable enough; but when he
came to read the printed volume, he found it thus transposed: " Every man's house is his castle. And why is
it called so? Is it because it is defended by a wall,
because it is surrounded with a moat?  No, it may be
nothing more than a straw-built shed. It may be exposed to all the elements: the rain may enter into it, all
the winds of Heaven may whistle round it, but the king
cannot," &c.
This was what Fawcett called a defect of natural
imaginatiQn. He at the same time admitted that Mr.
Godwin had improved his native sterility in this respect,
or atoned for it by incessant activity of mind and by
accumulated stores of thought and powers of language.
In fact, his forte is not the spontaneous, but the voluntary, exercise of talent. He fixes his ambition on a high




40


The Spirit of the Age.


point of excellence, and spares no pains or time in
attaining it. He has less of the appearance of a man of
genius, than anyone who has given such decided and
ample proofs of it.   He is ready only on reflection,
dangerous only at the rebound. He gathers himself up,
and strains every nerve and faculty with deliberate aim
to some heroic and dazzling achievement of intellect:
but he must make a career, before he flings himself
armed upon the enemy, or he is sure to be unhorsed.
Or he resembles an eight-day clock that must be wound
up long before it can strike. Therefore, his powers of
conversation are but limited. He has neither acuteness
of remark nor a flow of language, both which might be
expected from his writings, as these are no less distinguished by a sustained and impassioned tone of declamation than by novelty of opinion or brilliant tracks of
invention. In company, Horne Tooke used to make a
mere child of him-or of any man!
Mr. Godwin liked this treatment,l and indeed it is
his foible to fawn on those who use him cavalierly, and
to be cavalier to those who express an undue or unqualified admiration of him.  He looks up with unfeigned
respect to acknowledged reputation (but then it must
be very well ascertained before he admits it)-and has a
favourite hypothesis that Understanding and Virtue are
the same thing. Mr. Godwin possesses a high degree
of philosophical candour, and studiously paid the homage
of his pen and person to Mr. Malthus, Sir James Mack1 To be sure, it was redeemed by a high respect and by some magnificent compliments. Once in particular, at his own able, after a
good deal of badinage and cross-questioning about his being the
author of the Reply to Judge Eyre's Charge, on Mr. Godwin's
acknowledging that he was, Mr. Tooke said, " Come here, then,"and when his guest went round to his chair, he took his hand, and
pressed it to his lips, saying-" I can do no less for the hand that
saved my life!"




William Godwin.


41


intosh, and Dr. Parr, for their unsparing attacks on
him; but woe to any poor devil who had the hardihood
to defend him against them! In private, the author of
Political Justice at one time reminded those who knew
him of the Metaphysician engrafted on the Dissenting
Minister. There was a dictatorial, captious, quibbling
pettiness of manner.
He lost this awkwardness with the first blush of
popularity,l which surprised him in the retirement of
his study; and he has since, with the wear and tear
of society, from being too pragmatical, become somewhat too careless. He is, at present, as easy as an old
glove. Perhaps there is a little attention to effect in
this, and he wishes to appear a foil to himself. His
best moments are with an intimate acquaintance or two,
when he gossips in a fine vein about old authors, Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, or Burnett's History of
his own Time; and you perceive by your host's talk, as
by the taste of seasoned wine, that he has a cellarage in
his understanding! Mr. Godwin also has a correct
acquired taste in poetry and the drama. He relishes
Donne and Ben Jonson, and recites a passage from
either with an agreeable mixture of pedantry and bonhommie. He is not one of those who do not grow wiser
with opportunity and reflection: he changes his opinions,
and changes them for the better. The alteration of
his taste in poetry, from an exclusive admiration of
the age of Queen Anne to an almost equally exclusive
one of that of Elizabeth, is, we suspect, owing to Mr.
a Coleridge who, some twenty years ago, threw a great
stone into the standing pool of criticism, which splashed
some persons with mud, but which gave a motion to the
] In the edition of 1825, the text reads, " He lost this [manner]
with the first blush and awkwardness of popularity."-ED.
' I




42


The Spirit of the Age.


surface and a reverberation to the neighbouring echoes,
which has not since subsided.
In common company, Mr. Godwin either goes to
sleep himself, or sets others to sleep. He is at present
engaged in a History of the Commonwealth of England. Esto perpetua! In size Mr Godwin is below the
common stature, nor is his deportment graceful or
animated. His face is, however, fine, with an expression
of placid temper and recondite thought. He is not
unlike the common portraits of Locke. There is a very
admirable likeness of him by Mr. Northcote which, with
a more heroic and dignified air, only does justice to the
profound sagacity and benevolent aspirations of our
author's mind. Mr. Godwin has kept the best company
of his time; but he has survived most of the celebrated
persons with whom he lived in habits of intimacy. He
speaks of them with enthusiasm and with discrimination, and sometimes dwells with peculiar delight on a
day passed at John Kemble's in company with Mr.
Sheridan, Mr. Curran, Mrs. Wolstonecraft and Mrs.
Inchbald, when the conversation took a most animated
turn, and the subject was of Love. Of all these our
author is the only one remaining. Frail tenure, on
which human life and genius are lent us for a while to
improve or to enjoy!




MR. COLERIDGE.




4
I
4




MR. COLERIDGE.


HE present is an age of talkers, and not of doers;
and the reason is, that the world is growing old.
We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that
we live in retrospect, and doat on past achievements.
The accumulation of knowledge has been so great, that
we are lost in wonder at the height it has reached,
instead of attempting to climb or add to it; while the
variety of objects distracts and dazzles the looker-on.'
What niche remains unoccupied? What path untried?
What is the use of doing anything, unless we could do
better than all those who have gone before us? What
hope is there of this? We are like those who have
been to see some noble monument of art, who are content to admire without thinking of rivalling it; or like
guests after a feast, who praise the hospitality of the
donor "and thank the bounteous Pan "-perhaps carrying away some trifling fragments; or like the spectators of a mighty battle, who still hear its sound afar
off, and the clashing of armour and the neighing of the
war-horse and the shout of victory is in their ears, like
the rushing of innumerable waters!
Mr. Coleridge has " a mind reflecting ages past:" his
voice is like the echo of the congregated roar of the
1 This sounds strangely in the ear, when one considers how much
science has progressed in the sixty years since the Spirit of the Age
was written. -ED.




46


The Spirit of the Age.


"dark rearward and abyss" of thought. He who has
seen a mouldering tower by the side of a crystal lake,
hid by the mist, but glittering in the wave below, may
conceive the dim, gleaming, uncertain intelligence of his
eye: he who has marked the evening clouds uprolled (a
world of vapours) has seen the picture of his mind,
unearthly, unsubstantial, with gorgeous tints and evervarying forms"That which was now a horse, even with a thought
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct
As water is in water.".
Our author's mind is (as he himself might express it)
tangential. There is no subject on which he has not
touched, none on which he has rested. With an understanding fertile, subtle, expansive, "quick, forgetive,
apprehensive," beyond all living precedent, few traces
of it will perhaps remain. He lends himself to all
impressions alike; he gives up his mind and liberty of
thought to none. He is a general lover of art and
science, and wedded to no one in particular.- He pursues knowledge as a mistress, with outstretched hands
and winged speed; but as he is about to embrace her,
his Daphne turns-alas! not to a laurel! Hardly a
speculation has been left on record from the earliest
time, but it is loosely folded up in Mr. Coleridge's
memory, like a rich, but somewhat tattered piece of
tapestry: we might add (with more seeming than real
extravagance) that scarce a thought can pass through
the mind of man, but its sound has at some time or
other passed over his head with rustling pinions.
On whatever question or author you speak, he is prepared to take up the theme with advantage-from Peter
Abelard down to Thomas Moore, from the subtlest
metaphysics to the politics of the Courier. There is no




1Mr. Coleridge.


47


man of genius, in whose praise he descants, but the
critic seems to stand above the author, and. "what in
him is weak, to strengthen, what is low, to raise and
support:" nor is there any work of genius that does not
come out of his hands like an illuminated Missa], sparkling even in its defects. If Mr. Coleridge had not been
the most impressive talker of his age, he would probably
have been the finest writer; but he lays down his pen
to make sure of an auditor, and mortgages the admiration of posterity for the stare of an idler. If he had not
been a poet, he would have been a powerful logician; if
he had not dipped his wing in the Unitarian controversy, he might have soared to the very summit of
fanrcy. But, in writing verse, he is trying to subject the
Muse to transcendental theories: in his abstract reasoning, he misses his way by strewing it with flowers.
All that he has done of moment, he had done twenty
years ago: since then, he. may be said to have lived on
the sound of his own voice. Mr. Coleridge is too rich
in intellectual wealth, to need to task himself to'any
drudgery: he has only to draw the sliders of his imagination, and a thousand subjects expand before him, startling him with their brilliancy, or losing themselves in
endless obscurity"And by the force of blear illusion,
They draw him on to his confusion."
What is the little he could add to the stock, compared
with the countless stores that lie about him, that he
should stoop to pick up a name, or to polish an idle
fancy? He walks abroad in the majesty of an universal
understanding, eyeing the "rich strond" or golden
sky above him, and "goes sounding on his way," in
eloquent accents, uncompelled and free!
Persons of the greatest capacity are often those, who
*  *




48


The Spirit of the Age.


for this reason -do the least; for surveying themselves
from the highest point of view, amidst the infinite
variety of the universe, their own share in it seems
trifling, and scarce worth a thought; and they prefer
the contemplation of all that is, or has been, or can be,
to the making a coil about doing what, when done, is
no better than vanity. It is hard to concentrate all our
attention and efforts on one pursuit, except from ignorance of others; and without this concentration of our
faculties no great progress can be made in any one
thing. It is not merely that the mind is not capable of
the effort; it does not think the effort worth making.
Action is one; but thought is manifold. He whose
restless eye glances through the wide compass of nature
and art, will not consent to have "his own nothings
monstered:" but he must do this before he can give his
whole soul to them. The mind, after "letting contemplation have its fill," or
"Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air,"
sinks down on the ground, breathless, exhausted, powerless, inactive; or if it must have some vent to its
feelings, seeks the most easy and obvious; is soothed
by friendly flattery, lulled by the murmur of immediate
applause: thinks, as it were, aloud, and babbles in its
dreams!
A scholar (so to speak) is a more disinterested and
abstracted character than a mere author. The first looks
at the numberless volumes of a library, and says, "All
these are mine:" the other points to a single volume
(perhaps it may be an immortal one) and says, " My
name is written on the back of it." This is a puny and
groveling ambition, beneath the lofty amplitude of Mr.
Coleridge's mind. No, he revolves in his wayward soul,




Mr. Coleridge.


49


or utters to the passing wind, or discourses to his own
shadow, things mightier and more various!-Let us
draw the curtain, and unlock the shrine.
Learning rocked him in his cradle, and while yet
a child,
"He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."
At sixteen he wrote his Ode on Chatterton, and he still
reverts to that period with delight, not so much as it
relates to himself (for that string of his own early promise of fame rather jars than otherwise) but as exemplifying the youth of a poet. Mr. Coleridge talks of
himself without being an. egotist; for in him the individual is always merged in the abstract and general.
He distinguished himself at school and at the University
by his knowledge of the classics, and gained several
prizes for Greek epigrams. How many men are there
(great scholars, celebrated names in literature) who,
having done the same thing in their youth, have no other
idea all the rest of their lives but of this achievement,
of a fellowship and dinner, and who, installed in.academic honours, would look down on our author as a
mere strolling bard! At Christ's Hospital, where he
was brought up, he was the idol of those among his
schoolfellows, who mingled with their bookish studies
the music of thought and of humanity; and he was
usually attended round the cloisters by a group of these
(inspiring and inspired) whose hearts even then burnt
within them as he talked, and where the sounds yet
linger to mock ELIA on his way, still turning pensive to
the past! 1
One of the finest and rarest parts of Mr. Coleridge's
conversation is, when he expatiates on the Greek trage1 Referring probably to the paper " On Christ's Hospital thirtyfive years ago," in Lamb's Elia, 1823.-ED.
E




50             The Spirit of the Age.
dians (not that he is not well acquainted, when he pleases,
with the epic poets, or the philosophers, or orators, or
historians of antiquity)-on the subtle reasonings and
melting pathos of Euripides, on the harmonious gracefulness of Sophocles, tuning his love-laboured song, like
sweetest warblings from a sacred grove; on the highwrought, trumpet-tongued eloquence of Aschylus, whose
Prometheus, above all, is like an Ode to Fate and a
pleading with Providence, his thoughts being let loose
as his body is chained on his solitary rock, and his
afflicted will (the emblem of mortality)
" Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny."
As the impassioned critic speaks and rises in his theme,
you would think you heard the voice of the Man hated
by the Gods, contending with the wild winds as they
roar; and his eye glitters with the spirit of Antiquity!
Next, he was engaged with Hartley's tribes of mind,
" etherial braid, thought-woven,"-and he busied himself
for a year or two with vibrations and vibratiuncles, and
the great law of association that binds all things in its
mystic chain, and the doctrine of Necessity (the mild
teacher of Charity) and the Millennium, anticipative of
a life to come; and he plunged deep into the controversy on Matter and Spirit, and, as an escape from
Dr. Priestley's Materialism, where he felt himself imprisoned by the logician's spell, like Ariel in the cloven
pine-tree, he became suddenly enamoured of Bishop
Berkeley's fairy-world,l and used in all companies to
1 Mr. Coleridge named his eldest son (the writer of some beautiful
Sonnets) after Hartley, and the second after Berkeley. The third
was called Derwent, after the river of that name. Nothing can be
more characteristic of his mind than this circumstance. All his
ideas indeed are like a river, flowing on for ever, and still murmuring
as it flows, discharging its waters and still replenished"And so by many winding nooks it strays,
With willing sport to the wild ocean!"




Mr. Coleridge.


51


build the universe, like a brave poetical fiction, of fine
words. And he was deep-read in Malebranche, and in
Cudworth's Intellectual System (a huge pile of learning,
unwieldy, enormous) and in Lord Brook's hieroglyphic
theories, and in Bishop Butler's Sermons, and in the
Duchess of Newcastle's fantastic folios, and in Clarke
and South, and Tillotson, and all the fne thinkers and
masculine reasoners of that age; and Leibnitz's Preestablished Harmony reared its arch above his head, like
the rainbow in the cloud, covenanting with the hopes
of man.
And then he fell plumb, ten thousand fathoms down
(but his wings saved him harmless) into the hortus siccus
of Dissent, where he pared religion down to the standard
of reason, and stripped faith of mystery, and preached
Christ crucified and the Unity of the Godhead, and so
dwelt for a while in the spirit with John Huss and
Jerome of Prague and Socinus and old John Zisca, and
ran through Neal's History of the Puritans and Calamy's
Non-Conformists' Memorial, having like thoughts and
passions with them. But then Spinoza became his God,
and he took up the vast chain of being in his hand, and
the round world became the centre and the soul of all
things in some shadowy sense, forlorn of meaning, and
around him he beheld the living traces and the skypointing proportions of the mighty Pan; but poetry redeemed him from this spectral philosophy, and he bathed
his heart in beauty, and gazed at the golden light of
heaven, and drank of the spirit of the universe, and
wandered at eve by fairy-stream or fountain,
*" --  When he saw nought but beauty,
When he heard the voice of that Almighty One
In every breeze that blew, or wave that murmured "

and wedded with truth in Plato's shade, and in the




52


7The Spirit of the Age.


writings of Proclus and Plotinus saw the ideas of things
in the eternal mind, and unfolded all mysteries with the
Schoolmen and fathomed the depths of Duns Scotus
and Thomas Aquinas, and entered the third heaven with
Jacob Behmen, and walked hand in hand with Swedenborg through the pavilions of the New Jerusalem, and
sang his faith in the promise and in the word in his
Religious Musings.
And lowering himself from that dizzy height, [he]
poised himself on Milton's wings, and spread out his
thoughts in charity with the glad prose of Jeremy
Taylor, and wept over Bowles's Sonnets, and studied
Cowper's blank verse, and betook himself to Thomson's
Castle of Indolence, and sported with the wits of Charles
the Second's days and of Queen Anne, and relished
Swift's style and that of the John Bull (Arbuthnot's
we mean, not Mr. Croker's), and dallied with the British
Essayists and Novelists, and knew all qualities of more
modern writers with a learned spirit: Johnson, and
Goldsmith, and Junius, and Burke, and Godwin, and
the Sorrows of Werter, and Jean Jacques Rousseau,
and Voltaire, and Marivaux, and Crebillon, and thousands more: now "laughed with Rabelais in his easy
chair" or pointed to Hogarth, or afterwards dwelt on
Claude'e classic scenes, or spoke with rapture of Raphael,
and compared the women at Rome to figures that had
walked out of his pictures, or visited the Oratory of
Pisa, and described the works of Giotto and Ghirlandaio and Massaccio, and gave the moral of the picture
of the Triumph of Death, where the beggars and the
wretched invoke his dreadful dart, but the rich and
mighty of the earth quail and shrink before it; and in
that land of siren sights and sounds, saw a dance of
peasant girls, and was charmed with lutes and gondolas,-or wandered into Germany and lost himself in




Mr. Coleridge.


53


the labyrinths of the Hartz Forest and of the Kantean
philosophy, and amongst the cabalistic names of Fichte
and Schelling and Lessing, and God knows who. This
was long after; but all the former while he had nerved
his heart and filled his eyes with tears, as he hailed the
rising orb of liberty, since quenched in darkness and in
blood, and had kindled his affections at the blaze of the
French Revolution, and sang for joy, when the towers
of the Bastille and the proud places of the insolent and
the oppressor fell, and would have floated his bark,
freighted with fondest fancies, across the Atlantic wave
with Southey and others to seek for peace and freedom" In Philarmonia's undivided dale!" 2
Alas! "Frailty, thy name is Genius! "-What is
become of all this mighty heap of hope, of thought, of
learning and humanity? It has ended in swallowing
doses of oblivion and in writing paragraphs in the
Courier.  Such and so little is the mind of man!
It was not to be supposed that Mr. Coleridge could
keep on at the rate he set off. He could not realize all
he knew or thought, and less could not fix his desultory
ambition. Other stimulants supplied the place, and
kept up the intoxicating dream, the fever and the madness of his early impressions. Liberty (the philosopher's
and the poet's bride) had fallen a victim, meanwhile, to
the murderous practices of the hag Legitimacy. Proscribed by court-hirelings, too romantic for the herd of
vulgar politicians, our enthusiast stood at bay, and at
last turned on the pivot of a subtle casuistry to the
unclean side: but his discursive reason would not let
him trammel himself into a poet-laureate or stampSee the paper " Coleridge Abroad " in Offspring of Thought in
Solitude, by W. C. Hazlitt.-ED.
2 See W. C. Hazlitt's Mary and Charles Lamb, 1874, p. 151.-ED.




54


The Spirit of the Age.


distributor;1 and he stopped, ere he had quite passed
that well-known " bourne from whence no traveller
returns "-and so has sunk into torpid, uneasy repose,
tantalized by useless resources, haunted by vain imaginings, his lips idly moving, but his heart for ever
still, or, as the shattered chords vibrate of themselves,
making melancholy music to the ear of memory! Such
is the fate of genius in an age when, in the unequal
contest with sovereign wrong, every man is ground to
powder who is not either a born slave, or who does not
willingly and at once offer up the yearnings of humanity
and the dictates of reason as a welcome sacrifice to
besotted prejudice and loathsome power.
Of all Mr. Coleridge's productions, the Ancient Mariner
is the only one that we could with confidence put into
aniy person's hands, on whom we wished to impress a
favourable idea of his extraordinary powers. Let whatever other objections be made to it, it is unquestionably
a work of genius-of wild, irregular, overwhelming
imagination, and has that rich, varied movement in the
verse, which gives a distant idea of the lofty or changeful
tones of Mr. Coleridge's voice. In the Christobel, there
is one splendid passage on divided friendship. The
Translation of Schiller's Wcllenstein is also a masterly
production in its kind, faithful and spirited. Among
his smaller pieces there are occasional bursts of pathos
and fancy, equal to what we might expect from him;
but these form the exception, and not the rule. Such,
for instance, is his affecting Sonnet to the author of
the Robbers.
"Schiller! that hour I would have wish'd to die,
If through the shudd'ring midnight I had sent
From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent,
That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry1 In allusion to Southey and Wordsworth.-E).




Mr. Coleridge.


55


That in no after-moment aught less vast
Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout
Black horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout
From the more with'ring scene diminish'd passed.
"Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity!
Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood,
Wand'ring at eve, with finely frenzied eye,
Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood!
Awhile, with mute awe gazing, I would brood,
Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy."
His Tragedy, entitled Remorse, is full of beautiful and
striking passages; but it does not place the author in the
first rank of dramatic writers. But if Mr. Coleridge's
works do not place him in that rank, they injure instead
of conveying a just idea of the man; for he himself is
certainly in the first class of general intellect.
If our author's poetry is inferior to his conversation,
his prose is utterly abortive. Hardly a gleam is to be
found in it of the brilliancy and richness of those stores
of thought and language that he pours out incessantly,
when they are lost like drops of water in the ground.
The principal work, in which he has attempted to embody his general views of things, is the FRIEND, of which,
though it contains some noble passages and fine trains
of thought, prolixity and obscurity are the most frequent characteristics.
No two persons can be conceived more opposite in
character or genius than the subject of the present and
of the preceding sketch. Mr. Godwin, with less natural
capacity and with fewer acquired advantages, by concentrating his mind on some given object, and doing
what he had to do with all his might, has accomplished
much, and will leave more than one monument of a
powerful intellect behind him; Mr. Coleridge, by dissipating his, and dallying with every subject by turns,




56            The Spirit of the Age.
has done little or nothing to justify to the world or to
posterity the high opinion which all who have ever heard
him converse, or known him intimately, with one accord
entertain of him. Mr. Godwin's faculties have kept at
home, and plied their task in the workshop of the brain,
diligently and effectually: Mr. Coleridge's have gossiped away their time, and gadded about from house to
house, as if life's business were to melt the hours in
listless talk. Mr. Godwin is intent on a subject, only as
it concerns himself and his reputation; he works it out
as a matter of duty, and discards from his mind whatever does not forward his main object as impertinent
and vain.
Mr. Coleridge, on the other hand, delights in nothing
but episodes and digressions, neglects whatever he undertakes to perform, and can act only on spontaneous impulses without object or method. " He cannot be constrained by mastery." While he should be occupied
with a given pursuit, he is thinking of a thousand other
things: a thousand tastes, a thousand objects tempt
him, and distract his mind, which keeps open house,
and entertains all comers; and after being fatigued and
amused with morning calls from idle visitors, [he] finds
the dayconsumed and its business unconcluded. Mr.
Godwin, on the contrary, is somewhat exclusive and
unsocial in his habits of mind, entertains no company
but what he gives his whole time and attention to, and
wisely writes over the doors of his understanding, his
fancy, and his senses-" No admittance except on business."  He has none of that fastidious refinement and
false delicacy, which might lead him to balance between
the endless variety of modern attainments. He does
not throw away his life (nor a single half hour of it) in
adjusting the claims of different accomplishments, and
in choosing between them or making himself master of




Mr. Coleridge.


57


them all. He sets about his task (whatever it may be),
and goes through it with spirit and fortitude. He has
the happiness to think an author the greatest character
in the world, and himself the greatest author in it.
Mr. Coleridge, in writing an harmonious stanza,
would stop to consider whether there was not more
grace and beauty in a Pas de trois, and would not proceed till he had resolved this question by a chain of
metaphysical reasoning without end. Not so Mr. Godwin. That is best to him, which he can do best. He
does not waste himself in vain aspirations and effeminate
sympathies. He is blind, deaf, insensible to all but the
trump of Fame. Plays, operas, painting, music, ballrooms, wealth, fashion, titles, lords, ladies, touch him
not. All these are no more to him than to the magician
in his cell, and he writes on to the end of the chapter
through good report and evil report.  Pingo in eternitatem is his motto.  He neither envies nor admires
what others are, but is contented to be what he is,
and strives to do the utmost he can. Mr. Coleridge
has flirted with the Muses as with a set of mistresses:
Mlr. Godwin has been married twice, to Reason and to
Fancy, and has to boast no short-lived progeny by each.
So to speak, he has valves belonging to his mind, to
regulate the quantity of gas admitted into it, so that
like the bare, unsightly, but well-compacted steamvessel, it cuts its liquid way, and arrives at its promised
end: while Mr. Coleridge's bark, "taught with the little
nautilus to sail," the sport of every breath, dancing to
every wave,
"Youth at its prow, and Pleasure at its helm,"
flutters its gaudy pennons in the air, glitters in the sun,
but we wait in vain to hear of its arrival in the destined
harbour. Mr. Godwin, with less variety and vividness,




58


The Spirit of the Age.


with less subtlety and susceptibility both of thought
and feeling, has had firmer nerves, a more determined
purpose, a more comprehensive grasp of his subject;
and the results are as we find them. Each has met
with his reward: for justice has, after all, been done to
the pretensions of each; and we must, in all cases, use
means to ends!1
It was a misfortune to any man of talent to be born
in the latter end of the last century. Genius stopped
the way of Legitimacy, and therefore it was to be
abated, crushed, or set aside as a nuisance. The spirit
of the monarchy was at variance with the spirit of the
age. The flame of liberty, the light of intellect, was to
be extinguished with the sword-or with slander, whose
edge is sharper than the sword.  The war between
power and reason was carried on by the first of these
abroad, by the last at home.  No quarter was given
(then or now) by the Government-critics, the authorized
censors of the press, to those who followed the dictates
of independence, who listened to the voice of the tempter
Fancy. Instead of gathering fruits and flowers, immortal fruits and amaranthine flowers, they soon found
themselves beset not only by a host of prejudices, but
assailed with all the engines of power: by nicknames,
by lies, by all the arts of malice, interest and hypocrisy,
without the possibility of their defending themselves
"from the pelting of the pitiless storm," that poured
down upon them from the strongholds of corruption
and authority.
The philosophers, the dry abstract reasoners, submitted to this reverse pretty well, and armed themselves
with patience "as with triple steel," to bear discomfiture, persecution, and disgrace. But the poets, the


I Here, in the first edition, the paper on Coleridge concluded.-ED.




Mr. Coleridge.                 59
creatures of sympathy, could not stand the frowns both
of king and people. They did not like to be shut out
when places and pensions, when the critic's praises, and
the laurel wreath were about to be distributed. They
did not stomach being sent to Coventry, and Mr. Coleridge sounded a retreat for them by the help of casuistry
and a musical voice. —" His words were hollow, but they
pleased the ear " of his friends of the Lake School, who
turned back disgusted and panic-struck from the dry
desert of unpopularity, like Hassan the camel-driver,
"And curs'd the hour, and curs'd the luckless day,
When first from Shiraz' walls they bent their way."
They are safely inclosed there. But Mr. Coleridge
did not enter with them; pitching his tent upon the
barren waste without, and having no abiding place nor
city of refuge!








REV. MR. IRVING.








REV. MR. IRVING.1


THIS gentleman has gained an almost unprecedented, and not an altogether unmerited popularity as a preacher. As he is, perhaps, though a' burning
and a shining light, not "one of the fixed," we shall
take this opportunity of discussing his merits, while he is
at his meridian height, and in doing so, shall "nothing
extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."
Few circumstances show the prevailing and preposterous rage for novelty in a more striking point of view
than the success of Mr. Irving's oratory. People go to
hear him in crowds, and come away with a mixture of
delight and astonishment. They go again to see if the
effect will continue, and send others to try to find out
the mystery; and in the noisy conflict between extravagant encomiums and splenetic objections, the true secret
escapes observation-which is, that the whole thing is,
nearly from beginning to end, a transposition of ideas.
If the subject of these remarks had come out as a player,
with all his advantages of figure, voice, and action, we
think he would have failed; if, as a preacher, he had
kept within the strict bounds of pulpit-oratory, he would
Compare Hazlitt's paper in the Liberal, 1823, on " Pulpit Oratory, Dr. Chalmers and Mr. Irving." "While he was at Glasgow
[in May, 1822], he attended St. John's Church, for the sake of
hearing Dr. Chalmers preach. 'We never saw.' he says, ' fuller
attendances or more profound attention. It was like a sea of eyes,
a swarm of heads, gaping for mysteries, and staring for elucidations.' "-Memoirs of W. Hazlitt, by W. C. Hazlitt, 1867, ii. 42.-ED.




64


The Spirit of the Age.


scarcely have been much distinguished among his Calvinistic brethren. As a mere author, he would have
excited attention rather by his quaintness and affectation
of an obsolete style and mode of thinking than by anything else. But he has contrived to jumble these several
characters together in an unheard-of and unwarranted
manner, and the fascination is altogether irresistible.
Our Caledonian divine is equally an anomally in religion, in literature, in personal appearance; and in public
speaking. To hear a person spout Shakspeare on the
stage is nothing-the charm is nearly worn out-but to
hear anyone spout Shakspeare (and that not in a sneaking under-tone, but at the top of his voice and with the
full breadth of his chest) from a Calvinistic pulpit, is
new and wonderful.    The Fancy have lately lost something of their gloss in public estimation; and, after the
last fight, 1 few would go far to see a Neate or a Spring
set-to. But to see a man who is able to enter the ring
with either of them, or brandish a quarter-staff with
Friar Tuck, or a broad-sword with Shaw the Lifeguardsman, 2 stand up in a strait-laced old-fashioned pulpit,
and bandy dialectics with modern philosophers, or give
a cross-buttock to a cabinet minister, there is something
in a sight like this also, that is a cure for sore eyes. It
is as if Crib or Molyneux had turned Methodist parson,
or as if a Patagonian savage were to come forward as
the patron-saint of Evangelical religion.
Again, the doctrine of eternal punishment was one of
1 See Memoirs of Hazlitt, 1867, ii. 73, where the fight is described
at great length.-ED.
2 Shaw was also a pugilist. He fought with his regiment at
Waterloo. I have heard him described as a splendid fellow. Moore,
in his Tom Cribb's Memorial to Congress, refers to him, where he
apostrophizes the " Shade of the Cheesemonger."  Shaw was originally in that business.-ED.




Rev. Mr. Irving.


65


the staple arguments with which, everlastingly drawled
out, the old school of Presbyterian divines used to keep
their audiences awake, or lull them to sleep; but to
which people of taste and fashion paid little attention, as inelegant and barbarous, till Mr. Irving, with
his cast-iron features and sledge-hammer blows, puffing
like a grim Vulcan, set to work to forge more classic
thunderbolts, and kindle the expiring flames anew with
the very sweepings of sceptical and infidel libraries, so
as to excite a pleasing horror in the female part of his
congregation. In short, our popular declaimer has, contrary to the Scripture-caution, put new wine into old
bottles, or new cloth on old garments. He has, with an
unlimited and daring licence, mixed the sacred and the
profane together, the carnal and the spiritual man, the
petulance of the bar with the dogmatism of the pulpit,
the theatrical and theological, the modern and the
obsolete;-what wonder that this splendid piece of
patchwork, splendid by contradiction and contrast, has
delighted some and confounded others?
The more serious part of his congregation indeed
complain, though not bitterly, that their pastor has converted their meeting-house into a play-house: but when
a lady of quality, introducing herself and her three
daughters to the preacher, assures him that they have
been to all the most fashionable places of resort, the
opera, the theatre, assemblies, Miss Macaulay's readings,
and Exeter-Change, and have been equally entertained
nowhere else, we apprehend that no remonstrances of a,
committee of ruling-elders will be able to bring him to
his senses again, or make him forego such sweet, but illassorted praise. What we mean to insist upon is, that
Mr. Irving owes his triumphant success, not to any one
quality for which he has been extolled, but to a combination of qualities, the more striking in their immediate
F




66


The Spirit of the Age.


effect, in proportion as they are unlooked-for and heterogeneous, like the violent opposition of light and shade
in a picture. We shall endeavour to explain this view
of the subject more at large.
Mr. Irving, then, is no common or mean man. He
has four or five qualities, possessed in a moderate or in
a paramount degree, which, added or multiplied together, fill up the important space he occupies in the
public eye. Mr. Irving's intellect itself is of a superior
order; he has undoubtedly both talents and acquirements beyond the ordinary run of every-day preachers.
These alone, however, we hold, would not account for a
twentieth part of the effect he has produced: they would
have lifted him perhaps out of the mire and slough of
sordid obscurity, but would never have launched him
into the ocean-stream of popularity, in which he "lies
floating many a rood;"-but to these he adds uncommon
height, a graceful figure and action, a clear and powerful
voice, a striking, if not a fine face, a bold and fiery spirit,
and a most portentous obliquity of vision, which throw
him to an immeasurable distance beyond all competition,
and effectually relieve whatever there might be of common-place or bombast in his style of composition. Put
the case that Mr. Irving had been five feet high-Would
he ever have been heard of, or, as he does now, have
"bestrode the world like a Colossus? "
No, the thing speaks for itself. He would in vain
have lifted his Liliputian arm to Heaven; people would
have laughed at his monkey-tricks. Again, had he been
as tall as he is, but had wanted other recommendations,
he would have been nothing.
" The player's province they but vainly try,
Who want these powers, deportment, voice, and eye."
Conceive a rough, ugly, shock-headed Scotchman, stand



Rev. Mr. Irving.


67


ing up in the Caledonian chapel, and dealing " damnation round the land" in a broad northern dialect and
with a harsh, screaking voice, what ear polite, what
smile serene would have hailed the barbarous prodigy,
or not consigned him to utter neglect and derision?
But the Rev. Edward Irving, with all his native wildness, "hath a smooth aspect framed to make women "
saints; his very unusual size and height are carried off
and moulded into elegance by the most admirable symmetry of form and ease of gesture; his sable locks, his
clear iron-grey complexion and firm-set features turn
the raw, uncouth Scotchman into the likeness of a noble
Italian picture; and even his distortion of sight only
redeems the otherwise "faultless monster " within the
bounds of humanity, and, when admiration is exhausted
and curiosity ceases, excites a new interest by leading to
the idle question whether it is an advantage to the
preacher or not. Farther, give him all his actual and
remarkable advantages of body and mind, let him be as
tall, as straight, as dark and clear of skin, as much at
his ease, as silver-tongued, as eloquent and as argumentative as he is, yet with all these, and without a
little charlatanry to set them off, he had been nothing.
He might, keeping within the rigid line of his duty and
professed calling, have preached on for ever; he might
have divided the old-fashioned doctrines of election,
grace, reprobation, predestination, into his sixteenth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth heads, and his lastly have
been looked for as a "consummation devoutly to be
wished;" he might have defied the devil and all his works,
and by the help of a loud voice and strong-set person" A lusty man to ben an Abbot able;"have increased his own congregation, and been quoted
among the godly as a powerful preacher of the word;




68


The Spirit of the Age.


but, in addition to this, he went out of his way to attack
Jeremy Bentham; and the town was up in arms. The
thing was new. He thus wiped the stain of musty
ignorance and formal bigotry out of his style.
Mr. Irving must have something superior in him, to
look over the shining close-packed heads of his congregation to have a hit at the Great Jurisconsult in his
study. He next, ere the report of the former blow had
subsided, made a lunge at Mr. Brougham, and glanced
an eye at Mr. Canning; mystified Mr. Coleridge, and
stultified Lord Liverpool in his place-in the Gallery.
It was rare sport to see him, " like an eagle in a dovecote, flutter the Volscians in Corioli."  He has found
out the secret of attracting by repelling. Those whom
he is likely to attack are curious to hear what he says of
them: they go again, to show that they do not mind it.
It is no less interesting to the bystanders, who like to
witness this sort of onslaught-like a charge of cavalrythe shock and the resistance.  Mr. Irving has in fact,
without leave asked or a licence granted, converted the
Caledonian Chapel into a Westminster Forum or Debating Society, with the sanctity of religion added to it.
Our spirited polemic is not contented to defend the
citadel of orthodoxy against all impugners, and shut
himself up in texts of Scripture and huge volumes of
the Commentators as an impregnable fortress.    He
merely makes use of the stronghold of religion as a
resting-place, from which he sallies forth, armed with
modern topics and with penal fire, like Achilles of old
rushing from the Grecian tents against the adversaries
of God and man.
Peter Aretine is said to have laid the Princes of
Europe under contribution by penning satires against
them; so Mr. Irving keeps the public in awe by insulting all their favourite idols. He does not spare their poli



Rev. Mr. Irving.


69


ticians, their rulers, their moralists, their poets, their
players, their critics, their reviewers, their magazinewriters; he levels their resorts of business, their places
of amusement, at a blow-their cities, churches, palaces,
ranks and professions, refinements and elegances-and
leaves nothing standing but himself, a mighty landmark
in a degenerate age, overlooking the wide havoc he has
made! He makes war upon all arts and sciences, upon
the faculties and nature of man, on his vices and his
virtues, on all existing institutions, and all possible
improvements, that nothing may be left but the Kirk
of Scotland, and that he may be the head of it. He
literally sends a challenge to all London in the name of
the KING of HEAVEN, to evacuate its streets, to disperse
its population, to lay aside its employments, to burn its
wealth, * renounce its vanities and pomp; and for
what?-that he may enter in as the King of Glory; ot
after enforcing his threat with the battering-ram of
logic, the grape-shot of rhetoric, and the cross-fire of his
double vision, reduce the British metropolis to a Scottish
heath, with a few miserable hovels upon it, where they
may worship God according to the root of the matter, and
where an old man with a blue bonnet, a fair-haired girl,
and a little child would form the flower of his flock!
Such is the pretension and the boast of this new Peter
the Hermit, who would get rid of all we have done in
the way of improvement on a state of barbarous ignorance or still more barbarous prejudice, in order to
begin again on a tabula rasa of Calvinism, and have a
world of his own making. It is not very surprising,
when nearly the whole mass and texture of civil
society is indicted as a nuisance, and threatened to be
pulled down as a rotten building ready to fall on the
heads of the inhabitants, that all classes of people run
to hear the crash, and to see the engines and levers at




70


lThe Spirit of the Age.


work which are to effect this laudable purpose. What
else can be the meaning of our preacher taking upon
himself to denounce the sentiments of the most serious
professors in great cities, as vitiated and stark-naught,
of relegating religion to his native glens, and pretending
that the hymn of praise or the sigh of contrition cannot
ascend acceptably to the throne of grace from the
crowded street as well as from the barren rock or silent
valley? Why put this affront upon his hearers? Why
belie his own aspirations?
"God made the country, and man made the town."
So says the poet; does Mr. Irving say so?  If he does,
and finds the air of the city death to his piety, why does
he not return home again? But if he can breathe it
with impunity, and still retain the fervour olis early
enthusiasm, and the simplicity and purity of the faith
that was once delivered to the saints, why not extend
the benefit of his own experience to others, instead of
taunting them with a vapid pastoral theory?
Or, if our popular and eloquent divine finds a change
in himself, that flattery prevents the growth of grace,
that he is becoming the God of his own idolatry by
being that of others, that the glittering of coronetcoaches rolling down Holborn Hill to Hatton Garden,
that titled beauty, that the parliamentary complexion of
his audience, the compliments of poets, and the stare of
peers discompose his wandering thoughts a little; and
yet that he cannot give up these strong temptations
tugging at his heart: why not extend more charity to
others, and show more candour in speaking of himself?
There is either a good deal of bigoted intolerance with
a deplorable want of self-knowledge in all this, or at
least an equal degree of cant and quackery.
To whichever cause we are to attribute this hyper



Rev. Mr. Irving.


71


bolical tone, we hold it certain he could not have adopted
it, if he had been a little man. But his-iposiag re
and dignified manner enable him to hazard sentiments or
assertions thatwo uldbefa+taiothers. His controversial
daringis acked by his bodily prowess; and by bringing
his intellectual pretensions boldly into a line with his
physical accomplishments, he, indeed, presents a very formidable front to the sceptic or the scoffer.  Take a
cubit from his stature, and his whole manner resolves
itself into an impertinence. But with that addition, he
overcrows the town, browbeats their prejudices, and
//bullies them out of their senses, and is not afraid of
being contradicted by any one less than himself. It may
be said, that individuals with great personal defects have
made a considerable figure as public speakers; and Mr.
Wilberforce, among others, may be held out as an
instance. Nothing can be more insignificant as to mere
outward appearance, and yet he is listened to in the
House of Commons.
But he does not wield it, he does not insult or bully
it. He leads by following opinion, he trims, he shifts,
he glides on the silvery sounds of his undulating, flexible,
cautiously modulated voice, winding his way betwixt
heaven and earth, now courting popularity, now calling
servility to his aid, and with a large estate, the " saints,"
and the opulation of Yorkshire to swell his influence,
never venturing on the forlorn hope, or doing anything
more than "hitting the house between wind and water."
Yet he is probably a cleverer man than Mr. Irving.
There is a Mr. Fox, 1 a Dissenting Minister, as fluent
a speaker, with a sweeter voice and a more animated
and beneficent countenance than Mr. Irving, who expresses himself with manly spirit at a public meeting,


1 W. J. Fox, Member for Oldham.-ED.




72


The Spirit of the Age.


takes a hand at whist, and is the darling of his congregation; but he is no more, because he is diminutive in
person. His head is not seen above the crowd the
length of a street off.  He is the Duke of Sussex in
miniature, but the Duke of Sussex does not go to hear
him preach, as he attends Mr. Irving, who rises up
against him like a martello tower, and is nothing loth to
confront the spirit of a man of genius with the bloodroyal. We allow there are, or may be, talents sufficient
to produce this equality without a single personal advantage; but we deny that this would be the effect of any
that our great preacher possesses. We conceive it not
improbable that the consciousness of muscular power,
that the admiration of his person by strangers might
first have inspired Mr. Irving with an ambition to be
something, intellectually speaking, and have given him
confidence to attempt the greatest things. He has not
failed for want of courage. The public, as well as the
fair, are won by a show of gallantry.
Mr. Irving has shrunk from no opinion, however
paradoxical. He has scrupled to avow no sentiment,
however obnoxious. He has revived exploded prejudices, he has scouted prevailing fashions.  He has
opposed the spirit of the age, and not consulted the
esprit de corps. He has brought back the doctrines of
Calvinism in all their inveteracy, and relaxed 4the inveteracy of his northern accents. He has turned religion
and the Caledonian Chapel topsy-turvy. He has held a
play-book in one hand and a Bible in the other, and
quoted Shakspeare and Melancthon in the same breath.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is no longer,
with his grafting, a dry withered stump; it shoots its
branches to the skies, and hangs out its blossoms to
the gale" Miraturque novos fructus, et non sua poma."




Rev. Mr. Irving.


73


He has taken the thorns and briars of scholastic divinity, and garlanded them with the flowers of modern
literature. He has done all this, relying on the strength
of a remarkably fine person and manner, and through
that he has succeeded-otherwise he would have perished
miserably.
Dr. Chalmers is not by any means so good a looking
man, nor so accomplished a speaker as Mr. Irving; yet
he at one time almost equalled his oratorical celebrity,
and certainly paved the way for him. He has therefore
more merit than his admired pupil, as he has done as
much with fewer means. He has more scope of intellect
and more intensity of purpose. Both his matter and his
manner, setting aside his face and figure, are more
impressive.  Take the volume of "Sermons on Astronomy," by Dr. Chalmers, and the "Four Orations for
the Oracles of God " which Mr. Irving lately published,
and we apprehend there can be no comparison as to their
success. The first ran like wild-fire through the country,
were the darlings of watering-places, were laid in the
windows of inns,1 and were to be met with in all places
of public resort; while the "Orations" get on but
slowly, on Milton's stilts, and are pompously announced
as in a Third Edition.
We believe the fairest and fondest of his admirers
would rather see and hear Mr. Irving than read him.
The reason is, that the groundwork of his compositions
is trashy and hackneyed, though set off by extravagant
metaphors and an affected phraseology; that, without
the turn of his head and wave of his hand, his periods
' We remember finding the volume in the orchard at Burfordbridge near Boxhill, and passing a whole and very delightful morning
in reading it, without quitting the shade of an apple-tree. We have
not been able to pay Mr. Irving's book the same compliment of
reading it at a sitting.




74


The Spirit of the Age.


have nothing in them; and that he himself is the only
idea with which he has as yet enriched the public mind!
He must play off his person, as Orator Henley used to
dazzle his hearers with his diamond-ring. The small
frontispiece prefixed to the " Orations " does not serve
to convey an adequate idea of the magnitude of the man,
nor of the ease and freedom of his motions in the pulpit.
How different is Dr. Chalmers! He is like "a monkeypreacher " to the other. He cannot boast of personal
appearance to set him off. But then he is like the very
genius or demon of theological controversy personified.
He has neither airs nor graces at command; he thinks
nothing of himself: 0ie has nothing theatrical about
him (which cannot be said of his successor and rival);
but you see a man in mortal throes and agony with
doubts and difficulties, seizing stubborn knotty points
with his teeth, tearing them with his hands, and straining his eyeballs till they almost start out of their
sockets, in pursuit of a train of visionary reasoning, like
a Highland-seer with his second sight.
The description of Balfour of Burley in his cave, with
his Bible in one hand and his sword in the other, contending with the imaginary enemy of mankind, gasping
for breath, and with the cold moisture running down
his face, gives a lively idea of Dr. Chalmers's prophetic
fury in the pulpit. If we could have looked in to have
seen Burley hard-beset "by the coinage of his heatoppressed brain," who would have asked whether he was
a handsome man or not? It would be enough to see a
man haunted by a spirit, under the strong and entire
dominion of a wilful hallucination. So the integrity
and vehemence of Dr. Chalmers's manner, the determined way in which he gives himself up to his subject,
or lays about him and buffets sceptics and gainsayers,
arrests attention in spite of every other circumstance,




Rev. Mr. Irving.               75
and fixes it on that, and that alone, which excites such
interest and such eagerness in his own breast! Besides,
he is a logician, has a theory in support of whatever he
chooses to advance, and weaves the tissue of his sophistry
so close and intricate, that it is difficult not to be entangled in it, or to escape from it. "There's magic in the web."
Whatever appeals to the pride of the human understanding, has a subtle charm in it. The mind is naturally pugnacious, cannot refuse a challenge of strength
or skill, sturdily enters the lists and resolves to conquer,
or to yield itself vanquished in the forms. This is the
chief hold Dr. Chalmers had upon his hearers, and upon
the readers of his " Astronomical Discourses." No one
was satisfied with his arguments, no one could answer
them; but every one wanted to try what he could make
of them, as we try to find out a riddle. "By his so
potent art," the art of laying down problematical premises, and drawing from them still more doubtful, but
not impossible, conclusions, " he could bedim the noonday sun, betwixt the green sea and the azure vault set
roaring war," and almost compel the stars in their
courses to testify to his opinions. The mode in which
he undertook to make the circuit of the universe, and
demand categorical information.' now of the planetary
and now of the fixed," might put one in mind of
Hecate's mode of ascending in a machine from the stage,
" Midst troops of spirits," in which you now admire the
skill of the artist, and next tremble for the fate of the
performer, fearing that the audacity of the attempt will
turn his head or break his neck.
The style of these "Discourses" also, though not
elegant or poetical, was, like the subject, intricate and
endless. It was that of a man pushing his way through
a labyrinth of difficulties, and determined not to flinch.
The impression on the reader was proportionate; for,




76


The Spirit of the Age.


whatever were the merits of the style or matter, both
were new and striking; and the train of thought that
was unfolded at such length and with such strenuousness, was bold, well-sustained, and consistent with itself.
MIr. Irving wants the continuity of thought and manner which distinguishes his rival, and shines by patches
and in bursts. He does not warm, or acquire increasing
force or rapidity, with his progress. He is never hurried away by a deep or lofty enthusiasm, nor touches
the highest point of genius or fanaticism; but "in the
very storm and whirlwind of his passion, he acquires
and begets a temperance that may give it smoothness."
He has the self-possession and masterly execution of an
experienced player or fencer, and does not seem to
express his natural convictions, or to be engaged in a
mortal struggle. This greater ease and indifference is
the result of vast superiority of personal appearance,
which " to be admired needs but to be seen," and does
not require the possessor to work himself up into a
passion, or to use any violent contortions to gain attention or to keep it.
These two celebrated preachers are in almost all
respects an antithesis to each other.  If Mr. Irving is
an example of what can be done by the help of external
advantages, Dr. Chalmers is a proof of what can be done
without them.   The one is most indebted to his mind,
the other to his body. If Mr. Irving' inclines one to
suspect fashionable or popular religion of a little anthropomorphitism, Dr. Chalmers effectually redeems it from
that scandal.
1 Mr. Henry Irving the playwright is, I believe, a descendant of
this Scotish minister, and enjoys at present the full sunshine of
popularity, like his predecessor. The latter fell as suddenly as he
had risen. His eminence and celebrity were a mere passing distemper
and whim.-ED.




MR. IIORNE TOOKE.








MR. HORNE TOOKE.1


R. HORNE TOOKE was one of those who may
be considered as connecting links between a former period and the existing generation. His education
and accomplishments, nay, his political opinions, were of
the last age: his mind and the tone of his feelings were
mnodern. There was a hard, dry materialism in the very
texture of his understanding, varnished over by the external refinements of the old school. Mr. Tooke had
great scope of attainment and great versatility of pursuit; but the same shrewdness, quickness, cool self-possession, the same literalness of perception, and absence of
passion and enthusiasm, characterised nearly all he did,
said, or wrote. He was without a rival (almost) in
private conversation, an expert public speaker, a keen
politician, a first-rate grammarian, and the finest gentleman (to say the least) of his own party. He had no
imagination (or he would not have scorned it!)-no
delicacy of taste, no rooted prejudices or strong attachments: his intellect was like a bow of polished steel,
from which he shot sharp-pointed poisoned arrows at
his friends in private, at his enemies in public. His
mind (so to speak) had no religion in it, and very little
even of the moral qualities of genius; but he was a man
of the world, a scholar bred, and a most acute and
1 Compare this Character with the Essay On the Diversions of
Purltey in the Literary Remains, 1836, i., 333.-ED.




80


The Spirit of the Age.


powerful logician. He was also a wit, and a formidable
one: yet it may be questioned whether his wit was any
thing more than an excess of his logical faculty: it did
not consist in the play of fancy, but in close and cutting
combinations of the understanding. "The law is open
to every one: so," said Mr. Tooke, "is the London
Tavern! "
It is the previous deduction formed in the mind, and
the splenetic contempt felt for a practical sophism, that
beats about the bush for, and at last finds, the apt illustration: not the casual, glancing coincidence of two objects,
that points out an absurdity to the understanding. So,
on another occasion, when Sir Allen Gardiner (who was
a candidate for Westminster) had objected to Mr. Fox,
that " he was always against the minister, whether right
or wrong," and Mr. Fox, in his reply, had overlooked
this slip of the tongue, Mr. Tooke immediately seized on
it, and said, "he thought it at least an equal objection
to Sir Allen, that he was always with the minister,
whether right or wrong." This retort had all the effect,
and produced the same surprise as the most brilliant
display of wit or fancy: yet it was only the detecting a
flaw in an argument, like a flaw in an indictment, by a
kind of legal pertinacity, or rather by a rigid and constant
habit of attending to the exact import of every word and
clause in a sentence. Mr. Tooke had the mind of a
lawyer; but it was applied to a vast variety of topics
and general trains of speculation.
Mr. Horne Tooke was in private company, and among
his friends, the finished gentleman of the last age. His
manners were as fascinating as his conversation was
spirited and delightful. He put one in mind of the
burden of the song of " The King's Old Courtier, and an
old Courtier of the King's."  He was, however, of the
opposite party. It was curious to hear our modern




Mr. Horne Tooke.


81


sciolist advancing opinions of the most radical kind
without any mixture of radical heat or violence, in a
tone of fashionable nonchalance, with elegance of gesture
and attitude, and with the most perfect good-humour.
In the spirit of opposition, or in the pride of logical
superiority, he too often shocked the prejudices or
wounded the self-love of those about him, while he himself displayed the same unmoved indifference or equanimity. He said the most provoking things with a
laughing gaiety and a polite attention, that there was
no withstanding. He threw others off their guard by
thwarting their favourite theories, and then availed himself of the temperance of his own pulse to chafe them
into madness. He had not one particle of deference for
the opinion of others, nor of sympathy with their feelings; nor had he any obstinate convictions of his own
to defend" Lord of himself, uncumbered with a creed!'
He took up any topic by chance, and played with it at
will, like a juggler with his cups and balls.
He generally ranged himself on the losing side, and
had rather an ill-natured delight in contradiction, and in
perplexing the understandings of others, without leaving
them any clue to guide them out of the labyrinth into
which he had led them. He understood, in its perfection, the great art of throwing the onus probandi on his
adversary, and so could maintain almost any opinion,
however absurd or fantastical, with fearless impunity.
I have heard a sensible and well-informed man say,
that he never was in company with Mr. Tooke without
being delighted and surprised, or without feeling the
conversation of every other person to be flat in the comparison; but that he did not recollect having ever heard
him make a remark that struck him as a sound and
true one, or that he himself appeared to think so. He
G




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The Spirit of the Age.


used to plague Fuseli by asking him after the origin of
the Teutonic dialects, and Dr. Parr, by wishing toknow
the meaning of the common copulative Is. Once at
Godwin's, he defended Pitt from a charge of verbiage,
and endeavoured to prove him superior to Fox. Some one
imitated Pitt's manner, to show that it was monotonous,
and he imitated him also, to show that it was not. He
maintained (what would he not maintain?) that young
Betty's acting was finer than John Kemble's, and recited
a passage from Douglas in the manner of each, to justify
the preference he gave to the former. The mentioning
this will please the living; it cannot hurt the dead. He
argued on the same occasion and in the same breath,
that Addison's style was without modulation, and that
it was physically impossible for any one to write well,
who was habitually silent in company. He sat like a
king at his own table, and gave law to his guests-and
to the world! No man knew better how to manage his
immediate circle, to foil or bring them out. A professed orator, beginning to address some observations to
Mr. Tooke with a voluminous apology for his youth and
inexperience, he said, " Speak up, young man! "-and
by taking him at his word, cut short the flower of orations. Porson was the only person of whom he stood in
some degree of awe, on account of his prodigious memory
and knowledge of his favourite subject, Languages.
Sheridan, it has been remarked, said more good things,
but had not an equal flow of pleasantry.
As an instance of Mr. Horne Tooke's extreme coolness
and command of nerve, it has been mentioned that once
at a public dinner, when he had got on the table to
return thanks for his health being drunk with a glass of
wine in his hand, and when there was a great clamour
and opposition for some time, after it had subsided, he
pointed to the glass to show that it was still full. 3Mr.




Mr. Horne Tooke.


83


Holcroft (the author of the Road to Ruin) was one of
the most violent and fiery-spirited of all that motley
crew of persons, who attended the Sunday meetings at
Wimbledon. One day he was so enraged by some paradox or raillery of his hcst, that he indignantly rose from
his chair, and said, "Mr. Tooke, you are a scoundrel! "
His opponent, without manifesting the least emotion,
replied, " Mr. Holcroft, when is it that I am to dine
with you? shall it be next Thursday? "-" If you please,
Mr. Tooke! " answered the angry philosopher, and sat
down again. It was delightful to see him sometimes
turn from these waspish or ludicrous altercations with
over-weening antagonists to some old friend and veteran
politician seated at his elbow; to hear him recall the
time of Wilkes and Liberty, the conversation mellowing like the wine with the smack of age; assenting
to all the old man said, bringing out his pleasant
traits, and pampering him into childish self-importance,
and sending him away thirty years younger than he
came!
As a public or at least as a parliamentary speaker,
Mr. Tooke did not answer the expectations that had
been conceived of him, or probably that he had conceived of himself. It is natural for men to have felt a
superiority over all those whom they happen to have
encountered, to fancy that this superiority will continue,
and that it will extend from individuals to public bodies.
There is no rule in the case; or rather, the probability
lies the contrary way. That which constitutes the excellence of conversation is of little use in addressing
large assemblies of people; while other qualities are
required that are hardly to be looked for in one and the
same capacity.
The way to move great masses of men is to show that
you yourself are moved. In a private circle, a ready




84


The Spirit of the Age.


repartee, a shrewd cross-question, ridicule and banter,
a caustic remark or an amusing anecdote, whatever sets
off the individual to advantage, or gratifies the curiosity
or piques the self-love of the hearers, keeps attention
alive and secures the triumph of the speaker. It is a
personal contest, and depends on personal and momentary advantages. But, in appealing to the public,
no one triumphs but in the triumph of some public
cause, or by showing a sympathy with the general and
predominant feelings of mankind. In a private room,
a satirist, a sophist may provoke admiration by expressing his contempt for each of his adversaries in turn, and
by setting their opinibn at defiance; but when men are
congregated together on a great public question and for
a weighty object, they must be treated with more
respect. They are touched with what affects themselves
or the general weal, not with what flatters the vanity of
the speaker; they must be moved altogether, if they are
moved at all. They are impressed with gratitude for a
luminous exposition of their claims or for zeal in their
cause; and the lightning of generous indignation at bad
men and bad measures is followed by thunders of applause-even in the House of Commons. But a man
may sneer and cavil and puzzle and fly-blow every question that comes before him-be despised and feared by
others, and admired by no one but himself.
He who thinks first of himself, either in the world or
in a popular assembly, will be sure to turn attention
away from his claims, instead of fixing it there. He
must make common cause with his hearers. To lead,
he must follow the general bias. Mr. Tooke did not
therefore succeed as a speaker in Parliament. He stood
aloof, he played antics, he exhibited his peculiar talent.
While he was on his legs, the question before the House
stood still; the only point at issue respected Mr. Tooke




Mr. Horne Tooke.


85


himself, his personal address and adroitness of intellect.
Were there to be no more places and pensions, because
Mr. Tooke's style was terse and epigrammatic? Were
the Opposition benches to be inflamed to an unusual
pitch of "sacred vehemence," because he gave them
plainly to understand there was not a pin to choose
between Ministers and Opposition? Would the House
let him remain among them, because, if they turned him
out on account of his black coat, Lord Camelford had
threatened to send his black servant in his place? This
was a good joke, but not a practical one. Would he
gain the affections of the people out of doors, by scouting the question of reform? Would the King ever
relish the old associate of Wilkes? What interest, then,
what party did he represent? He represented nobody
but himself.
He was an example of an ingenious man, a clever
talker:; but he was out of his place in the House of
Commons, where people did not come (as in his own
house) to admire or break a lance with him, but to get
through the business of the day, and so adjourn! He
wanted effect and momentum. Each of his sentences
told very well in itself, but they did not altogether make
a speech. He left off where he began. His eloquence
was a succession of drops, not a stream. His arguments,
though subtle and new, did not affect the main body of
the question. The coldness and pettiness of his manner
did not warm the hearts or expand the understandings
of his hearers. Instead of encouraging, he checked the
ardour of his friends; and teazed, instead of overpowering his antagonists. The only palpable hit he ever
made, while he remained there, was the comparing his
own situation in being rejected by the House, on account
of the supposed purity of his clerical character, to the
story of the girl at the Magdalen, who was told "she




86


The Spirit of the Age.


must turn out and qualify." 1 This met with laughter
and loud applause. It was a home thrust, and the'House
(to do them justice) are obliged to any one who, by a
smart blow, relieves them of the load of grave responsibility, which sits heavy on their shbulders.
At the hustings, or as an election-candidate, Mr. Tooke
did better. There was no great question to move or
carry; it was an affair of political sparring between
himself and the other candidates. He took it in a very
cool and leisurely manner, watched his competitors with
a wary, sarcastic eye, picked up the mistakes or absurdities that fell from them, and retorted them on their
heads: told a story to the mob; and smiled and took
snuff with a gentlemanly and becoming air, as if he was
already seated in the House.
But a Court of Law was the place where Mr. Tooke
made the best figure in public. He might assuredly be
said to be " native and endued unto that element." He
had here to stand merely on the defensive: not to
advance himself, but to block up the way: not to
impress others, but to be himself impenetrable. All he
wanted was negative success; and to this no one was
better qualified to aspire. Cross purposes, moot-points,
pleas, demurrers, flaws in the indictment, double meanings, cases, inconsequentialities, these were the playthings, the darlings of Mr. Tooke's mind; and with
these he baffled the Judge, dumb-founded the Counsel,
and outwitted the Jury. The report of his trial before
Lord Kenyon is a masterpiece of acuteness, dexterity,
modest assurance, and legal effect. It is much like his
examination before the Commissioners of the IncomeTax-nothing could be got out of him in either case!


" They receive him like a virgin at the Magdalen, Go thou and
do likewise."-JUNIUS.




Mr. Horne Tooke.


87


Mr. Tooke, as a political leader, belonged to the class
of trimmers; or at most, it was his delight to make
mischief and spoil sport. He would rather be against
himself than for anybody else. He was neither a bold
nor a safe leader. He enticed others into scrapes, and
kept out of them himself.  Provided he could say a
clever or a spiteful thing, he did not care whether it
served or injured the cause. Spleen or the exercise of
intellectual power was the motive of his patriotism,
rather than principle. He would talk treason with a
saving clause, and instil sedition into the public mind,
through the medium of a third (who was to be the
responsible) party. He made Sir Francis Burdett his
spokesman in the House and to the country, often
venting his chagrin or singularity of sentiment at the
expense of his friend; but what in the first was trick or
reckless vanity, was in the last plain downright English
honesty and singleness of heart.
In the case of the State Trials, in 1794, Mr. Tooke
rather compromised his friends to screen himself. He
kept repeating that "others might have gone on to
Windsor, but he had stopped at Hounslow," as if to go
farther might have been dangerous and unwarrantable.
It was not the question how far he or others had
actually gone, but how far they had a right to go, according to the law. His conduct was not the limit of
the law, nor did treasonable excess begin where prudence
or principle taught him to stop short, though this was
the oblique inference liable to be drawn from his line of
defence. Mr. Tooke was uneasy and apprehensive for
the issue of the Government-prosecution while in confinement, and said, in speaking of it to a friend, with a
morbid feeling and an emphasis quite unusual with
him-" They want our blood-blood-blood!"   It was
somewhat ridiculous to implicate Mr. Tooke in a charge




88


The Spiit of the Age.


of High Treason; and indeed the whole charge was
built on the mistaken purport of an intercepted letter
relating to an engagement for a private dinner-party.
His politics were not at all revolutionary.  In this
respect he was a mere pettifogger, full of chicane and
captious objections, and unmeaning discontent; but he
had none of the grand whirling movements of the
French Revolution, nor of the tumultuous glow of rebellion in his head or in his heart.
His politics were cast in a different mould, or confined
to the party distinctions and court-intrigues and pittances of popular right, that made a noise in the time
of Junius and Wilkes; and, even if his understanding
had gone along with more modern and unqualified principles, his cautious temper would have prevented his
risking them in practice. Horne Tooke (though not of
the same side in politics) had much of the tone of mind
and more of the spirit of moral feeling of the celebrated
philosopher of Malmesbury. The narrow scale and finedrawn distinctions of his political creed made his conversation on such subjects infinitelyamusing, particularly
when contrasted with that of persons who dealt in the
sounding common-places and sweeping clauses of abstract
politics. He knew all the cabals and jealousies and
heart-burnings in the beginning of the late reign, the
changes of administration and the springs of secret influence, the characters of the leading men, Wilkes,
Barre, Dunning, Chatham, Burke, the Marquis of Rockingham, North, Shelburne, Fox, Pitt, and all the vacillating events of the American war:-these formed a
curious background to the more prominent figures that
occupied the present time, and Mr. Tooke worked out
the minute details and touched in the evanescent traits
with the pencil of a master.  His conversation resembled a political camera obscura —as quaint as it was




Mr. Horne Tooke.


89


magical. To some pompous pretenders he might seem
to narrate fabellas aniles (old wives' fables)-but not to
those who study human nature, and wish to know the
materials of which it is composed.
Mr. Tooke's faculties might appear to have ripened
and acquired a finer flavour with age.  In a former
period of his life he was hardly the man he was latterly;
or else he had greater abilities to contend against. He
nowhere makes so poor a figure as in his controversy
with Junius. He has evidently the best of the argument, yet he makes nothing out of it. He tells a long
story about himself without wit or point in it, and
whines and whimpers like a school-boy under the rod
of his master. Junius, after bringing a hasty charge
against him, has not a single fact to adduce in support
of it; but keeps his ground and fairly beats his adversary out of the field by the mere force of style. One
would think that "Parson Horne" knew who Junius
was, and was afraid of him. "Under him his genius is
quite rebuked." With the best cause to defend, he
comes off more shabbily from the contest than any
other person in the LETTERS, except Sir William Draper,
who is the very hero of defeat.
The great thing which Mr. Horne Tooke has done,
and which he has left behind him to posterity, is his
work on Grammar, oddly enough entitled THE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. 1 Many people have taken it up as a
description of a game, others supposing it to be a novel.
It is, in truth, one of the few philosophical works on
Grammar that were ever written. The essence of it
(and, indeed, almost all that is really valuable in it) is
contained in his Letter to Dunning, published about the
So called from having been partly written at Purley, in Surrey,
the residence of his friend and benefactor, Mr. Tooke, whose name
he took.-ED.




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The Spirit of the Age.


year 1775.1  Mr. Tooke's work is truly elementary.
Dr. Lowth described Mr. Harris's Hermes as " the finest
specimen of analysis since the days of Aristotle "-a
work in which there is no analysis at all, for analysis
consists in reducing things to their principles, and not
in endless details and subdivisions. Mr. Harris multiplies distinctions, and confounds his readers. Mr. Tooke
clears away the rubbish of school-boy technicalities, and
strikes at the root of his subject.
In accomplishing this arduous task, he was, perhaps,
aided not more by the strength and resources of his
mind than by its limits and defects. There is a web of
old associations wound round language, that is a kind of
veil over its natural features; and custom puts on the
mask of ignorance. But this veil, this mask the author
of The Diversions of Purley threw aside, and penetrated
to the naked truth of things by the literal, matter-offact, unimaginative nature of his understanding, and
because he was not subject to prejudices or illusions of
any kind. Words may be said to " bear a charmed life,
that must not yield to one of woman born "-with
womanish weaknesses and confused apprehensions. But
this charm was broken in the case of Mr. Tooke, whose
mind was the reverse of effeminate-hard, unbending,
concrete, physical, half-savage; and who saw language
stripped of the clothing of habit or sentiment, or the
disguises of doting pedantry, naked in its cradle, and in
its primitive state. Our author tells us that he found
his discovery on Grammar among a number of papers
on other subjects, which he had thrown aside and
forgotten.
Is this an idle boast? Or had he made other discoveries of equal importance, which he did not think it
1 It was written in the King's Bench in 1775, the author having
been committed for an alleged libel on the Government.-ED.




Mr. Horne Tooke.


91


worth his while to communicate to the world, but chose
to die the churl of knowledge? The whole of his
reasoning turns upon showing that the Conjunction
That is the pronoun That, which is itself the participle
of a verb, and in like manner that all the other mystical
and hitherto unintelligible parts of speech are derived
from the only two intelligible ones, the Verb and Noun.
"I affirm that gold is yellow," that is, "I affirm that
fact, or that proposition, viz. gold is yellow." The
secret of the Conjunction on which so many fine heads
had split, on which so many learned definitions were
thrown away, as if it was its peculiar province and inborn virtue to announce oracles and formal propositions,
and nothing else, like a Doctor of Laws, is here at once
accounted for, inasmuch as it is clearly nothing but
another part of speech, the pronoun that, with a third
part of speech, the noun thing, understood.
This is getting at a solution of words into their component parts, not glossing over one difficulty by bringing another to parallel it, nor like saying with Mr.
Harris, when it is asked, "what a Conjunction is? "
that there are conjunctions copulative, conjunctions disjunctive, and as many other frivolous varieties of the
species as any one chooses to hunt out " with laborious
foolery." Our anther hit upon his parent-discovery in
the course of a law-suit, while he was examining, with
jealous watchfulness the meaning of words to prevent
being entrapped by them; or rather this circumstance
might itself be traced to the habit of satisfying his own
mind as to the precise sense in which he himself made
use of words. Mr. Tooke, though he had no objection
to puzzle others, was mightily averse to being puzzled or
mystified himself. All was, to his determined mind,
either complete light or complete darkness. There was
no hazy, doubtful chiaro-scuro in his understanding. He




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The Spirit of the Age.


wanted something "palpable to feeling as to sight."
-' What," he would say to himself, " do I mean when I
use the conjunction that? Is it an anomaly, a class by
itself, a word sealed against all inquisitive attempts?
Is it enough to call it a copula, a bridge, a link, a word
connecting sentences? That is undoubtedly its use; but
what is its origin? "
Mr. Tooke thought he had answered this question
satisfactorily, and loosened the Gordian knot of grammarians, " familiar as his garter," when he said, " It is
the common pronoun, adjective, or participle, that, with
the noun, thing or proposition, implied, and the particular
example following it." So he thought, and so every
reader has thought since, with the exception of teachers
and writers upon Grammar. Mr. Windham, indeed,
who was a sophist, but not a logician, charged him with
having found "a mare's nest;" but it is not to be
doubted that Mr. Tooke's etymologies will stand the
test, and last longer than Mr. Windham's ingenious
derivation of the practice of bull-baiting from the principles of humanity!
Having thus laid the corner-stone, he proceeded to
apply the same method of reasoning to other undecyphered and impracticable terms. Thus the word, And,
he explained clearly enough to be the verb add, or a corruption of the old Saxon, anandad. " Two and two
make four," that is, "two add two make four." Mr.
Tooke, in fact, treated words, as the chemists do substances; he separated those which are compounded of
others from those which are not decompoundable. He
did not explain the obscure by the more obscure, but the
difficult by the plain, the complex by the simple. This
alone is proceeding upon the true principles of science:
the rest is pedantry and petit-maitreship. Our philosophical writer distinguished all words into names of




Mr. Horne Tooke.


things, and directions added for joining them together,
or originally into nouns and verbs. It is a pity that he
has left this matter short, by omitting to define the
Verb. After enumerating sixteen different definitions
(all of which he dismisses with scorn and contumely) at
the end of two quarto volumes, he refers the reader for
the true solution to a third volume, which he did not
live to finish. This extraordinary man was in the habit
of tantalizing his guests on a Sunday afternoon with
sundry abstruse speculations, and putting them off to
the following week for a satisfaction of their doubts;
but why should he treat posterity in the same scurvy
manner, or leave the world without quitting scores
with it?
I question whether Mr. Tooke was himself in possession of his pretended nostrum, and whether, after trying
hard at a definition of the verb as a distinct part of
speech, as a terrier dog mumbles a hedge-hog, he did
not find it too much for him, and leave it to its fate. It is
also a pity that Mr. Tooke spun out his great work with
prolix and dogmatical dissertations on irrevelant matters, and after denying the old metaphysical theories of
language, should attempt to found a metaphysical theory
of his own on the nature and mechanism of language.
The nature of words, he contended (it was the basis of
his whole system), had no connection with the nature of
things or the objects of thought; yet he afterwards
strove to limit the nature of things and of the human
mind by the technical structure of language. Thus he
endeavours to show that there are no abstract ideas, by
enumerating two thousand instances of words, expressing
abstract ideas, that are the past participles of certain
verbs. It is difficult to know what he means by this.
On the other hand, he maintains that " a complex idea
is as great an absurdity as a complex star," and that




94


The Spirit of the Age.


words only are complex. He also makes out a triumphant list of metaphysical and moral non-entities, proved
to be so on the pure principle that the names of these
non-entities are participles, not nouns or names of things.
That is strange in so close a reasoner, and in one who
maintained that all language was a masquerade of words,
and that the class to which they grammatically belonged had nothing to do with the class of ideas they
represented.
It is now above twenty years since the two quarto
volumes of the Diversions of Purley were published, and
fifty since the same theory was promulgated in the celebrated Letter'to Dunning.'   Yet it is a curious example
of the Spirit of the Age that Mr. Lindley Murray's
Grammar 2 (a work out of which Mr. C***3 helps himself to English, and Mr. M*** to style) has proceeded
to the thirtieth edition in complete defiance of all the
facts and arguments there laid down.       He defines a
noun to be the name of a thing.     Is quackery a thing,
i.e. a substance? He defines a verb to be a word signifying to be, to do, or to suffer.  Are being, action, suffering, verbs? He defines an adjective to be the name of
a quality. Are not wooden, golden, substantial adjectives?
He maintains that there are six cases in English nouns,
1 The Diversions of Purley originally appeared in 1786 incompletely, only volume the first being printed. The earliest edition of
the whole work was in 1798-1805, 2 vols. 4to. In 1829, a new
edition was brought out by Richard Taylor,who annexed the Letter
to Dunning.-ED.
2 This work is not without merit in the details and examples of
English construction. But its fault even in that part is that he confounds the genius of the English language, making it periphrastic
and literal, instead of elliptical and idiomatic. According to Mr.
Murray, hardly any of our best writers ever wrote a word of
English.
3Probably Croker.-ED.




Mr. Horne Tooke.


95


that is, six various terminations without any change of
termination at all,l and that English verbs have all the
moods, tenses and persons that the Latin ones have.
This is an extraordinary stretch of blindness and obstinacy.2 He very formally translates the Latin Grammar
into English (as so many had done before him), and
fancies he has written an English Grammar; and
divines applaud, and schoolmasters usher him into the
polite world, and English scholars carry on the jest, while
Horne Tooke's genuine anatomy of our native tongue is
laid on the shelf. Can it be that our politicians smell a
rat in the Member for Old Sarum, that our clergy do
not relish Parson Horne, that the world at large are
alarmed at acuteness and originality greater than their
own? What has all this to do with the formation of
the English language, or with the first conditions and
necessary foundation of speech itself? Is there nothing
beyond.the reach of prejudice and party-spirit? It
seems in this, as in so many other instances, as if there
was a patent for absurdity in the natural bias of the
human mind, and that folly should be stereotyped!
At least, with only one change in the genitive case.
2 Murray's work was first published at York in 1795, 12mo. The
Exercises with a Key were added in 1797.-ED.








SIR WALTER SCOTT.
H




t




SIR WALTER SCOTT.
SIR WALTER SCOTT is undoubtedly the most
popular writer of the age, the "lord of the ascendant " for the time being. He is just half what the
human intellect is capable of being: if you take the
universe, and divide it into two parts, he knows all that
it has been; all that it is to be is nothing to him. His
is a mind brooding over antiquity-scorning " the present ignorant time." He is " laudator temporis acti "a "prophesier of things past."  The old world is to him
a crowded map; the new one a dull, hateful blank. He
dotes on all well-authenticated superstitions; he shudders at the shadow of innovation. His retentiveness
of memory, his accumulated weight of interested prejudice or romantic association have overlaid his other
faculties. The cells of his memory are vast, various,
full even to.bursting with life and motion; his speculative understanding is empty, flaccid, poor, and dead.
His mind receives and treasures up every thing brought
to it by tradition or custom-it does not project itself
beyond this into the world unknown, but mechanically
shrinks back as from the edge of a precipice. The land
of pure reason is to his apprehension like Van Diemen's
Land-barren, miserable, distant, a place of exile, the
dreary abode of savages, convicts, and adventurers. Sir
Waiter would make a bad hand of a description of the
Millennium, unless he could lay the scene in Scotland
~,.. ~...
~ -:-'.. *




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The Spirit of the Age.


five hundred years ago, and then he would want facts
and worm-eaten parchments to support his drooping
style. Our historical novelist firmly thinks that nothing
is but what has been, that the moral world stands still,
as the material one was supposed to do of old, and that
we can never get beyond the point where we actually
are without utter destruction, though everything changes
and will change from what it was three hundred years
ago to what it is now,-from what it is now to all that
the bigoted admirer of the good old times most dreads
and hates!
It is long since we read, and long since we thought of
our author's poetry. It would probably have gone out
of date with the immediate occasion, even if he himself
had not contrived to banish it from our recollection.
It is not to be denied that it had great merit, both of
an obvious and intrinsic kind. It abounded in vivid
descriptions, in spirited action, in smooth and flowing
versification. But it wanted character. It was " poetry
of no mark or likelihood." It slid out of the mind as
soon as read, like a river; and would have been forgotten, but that the public curiosity was fed with ever
new supplies from the same teeming liquid source. It
is not every man that can write six quarto volumes in
verse, that are caught up with avidity, even by fastidious
judges. But what a difference between their popularity
and that of the Scotch Novels! It is true, the public
read and admired the Lay of the Last Minstrel, MZarmiion,
and so on, and each individual was contented to read
and admire because the public did so: but with regard
to the prose-works of the same (supposed) author, it is
quite another-guess sort of thing. Here every one stands
forward to applaud on his own ground, would be thor.ght
to go before the public opinion: is eager to extol his
favourite characters louder, to understand them better,;*:  ^*** * *




Sir Walter Scott.


101


than everybody else, and has his own scale of comparative excellence for each work, supported by nothing
but his own enthusiastic and fearless convictions.
It must be amusing to the Author of Waverley to hear
his readers and admirers (and are not these the same
thing? ) quarrelling which of his novels is the best,
opposing character to character, quoting passage against
passage, striving to surpass each other in the extravagance of their encomiums, and yet unable to settle
the precedence, or to do the author's writings justiceso various, so equal, so transcendant are their merits!
His volumes of poetry were received as fashionable and
well-dressed acquaintances: we are ready to tear the
others in pieces as old friends. There was something
meretricious in Sir Walter's ballad-rhymes; and like
those who keep operafigurantes, we were willing to have
our admiration shared, and our taste confirmed by the
town. But the Novels are like the betrothed of our
hearts, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, and we
are jealous that any one should be as much delighted or
as thoroughly acquainted with their beauties as ourselves. For which of his poetical heroines would the
reader break a lance so soon as for Jeanie Deans? What
Lady of the Lake can compare with the beautiful Rebecca? We believe the late Mr. John Scott went to his
death-bed (though a painful and premature one) 2 with
1 No! For we met with a young lady who kept a circulating
library and a milliner's shop in a watering-place in the country, who,
when we inquired for the Scotch Novels, spoke indifferently about
them, said they were " so dry she could hardly get through them,"
and recommended us to read Agnes. We never thought of it before;
but we would venture to lay a wager that there are many other
young ladies in the same situation, and who think " Old Mortality"
"dry."
2 He fell, as is well known, in a duel. There is an account of the
matter in the Memoirs of Hazlitt, 1867, i. 301.-ED.




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The Spirit of the Age.


some degree of satisfaction, inasmuch as he had penned
the most elaborate panegyric on the Scotch Novels that
had as yet appeared!
The Epics are not poems, so much as metrical romances. There is a glittering veil of verse thrown over
the features of nature and of old romance. The deep
incisions into character are " skinned and filmed over;"
the details are lost or shaped into flimsy and insipid
decorum; and the truth of feeling and of circumstance
is translated into a tinkling sound, a tinsel commonplace. It must be owned, there is a power in true
poetry that lifts the mind from the ground of reality to
a higher sphere, that penetrates the inert, scattered,
incoherent materials presented to it, and by a force and
inspiration of its own, melts and moulds them into sublimity and beauty. But Sir Walter (we contend, under
correction) has not this creative impulse, this plastic
power, this capacity of reacting on his first impressions.
He is a learned, a literal, a mvatter-of-fact expounder of
truth or fable:1 he does not soar above and look down
upon his subject, imparting his own lofty views and
feelings to his descriptions of nature-he relies upon it,
is raised by it, is one with it, or he is nothing. A poet
is essentially a maker; that is, he must atone for what
he loses in individuality and local resemblance by the
energies and resources of his own mind.
The writer of whom we speak is deficient in these
last. He has either not the faculty or not the will to
impregnate his subject by an effort of pure invention.
The execution also is much upon a par with the more
ephemeral effusions of the press. It is light, agreeable,
effeminate, diffuse.  Sir Walter's Muse is a Modern
Antique.  The smooth, glossy texture of his verse contrasts happily with the quaint, uncouth, rugged mate1 Just as Cobbett is a matter-of-fact reasoner.




Sir Walter Scott.


103


rials of which it is composed, and takes away any
appearance of heaviness or harshness from the body of
local traditions and obsolete costume. We see grim
knights and iron armour; but then they are woven in
silk with a careless, delicate hand, and have the softness
of flowers. The poet's figures might be compared to
old tapestries copied on the finest velvet:-they are not
like Raphael's Cartoons; but they are very like Mr.
Westall's drawings which accompany, and are intended
to illustrate, them.
This facility and grace of execution is the more remarkable, as a story goes that not long before the
appearance of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, Sir Walter
(then Mr.) Scott, having, in the company of a friend, to
cross the Frith of Forth in a ferry-boat, they proposed
to beguile the time by writing a number of verses on a
given subject, and that, at the end of an hour's hard
study, they found they had produced only six lines between them. "It is plain," said the unconscious author
to his fellow-labourer, "that you and I need never think
of getting our living by writing poetry!" In a year or
so after this, he set to work, and poured out quarto
upon quarto, as if they had been drops of water. As to
the rest, and compared with true and great poets, our
Scottish Minstrel is but " a metre ballad-monger." We
would rather have written one song of Burns, or a
single passage in Lord Byron's Heaven and Earth, or one
of Wordsworth's "fancies and good-nights," than all
his epics. What is he to Spenser, over whose immortal,
ever-amiable verse beauty hovers and trembles, and who
has shed the purple light of Fancy from his ambrosial
wings over all nature? What is there of the might of
Milton, whose head is canopied in the blue serene, and
who takes us to sit with him there? What is there in
his ambling rhymes of the deep pathos of Chaucer?




104


The Spirit of the Age.


Or of the o'er-informing power of Shakespear, whose eye,
watching alike the. minutest traces of character and the
strongest movements of passion, "glances from heaven
to earth, from earth to heaven," and with the lambent
flame of genius, playing round each object, lights up the
universe in a robe of its own radiance? Sir Walter has
no voluntary power of combination: all his associations
(as we said before) are those of habit or of tradition.
He is a mere narrative and descriptive poet, garrulous
of the old time.  The definition of his poetry is a
pleasing superficiality.
Not so of his NOVELS AND ROMANCES. There we turn
over a new leaf-another and the same-the same in
matter, but in form, in power how different! The
author of Waverley has got rid of the tagging of rhymes,
the eking out of syllables, the supplying of epithets,
the colours of style, the grouping of his characters, and
the regular march of events, and comes to the point at
once, and strikes at the heart of his subject, without
dismay and without disguise. His poetry was a lady's
waiting-maid, dressed out in cast-off finery: his prose
is a beautiful, rustic nymph, that, like Dorothea in Don
Quixote, when she is surprised with dishevelled tresses
bathing her naked feet in the brook, looks round her,
abashed at the admiration her charms have excited!
The grand secret of the author's success in these latter
productions is that he has completely got rid of the
trammels of authorship, and torn off at one rent (as
Jack got rid of so many yards of lace in the Tale of a
Tub) all the ornaments of fine writing and worn-out
sentimentality.
All is fresh, as from the hand of nature: by going a
century or two back and laying the scene in a remote
and uncultivated district, all becomes new and startling
in the present advanced period. Highland manners,




Sir Walter Scott.


105


characters, scenery, superstitions: Northern dialect and
costume: the wars, the religion, and politics of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, give a charming
and wholesome relief to the fastidious refinement and
"over-laboured lassitude" of modern readers, like the
effect of plunging a nervous valetudinarian into a cold
bath.
The Scotch Novels, for this reason, are not so much
admired in Scotland as in England. The contrast, the
transition is less striking. From the top of the Calton
Hill, the inhabitants of " Auld Reekie" 1 can descry, or
fancy they descry the peaks of Ben Lomond and the
waving outline of Rob Roy's country: we who live at
the southern extremity of the island can only catch
a glimpse of the billowy scene in the descriptions of the
Author of Waverley. The mountain air is most bracing
to our languid nerves, and it is brought us in ship-loads
from  the neighbourhood of Abbot's-Ford.    There is
another circumstance to be taken into the account. In
Edinburgh there is a little opposition and something of
the spirit of cabal between the partisans of works proceeding from Mr. Constable's and Mr. Blackwood's
shops. Mr. Constable gives the highest prices; but,
being the Whig bookseller, it is grudged that he should
do so. An attempt is therefore made to transfer a
certain share of popularity to the second-rate Scotch
novels, "the embryo fry, the little aery of ricketty
children," issuing through Mr. Blackwood's shopdoor. This operates a diversion, which does not affect
us here.
The Author of Waverley wears the palm of legendary
The old town of Edinburgh, so called for a reason, which it is
scarcely necessary to furnish to any one who has read accounts of
its former filthy condition in the Life of James Nasmyth and other
works. -ED.




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The Spirit of the Age.


lore alone. Sir Walter may, indeed, surfeit us: his
imitators make us aick! It may be asked, it has been
asked, " Have we no materials for romance in England?
Must we look to Scotland for a supply of whatever is
original and striking in this kind?"  And we answer
"Yes!"   Every foot of soil is with us worked up:
nearly every movement of the social machine is calculable. We have no room left for violent catastrophes,
for grotesque quaintnesses, for wizard spells. The last
skirts of ignorance and barbarism are seen hovering (in
Sir Walter's pages) over the Border. We have, it is
true, gipsies in this country as well as at the Cairn of
Derncleugh: but they live under clipped hedges and
repose in camp-beds, and do not perch on crags, like
eagles, or take shelter, like sea-mews, in basaltic subterranean caverns. We have heaths with rude heaps of
stones upon them: but no existing superstition converts
them into the Geese of Micklestane-Moor, or sees a
Black Dwarf groping among them. We have sects in
religion: but the only thing sublime or ridiculous in
that way is Mr. Irving, the Caledonian preacher, who
"comes like a satyr staring from the woods, and yet
speaks like an orator!"
mre had a Parson Adams not quite a hundred years
ago, a Sir Roger de Coverley rather more than a hundred! Even Sir Walter is ordinarily obliged to pitch
his angle (strong as the hook is) a hundred miles to the
North of the " Modern Athens " or a century back. His
last work' indeed is mystical, is romantic in nothing
but the title-page. Instead of "a holy-water sprinkle
dipped in dew," he has given us a fashionable wateringplace; and we see what he has made of it. He must
not come down from his fastnesses in traditional barbarism and native rusticity: the level, the littleness, the
1 St. Ronan's Well.




Sir Walter Scott.


107


frippery of modern civilization will undo him, as it has
undone us.
Sir Walter has found out (0 rare discovery) that
facts are better than fiction, that there is no romance
like the romance of real life, and that, if we can but
arrive at what men feel, do, and say in striking and
singular situations, the result will be "more lively,
audible, and full of vent," than the fine-spun cobwebs
of the brain. With reverence be it spoken, he is like
the man who, having to imitate the squeaking of a pig
upon the stage, brought the animal under his coat with
him. Our author has conjured up the actual people he
has to deal with, or as much as he could get of them, in
"their habits as they lived."  He has ransacked old
chronicles, and poured the contents upon his page; he
has squeezed out musty records; he has consulted wayfaring pilgrims, bed-rid sybils.  He has invoked the
spirits of the air; he has conversed with the living and
the dead, and let them tell their story their own way;
and by borrowing of others has enriched his own genius
with everlasting variety, truth and freedom. He has
taken his materials from the original, authentic sources
in large concrete masses, and not tampered with or too
much frittered them away.
He is only the amanuensis of truth and history. It
is impossible to say how fine his writings in consequence
are, unless we could describe how fine nature is. All
that portion of the history of his country that he has
touched upon (wide as the scope is)-the manners, the
personages, the events, the scenery, lives over again in
his volumes. Nothing is wanting-the illusion is complete. There is a hurtling in the air, a trampling of feet
upon the ground, as these perfect representations of
human character or fanciful belief come thronging back
upon our imaginations. We will merely recall a few of




108


The Spirit of the Age.


the subjects of his pencil to the reader's recollection; for
nothing we could add, by way of note or commendation,
could make the impression more vivid.
There is (first and foremost, because the earliest of
our acquaintance) the Baron of Bradwardine, stately,
kind-hearted, whimsical, pedantic: and Flora MacIvor
(whom even we forgive for her Jacobitism), the fierce
Vich Ian Vohr, and Evan Dhu, constant in death, and
Davie Gellatly roasting his eggs or turning his rhymes
with restless volubility, and the two stag-hounds that
met Waverley, as fine as ever Titian painted, or Paul
Veronese. Then there is old Balfour of Burley, brandishing his sword and his Bible with fire-eyed fury,
trying a fall with the insolent, gigantic Bothwell at the
'Change-house, and vanquishing him at the noble battle
of Loudon-hill; there is Bothwell himself, drawn to the
life: proud, cruel, selfish, profligate, but with the loveletters of the gentle Agnes (written thirty years before)
and his verses to her memory found in his pocket after
his death. In the same volume of Old Mortality is that
lone figure, like a figure in Scripture, of the woman
sitting on the stone at the turning to the mountain,
to warn Burley that there is a lion in his path; and the
fawning Claverhouse, beautiful as a panther, smoothlooking, blood-spotted; and the fanatics, Macbriar and
MIucklewrath, crazed with zeal and sufferings; and the
inflexible Morton and the faithful Edith, who refused to
" give her hand to another while her heart was with her
lover in the deep and dead sea."
And in The Heart of Mid Lothian we have Effie Deans
(that sweet, faded flower) and Jeanie, her more than
sister, and old David Deans, the patriarch of St. Leonard's Crags, and Butler, and Dumbiedikes, eloquent in
his silence, and Mr. Bartoline Saddle-tree and his prudent helpmate, and Porteous swinging in the wind, and




Sir Walter Scott.


109


Madge Wildfire, full of finery and madness, and her
ghastly mother. Again, there is Meg Merrilies, standing
on her rock, stretched on her bier with " her head to the
east," and Dirk Hatterick (equal to Shakespear's Master
Barnardine), and Glossin, the soul of an attorney, and
Dandy Dinmont, with his terrier-pack and his pony
Dumple, and the fiery Colonel Mannering, and the
modish old counsellor Pleydell, and Dominie Sampson, 1
and Rob Roy (like the eagle in his eyry), and Baillie
Nicol Jarvie, and the inimitable Major Galbraith, and
Rashleigh Osbaldistone, and Die Vernon, the best of
secret-keepers. And in the Antiquary, the ingenious
and abstruse Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, and the old beadsman Edie Ochiltree, and that preternatural figure of old
Edith Elspeith, a living shadow, in whom the lamp of
life had been long extinguished, had it not been fed by
remorse and "thick-coming" recollections; and that
striking picture of the effects of feudal tyranny and
fiendish pride, the unhappy Earl of Glenallan; and the
Black Dwarf and his friend Habbie of the Heughfoot
(the cheerful hunter), and his cousin Grace Armstrong,
fresh and laughing like the morning; and the Children
of the Mist, and the baying of the blood-hound that
tracks their steps at a distance (the hollow echoes are in
our ears now), and Amy and her hapless love, and the
villain Varney, and the deep voice of George of Douglas-and the immovable Balafre, and Master Oliver the
Barber in Quentin Durward-and the quaint humour of
the Fortunes of Nigel, and the comic spirit of Peveril of
the Peak-and the fine old English romance of Ivanhoe.
What a list of names! What a host of associations!
What a thing is human life! What a power is that of
'Perhaps the finest scene in all these novels, is that where the
Dominie meets his pupil, Miss Lucy, the morning after her brother's
arrival.




110


The Spirit of the Age.


genius! What a world of thought and feeling is thus
rescued from oblivion! How many hours of heartfelt
satisfaction has our author given to the gay and thoughtless! How many sad hearts has he soothed in pain and
solitude! It is no wonder that the public repay with
lengthened applause and gratitude the pleasure they
receive. He writes as fast as they can read, and he does
not write himself down. He is always in the public eye,
and we do not tire of him. His worst is better than any
other person's 'best.  His back-grounds (and his later
works are little else but back-grounds capitally made
out) are more attractive than the principal figures and
most complicated actions of other writers. His works
(taken together) are almost like a new edition of human
nature. This is indeed to be an author!
The political bearing of the Scotch Novels has been a
considerable recommendation to them. They are a relief
to the mind, rarefied as it has been with modern philosophy, and heated with ultra-radicalism.  At a time
also, when we bid fair to revive the principles of the
Stuarts, it is interesting to bring us acquainted with
their persons and misfortunes. The candour of Sir
Walter's historic pen levels our bristling prejudices on
this score, and sees fair play between Roundheads and
Cavaliers, between Protestant and Papist. )He is a
writer reconciling all the diversities of human nature to
the reader.! He does not enter into the distinctions of
hostile sects or parties, but treats of the strength or
the infirmity of the human mind, of the virtues or
vices of the human breast, as they are to be found
blended in the whole race of mankind. Nothing can
show more handsomely or be more gallantly executed.
There was a talk at one time that our author was about
to take Guy Faux for the subject of one of his novels,
in order to put a more liberal and humane construction




Sir Walter Scott.


111


on the Gunpowder Plot than our "No Popery" prejudices have hitherto permitted.
Sir Walter is a professed clarifier of the age from the
vulgar and still lurking old-English antipathy to Popery
and Slavery. Through some odd process of servile logic,
it should seem, that in restoring the claims of the
Stuarts by the courtesy of romance, the House of Brunswick are more firmly seated in point of fact, and the
Bourbons, by collateral reasoning, become legitimate!
In any other point of view, we cannot possibly conceive
how Sir Walter imagines "he has done something to
revive the declining spirit of loyalty " by these novels.
His loyalty is founded on would-be treason: he props
the actual throne by the shadow of rebellion. Does he
really think of making us enamoured of the " good old
times " by the faithful and harrowing portraits he has
drawn of them? Would he carry us back to the early
stages of barbarism, of clanship, of the feudal system,
as "a consummation devoutly to be wished?" Is he infatuated enough, or does he so doat and drivel over his
own slothful and self-willed prejudices, as to believe that
he will make a single convert to. the beauty of Legitimacy, that is, of lawless power and savage bigotry,
when he himself is obliged to apologize for the horrors
he describes, and even render his descriptions credible
to the modern reader by referring to the authentic history of these delectable times? 1
1 " And here we cannot but think it necessary to offer some better
proof than the incidents of an idle tale, to vindicate the melancholy
representation of manners which has been just laid before the reader.
It is grievous to think that those valiant Barons, to whose stand
against the crown the liberties of England were indebted for their
existence, should themselves have been such dreadful oppressors, and
capable of excesses, contrary not only to the laws of England, but to
those of nature and humanity. But alas! we have only to extract
from the industrious Henry one of those numerous passages which




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The Spirit of the Age.


He is indeed so besotted as to the moral of his own
story, that he has even the blindness to go out of his
way to have a fling at flints and dungs (the contemptible
ingredients, as he would have us believe, of a modern
rabble) at the very time when he is describing a mob of
the twelfth century-a mob (one should think) after the
writer's own heart, without one particle of modern philosophy or revolutionary politics in their composition,
who were to a man, to a hair, just what priests, and
kings, and nobles let them be, and who were collected to
witness (a spectacle proper to the times) the burning of
the lovely Rebecca at a stake for a sorceress, because
she was a Jewess, beautiful and innocent, and the consequent victim of insane bigotry and unbridled profligacy. And it is at this moment (when the heart is
kindled and bursting with indignation at the revolting
abuses of self-constituted power) that Sir Walter stops
the press to have a sneer at the people, and to put a
spoke (as he thinks) in the wheel of upstart innovation!
he has collected from contemporary historians, to prove that fiction
itself can hardly reach the dark reality of the horrors of the period.
" The description given by the author of the Saxon Chronicle of
the cruelties exercised in the reign of King Stephen by the great
barons and lords of castles, who were all Normans, affords a strong
proof of the excesses of which they were capable when their passions
were inflamed.  ' They grievously oppressed the poor people by
building castles; and when they were built, they filled them with
wicked men or rather devils, who seized both men and women who
they imagined had any money, threw them into prison, and put them
to more cruel tortures than the martyrs ever endured. They suffocated some in mud, and suspended others by the feet, or the head, or
the thumbs, kindling fires below them. They squeezed the heads of
some with knotted cords till they pierced their brains, while they
threw others into dungeons swarming with serpents, snakes, and
toads.' But it would be cruel to put the reader to the pain of
perusing the remainder of the description."-Henry's Hist., edit.
*1805, vol. vii. p. 346.




Sir Walter Scott.


113


This is what he "calls backing his friends "; it is thus
he administers charms and philtres to our love of Legitimacy, makes us conceive a horror of all reform, civil,
political or religious, and would fain put down the
Spirit of the Age.
The author of Waverley might just as well get up and
make a speech at a dinner at Edinburgh, abusing Mr.
Mac-Adam for his improvements in the roads, on the
ground that they were nearly impassable in many places
" sixty years since;" or object to Mr. Peel's Police-Bill,
by insisting that Hounslow-Heath was formerly a scene
of greater interest and terror to highwaymen and travellers, and cut a greater figure in the Newgate Calendar
than it does at present. O Wickliff, Luther, Hampden,
Sidney, Somers, mistaken Whigs and thoughtless Reformers in religion and politics, and all ye, whether poets
or philosophers, heroes or sages, inventors of arts or
sciences, patriots, benefactors of the human race, enlighteners and civilisers of the world, who have (so far)
reduced opinion to reason and power to law, who are
the cause that we no longer burn witches and heretics at
slow fires, that the thumb-screws are no longer applied
by ghastly, smiling judges, to extort confession of imputed crimes from sufferers for conscience sake: that
men are no longer strung up like acorns on trees without judge or jury, or hunted like wild beasts through
thickets and glens: who have abated the cruelty of
priests, the pride of nobles, the divinity of kings in
former times: to whom we owe it that we no longer
wear round our necks the collar of Gurth the swineherd
and of Wamba the jester, that the castles of great
lords are no longer the dens of banditti, whence they
issue with fire and sword to lay waste the land: that we
no longer expire in loathsome dungeons without knowing the cause, or have our right hands struck off for
I




114


The Spirit of the Age.


raising them in self-defence against wanton insult, that
we can sleep without fear of being burnt in our beds,
or travel without making our wills: that no Amy Robsarts are thrown down trap-doors by Richard Varneys
with impunity, that no Red Reiver of WestburnFlat sets fire to peaceful cottages, that no Claverhouse
signs cold-blooded death-warrants in sport, that we
have no Tristan L'Hermite or Petit-Andre, crawling
near us like spiders, and making our flesh creep, and
our hearts sicken within us at every moment of our lives
-ye, who have produced this change in the face of nature
and society, return to earth once more, and beg pardon
of Sir Walter and his patrons, who sigh at not being
able to undo all that you have done!
Leaving this question, there are two other remarks
which we wished to make on the Novels. The one was,
to express our admiration of the good-nature of the
mottos, in which the author has taken occasion to remember and quote almost every living author (whether
illustrious or obscure) but himself-an indirect argument in favour of the general opinion as to the source
from which they spring; and the other was, to hint our
astonishment at the innumerable and incessant instances
of bad and slovenly English in them-more, we believe,
than in any other works now printed. We should think
the writer could not possibly read the manuscript after
he has once written it, or overlook the press.
If there were a writer, who " born for the universe "-----  Narrow'd his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for iiankind-"
who, from the height of his genius looking abroad into
nature, and scanning the recesses of the human heart,
"c winked and shut his apprehension up " to every thought
or purpose that tended to the future good of mankind



Sir Walter Scott.


115


-who, raised by affluence, the reward of successful industry, and by the voice of fame above the want of any
but the most honourable patronage, stooped to the unworthy arts of adulation, and abetted the views of the
great with the pettifogging feelings of the meanest dependant on office-who, having secured the admiration
of the public (with the probable reversion of immortality), showed no respect for himself, for that genius
that had raised him to distinction, for that nature which
he'trampled under foot-who, amiable, frank, friendly,
manly in private life, was seized with the dotage of age
and the fury of a woman the instant politics were concerned-who reserved all his candour and comprehensiveness of view for history, and vented his littleness,
pique, resentment, bigotry and intolerance on his contemporaries-who took the wrong side, and defended it
by unfair means-who, the moment his own interest or
the prejudices of others interfered, seemed to forget all
that was due to the pride of intellect, to the sense of manhood-who, praised, admired by men of all parties alike,
repaid the public liberality by striking a secret and envenomed blow at the reputation of every one who was
not the ready tool of power-who strewed the slime of
rankling malice and mercenary scorn over the bud and
promise of genius, because it was not fostered in the
hot-bed of corruption, or warped by the trammels of
servility-who supported the worst abuses of authority
in the worst spirit-who joined a gang of desperadoes
to spread calumny, contempt, infamy, wherever they
were merited by honesty or talent on a different sidewjao officiously undertook to decide public questions by
private insinuations, to prop the throne by nicknames
and the altar by lies-who being (by common consent)
the finest, the most humane and accomplished writer
of his age, associated himself with and encouraged the




116            The Spirit of the Age.
lowest panders of a venal press: deluging, nauseating
the public mind with the offal and garbage of Billingsgate abuse and vulgar slang: showing no remorse, no
relenting or compassion towards the victims of this
nefarious and organized system of party-proscription,
carried on under the mask of literary criticism and fair
discussion, insulting the misfortunes of some, and trampling on the early grave of others"Who would not grieve if such a man there be?
Who would not weep if Atticus were he? "  *
But we believe there is no other age or country of the
world (but ours), in which such genius could have been
so degraded!




LORD BYRON.




0




LORD BYRON.1


LORD      BYRON      and Sir Walter Scott are among
writers now living2 the two, who would carry away
a majority of suffrages as the greatest geniuses of the
age. The former would, perhaps, obtain the preference
with the fine gentlemen and ladies (squeamishness apart),
the latter with the critics and the vulgar. We shall
treat of them in the same connection, partly on account
of their distinguished pre-eminence, and partly because
they afford a complete contrast to each other. In their
poetry, in their prose, in their politics, and in their tempers, no two men can be more unlike.
If Sir Walter Scott may be thought by some to have
been
" Born universal heir to all humanity,"
it is plain Lord Byron can set up no such pretension.
He is, in a striking degree, the creature of his own will.
1 Hazlitt clearly undervalues Byron, as he did Shelley, although
the two writers in point of thought and genius are scarcely to be
compared. It would be ridiculous to deny the vast intellectual power
of Byron in his English Bards and Don Juan. Whom have we to
produce works of such a calibre at the present time? But Lamb
and Hazlitt united in disliking Byron as one who had sneered at the
Lake and Cockney schools, and Shelley shared this feeling as the
intimate associate of the noble poet rather than on account of anything which he had personally done.-ED.
2 This Essay was written just before Lord Byron's death. [Sir
Walter died in 1832.]




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The Spirit of the Age.


He holds no communion with his kind, but stands alone
without mate or fellow" As if a man were author of himself,
And owned no other kin."
He is like a solitary peak, all access to which is cut off
not more by elevation than distance. He is seated on a
lofty eminence, " cloud-capt," or reflecting the last rays
of setting suns, and in his poetical moods reminds us
of the fabled Titans, retired to a ridgy steep, playing
on their Pan's-pipes, and taking up ordinary men
and things in their hands with haughty indifference.
He raises his subject to himself, or tramples on it; he
neither stoops to, nor loses himself in it. He exists not
by sympathy, but by antipathy.  He scorns all things,
even himself. Nature must come to him to sit for her
picture: he does not go' to her. She must consult his
time, his convenience and his humour, and wear a sogmbre
or a fantastic garb, or his Lordship turns his back upon
her. There is no ease, no unaffected simplicity of
manner, no "golden mean."  All is strained, or petulant
in the extreme. His thoughts are sphered and crystalline; his style " prouder than when blue Iris bends; " his
spirit fiery, impatient, wayward, indefatigable. Instead
of taking his impressions from without, in entire and
almost unimpaired masses, he moulds them according to
his own temperament, and heats the materials of his
imagination in the furnace of his passions. Lord Byron's
verse glows like a flame, consuming every thing in its
way; Sir Walter Scott's glides like a river: clear, gentle,
harmless. The poetry of the first scorches, that of the
last scarcely warms. The light of the one proceeds
from an internal source, ensanguined, sullen, fixed; the
other reflects the hues of Heaven or the face of nature,
glancing, vivid and various.
The productions of the Northern Bard have the rust




Lord Byron.


121


and the freshness of antiquity about them; those of the
Noble Poet cease to startle from their extreme ambition
of novelty, both in style and matter. Sir Walter's
rhymes are "silly sooth "" And dally with the innocence of thought,
Like the old age"his Lordship's Muse spurns the olden time, and affects all
the supercilious airs of a modern fine lady and an upstart. The object of the one writer is to restore us to
truth and nature: the other chiefly thinks how he shall
display his own power, or vent his spleen, or astonish
the reader either by starting new subjects and trains of
speculation, or by expressing old ones in a more striking
and emphatic manner than they have been expressed
before. He cares little what it is he says, so that he can
say it differently from others. This may account for the
charges of plagiarism which have been repeatedly brought
against the Noble Poet. If he can borrow an image or
sentiment from another, and heighten it by an epithet
or an allusion of greater force and beauty than is to be
found in the original passage, he thinks he shows his
superiority of execution in this in a more marked manner
than if the first suggestion had been his own. It is not
the value of the observation itself he is solicitous about;
but he wishes to shine by contrast-even nature only
serves as a foil to set off his style. He therefore takes
the thoughts of others (whether contemporaries or not)
out of their mouths, and is content to make them his
own, to set his stamp upon them, by imparting to them
a more meretricious gloss, a higher relief, a greater loftiness of tone, and a characteristic inveteracy of purpose.
Even in those collateral ornaments of modern style,
slovenliness, abruptness and eccentricity (as well as in
terseness and significance), Lord Byron, when he pleases,
defies competition and surpasses all his contemporaries.




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The Spirit of the Age.


Whatever he does, he must do in a more decided and
daring manner than any one else; he lounges with extravagance, and yawns so as to alarm the reader! Selfwill, passion, the love of singularity, a disdain of himself and of others (with a conscious sense that this is
among the ways and means of procuring admiration)
are the proper categories of his mind: he is a lordly
writer, is above his own reputation, and condescends to
the Aluses with a scornful grace!
Lord Byron, who in his politics is a liberal, in his
genius is haughty and aristocratic: Walter Scott, who
is an aristocrat in principle, is popular in his writings,
and is (as it were) equally servile to nature and to
opinion. The genius of Sir Walter is essentially imitative, or " denotes a foregone conclusion:" that of Lord
Byron is self-dependent or at least requires no aid, is
governed by no law but the impulses of its own will.
We confess, however much we may admire independence
of feeling and erectness of spirit in general or practical
questions, yet in works of genius we prefer him who
bows to the authority of nature, who appeals to actual
objects, to mouldering superstitions, to history, observation and tradition, before him who only consults the
pragmatical and restless workings of his own breast,
and gives them out as oracles to the world. We like a
writer (whether poet or prose writer) who takes in (or
is willing to take in) the range of half the universe
in feeling, character, description, much better than we
do one who obstinately and invariably shuts himself up
in the Bastille of his own ruling passions. In short, we had
rather be Sir Walter Scott (meaning thereby the Author
of Waverley) than Lord Byron a hundred times over,
and for the reason just given, namely, that he casts his
descriptions in the mould of nature, ever-varying, never
tiresome, always interesting and always instructive, in



Lord Byron.


123


stead of casting them constantly in the mould of his
own individual impressions.
He gives us man as he is, or as he was, in almost
every variety of situation, action and feeling.  Lord
Byron makes man after his own image, woman after his
own heart; the one is a capricious tyrant, the other a
yielding slave; he gives us the misanthrope and the
voluptuary by turns; and with these two characters,
burning or melting in their own fires, he makes out
everlasting centos of himself. He hangs the cloud, the
film of his existence over all outward things, sits in the
centre of his thoughts, and enjoys dark night, bright day,
the glitter and the gloom, "in cell monastic." We see
the mournful pall, the crucifix, the death's-heads, the
faded chaplet of flowers, the gleaming tapers, the agonized brow of genius, the wasted form of beauty; but we
are still imprisoned in a dungeon; a curtain intercepts
our view; we do not breathe freely the air of nature or
of our own thoughts. The other admired author draws
aside the curtain, and the veil of egotism is rent; and
he shows us the crowd of living men and women, the
endless groups, the landscape back-ground, the cloud
and the rainbow, and enriches our imaginations and
relieves one passion by another, and expands and
lightens reflection, and takes away that tightness at the
breast which arises from thinking or wishing to think
that there is nothing in the world out of a man's self!
In this point of view, the Author of Waverley is one
of the greatest teachers of morality that ever lived,
by emancipating the mind from'petty, narrow, and
bigoted prejudices: Lord Byron is the greatest pamperer of those prejudices, by seeming to think there is
nothing else worth encouraging but the seeds or the full
luxuriant growth of dogmatism and self-conceit. In
reading the Scotch Novels, we never think about the




124


The Spirit of the Age.


author, except from a feeling of curiosity respecting our
unknown benefactor: in reading Lord Byron's works,
he himself is never absent from our minds. The colouring of Lord Byron's style, however rich and dipped
in Tyrian dyes, is nevertheless opaque, is in itself an
object of delight and wonder: Sir Walter Scott's is
perfectly transparent. In studying the one, you seem
to gaze at the figures cut in stained glass, which exclude
the view beyond, and where the pure light of Heaven is
only a means of setting off the gorgeousness of art: in
reading the other, you look through a noble window at
the clear and varied landscape without. Or to sum up
the distinction in one word, Sir Walter Scott is the
most dramatic writer now living, and Lord Byron is the
least so.
It would be difficult to imagine that the Author of
Waverley is in the smallest degree a pedant, as it would
be haid to persuade ourselves that the author of Childe
Harold and Don Juan is not a coxcomb, though a provoking and sublime one. In this decided preference
given to Sir Walter Scott over Lord Byron, we distinctly include the prose-works of the former; for we
do not think his poetry alone by any means entitles him
to that precedence. Sir Walter in his poetry, though
pleasing and natural, is a comparative trifler: it is in
his anonymous productions that he has shown himself
for what he is.
Intensity is the great and prominent distinction of
Lord Byron's writings. He seldom gets beyond force of
style, nor has he produced any regular work or masterly
whole. He does not prepare any plan beforehand, nor
revise and retouch what he has written with polished
accuracy. His only object seems to be to stimulate
himself and his readers for the moment-to keep both
alive, to drive away ennui, to substitute a feverish and




Lord Byron.


125


irritable state of excitement for listless indolence or even
calm enjoyment. For this purpose he pitches on any
subject at random without much thought or delicacy.
He is only impatient to begin, and takes care to adorn
and enrich it as he proceeds with " thoughts that breathe
and words that burn." He composes (as he himself has
said) whether he is in the bath, in his study, or on
horseback; he writes as habitually as others talk or
think; and whether we have the inspiration of the Muse
or not, we always find the spirit of the man of genius
breathing from his verse. He grapples with his subject, and moves, penetrates and animates it by the
electric force of his own feelings. He is often monotonous, extravagant, offensive; but he is never dull or
tedious, but when he writes prose.
Lord Byron does not exhibit a new view of nature, or
raise insignificant objects into importance by the romantic associations with which he surrounds them, but
generally (at least) takes common-place thoughts and
events, and endeavours to express them in stronger and
statelier language than others. His poetry stands like a
Martello tower by the side of his subject. He does not,
like Mr. Wordsworth, lift poetry from the ground, or
create a sentiment out of nothing. He does not describe
a daisy or a periwinkle, but the cedar or the cypress:
not " poor men's cottages, but princes' palaces." His
Childe Harold contains a lofty and impassioned review
of the great events of history, of the mighty objects left
as wrecks of time; but he dwells chiefly on what is
familiar to the mind of every school-boy, has brought
out few new traits of feeling or thought, and has done
no more than justice to the reader's preconceptions
by the sustained force and brilliancy of his style and
imagery.
Lord Byron's earlier productions, Lara, the Corsair,




126


The Spirit of the Age.


&c. were wild and gloomy romances, put into rapid and
shining verse. They discover the madness of poetry,
together with the inspiration: sullen, moody, capricious,
fierce, inexorable: gloating on beauty, thirsting for
revenge: hurrying from the extremes of pleasure to pain,
but with nothing permanent, nothing healthy or natural.
The gaudy decorations and the morbid sentiments
remind one of flowers strewed over the face of death!
In his Childe Harold (as has been just observed) he
assumes a lofty and philosophic tone, and " reasons high
of providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate." He takes
the highest points in the history of the world, and comments on them from a more commanding eminence. He
shows us the crumbling monuments of time; he invokes
the great names, the mighty spirit of antiquity. The
universe is changed into a stately mausoleum: in solemn
measures he chaunts a hymn to fame. Lord Byron has
strength and elevation enough to fill up the moulds of
our classical and time-hallowed recollections, and to
rekindle the earliest aspirations of the mind after greatness and true glory with a pen of fire. The names of
Tasso, of Ariosto, of Dante, of Cincinnatus, of Caesar, of
Scipio, lose nothing of their pomp or their lustre in his
hands, and when he begins and continues a strain of
panegyric on such subjects, we indeed sit down with
him to a banquet of rich praise, brooding over imperishable glories,
"Till Contemplation has her fill."
Lord Byron seems to cast himself indignantly from
"this bank and shoal of time," or the frail tottering
bark that bears up modern reputation, into the huge
sea of ancient renown, and to revel there with untired,
outspread plume. Even this in him is spleen; his contempt of his contemporaries makes him turn back to the
lustrous past, or project himself forward to the dim




Lord Byron.


127


future! Lord Byron's tragedies, Faliero,' Sardanapalus,2 &c. are not equal to his other works. They want
the essence of the drama. They abound in speeches and
descriptions, such as he himself might make either to
himself or others, lolling on his couch of a morning, but
do not carry the reader out of the poet's mind to the
scenes and events recorded. They have neither action,
character, nor interest, but are a sort of gossamer tragedies, spun out and glittering, and spreading a flimsy
veil over the face of nature. Yet he spins them on. Of
all that he has done in this way the Heaven and Earth
(the same subject as Mr. Moore's Loves of the Angels) is
the best. We prefer it even to Manfred.   Manfred is'
merely himself with a fancy-drapery on. But, in the
dramatic fragment published in the Liberal, the space
between Heaven and earth, the stage on which his characters have to pass to and fro, seems to fill his Lordship's imagination; and the Deluge, which he has so '
finely described, may be said to have drowned all his
own idle humours.
We must say we think little of our author's turn for
satire.  His " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers '
is dogmatical and insolent, but without refinement or
point. He calls people names, and tries to transfix a
character with an epithet, which does not stick, because
it has no other foundation than his own petulance and
spite; or he endeavours to degrade by alluding to some
circumstance of external situation. He says of Mr.
Wordsworth's poetry, that "it is his aversion." That
may be: but whose fault is it?  This is the satire of a
" D)on Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero
My Leipsic, and my Mont St. Jean seems Cain."
Don Juan, Canto XI.
2 Hazlitt had had a paper on Sardanapalus in the Edinburgh
Review for 1822.-ED.




128


The Spirit of the Age.


ord, who is accustomed to have all his whims or dislikes taken for gospel, and who cannot be at the pains
to do more than signify his contempt or displeasure. If
a great man meets with a rebuff which he does not like,
he turns on his heel, and this passes for a repartee.
The Noble Author says of a celebrated barrister and
critic, that he was " born in a garret sixteen stories
high." 1 The insinuation is not. true, or, if it were, it is
low. The allusion degrades the person who makes it,
not him to whom it is applied. This is also the satire
of a person of birth and quality, who measures all merit
by external rank, that is, by his own standard.  So his
Lordship, in a "Letter to the Editor of my Grandmother's Review," addresses him fifty times as "my
dear Robarts; " nor is there any other wit in the article.
This is surely a mere assumption of superiority from his
Lordship's rank, and is the sort of quizzizg he might use
to a person who came to hire himself as a valet.to him at
Loug's. The waiters might laugh; the public will not.
In like manner, in the controversy about Pope, he claps
Mir. Bowles on the back with a coarse facetious familiarity, as if he were his chaplain whom he had invited to
dine with him, or was about to present to a benefice.
The reverend divine might submit to the obligation;
but he has no occasion to subscribe to the jest. If it is
a jest that Ir. Bowles should be a parson and Lord
Byron a peer, the world knew this before; there was no
need to write a pamphlet to prove it.
The DonT Jucan indeed has great power; but its power
Jeffrey is the person to whom Byron refers. But the passage
runs:The Tolbooth felt defiauded of his charms,
If Jeffrey died except within her arms:
Nay last, not least, on that portentous morn.
The sixteenth story, where himself was born,
His patrimonial garret, fell to ground "-ED.




Lord Byron.


129


is owing to the force of the serious writing, and to the
contrast between that and the flashy passages with which
it is interlarded. From the sublime to the ridiculous
there is but one step. You laugh and are surprised that
any one should turn round and travestie himself: the
drollery is in the utter discontinuity of ideas and feelings.. He makes virtue serve as a foil to vice; dandyism is (for want of any other) a variety of genius. A
classical intoxication is followed by the splashing of
sodawater, by frothy effusions of ordinary 'bile. After
the lightning and the hurricane, we are introduced to
the interior of the cabin and the contents of the washhand basins. The solemn hero of tragedy plays Scrub
in the farce.' This is " very tolerable and not to be
endured."
The noble Lord is almost the only writer who has
prostituted his talents in this way. He hallows in order
to desecrate, takes a pleasure in defacing the images of
beauty his hands have wrought, and raises our hopes
and our belief in goodness to Heaven only to dash them
to the earth again, and break them in pieces the more
effectually from the very height they have fallen. Our
enthusiasm for genius or virtue is thus turned into a
jest by the very person who has kindled it, and who thus
fatally quenches the spark of both. It is not that Lord
Byron is sometines serious and sometimes trifling, sometimes profligate and sometimes moral; but when he is
most serious and most moral, he is only preparing to
mortify the unsuspecting reader by putting a pitiful
hoax upon him. This is a most unaccountable anomaly.
It is as if the eagle were to build its eyry in a common
sewer, or the owl were seen soaring to the mid-day sun.
1Or rather in Farquhar's comedy of the Beau Stratagem.-ED.
K




130


The Spirit of the Age.


Such a sight might make one laugh, but one would not
wish or expect it to occur more than once!1
In fact, Lord Byron is the spoiled child of fame as
well as fortune. He has taken a surfeit of popularity,
and is not contented to delight, unless he can shock, the
public. He would force them to admire in spite of
decency and common sense; he would have them read
what they would read in no one but himself, or he would
not give a rush for their applause. He is to be "a
chartered libertine," from whom  insults are favours,
whose contempt is to be a new incentive to admiration.
His Lordship is hard to please: he is equally averse to
notice or neglect, enraged at censure and scorning praise.
He tries the patience of the town to the very utmost,
and when they show signs of weariness or disgust,
threatens to discard them. He says he will write on,
whether he is read or not. He would never write another
page, if it were not to court popular applause, or to
affect a superiority over it. In this respect also, Lord
Byron presents a striking contrast to Sir Walter Scott.
The latter takes what part of the public favour falls to
his share, without grumbling (to be sure, he has no
reason to complain); the former is always quarrelling
with the world about his modicum of applause, the spolia
opima of vanity, and ungraciously throwing the offerings of incense heaped on his shrine back in the faces of
his admirers.
Again, there is no taint in the writings of the Author
of Waverley; all is fair and natural and above-board;
he never outrages the public mind. He introduces no
anomalous character, broaches no staggering opinion.
If he goes back to old prejudices and superstitions as a
1 This censure applies to the first Cantos of DON JUAN much more
than to the last. It has been called a TTRISTAM SANDY in rhyme:
it is rather a poem written about itself,




Lord Byron.


131


relief to the modern reader, while Lord Byron floats on
swelling paradoxes"Like proud seas under him; "
if the one defers too much to the spirit of antiquity, the
other panders to the spirit of the age, goes to the very
edge of extreme and licentious speculation, and breaks
his neck over it. Grossness and levity are the playthings of his pen. It is a ludicrous circumstance that
he should have dedicated his Cain to the worthy Baronet!1 Did the latter ever acknowledge the obligation?
We are not nice, not very nice; but we do not particularly approve those subjects that shine chiefly from their
rottenness: nor do we wish to see the Muses drest out
in the flounces of a false or questionable philosophy,
like Portia and Nerissa in the garb of Doctors of Law.
fWe like metaphysics as well as Lord Byron; but not to
see them making flowery speeches, nor dancing a measure in the fetters of verse. We have as good as hinted,
that his Lordship's poetry consists mostly of a tissue of
superb common-places; even his paradoxes are commonplace. They are familiar in the schools: they are only
new and striking in his dramas and stanzas by being
out of place. In a word, we think that poetry moves
best within the circle of nature and received opinion:
speculative theory and subtle casuistry are forbidden
ground to it.
But Lord Byron often wanders into this ground>
wantonly, wilfully, and unwarrantably. The only apology i
we can conceive for the spirit of some of Lord Byron's
writings, is the spirit of some of those opposed to him. /
They would provoke a man to write any thing. "Farthest from them is best." The extravagance and license of
the one seems a proper antidote to the bigotry and nar1 Scott.




132


The Spirit of the Age.


rowness of the other. The first Vision of Judgment was
a set-off to the second, though
"' None but itself could be its parallel."
Perhaps the chief cause of most of Lord Byron's errors
is, that he is that anomaly in letters and in society,
a Noebleoet. It is a double privilege, almost too much
for humanity, Harlaa&all tS v pride66 fbrth and genius.
The strength of his imagination leads him to indulge in
fantastic opinions; the elevation 6nF'his Tsksets censurie at defiance. He becomes a pamperedLegotist. He
has a seat in the Housse of Loi —s,- a niche in the Temple
of Fame. Every-day mortals, opinions, things are not
good enough for him to touch or think of. A mere
nobleman is, in his estimation, but " the tenth transmitter
of a foolish face:" a mere man of genius is no better
than a worm. His Muse is also a lady of quality.  The
people are not polite enough for him; the Court is
not sufficiently intellectual.  He hates the one and
despises the other. By hating and despising others, he
does not learn to be satisfied with himself. A fastidious
man soon grows querulous and splenetic. If there is
nobody but ourselves to come up.to our idea of fancied
perfection, we easily get tired of our idol.
When a man is tired of what he is, by a natural perversity he sets up for what he is not. If he is a poet, he
pretends to be a metaphysician: if he is a patrician in
rank and feeling, he would fain be one of the people.
i His ruling motive is not the love of the people, but of!distinction: not of truth, but of singularity. He patronizes men of letters out of vanity, and deserts them
from caprice or from the advice of friends. He embarks in an obnoxious publication 1 to provoke censure,
and leaves it to shift for itself for fear of scandal. We
1 The Liberal, 2 vols. 8vo, 1824.-ED.




Lord Byron.


133


do not like Sir Walter's gratuitous servility: we like
Lord Byron's preposterous liberalism little better. He
may afiect the-principles of equality, but he resumes his
privilege of peerage, upon occasion. His Lordship has
made great offers of service to the Greeks-money and
horses. He is at present in Cephalonia, waiting the
event!
We had written thus far when news came of the death
of Lord Byron,' and put an end at once to a strain of
somewhat peevish invective, which was intended to meet
his eye, not to insult his memory. Had we known that
we were writing his epitaph, we must have done it with
a different feeling. As it is, we think it better and more
like himself, to let what we had written stand, than to
take up our leaden shafts, and try to melt them into
" tears of sensibility," or mould them into dull praise and
an affected show of candour. We were not silent during
the author's life-time, either for his reproof or encouragement (such as we could give, and he did not disdain to
accept) nor can we now turn undertakers' men to fix
the glittering plate upon his coffin, or fall into the procession of popular woe. Death cancels every thing but
truth, and strips a man of every thing but genius and
virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization. It makes the
meanest of us sacred; it installs the poet in his immortality, and lifts him to the skies. Death is the great
assayer of the sterling ore of talent. At his touch the
drossy particles fall off: the irritable, the personal, the
gross, and mingle with the dust-the finer and more
ethereal part mounts with the winged spirit to watch
over our latest memory, and protect our bones from
insult. We consign the least worthy qualities to oblivion,
1 On the 19th April, 1824.




134            The Spirit of the Age.
and cherish the nobler and imperishable nature with
double pride and fondness.
Nothing could show the real superiority of genius in
a more striking point of view than the idle contests and
the public indifference about the place of Lord Byron's
interment, whether in Westminster Abbey or his own
family vault. A king must have a coronation-a nobleman a funeral-procession. The man is nothing without
the pageant. The poet's cemetery is the human mind,
in which he sows the seeds of never-ending thoughthis monument is to be found in his works:
" Nothing can cover his high fame but Heaven;
No pyramids set off his memory,
But the eternal substance of his greatness."
Lord Byron is dead: he also died a martyr to his zeal
in the cause of freedom, for the last, best hopes of man.
Let that be his excuse and his epitaph!




MR. SOUTHEY.








MR. SOUTHEY.


/ R. SOUTHEY, as we formerly remember to have
seen him, had a hectic flush upon his cheek, a
roving fire in his eye, a falcon glance, a look at once
aspiring and dejected. It was the look that had been
impressed upon his face by the events that marked the
outset of his life. It was the dawn of Liberty that still
tinged his cheek, a smile betwixt hope and sadness that
still played upon his quivering lip. Mr. Southey's mind i
is essentially sanguine, even to over-weeningness. It is
prophetic of good; it cordially embraces it; it casts a
longing, lingering look after it, even when it is gone for
ever. He cannot bear to'give up the thought of happiness, his confidence in his fellow-man, when all else
despair. It is the very element, " where he must live
or have no life at all." While he supposed it possible
that a better form of society could be introduced than
any that had hitherto existed, while the light of the
French Revolution beamed into his soul (and long after, r
it was seen reflected on his brow, like the light of setting
suns on the peak of some high mountain, or lonely range
of clouds, floating in purer ether!)-while he had this
hope, this faith in man left, he cherished it with child-like
simplicity, he clung to it with the fondness of a lover. He
was an enthusiast, a fanatic, a leveller; he stuck at
nothing that he thought would banish all pain and
misery from the world; in his impatience of the smallest
error or injustice, he would have sacrificed himself and




138


The Spirit of the Age.


the existing generation (a holocaust) to his devotion to
the right cause. But when he once believed after many
staggering doubts and painful struggles, that this was
no longer possible, when his chimeras and golden dreams
of human perfectibility vanished from him, he turned
suddenly round, and maintained that " whatever is, is
right."
Mr. Southey has not fortitude of mind, has not
patience to think that evil is inseparable from the nature
of things. His irritable sense rejects the alternative
altogether, as a weak stomach rejects the food that is
distasteful to it. He hopes on against hope: he believes
in all unbelief. He must either repose on actual or on
imaginary good. He missed his way in Utopia: he has
found it at Old Sarum"His generous ardour no cold medium knows:"
his eagerness admits of no doubt or delay. He is ever
in extremes, and ever in the wrong!
The reason is, that not truth, but self-opinion is the
truling principle of Mr. Southey's mind. The charm of
novelty, the applause of the multitude, the sanction of
power, the venerableness of antiquity: pique, resentment, the spirit of contradiction, have a good deal to do
with his preferences. His inquiries are partial and
hasty, his conclusions raw and unconcocted, and with a
considerable infusion of whim and humour and a monkish
spleen. His opinions are like certain wines, warm and
generous when new; but they will not keep, and soon
turn flat or sour, for want of a stronger spirit of the
understanding to give a body to them. He wooed
Liberty as a youthful lover, but it was perhaps more as
<  a mistress than a bride; and he has since wedded with an
elderly and not very reputable lady, called Legitimacy.
A wilful man, according to the Scotch proverb, must have




Mr. Southey.


139


his way. If it were the cause to which he was sincerely
attached, he would adhere to it through good report and
evil report; but it is himself to whom he does homage,
and would have others do so; and he therefore changes
sides, rather than submit to apparent defeat or temporary mortification. Abstract principle has no rule but
the understood distinction between right and wrong;
the indulgence of vanity, of caprice, or prejudice is regulated by the convenience or bias of the moment. The
temperament of our politician's mind is poetical, not
philosophical. He is more the creature of impulse, tha/
he is of reflection. He invents the unreal; he embel-)
lishes the false with the glosses of fancy, but pays little'
attention to "the words of truth and soberness." IHis
impressions are accidental, immediate, personal, instead
of being permanent and universal. Of all mortals he
is surely the most impatient of contradiction, even when
he has completely turned the tables on himself. Is not
this very inconsistency the reason? Is he not tenacious
of his opinions, in proportion as they are brittle and
hastily formed? Is he not jealous of the grounds of his
belief, because he fears they will not bear inspection, or
is conscious he has shifted them? Does he not confine
others to the strict line of orthodoxy, because he has himself taken every liberty? Is he not afraid to look to
the right or the left, lest he should see the ghosts of his
former extravagances staring him in the face? Does
he not refuse to tolerate the smallest shade of difference
in others, because he feels that he wants the utmost
latitude of construction for differing so widely from
himself? Is he not captious, dogmatical, petulant in
delivering his sentiments, according as he has been inconsistent, rash, and fanciful in adopting them? He
maintains that there can be no possible ground for differing from him, because he looks only at his own side




140


The Spirit of the Age.


of the question! He sets up his own favourite notions
as the standard of reason and honesty, because he has
changed from one extreme to another! He treats his
opponents with contempt, because he is himself afraid
of meeting with disrespect! He says that " a Reformer
is a worse character than a housebreaker," in order to
stifle the recollection that he himself once was one!
We must say that "we relish Mr. Southey more in
the Reformer" than in his lately acquired, but by no
means natural or becoming character of poet-laureat
and courtier. He may rest assured that a garland of
wild flowers suits him better than the laureat-wreath:
that his pastoral odes and popular inscriptions were
far more adapted to his genius than his presentationpoems. He is nothing akin to birth-day suits and
drawing-room fopperies. "He is nothing if not fantastical." In his figure, in his movements, in his sentiments, he is sharp and angular, quaint and eccentric.
Mr. Southey is not of the court, courtly. Every thing
of him and about him is from the people. He is not
classical: he is not legitimate. He is not a man cast in
the mould of other men's opinions: he is not shaped on
any model: he bows to no authority: he yields only to
his own wayward peculiarities. He is wild, irregular,
singular, extreme. He is no formalist, not he l All is
crude and chaotic, self-opinionated, vain.  He wants
proportion, keeping, system, standard rules. He is not
teres et rotundus. Mr. Southey walks with his chin erect
through the streets of London, and with an umbrella
sticking out under his arm, in the finest weather. He
has not sacrificed to the Graces, nor studied decorum.
With him every thing is projecting, starting from its place,
an episode, a digression, a poetic license. He does not
move in any given orbit, but, like a falling star, shoots
from his sphere. He is pragmatical, restless, unfixed,




Mr. Southey.


141


full of experiments, beginning every thing a-new, wiser
than his betters, judging for himself, dictating to others..He is decidedly revolutionary. He may have given up
the reform of the State: but depend upon it, he has
some other hobby of the same kind.
Does he not dedicate to his present Majesty that extraordinary poem on the death of his father, called The
Vision of Judgment, as a specimen of what might be done
in English hexameters? In a court-poem all should be
trite and on an approved model. He might as well have
presented himself at the levee in a fancy or masquerade
dress. Mr. Southey was not to try conclusions with
Majesty-still less on such an occasion. The extreme
freedoms with departed greatness, the party-petulance
carried to the Throne of Grace, the unchecked indulgence
of private humour, the assumption of infallibility and
even of the voice of Heaven in this poem, are pointed
instances of what we have said. They show the singular
state of over-excitement of Mr. Southey's mind, and the
force of old habits of independent and unbridled thinking, which cannot be kept down even in addressing his
Sovereign! Look at Mr. Southey's larger poems, his
Kehama, his Thalaba, his Madoc, his Boderic.
Who will deny the spirit, the scope, the splendid
imagery, the hurried and startling interest that pervades
them? Who will say that they are not sustained on
fictions wilder than his own Glendoveer, that they are not
the daring creations of a mind curbed by no law, tamed
by no fear: that they are not rather like the trances
than the waking dreams of genius, that they are not the
very paradoxes of poetry? All this is very well, very
intelligible, and very harmless, if we regard the rank
excrescences of Mr. Southey's poetry, like the red and>
blue flowers in corn, as the unweeded growth of a luxuriant and wandering fancy; or if we allow the yeasty/




142


The Spirit of the Age.


workings of an ardent spirit to ferment and boil overthe variety, the boldness, the lively stimulus given to
the mind may then atone for the violation of rules and
the offences to bed-rid authority; but not if our poetic
libertine sets up for a law-giver and judge, or an apprehender of vagrants in the regions either of taste or
opinion. Our motley gentleman deserves the straitwaistcoat, if he is for setting others in the stocks of
servility, or condemning them to the pillory for a new
mode of rhyme or reason. Or if a composer of sacred
Dramas on classic models, or a translator of an old
Latin author (that will hardly bear translation) or a
vamper-up of vapid cantos and Odes set to music, were
to turn pander to prescription and palliater of every
dull, incorrigible abuse, it would not be much to be
wondered at or even regretted.
But in Mr. Southey it was a lamentable falling-off.
It is indeed to be deplored; it is a stain on genius, a
blow to humanity, that the author of Joan of Arc-that
work in which the love of Liberty is exhaled like the
breath of spring-mild, balmy, heaven-born,-that is
full of tears and virgin-sighs and yearnings of affection
after truth and good, gushing warm and crimson from
the heart, should ever after turn to folly, or become the
advocate of a rotten cause. After giving up his heart
to that subject, he ought not (whatever others might
do) ever to have set his foot within the threshold of a
court. He might be sure that he would not gain forgiveness or favour by it, nor obtain a single cordial
smile from greatness. All that Mr. Southey is or that
he does best, is independent, spontaneous, free as the
vital air he draws. When he affects the courtier or the
sophist, he is obliged to put a constraint upon himself,
to hold his breath: he loses his genius, and offers a violence to his nature. His characteristic faults are the




Mr. Southey.                143
excess of a lively, unguarded temperament:-oh! let
them not degenerate into cold-blooded, heartless vices!
If we speak or have ever spoken of Mr. Southey with
severity, it is with " the malice of old friends," for we
count ourselves among his sincerest and heartiest wellwishers. But while he himself is anomalous, incalculable, eccentric, from youth to age (the Wat Tyler and
the Vision of Judgment are the Alpha and Omega of his
disjointed career): full of sallies of humour, of ebullitions
of spleen, making jets-d'eaux, cascades, fountains, and
waterworks of his idle opinions, he would shut up the
wits of others in leaden cisterns, to stagnate and corrupt,
or bury them.under ground" Far from the sun and summer gale!"
He would suppress the freedom of wit and humour, of
which he has set the example, and claim a privilege for
playing antics. He would introduce an uniformity of
intellectual weights and measures, of irregular metres
and settled opinions, and enforce it with a high hand.
This has been judged hard by some, and has brought
down a severity of recrimination, perhaps disproportioned
to the injury done. "Because he is virtuous," (it has
been asked,) " are there to be no more cakes and ale? "
Because he is loyal, are we to take all our notions from
the Quarterly Review? Because he is orthodox, are we to
do nothing but read the Book of the Church? We declare
we think his former poetical scepticism was not only
more amiable, but had more the spirit of religion in it,
implied a more heartfelt trust in nature and providence
than his present bigotry. We are at the same time free
to declare that we think his articles in the Quarterly
Review, notwithstanding their virulence and the talent
they display, have a tendency to qualify its most pernicious effects. They have redeeming traits in them.




144


The Spirit of the Age.


"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump;" and the
spirit of humanity (thanks to Mr. Southey) is not quite
expelled from the Quarterly Review. At the corner of
his pen, " there hangs a vapourous drop profound " of
independence and liberality, which falls upon its pages,
and oozes out through the pores of the public mind.
There is a fortunate difference between writers whose
hearts are naturally callous to truth, and whose understandings are hermetically sealed against all impressions
but those of self-interest, and a man like Mr. Southey.
Once a philanthropist and always a philanthropist. No
man can entirely baulk his nature: it breaks out in
spite of him. In all those questions, where the spirit of
contradiction does not interfere, on which he is not sore
from old bruises, or sick from the extravagance of
youthful intoxication, as from a last night's debauch,
our laureate is still bold, free, candid, open to conviction, a reformist without knowing it. He does not
advocate the slave-trade, he does not arm Mr. Malthus's
revolting ratios with his authority, he does not strain
hard to deluge Ireland with blood. On such points,
where humanity has not become obnoxious, where
liberty has not passed into a by-word, Mr. Southey is
still liberal and humane. The elasticity of his spirit is
unbroken: the bow recoils to its old position. He still
stands convicted of his early passion for inquiry and improvement. He was not regularly articled as a government-tool!
Perhaps the most pleasing and striking of all Mr.
Southey's poems are not his triumphant taunts hurled
against oppression, are not his glowing effusions to
Liberty, but those in which, with a mild melancholy, he
seems conscious of his own infirmities of temper, and to
feel a wish to correct by thought and time the precocity
and sharpness of his disposition. May the quaint but




Mr. Southey.


145


affecting aspiration expressed in one of these be fulfilled,
that, as he mellows into maturer age, all such asperities
may wear off, and he himself become
"Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree! "
Mr. Southey's prose-style can scarcely be too much
praised. It is plain, clear, pointed, familiar: perfectly
modern in its texture, but with a grave and sparkling
admixture of archaisms in its ornaments and occasional
phraseology. He is the best and most natural prosewriter of any poet of the day; we mean that he is far
better than Lord Byron, Mr. Wordsworth, or Mr. Coleridge, for instance. The manner is perhaps superior to
the matter-that is, in his Essays and Reviews. There
is rather a want of originality and even of impetus: but
there is no want of playful or biting satire, of ingenuity,
of casuistry, of learning and of information. He is
"full of wise saws and modern " (as well as ancient)
"instances." Mr. Southey may not always convince
his opponents; but he seldom fails to stagger, never to
gall them. In a word, we may describe his style by
saying that it has not the body or thickness of port wine,
but is like clear sherry with kernels of old authors
thrown into it!
He also excels as an historian and prose translator.
His histories abound in informatiqn, and exhibit proofs
of the most indefatigable patience and industry. By no
uncommon process of the mind, Mr. Southey seems willing
to steady the extreme levity of his opinions and feelings
by an appeal to facts. His translations of the Spanish
and French romances are also executed con amore, and
with the literal fidelity and care of a mere linguist. That
of the Cid, in particular, is a masterpiece. Not a word
could be altered for the better in the old scriptural style
which it adopts in conformity to the original. It is no
L




146


The Spirit of the Age.


less interesting in itself, or as a record of high and
chivalrous feelings and manners, than it is worthy of
perusal as a literary curiosity.
Mr. Southey's conversation has a little resemblance to
a common-place book, his habitual deportment to a piece
of clock-work. He is not remarkable either as a reasoner
or an observer: but he is quick, unaffected, replete with
anecdote, various and retentive in his reading, and exceedingly happy in his play upon words, as most scholars are
who give their minds this sportive turn. We have chiefly
seen Mr. Southey in company where few people appear
to advantage, we mean in that of Mr. Coleridge. He
has not certainly the same range of speculation, nor the
same flow of sounding words; but he makes up by the
details of knowledge and by a scrupulous correctness of
statement for what he wants in originality of thought
or impetuous declamation. The tones of Mr. Coleridge's voice are eloquence: those of Mr. Southey are
meagre, shrill, and dry. Mr. Coleridge's forte is conversatioi, and he is conscious of this: Mr. Southey evidently
considers writing' as his stronghold, and if gravelled in
an argument, or at a loss for an explanation, refers to
something he has written on the subject, or brings out
his port-folio, doubled down in dog-ears, in confirmation
of some fact.1
He is scholastic and professional in his ideas.   He
sets more value on what he writes than on what he
says: he is perhaps prouder of his library than of his
1 It is perhaps fair to Southey to suggest that most men, who devote themselves to the accumulation of scattered facts on a great
variety of subjects, seldom retain vivid or correct impressions of all
the matters which have passed through their minds, and been
brought to bear on what was immediately before them, or been
committed to memorandum-books-the portfolios of the text. It is
not as with the pure thinker or student. New subjects are apt to
push out the old.-ED.




Mr. Southey.


147


own productions-themselves a library! He is more
simple in his manners than his friend Mr. Coleridge,
but at the same time less cordial or conciliating. He
is less vain, or has less hope of pleasing, and therefore
lays himself less out to please. There is an air of condescension in his civility. With a tall, loose figure, a
peaked austerity of countenance, and no inclination to,evbonpoint, you would say he has something puritanical,
something ascetic in his appearance. He answers to
Mandeville's description of Addison, " a parson in a tyewig." He is not a boon companion, nor does he indulge
in the pleasures of the table, nor in any other vice; nor
are we aware that Mr. Southey is chargeable with any
human frailty but want of charity! Having fewer errors
to plead guilty to, he is less lenient to those of others.
q(e was born an age too late. Had he lived a century
or two ago, he would have been a happy as well as
blameless character. But the distraction of the time
has unsettled him, and the multiplicity of his pretensions have jostled with each other. No man in our day
(at least no man of genius) has led so uniformly and
entirely the life of a scholar from boyhood to the present hour, devoting himself to learning with the enthusiasm of an early love, with the severity and constancy
of a religious vow; and well would it have been for him
if he had confined himself to this, and not undertaken
to pull down or to patch up the State! However
irregular in his opinions, Mr. Southey is constant, unremitting, mechanical in his studies and the performance
of his duties. There is nothing Pindaric or Shandean
here. In all the relations and charities of private life,
he is correct, exemplary, generous, just. We never heard
a single impropriety laid to his charge; and if he has
many enemies, few men can boast more numerous or
stauncher friends.




148


The Spirit of the Age.


The variety and piquancy of his writings form a striking contrast to the mode in which they are produced.
He rises early, and writes or reads till breakfast-time.
He writes or reads after breakfast till dinner, after dinner till tea, and from tea till bed-time" And follows so the ever-running year
With profitable labour to his grave-"
on Derwent's banks, beneath the foot of Skiddaw. Study
serves him for business, exercise, recreation. He passes
from verse to prose, from history to poetry, from reading
to writing, by a stop-watch.   He writes a fair hand
without blots, sitting upright in his chair leaves off
when he comes to the bottom of the page, and changes
the subject for another, as opposite as the Antipodes.
His mind is after all rather the recipient and transmitter
of knowledge, than the originator of it. He has hardly
grasp of thought enough to arrive at any great leading
truth.  His passions do not amount to more than
irritability. With some gall in his pen and coldness in
his manner, he has a great deal of kindness in his heart.
Rash in his opinions, he is steady in his attachments,
and is a man, in many particulars admirable, in all
respectable-his political inconsistency alone excepted!




MR. WORDSWORTII*




I
#I'




MR. WORDSWORTH.


M/R. WORDSWORTH'S genius is a pure emanation of the Spirit of the Age. Had he lived in,
any other period of the world, he would never have been
heard of. As it is, he has some difficulty to contend with
the hebetude of his intellect and the meanness of his "
subject. With him   "lowliness is young ambition's
ladder:" but he finds it a toil to climb in this way the
steep of Fame. His homely Muse can hardly raise her
wing from the ground, nor spread her hidden glories to
the sun: He has " no figures nor no fantasies, which
busy passion draws in the brains of men:" neither the
gorgeous machinery of mythologic lore, nor the. splendid
colours of poetic diction. His style is vernacular: he f
delivers household truths. He sees nothing loftier than\t
human hopes, nothing deeper than the human heart.
This he probes, this he tampers with, this he poises,
with all its incalculable weight of thought and feeling,
in his hands, and at the same time calms the throbbing
pulses of his own heart by keeping his eye ever fixed
on the face of nature. If he can make the life-blood
flow from the wounded breast, this is the living colouring with which he paints his verse: if he can assuage
the pain or close up the wound with the balm of solitary
musing, or the healing power of plants and herbs and
" skyey influences," this is the sole triumph of his art.
He takes the simplest elements of nature and of the




152


The Spirit of the Age.


human mind, the mere abstract conditions inseparable
from our being, and tries to compound a new system of
poetry from them; and [he] has perhaps succeeded as
well as any one could. " Nihil humani a me alienum
pzto " is the motto of his works. He thinks nothing
low or indifferent of which this can be affirmed: every
thing that professes to be more than this, that is not an
absolute essence of truth and feeling, he holds to be
vitiated, false and spurious. In a word, his poetry is
founded on setting up an opposition (and pushing it to
the utmost length) between the natural and the artificial, between the spirit of humanity and the spirit of
fashion and of the world.
It is one of the innovations of the time. It partakes
of, and is carried along with, the revolutionary movement of our age: the political changes of the day were
the model on which he formed and conducted his
poetical experiments. His Muse (it cannot be denied,
and without this we cannot explain its character at all),is a levelling one. It proceeds on a principle of equality,
and strives to reduce all things to the same standard.
It is distinguished by a proud humility.  It relies
upon its own resources, and disdains external show and
relief. It takes the commonest events and objects, as a
test to prove that nature is always interesting from its.inherent truth and beauty, without any of the ornaments of dress or pomp of circumstances to set it off.
Hence the unaccountable mixture of seeming simplicity
and real abstruseness in the Lyrical Ballads. Fools have
laughed at, wise men scarcely understand, them. He
takes a subject or a story merely as pegs or loops to
hang thought and feeling on; the incidents are trifling,
in proportion to his contempt for imposing appearances;
the reflections are profound, according to the gravity
and aspiring pretensions of his mind.


4




Mr. Wordsworth.


153


His popular, inartificial style gets rid (at a blow)
of all the trappings of verse, of all the high places of
poetry: " the cloud-capt towers, the solemn temples,
the gorgeous palaces," are swept to the ground, and
" like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck A/'i
behind." All the traditions of learning, all the superstitions of age, are obliterated and effaced. We begin
de novo on a tabula rasa of poetry. The purple pall, the
nodding plume of tragedy are exploded as mere pantomime and trick, to return to the simplicity of truth and
nature. Kings, queens, priests, nobles, the altar and
the throne, the distinctions of rank, birth, wealth, power,
"the judge's robe, the marshal's truncheon, the ceremony that to great ones 'longs," are not to be found
here. The author tramples on the pride of art with
greater pride. The Ode and Epode, the Strophe and the
Antistrophe, he laughs to scorn. The harp of Homer,
the trump of Pindar and of Alceeus, are still. The decencies of costume, the decorations of vanity are stripped
off without mercy as barbarous, idle, and Gothic. The
jewels in the crisped hair, the diadem on the polished
brow, are thought meretricious, theatrical, vulgar; and
nothing contents his fastidious taste beyond a simple
garland of flowers. Neither does he avail himself of
the advantages which nature or accident holds out to
him. He chooses to have his subject a foil to his invention, to owe nothing but to himself.
He gathers manna in the wilderness; he strikes the
barren rock for the gushing moisture. He elevates the
mean by the strength of his own aspirations; he clothes
the naked with beauty and grandeur from the stores of
his own recollections No cypress grove loads his verse
with funeral pomp: but his imagination lends " a sense
of joy




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The Spirit of the Age.


" To the bare trees and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field."
No storm, no shipwreck startles us by its horrors:
but the rainbow lifts its head in the cloud, and the
breeze sighs through the withered fern. No sad vicissitude of fate, no overwhelming catastrophe in nature deforms his page: but the dew-drop glitters on the bending flower, the tear collects in the glistening eye.
" Beneath the hills, along the flowery vales,
The generations are prepared; the pangs,
The internal pangs are ready; the dread strife
Of poor humanity's afflicted will,
Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny."
As the lark ascends from its low bed on fluttering wing,
and salutes the morning skies, so Mr. Wordsworth's
unpretending Muse in russet guise scales the summits of
reflection, while it makes the round earth its footstool
and its home!
Possibly a good deal of this may be regarded as the
effect of disappointed views and an inverted ambition.
Prevented by native pride and indolence from climbing
the ascent of learning or greatness, taught by political
opinions to say to the vain pomp and glory of the world,
" I hate ye," seeing the path of classical and artificial
poetry blocked up by the cumbrous ornaments of style
and turgid common-places, so that nothing more could
be achieved in that direction but by the most ridiculous
bombast or the tamest servility, he has turned back,
partly from the bias of his mind, partly perhaps from a
judicious policy —has struck into the sequestered vale of
humble life, sought out the Muse among sheep-cotes and
hamlets, and the peasant's mountain-haunts, has discarded all the tinsel pageantry of verse, and endeavoured
(not in vain) to aggrandise the trivial, and add the
charm of novelty to the familiar. No one has shown




Mr. Wordsworth.


155


the same imagination in raising trifles into importance:
no one has displayed the same pathos in treating of the
simplest feelings of the heart. Reserved, yet haughty,
having no unruly or violent passions, (or those passions
having been early suppressed,) Mr. Wordsworth has
passed his life in solitary musing or in daily converse
with the face of nature. He exemplifies in an eminent
degree the association; for his poetry has no other source
or character. He has dwelt among pastoral scenes, till
each object has become connected with a thousand feelings, a link in the chain of thought, a fibre of his own
heart. Every one is by habit and familiarity strongly
attached to the place of his birth, or to objects that recal
the most pleasing and eventful circumstances of his life.
But to the author of the Lyrical Ballads nature is a kind
of home; and he may be said to take a personal interest in
the universe. There is no image so insignificant that
it has not in some mood or other found the way into his
heart: no sound that does not awaken the memory of
other years."To him the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
The daisy looks up to him with sparkling eye as an old
acquaintance: the cuckoo haunts him with sounds of
early youth not to be expressed: a linnet's nest startles
him with boyish delight: an old withered thorn is
weighed down with a heap of recollections: a grey
cloak, seen on some wild moor, torn by the wind or
drenched in the rain, afterwards becomes an object of
imagination to him: even the lichens on the rock have
a life and being in his thoughts. He has described all
these objects in a way and with an intensity of feeling
that no one else had done before him, and has given a
new view or aspect of nature. He is in this sense the
most original poet now living, and the one whose writ



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The Spirit of the Age.


ings could the least be spared: for they have no substitute
elsewhere. The vulgar do not read them; the learned,
who see all things through books, do not understand
them; the great despise. The fashionable may ridicule
them: but the author has created himself an interest in
the heart of the retired and lonely student of nature,
which can never die.
Persons of this class will still continue to feel what he
has felt: he has expressed what they might in vain wish
to express, except with glistening eye and faltering
tongue! There is a lofty philosophic tone, a thoughtful
humanity, infused into his pastoral vein. Remote from
the passions and events of the great world, he has communicated interest and dignity to the primal movements
of the heart of man, and ingrafted his own conscious reflections on the casual thoughts of hinds and shepherds.
Nursed amidst the grandeur of mountain scenery, he has
stooped to have a nearer view of the daisy under his feet,
or plucked a branch of white-thorn from the spray: but,
in describing it, his mind seems imbued with the majesty
and solemnity of the objects around him. The tall rock
lifts its head in the erectness of his spirit; the cataract
roars in the sound of his verse; and in its dim and mysterious meaning the mists seem to gather in the hollows
of Helvellyn, and the forked Skiddaw hovers in the distance. There is little mention of mountainous scenery
in Mr. Wordsworth's poetry; but by internal evidence
one might be almost sure that it was written in a
mountainous country, from its bareness, its simplicity,
its loftiness and its depth!
His later philosophic productions have a somewhat different character. They are a departure from, a dereliction of, his first principles. They are classical and courtly.
They are polished in style without being gaudy, dignified in subject without affectation. They seem to have




Mr. Wordsworth.


157


been composed not in a cottage at Grasmere, but among
the half-inspired groves and stately recollections of ColeOrton. We might allude in particular, for examples of
what we mean, to the lines on a Picture by Claude
Lorraine and to the exquisite poem, entitled Laodamia.
The last of these breathes the pure spirit of the finest
fragments of antiquity-the sweetness, the gravity, the
strength, the beauty and the languor of death"' Calm contemplation and majestic pains."
Its glossy brilliancy arises from the perfection of the
finishing, like that of a careful sculpture, not from gaudy
colouring. The texture of the thoughts has the smoothness and solidity of marble. It is a poem that might
be read aloud in Elysium, and the spirits of departed
heroes and sages would gather round to listen to it!
Mr. Wordsworth's philosophic poetry, with a less
glowing aspect and less tumult in the veins than Lord
Byron's on similar occasions, bends a calmer and keener
eye on mortality; the impression, if less vivid, is more
pleasing and permanent; and we confess it (perhaps it
is a want of taste and proper feeling) that there are lines
and poems of our author's, that we think of ten times
for once that we recur to any of Lord Byron's. Or if
there are any of the latter's writings, that we can dwell
upon in the same way, that is, as lasting and heart-felt
sentiments, it is when laying aside his usual pomp and
pretension, he descends with Mr. Wordsworth to the
common ground of a disinterested humanity. It may
be considered as characteristic of our poet's writings,
that they either make no impression on the mind
at all, seem mere nonsense-verses, or that they leave a
mark behind them that never wears out. They either


"Fall blunted from the indurated breast"



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The Spirit of the Age.


without any perceptible result, or they absorb it like a
passion. To one class of readers he appears sublime, to
another (and we fear the largest) ridiculous. He has
probably realised Milton's wish,-" and fit audience
found, though few:" but we suspect he is not reconciled
to the alternative.
There'are delightful passages in the EXCURSION,1 both
of natural description and of inspired reflection (passages of the latter kind that in the sound of the thoughts
and of the swelling language resemble heavenly symphonies, mournful requiems over the grave of human
hopes); but we must add, in justice and in sincerity,
that we think it impossible that this work should ever
become popular, even in the same degree as the Lyrical
Ballads. It affects a system without having any intelligible clue to one, and, instead of unfolding a principle
in various and striking lights, repeats the same conclusions till they become flat and insipid. Mr. Wordsworth's mind is obtuse, except as it is the organ and
the receptacle of accumulated feelings: it is not analytic,
but synthetic; it is reflecting, rather than theoretical.
The EXCURSION, we believe, fell still-born from the press.
There was something abortive, and clumsy, and illjudged in the attempt. It was long and laboured. The
personages, for the most part, were low, the fare rustic;
the plan raised expectations which were not fulfilled;
and the effect was like being ushered into a stately hall
and invited to sit down to a splendid banquet in the
company of clowns, and with nothing but successive
courses of apple-dumplings served up. It was not even
toujours perdrix!
Mr. Wordsworth, in his person, is above the middle
size, with marked features and an air somewhat stately
1 Compare the criticisms on Wordsworth's Excursion in the Examiner for 1814 (partly reprinted in the Round Table, 1817).-ED.




Mr. Wordsworth.


159


and quixotic. He reminds one of some of Holbein's
heads: grave, saturnine, with a slight indication of sly
humour, kept under by the manners of the age or by the
pretensions of the person. He has a peculiar sweetness
in his smile, and great depth and manliness and a rugged
harmony in the tones of his voice. His manner of reading his own poetry is particularly imposing; and in his
favourite passages his eye beams with preternatural
lustre,* and the meaning labours slowly up from his
swelling breast. No one who has seen him at these
moments could go away with an impression that he was
a "man of no mark or likelihood."  Perhaps the comment of his face and voice is necessary to convey a full
idea of his poetry. His language may not be intelligible;
but his manner is not to be mistaken. It is clear that he is
either mad or inspired. In company, even in a tete-a-tete,
Mr. Wordsworth is often silent, indolent and reserved.
If he is become verbose and oracular of late years, he
was not so in his better days. He threw out a bold or
an indifferent remark without either effort or pretension,
and relapsed into musing again. He shone most (because he seemed most roused and animated) in reciting
his own poetry, or in talking about it. He sometimes
gave striking views of his feelings and trains of association in composing certain passages; or if one did not
always understand his distinctions, still there was no
want of interest: there was a latent meaning worth
inquiring into, like a vein of ore that one cannot exactly
hit upon at the moment, but of which there are sure indications. His standard of poetry is high and severe,
almost to exclusiveness. He admits of nothing below,
scarcely of anything above, himself. It is fine to hear
him talk of the way in which certain subjects should
have been treated by eminent poets, according to his
notions of the art. Thus he finds fault with Dryden's




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description of Bacchus in the Alexander's Feast, as if he
were a mere good-looking youth or boon companion" Flushed with a purple grace,
He shows his honest face "instead of representing the God returning from the conquest of India, crowned with vine-leaves and drawn by
panthers, and followed by troops of satyrs, of wild men
and animals that he had tamed. You would think, in
hearing him speak on this subject, that you saw Titian's
picture of the meeting of Bacchus and Ariadne-so
classic were his conceptions, so glowing his style.
Milton is his great idol, and he sometimes dares to
compare himself with him. His Sonnets, indeed, have
something of the same high-raised tone and prophetic
spirit. Chaucer is another prime favourite of his, and
he has been at the pains to modernize some of the
Canterbury Tales. Those persons, who look upon Mr.
Wordsworth as a merely puerile writer, must be rather
at a loss to account for his strong predilection for such
geniuses as Dante and Michael Angelo. We do not
think our author has any very cordial sympathy with
Shakespear. How   should he?   Shakespear was the
least of an egotist of any body in the world. He does
not much relish the variety and scope of dramatic composition. " He hates those interlocutions between Lucius
and Caius."  Yet Mr. Wordsworth himself wrote a
tragedy when he was young; and we have heard the
following energetic lines quoted from it, as put into the
mouth of a person smit with remorse for some rash
crime:
-  ' Action is momentary,
The motion of a muscle this way or that;
Suffering is long, obscure and infinite! "
Perhaps for want of light and shade, and the unshackled




Mr. Wordsworth.


161


spirit of the drama, this performance was never brought
forward. Our critic has a great dislike to Gray, and a
fondness for Thomson and Collins. It is mortifying to
hear him speak of Pope and Dryden whom, because they
have been supposed to have all the possible excellences
of poetry, he will allow to have none.
Nothing, however, can be fairer, or more amusing
than the way in which he sometimes exposes. the unmeaning verbiage of modern poetry.        Thus, in the
beginning of Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes"Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind from China to Peru "he says there is a total want of imagination accompanying the words; the same idea is repeated three times
under the disguise of a different phraseology. It comes
to this: "let observation with extensive observation observe mankind;" or take away the first line, and the
second,
" Survey mankind from China to Peru,"
literally conveys the whole.1 Mr. Wordsworth is, we
must say, a perfect Drawcansir as to prose writers. He
complains of the dry reasoners and matter-of-fact people
for their want of passion; and he is jealous of the rhetorical declaimers and rhapsodists as trenching on the
province of poetry.  He condemns all French writers
(as well of poetry as prose) in the lump. His list in
this way is indeed small. He approves of Walton's
Angler, Paley, and some other writers of an inoffensive
modesty of pretension.  He also likes books of voyages
1 In the same way, there is Dryden's sonorous couplet in Absalom
and Achitophel:" Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And narrow confines do their bounds divide"
which is a meaningless reduplication, a tautology of ideas.-ED.
M.., vA,, Aim, >$1 ha




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The Spirit of the Age.


and travels, and Robinson Crusoe. In art, he greatly
esteems Bewick's woodcuts and Waterloo's sylvan etchings. But he sometimes takes a higher tone, and gives
his mind fair play. We have known him enlarge with
a noble intelligence and enthusiasm on Nicolas Poussin's
fine landscape-compositions, pointing out the unity of
design that pervades them, the superintending mind,
the imaginative principle that brings all to bear on the
same end; and declaring he would not give a rush for
any landscape that did not express the time of day, the
climate, the period of the world it was meant to illustrate, or had not this character of wholeness in it.
His eye also does justice to Rembrandt's fine and
masterly effects. In the way in which that artist works
something out of nothing, and transforms the stump of
a tree, a common figure, into an ideal object by the
gorgeous light and shade thrown upon it, he perceives
an analogy to his own mode of investing the minute details of nature with an atmosphere of sentiment, and in
pronouncing Rembrandt to be a man of genius, feels
that he strengthens his own claim to the title. It has
been said of Mr. Wordsworth, that " he hates conchology, that he hates the Venus of Medicis."  But these,
we hope, are mere epigrams and jeux-d'esprit, as far from
truth as they are free from malice: a sort of running
satire or critical clenches"( Where one for sense and one for rhyme
Is quite sufficient at one time."
We think, however, that if Mlr. Wordsworth had been
a more liberal and candid critic, he would have been a
more sterling writer. If a greater number of sources of
pleasure had been open to him, he would have communicated pleasure to the world more frequently. Had he
been less fastidious in pronouncing sentence on the works




Mr. Wordsworth.


163


of others, his own would have been received more favourably, and treated more leniently. The current of
his feelings is deep, but narrow; the range of his understanding is lofty and aspiring rather than discursive.
The force, the originality, the absolute truth and iden- k
tity, with which he feels some things, makes him indifferent to so miany others. The simplicity and enthusiasm
of his feelings, with respect to nature, render him
bigoted and intolerant in his judgments of men and
things. But it happens to him, as to others, that his
strength lies in his weakness; and perhaps we have no
right to complain. We might get rid of the cynic and
the egotist, and find in his stead a common-place man.
We should "take the good the Gods provide us:" a fine
and original vein of poetry is not one of their most
contemptible gifts; and the rest is scarcely worth thinking of, except as it may be a mortification to those who
expect perfection from human nature, or who have been
idle enough at some period of their lives to deify men of
genius as possessing claims above it. But this is a chord
that jars, and we shall not dwell upon it.
Lord Byron we have called, according to the old pro- /
verb, "the spoiled child of fortune:" Mr. Wordsworth/
might plead, in mitigation of some peculiarities, that he
is "the spoiled child of disappointment."  We are convinced, if he had been early a popular poet, he would
have borne his honours meekly, and would have been
a person of great bonhommie and frankness of -disposition. But the sense of injustice and of undeserved
ridicule sours the temper and narrows the views. To
have produced works of genius, and to find them neglected or treated with scorn, is one of the heaviest trials
of human patience. We exaggerate our own merits
when they are denied by others, and are apt to grudge
and cavil at every particle of praise bestowed on those




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The Spirit of the Age.


to whom we feel a conscious superiority: In mere selfdefence we turn against the world when it turns against
us, brood over the undeserved slights we receive; and
thus the genial current of the soul is stopped, or vents
itself in effusions of petulance and self-conceit. Mr.
Wordsworth has thought too much of contemporary
critics and criticism, and less than he ought'of the award
of posterity and of the opinion, we do not say of private
friends, but of those who were made so by their admiration of his genius.
He did not court popularity by a conformity to established models, and he ought not to have been surprised
that his originality was not understood as a matter of
course. He has gnawed too much on the bridle, and has
often thrown out crusts to the critics, in mere defiance
or as a point of honour when he was challenged, which
otherwise his own good sense would have withheld. We
suspect that Mr. Wordsworth's feelings are a little morbid in this respect, or that he resents censure more than
he is gratified by praise. Otherwise, the tide has turned
much in his favour of late years. He has a large body
of determined partisans, and is at present sufficiently in
request with the public to save or relieve him from the
last necessity to which a man of genius can be reducedthat of becoming the God of his own idolatry!




SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.








SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.


THE subject of the present article is one of the ablest
and most accomplished men of the age, both as a
writer, a speaker, and a converser. He is, in fact, master
of almost every known topic, whether of a passing or of
a more recondite nature. He has lived much in society,
and is deeply conversant with books. He is a man of
the world and a scholar; but the scholar gives the tone
to all his other acquirements and pursuits.
Sir James is by education and habit, and we were
going to add, by the original turn of his mind, a collegema-; and perhaps he would have passed his time most
happily and respectably, had he devoted himself entirely
to that kind of life. The strength of his faculties would
have been best developed, his ambition would have met
its proudest reward, in the accumulation and elaborate
display of grave and useful knowledge. As it is, it may
be said that in company he talks well, but too much;
that in writing he overlays the original subject and spirit
of the composition by an appeal to authorities and by
too formal a method; that in public speaking the logician takes place of the orator, and that he fails to give
effect to a particular point or to urge an immediate advantage home upon his adversary from the enlarged
scope of his mind and the wide career he takes in the
field of argument.
To consider him in the last point of view first. As a




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The Spirit of the Age.


political partisan, he is rather the lecturer than the advocate. He is able to instruct and delight an impartial
and disinterested audience by the extent of his information, by his acquaintance with general principles, by the
clearness and aptitude of his illustrations, by vigour and
copiousness of style; but where he has a prejudiced or
unfair antagonist to contend with, he is just as likely to
put weapons into his enemy's hands, as to wrest them
from him; and his object seems to be rather to deserve
than to obtain success. The characteristics of his mind
are retentiveness and comprehension, with facility of
production: but he is not equally remarkable for originality of view, or warmth of feeling, or liveliness of
fancy.
His eloquence is a little rhetorical; his reasoning
chiefly logical. He can bring down the account of
knowledge on a vast variety of subjects to the present
moment; he can embellish any cause he undertakes by
the most approved and graceful ornaments: he can
support it by a host of facts and examples, but he
cannot advance it a step forward by placing it on a new
and triumphant 'vantage-ground, nor can he overwhelm
and break down the artificial fences and bulwarks of
sophistry by the irresistible tide of manly enthusiasm.
Sir James Mackintosh is an accomplished debater rather
than a powerful orator: he is distinguished more as a
man of wonderful and variable talent than as a man of
commanding intellect. His mode of treating a question
is critical, and not parliamentary. It has been formed
in the closet and the schools, and is hardly fitted for
scenes of active life or the collisions of party-spirit.
Sir James reasons on the square; while the arguments
of his opponents are loaded with iron or gold. He
makes indeed a respectable ally, but not a very formid.
able opponent. He is as likely, however, to prevail on a




Sir James Mackintosh.


169


neutral, as he is almost certain to be baffled on a hotly
contested ground.
On any question of general policy or legislative improvement, the Member for Nairn is heard with advantage, and his speeches are attended with effect: and he
would have equal weight and influence at other times,
if it were the object of the House to hear reason, as it is
his aim to speak it. But on subjects of peace or war, of
political rights or foreign interference, where the waves
of party run high, and the liberty of nations or the fate
of mankind hangs trembling in the scales, though he
probably displays equal talent, and does full and heaped
justice to the question (abstractedly speaking, or if it
were to be tried before an impartial assembly), yet we
confess we have seldom heard him on such occasions
without pain for the event. He did not slur his own
character and pretensions; but he compromised the argument. He spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth; but the House of Commons (we dare aver
it) is not the place where the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth can be spoken with safety or with
advantage. The judgment of the House is not a balance
to weigh scruples and reasons to the turn of a fraction:
another element, besides the love of truth, enters into
the composition of their decisions, the reaction of which
must be calculated upon and guarded against. If our
philosophical statesman had to open the case before a
class of tyros or a circle of grey-beards, who wished to
form or to strengthen their judgments upon fair and
rational grounds, nothing could be more satisfactory,
more luminous, more able or more decisive than the
view taken of it by Sir James Mackintosh.
But the House of Commons, as a collective body, have
not the docility of youth, the calm wisdom of age, and
often only want an excuse to do wrong, or to adhere




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to what they have already determined upon; and Sir
James, in detailing the inexhaustible stores of his memory and reading, in unfolding the wide range of his
theory and practice, in laying down the rules and the
exceptions, in insisting upon the advantages and the
objections with equal explicitness, would be sure to let
something drop that a dexterous and watchful adversary
would easily pick up and turn against him, if this were
found necessary; or if with so many pros and cons,
doubts and difficulties, dilemmas and alternatives thrown
into it, the scale, with its natural bias to interest and
power, did not already fly up and kick the beam. There
wanted unity of purpose, impetuosity of feeling to break
through the phalanx of hostile and inveterate prejudice
arrayed against him.
He gave a handle to his enemies, threw stumblingblocks in the way of his friends. He raised so many
objections for the sake of answering them, proposed so
many doubts for the sake of solving them, and made so
many concessions where none were demanded, that his
reasoning had the effect of neutralizing itself: it became
a mere exercise of the understanding without zest or
spirit left in it; and the provident engineer who was to
shatter in pieces the strongholds of corruption and oppression by a well-directed and unsparing discharge of
artillery, seemed to have brought not only his own
cannon-balls, but his own wool-packs along with him to
ward off the threatened mischief. This was a good deal
the effect of his maiden speech on the transfer of Genoa,
to which Lord Castlereagh did not deign an answer, and
which another Honourable Member called "a finical
speech." It was a most able, candid, closely argued, and
philosophical exposure of that unprincipled transaction;
but for this very reason it was a solecism in the place
where it was delivered. Sir James has, since this period




Sir James Mackintosh.


171


and with the help of practice, lowered himself to the
tone of the House, and has also applied himself to questions more congenial to his habits of mind, and where
the success would be more likely to be proportioned to
his zeal and his exertions.
There was a greater degree of power, or of dashing
and splendid effect (we wish we could add, an equally
humane and liberal spirit) in the Lectures on the Law of
Nature and Nations, formerly' delivered by Sir James
(then Mr.) Mackintosh, in Lincoln's-Inn Hall. He
showed greater confidence, was more at home there.
The effect was more electrical and instantaneous, and
this elicited a prouder display of intellectual riches and
a more animated and imposing mode of delivery. He
grew wanton with success. Dazzling others by the
brilliancy of his acquirements, dazzled himself by the
admiration they excited, he lost fear as well as prudence:
dared everything, carried everything before him. The
Modern Philosophy, counterscarp, outworks, citadel, and
all, fell without a blow by "the whiff and wind of his
fell doctrine," as if it had been a pack of cards. The
volcano of the French Revolution was seen expiring in
its own flames, like a bonfire made of straw: the principles of Reform were scattered in all directions, like
chaff before the keen northern blast.
He laid about him like one inspired; nothing could
withstand his envenomed tooth. Like some savage
beast got into the garden of the fabled Hesperides, he
made clear work of it, root and branch, with white,
foaming tusks" Laid waste the borders, and overthrew the bowers."
The havoc was amazing, the desolation was complete.
1In 1799. My great-uncle, Sir John Stoddart, attended these
Lectures, and I have notes of one or two of them in his handwriting
-I believe, unpublished elsewhere.-ED.




172


The Spirit of the Age.


As to our visionary sceptics and Utopian philosophers,
they stood no chance with our lecturer. He did not
"carve them as a dish fit for the Gods, but hewed them
as a carcase fit for hounds."  Poor Godwin, who had
c'ome, in the bonhomie and candour of his nature, to
hear what new light had broken in upon his old friend,
was obliged to quit the field, and slank away after an
exulting taunt thrown out at "such fanciful chimeras
as a golden mountain or a perfect man."
Mackintosh had something of the air, much of the
dexterity and self-possession, of a political and philosophical juggler; and an eager and admiring audience
gaped and greedily swallowed the gilded bait of sophistry, prepared for their credulity and wonder. Those of
us who attended day after day, and were accustomed to
have all our previous notions confounded and struck out
of our hands by some metaphysical legerdemain, were at
last at some loss to know whether two and two made four,
till we had heard the lecturer's opinion on that head. He
might have some mental reservation on the subject,
some pointed ridicule to pour upon the common supposition, some learned authority to quote against it. To
anticipate the line of argument he might pursue, was
evidently presumptuous and premature. One thing only
appeared certain that, whatever opinion he chose to take
up, he was able to make good either by the foils or the
cudgels, by gross banter or nice distinctions, by a welltimed mixture of paradox and common-place, by an appeal to vulgar prejudices or startling scepticism. It
seemed to be equally his object, or the tendency of his
Discourses, to unsettle every principle of reason or of
common sense, and to leave his audience at the mercy of
the dictum of a lawyer, the nod of a minister, or the
shout of a mob.
To effect this purpose, he drew largely on the learn



Sir James Mackintosh.


173


ing of antiquity, on modern literature, on history, poetry
and the belles-lettres, on the Schoolmen and on writers
of novels, French, English, and Italian. In mixing up
the sparkling julep, that by its potent operation was to
scour away the dregs and feculence and peccant humours
of the body politic, he seemed to stand with his back to
the drawers in a metaphysical dispensary, and to take
out of them whatever ingredient suited his purpose. In
this way he had an antidote for every error, an answer
to every folly. The writings of Burke, Hume, Berkeley,
Paley, Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Grotius, Puffendorf,
Cicero, Aristotle, Tacitus, Livy, Sully, Machiavel, Guicciardini, Thuanus, lay open beside him, and he could instantly lay his hand upon the passage, and quote them
chapter and verse to the clearing up of all difficulties
and the silencing of all oppugners.
Mackintosh's Lectures were after all but a kind of
philosophical centos. They were profound, brilliant, new
to his hearers; but the profundity, the brilliancy, the
novelty were not his own. He was like Dr. Pangloss
(not Voltaire's, but Colman's) who speaks only in quotations; and the pith, the marrow of Sir James's reasoning and rhetoric at that memorable period might be put
within inverted commas. It, however, served its purpose, and the loud echo died away. We remember an
excellent man and a sound critic1 going to hear one of
these elaborate effusions; and on his want of enthusiasm
being accounted for from its not being one of the orator's
brilliant days, he replied, " he did not think a man of
genius could speak for two hours without saying something by which he would have been electrified." We
are only sorry, at this distance of time, for one thing in
these Lectures-the tone and spirit in which they seemed
1 The late Rev. Joseph Fawcett, of Walthamstow. [See Memoirs
of Hazlitt, 1867, i., 75.]




174


The Spirit of the Age.


to have been composed and to be delivered. If all that
body of opinions and principles of which the orator read
his recantation was unfounded, and there was an end of
all those views and hopes that pointed to future improvement, it was not a matter of triumph or exultation to
the lecturer or any body else, to the young or the old,
the wise or the foolish; on the contrary, it was a subject of regret, of slow, reluctant, painful admission" Of lamentation loud heard on the rueful stream."
The immediate occasion of this sudden and violent
change in Sir James's views and opinions was attributed
to a personal interview which he had had a little before
his death with Mr. Burke, at his house at Beaconsfield.
In the latter end of the year 1796, appeared the Regicide
Peace, from the pen of the great apostate from liberty
and betrayer of his species into the hands of those who
claimed it as their property by divine right: a work imposing, solid in many respects, abounding in facts and
admirable reasoning, and in which all flashy ornaments
were laid aside for a testamentary gravity (the eloquence
of despair resembling the throes and heaving, and muttered threats, of an earthquake rather than the loud
thunderbolt); and soon after came out a criticism on it
in The Monthly Review, doing justice to the author and
the style, and combating the inferences with force and
at much length, but with candour and with respect,
amounting to deference.
It was new to Mr. Burke not to be called names by
persons of the opposite party; it was an additional
triumph to him to be spoken well of, to be loaded with
well-earned praise by the author of the Vindicice Gallicce.
It was a testimony from an old, a powerful, and an admired antagonist.' He sent an invitation to the writer
At the time [1791] when the Vindicie Gallice first made its ap



Sir James Mackintosh.


175


to come and see him; and in the course of three days'
animated discussion of such subjects Mackintosh became
a convert not merely to the graces and gravity of Mr.
Burke's style, but to the liberality of his views and the
solidity of his opinions.
The Lincoln's-Inn Lectures were the fruit of this interview: such is the influence exercised by men of genius
and imaginative power over those who have nothing to
oppose to their unforeseen flashes of thought and invention but the dry, cold, formal deductions of the understanding. Our politician had time, during a few years
of absence from his native country,' and while the din
of war and the cries of party spirit " were lost over a
wide and unhearing ocean," to recover from his surprise and from a temporary alienation of mind, and to
return in spirit, and in the mild and mellowed maturity of age, to the principles and attachments of his
early life.
The appointment of Sir James Mackintosh to a Judgeship in India was one which, however flattering to his
vanity or favourable to his interests, was entirely foreign
to his feelings and habits. It was an honourable exile.
He was out of his element among black slaves and sepoys,
and Nabobs and cadets, and writers to India. He had no
one to exchange ideas with. The " unbought grace of
life," the charm of literary conversation, was gone.  It
was the habit of his mind, his ruling passion, to enter
into the shock and conflict of opinions on philosophical,
political and critical questions: not to dictate to raw
pearance, as a reply to the Reflections on the French Revolution, it was
cried up by the partisans of the new school as a work superior in the
charms of composition to its redoubted rival: in acuteness, depth,
and soundness of reasoning of course there was supposed to be no
comparison.
1 In India, where he remained several years in a judicial capacity.
-ED.




176


The Spirit of the Age.


tyros or domineer over persons in subordinate situations,
but to obtain the guerdon and the laurels of superior sense
and information by meeting with men of equal standing: to have a fair field pitched: to argue, to distinguish,
to reply: to hunt down the game of intellect with eagerness and skill-to push an advantage, to cover a retreat,
to give and take a fall" And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach."
It is no wonder that this sort of friendly intellectual
gladiatorship is, Sir James's greatest pleasure, for it is
his peculiar forte. He has not many equals, and scarcely
any superior, in it. He is too indolent for an author,
too unimpassioned for an orator; but in society he is just
vain enough to be pleased with immediate attention,
good-humoured enough to listen with patience to others,
with great coolness and self-possession, fluent, communicative, and with a manner equally free from violence
and insipidity. Few subjects can be started, on which
he is not qualified to appear to advantage as the gentleman and scholar. If there is some tinge of pedantry, it
is carried off by great affability of address and variety
of amusing and interesting topics. There is scarce an
author that he has not read, a period of history that he
is not conversant with, a celebrated name of which he
has not a number of anecdotes to relate, an intricate
question that he is not prepared to enter upon in a
popular or scientific manner. If an opinion in an abstruse metaphysical author is referred to, he is probably
able to repeat the passage by heart, can tell the side of
the page on which it is to be met with, can trace it back
through various descents to Locke, Hobbes, Lord Herbert of Cherbury: to a place in some obscure folio of
the School-men or a note in one of the commentators on
1 The Scholar in Chaucer.-ED.




Sir James Mackintosh.


177


Aristotle or Plato, and thus give you in a few moments'
space, and without any effort or previous notice, a chronological table of the progress of the human mind in
that particular branch of inquiry.
There is something, we think, perfectly admirable
and delightful in an exhibition of this kind, and which
is equally creditable to the speaker and gratifying to the
hearer. But this kind of talent was of no use in India:
the intellectual wares, of which the Chief Judge 1 delighted to make a display, were in no request there.
He languished after the friends and the society he had
left behind, and wrote over incessantly for books from
England. One that was sent him at this time was
an Essay on the Principles of Human Action;2 and the
way in which he spoke of that dry, tough, metaphysical
choke-pear, showed the dearth of intellectual intercourse
in which he lived, and the craving in his mind after
those studies which had once been his pride, and to
which he still turned for consolation in his remote
solitude.
Perhaps to another, the novelty of the scene, the differences of mind and manners might have atoned for a
want of social and literary agremens: but Sir James is
one of those who see nature through the spectacles of
books. He might like to read an account of India; but
India itself with its bArning, shining face would be a
mere blank, an endless waste to him. To persons of
this class of mind things must be translated into words,
visible images into abstract propositions, to meet their
refined apprehensions; and they have no more to say to a
matter-of-fact staring them in the face without a label
in its mouth, than they would to a hippopotamus.
1 He was Judge of the Admiralty Court.-ED.
2 By Hazlitt. It was printed during the absence of Mackintosh in
India-that is, in 1805.-ED.
N




178


The Spirit of the Age.


We may add, before we quit this point, that we cannot
conceive of any two persons more different in colloquial
talents, in which they both excel, than Sir James [Mackintosh and Mr. Coleridge. They have nearly an equal
range of reading and of topics of conversation: but in
the mind of the one we see nothing but fixtures; in the
other every thing is fluid. The ideas of the one are as
formal and tangible, as those of the other are shadowy
and evanescent. Sir James Mackintosh walks over the
ground; Mr. Coleridge is always flying off from  it.
The first knows all that has been said upon a subject;
the last has something to say that was never said before.
If the one deals too much in learned common-places,
the other teems with idle fancies. The one has a good
deal of the caput mortuum of genius; the other is all
volatile salt. The conversation of Sir James Mackintosh
has the effect of reading a well-written book; that of his
friend is like hearing a bewildered dream. The one is
an Encyclopedia of knowledge; the other is a succession of Sybilline Leaves!
As an author, Sir James Mackintosh may claim the
foremost rank among those who pride themselves on
artificial ornaments and acquired learning, or who write
what may be termed a composite style. His Vindicice
Gallicce is a work of great labour, great ingenuity, great
brilliancy, and great vigour. It is a little too antithetical in the structure of its periods, too dogmatical in the
announcement of its opinions. Sir James has, we believe, rejected something of the false brilliant of the one,
as he has retracted some of the abrupt extravagance of
the other. We apprehend, however, that our author is
not one of those who draw from their own resources and
accumulated feelings, or who improve with age. He
belongs to a class (common in Scotland and elsewhere)
who get up school-exercises on any given subject in a




Sir James Mackintosh.


179


masterly manner at twenty, and who at forty are either
where they were-or retrograde, if they are men of sense
and modesty. The reason is, their vanity is weaned,
after the first hey-day and animal spirits of youth are
flown, from making an affected display of knowledge
which, however useful, is not their own, and may be
much more simply stated. They are tired of repeating
the same arguments over and over again, after having
exhausted and rung the changes on their whole stock
for a number of times. Sir James Mackintosh is understood to be a writer in the Edinburgh Review;
and the articles attributed to him there are full of
matter of great pith and moment. But they want the
trim pointed expression, the ambitious ornaments, the
ostentatious display and rapid volubility of his early
productions.
We have heard it objected to his later compositions,
that his style is good as far as single words and phrases
are concerned, but that his sentences are clumsy and
disjointed, and that these make up still more awkward
and sprawling paragraphs. This is a nice criticism, and
we cannot speak to its truth; but if the fact be so, we
think we can account for it from the texture and obvious
process of the author's mind. All his ideas may be said
to be given preconceptions. They do not arise, as it
were, out of the subject, or out of one another at the
moment, and therefore do not flow naturally and gracefully from one another. They have been laid down
beforehand in a sort of formal division or frame-work of
the understanding; and the connexion between the
premises and the conclusion, between one branch of a
subject and ahother, is made out in a bungling and unsatisfactory manner. There is no principle of fusion in
the work; he strikes after the iron is cold, and there is
a want of malleability in the style. Sir James is at




180            The Spirit of the Age.
present said to be engaged in writing a History of England after the downfall of the house of Stuart.l  May it
be worthy of the talents of the author, and of the principles of the period it is intended to illustrate!
7 Mackintosh did not complete it; but as much as he left behind
him in MS. was published after his death.-ED.




MR. MALTIIUS.








MR. MALTHUS.'


R. MALTHUS            may be considered as one of
those rare and fortunate writers who have attained a scientific reputation in questions of moral and
political philosophy. His name undoubtedly stands very
high in the present age, and will in all probability go
down to posterity with more or less of renown or obloquy. It was said by a person well qualified to judge
both from strength and candour of mind, that "it would
take a thousand years at least to answer his work on
Population."   He has certainly thrown a new light on
that question, and changed the aspect of political economy in a decided and material point of view; whether
he has not also endeavoured to spread a gloom over the
hopes and more sanguine speculations of man, and to
cast a slur upon the face of nature, is another question.
There is this to be said for Mr. Malthus that, in speaking of him, one knows what one is talking about. He
is something beyond a mere name; one has not to beat
the bush about his talents, his attainments, his vast re1 Malthus published his celebrated work on the Principle of Population in 1798. Hazlitt replied to it in 1807 in a volume, portions of
which had been originally contributed to Cobbett's Political Register;
and works on the same side followed in 1810 and 1812 from the pens
of Godwin and Place. Moreover. in 1815, Ricardo, at the end of his
Essay on the Price of Corn, introduced some remarks on the writings
of Malthus. Compare the papers inserted on this subject in Hazlitt's
Political Essays, 1819.-ED.




184


The Spirit of the Age.


putation, and leave off without knowing what it all
amounts to.   He is not one of those great, men, who set
themselves off, and strut and fret an hour upon the
stage, during a day-dream of popularity, with the ornaments and jewels borrowed from the common stock, to
which nothing but their vanity and presumption gives
them  the least individual claim; he has dug into the
mine of truth, and brought up ore mixed with dross!
In weighing his merits we come at once to the question of what he has done or failed to do. It is a specific
claim that he sets up. When we speak of Mr. Malthus,
we mean the Essay on Population; and when we mention
the Essay on Population, we mean a distinct leading
proposition, that stands out intelligibly from all trashy
pretence, and is a ground on which to fix the levers that
may move the world backwards or forwards. He has
not left opinion where he found it; he has advanced or
given it a wrong bias, or thrown a stumbling-block in its
way. In a word, his name is not stuck, like so many
others, in the firmament of reputation, nobody knows
why, inscribed in great letters, and with a transparency
of TALENTS, GENIUS, LEARNING blazing round it.   It is
tantamount to an idea; it is identified with a principle; it
means that the population cannot go on perpetually increasing without pressing on the limits of the means of
subsistence, and that a check of some kind or other must,
sooner or later, be opposed to it.  This is the essence of
the doctrine which Mr. Malthus has been the first to
bring into general notice, and, as we think, to establish
beyond the fear of contradiction.'
Admitting then as we do the prominence and the
1 This question has of late.years revived, and there can be no
doubt that the Fruits of Philosophy, though decried at the time of its
appearance, is a work which at least shewed, and continues to shew,
the bias of thought in this direction.-ED.




-Mr. Malthus.


185


value of his claims to public attention, it yet remains a
question, 'how far those claims are (as to the talent displayed in them) strictly original; how far (as to the
logical accuracy with which he has treated the subject)
he has introduced foreign and doubtful matter into it;
and how far (as to the spirit in which he has conducted
his inquiries, and applied a general principle to particular objects) he has only drawn fair and inevitable conclusions from it, or endeavoured to tamper with and
wrest it to sinister and servile purposes. A writer, who
shrinks from following up a well-founded principle into
its untoward consequences from timidity or false delicacy, is not worthy of the name of a philosopher: a
writer who assumes the garb of candour and an inflexible love of truth to garble and pervert it, to crouch
to power and pander to prejudice, deserves a worse
title than that of a sophist.
Mr. Malthus's first octavo volume on this subject
(published in the year 1798) was intended as an answer
to Mr. Godwin's Enquiry concerning Political Justice. It
was well got up for the purpose, and had an immediate
effect. It was what in the language of the ring is called
a facer. It made Mr. Godwin and the other advocates
of Modern Philosophy look about them. It may be
almost doubted whether Mr. Malthus was in the first
instance serious in many things that he threw out, or
whether he did not hazard the whole as an amusing and
extreme paradox, which might puzzle the reader as it
had done himself in an idle moment, but to which no
practical consequence whatever could attach. This state
of mind would probably continue, till the irritation of
enemies and the encouragement of friends convinced
him that what he had at first exhibited as an idle fancy
was in fact a very valuable discovery, or " like the toad
ugly and venomous, had yet a precious jewel in its




186


The Spirit of the Age.


head." Such a supposition would at least account for
some things in the original Essay, which scarcely any
writer would venture upon, except as professed exercises
of ingenuity, and which have been since in part retracted. But a wrong bias was thus given, and the
author's theory was thus rendered warped, disjointed,
and sophistical from the very outset.
Nothing could in fact be more illogical (not to say
absurd) than the whole of IMr. Malthus's reasoning applied as an answer (par excellence) to Mr. Godwin's book,
or to the theories of other Utopian philosophers.  Mr.
Godwin was not singular, but was kept in countenance
by many authorities, both ancient and modern, in supposing a state of society possible in which the passions
and wills of individuals would be conformed to the
general good, in which the knowledge of the best means
of promoting human welfare and the desire of contributing to it would banish vice and misery from the
world, and in which, the stumbling-blocks of ignorance,
of selfishness, and the indulgence of gross appetite being
removed, all things would move on by the mere impulse
of wisdom and virtue to still higher and higher degrees
of perfection and happiness.
Compared with the lamentable and gross deficiencies
of existing institutions, such a view of futurity as barely
possible could not fail to allure the gaze and tempt the
aspiring thoughts of the philanthropist and the philosopher; the hopes and the imaginations of speculative men
could not but rush forward into this ideal world as into
a vacuum of good; and from "the mighty stream  of
tendency " (as Mr. Wordsworth in the cant of the day
calls it,) there was danger that the proud monuments of
time-hallowed institutions, that the strong-holds of
power and corruption, that "the Corinthian capitals of
polished society," with the base and pediments, might




- Mr. Malthus.


187


be overthrown and swept away as by a hurricane. There
were not wanting persons whose ignorance, whose fears,
whose pride, or whose prejudices contemplated such an
alternative with horror, and who would naturally feel no
small obligation to the man, who should relieve their
apprehensions from the stunning roar of this mighty
change of opinion that thundered at a distance, and
should be able, by some logical apparatus or unexpected
turn of the argument, to prevent the vessel of the state
from being hurried forward with the progress of improvement, and dashed in pieces down the tremendous
precipice of human perfectibility.
Then comes Mr. Malthus forward with the geometrical and arithmetical ratios in his hands, and holds them
out to his affrighted contemporaries as the only means
of salvation. "For" (so argued the author of the
Essay) " let the principles of Mr. Godwin's Enquiry and
of other similar works be carried literally and completely
into effect; let every corruption and abuse of power be
entirely got rid of; let virtue, knowledge and civilization be advanced to the greatest height that these
visionary reformers would suppose; let the passions
and appetites be subjected to the utmost control of
reason and influence of public opinion: grant them, in
a word, all that they ask, and the more completely their
views are realized, the sooner will they be overthrown
again, and the more inevitable and fatal will be the
catastrophe. For the principle of population will still
prevail, and from the comfort, ease and plenty that will
abound, will receive an increasing force and impetus.
The number of mouths to be fed will have no limit; but
the food that is to supply them cannot keep pace with
the demand for it; we must come to a stop somewhere,
even though each square yard, by extreme improvements
in cultivation, could maintain its man. In this state of




188


The Spirit of the Age.


things there will be no remedy; the wholesome checks
of vice and misery (which have hitherto kept this principle within bounds) will have been done away; the
voice of reason will be unheard; the passions only will
bear sway; famine, distress, havoc and dismay will
spread around; hatred, violence, war and bloodshed
will be the infallible consequence; and from the pinnacle
of happiness, peace, refinement and social advantage we
shall be hurled once more into a profounder abyss of
misery, want, and barbarism than ever by the sole operation of the principle of population! "
Such is a brief abstract of the argument of the Essay.
Can any thing be less conclusive, a more complete fallacy and petitio principii? Mr. Malthus concedes, he
assumes, a state of perfectibility such as his opponents
imagine, in which the general good is to obtain the
entire mastery of individual interests, and reason of
gross appetites and passions: and then he argues that
such a perfect structure of society will fall by its own
weight, or rather be undermined by the principle of
population, because in the highest possible state of the
subjugation of the passions to reason this will be absolutely lawless and unchecked, and because, as men become enlightened, quick-sighted and public spirited, they
will show themselves utterly blind to the consequences
of their actions, utterly indifferent to their own wellbeing and that of all succeeding generations, whose fate
is placed in their hands.
This we conceive to be the boldest paralogism that
ever was offered to the world, or palmed upon willing
credulity. Against whatever other scheme of reform
this objection might be valid, the one it was brought
expressly to overturn was impregnable against it, invulnerable to its slightest graze. Say that the Utopian
reasoners are visionaries unfounded, that the state of




Mr. Malthus.


189


virtue and knowledge they suppose, in which reason
shall have become all-in-all, can never take place, that
it is inconsistent with the nature of man and with all
experience, well and good-but to say that society will
have attained this high and palmy state, that reason will
have become the master-key to all our motives, and that,
when arrived at its greatest power, it will cease to act at
all, but will fall down dead, inert and senseless before
the principle of population, is an opinion which one
would think few people would choose to advance or
assent to without strong inducements for maintaining
or believing it.
The fact, however, is, that Mr. Malthus found this
argument entire (the principle and the application of
it) in an obscure and almost forgotten work published
about the middle of the last century, entitled Various
Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence, by a Scotch
gentleman of the name of Wallace.' The chapter in
this work on the Principle of Population, considered as
a bar to all ultimate views of human improvement, was
probably written to amuse an idle hour, or read as a
paper to exercise the wits of some literary society in the
Northern capital, and no farther responsibility or importance annexed to it.2 Mr. Malthus, by adopting and
setting his name to it, has given it sufficient currency
and effect. It sometimes happens that one writer is the
1 In 1753 Dr. Robert Wallace published A Dissertation on the
Numbers of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times, and followed it
up in 1761 by the work named in the text. Of the latter there is a
long and excellent account in the Retrospective Review, 1820, ii., 185,
et seqq.-ED.
2 The author was not aware that Wallace also wrote the Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind, 1753 and 1809, and a third
work, entitled Characteristics of the present state of Great Britain,
8vo, 1758.-ED.




190


The Spirit of the Age.


first to discover a certain principle or lay down a given
observation, and that another makes an application of,
or draws a remote or an immediate inference from it,
totally unforeseen by the first; and from which, in all
probability, he might have widely dissented.
But this is not so in the present instance. Mr. Malthus has borrowed (perhaps without consciousness, at
any rate without acknowledgment) both the preliminary statement, that the increase in the supply of food
"from a limited earth and a limited fertility" must
have an end, while the tendency to increase in the principle of population has none, without some external and
forcible restraint on it, and the subsequent use made of
this statement as an insuperable bar to all schemes of
Utopian or progressive improvement-both these he has
borrowed (whole) from Wallace with all their imperfections on their heads, and has added more and greater
ones to them out of his own store. In order to produce
something of a startling and dramatic effect, he has
strained a point or two. In order to quell and frighten
away the bugbear of Modern Philosophy, he was obliged
to make a sort of monster of the principle of population,
which was brought into the field against it, and which
was to swallow it up quick. No half-measures, no middle
course of reasoning would do. With a view to meet
the highest possible power of reason in the new order of
things, Mr. Malthus saw the necessity of giving the
greatest possible physical weight to the antagonist principle, and he accordingly lays it down that its operation
is mechanical and irresistible. He premises these two propositions as the basis of all his reasoning, 1. That food is
necessary to man; 2. That the desire to propagate the species
is a'n equally indispensable law of our existence:-thus
making it appear that these two wants or impulses are
equal and coordinate principles of action. If this double




Mr. Malthus.


191


statement had been true, the whole scope and structure
of his reasoning (as hostile to human hopes and sanguine speculations) would have been irrefragable; but
as it is not true, the whole (in that view) falls to th'e
ground. According to Mr Malthus's octavo edition, the
sexual passion is as necessary to be gratified as the appetite of hunger, and a man can no more exist without
propagating his species than he can live without eating.
Were it so, neither of these passions would admit of any
excuses, any delay, any restraint from reason or foresight; and the only checks to the principle of population
must be vice and misery. The argument would be triumphant and complete.
But there is no analogy, no parity in the two cases,
such as our author here assumes. No man can live for
any length of time without food; many persons live all
their lives without gratifying the other sense. The
longer the craving after food is unsatisfied, the more
violent, imperious, and uncontrollable the desire becomes; whereas the longer the gratification of the sexual
passion is resisted, the greater force does habit and resolution acquire over it; and, generally speaking, it is a
well-known fact, attested by all observation and history,
that this latter passion is subject more or less to control
from personal feelings and character, from public opinion
and the institutions of society, so as to lead either to a
lawful and regulated indulgence, or to partial or total
abstinence, according to the dictates of moral restraint,
which latter check to the inordinate excesses and unheard-of consequences of the principle of population our
author, having no longer an extreme case to make.out,
admits and is willing to patronize in addition to the
two former and exclusive ones of vice and misery, in the
second and remaining editions of his work.
Mr. Malthus has shown some awkwardness or even




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The Spirit of the Age.


reluctance in softening down the harshness of his first
peremptory decision. He sometimes grants his grand
exception cordially, proceeds to argue stoutly, and to
try conclusions upon it; at other times he seems disposed
to cavil about or retract it:-" the influence of moral restraint is very inconsiderable, or none at all." It is indeed difficult (more particularly for so formal and nice
a reasoner as Mr. Malthus) to piece such contradictions
plausibly or gracefully together. We wonder how he
manages it-how any one should attempt it! The whole
question, the gist of the argument of his early volume
turned upon this, " Whether vice and misery were the
only actual or possible checks to the principle of population? " He then said they were, and farewell to building castles in the air! he now says that moral restraint
is to be coupled with these, and that its influence depends greatly on the state of laws and manners; and
Utopia stands where it did, a great way off indeed, but
not turned topsy-turvy by our magician's wand! Should
we ever arrive there, that is, attain to a state of perfect
moral restraint, we shall not be driven headlong back
into Epicurus's stye for want of the only possible checks
to population, vice and misery; and in proportion as we
advance that way, that is, as the influence of moral restraint is extended, the necessity for vice and misery will
be diminished, instead of being increased according to
the first alarm given by the Essay.
Again, the advance of civilization and of population
in consequence with the same degree of moral restraint
(as there exists in England at this present time, for instance) is a good, and not an evil; but this does not
appear from the Essay. The Essay shows that population is not (as had been sometimes taken for granted)
an abstract and unqualified good; but it led many persons to suppose that it was an abstract and unqualified




Mr. Malthus.


193


evil, to be checked only by vice and misery; and producing, according to its encouragment, a greater quantity of vice and misery; and this error the author has
not been at sufficient pains to do away. Another thing,
in which Mr. Malthus attempted to clench Wallace's
argument, was in giving to the disproportionate power
of increase in the principle of population and the supply
of food a mathematical form, or reducing it to the
arithmetical and geometrical ratios, in which we believe
Mr. Malthus is now generally admitted, even by his
friends and admirers, to have been wrong. There is
evidently no inherent difference in the principle of increase in food or population; since a grain of corn, for
example, will propagate and multiply itself much faster
even than the human species. A bushel of wheat will
sow a field; that field will furnish seed for twenty
others. So that the limit to the means of subsistence is
only the want of room to raise it in, or, as Wallace expresses it, "a limited fertility and a limited earth."
Up to the point where the earth or any given country
is fully occupied or cultivated, the means of subsistence
naturally increase in a geometrical ratio, and will more
than keep pace with the natural and unrestrained progress of population; and beyond that point they do not
go on increasing even in Mr. Malthus's arithmetical
ratio, but are stationary or nearly so. So far, then, is
this proportion from being universally and mathematically true, that in no part of the world or state of society
does it hold good. But our theorist, by laying down
this double ratio as a law of nature, gains this advantage, that at all times it seems as if, whether in new or
old-peopled countries, in fertile or barren soils, the population was pressing hard on the means of subsistence;
and, again, it seems as if the evil increased with the
progress of improvement and civilization. For if you
o




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cast your eye at the scale which is supposed to be calculated upon true and infallible data, you find that when
the population is at 8, the means of subsistence are at 4;
so that here there is only a deficit of one-half; but when it
is at 32, they have only got to 6, so that here there
is a difference of 26 in 32, and so on in proportion.
The farther we proceed, the more enormous is the
mass of vice and misery we must undergo, as a consequence of the natural excess of the population over the
means of subsistence and as a salutary check to its
farther desolating progress. The mathematical Table,
placed at the front of the Essay, therefore leads to a
secret suspicion or a barefaced assumption, that we
ought in mere kindness and compassion to give every
sort of indirect and under-hand encouragement (to say
the least) to the providential checks of vice and misery;
as the sooner we arrest the formidable and paramount
evil in its course, the less opportunity we leave it of
doing incalculable mischief. Accordingly, whenever
there is the least talk of colonizing new countries, of
extending the population, or adding to social comforts and improvements, Mr. Ialthus conjures up his
double ratios, and insists on the alarming results of advancing them a single step forward in the series. By
the same rule, it would be better to return at once to
a state of barbarism, and to take the benefit of acorns
and scuttle-fish as a security against the luxuries and
wants of civilized life. But it is not our ingenious
author's wish to hint at or recommend any alterations
in existing institutions; and he is therefore silent on
that unpalatable part of the subject and natural inference from his principles.
Mr. Malthus's "gospel is preached to the poor."  He
lectures them on economy, on morality, the regulation
of their passions (which, he says at other times, are




Mr. MalthTu.


195


amenable to no restraint), and on the ungracious topic,
that " the laws of nature, which are the laws of God,
have doomed them and their families to starve for want
of a right to the smallest portion of food beyond what
their labour will supply, or some charitable hand may
hold out in compassion."  This is illiberal, and it is not
philosophical. The laws of nature or of God, to which
the author appeals, are no other than a limited fertility
and a limited earth. Within those bounds the rest is
regulated by the laws of man. The division of the produce of the soil, the price of labour, the relief afforded
to the poor, are matters of human arrangement: while
any charitable hand can extend relief, it is a proof that
the means of subsistence are not exhausted in themselves,
that " the tables are not full! " Mr. Malthus says that
the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, have
rendered that relief physically impossible; and yet he
would abrogate the poor-laws by an act of the legislature,
in order to take away that impossible relief, which the
laws of God deny, and which the laws of man actually
afford. We cannot think that this view of his subject,
which is prominent and dwelt on at great length and
with great pertinacity, is dictated either by rigid logic
or melting charity! A labouring man is not allowed to
knock down a hare or a partridge that spoils his garden:
a country-squire keeps a pack of hounds: a lady of
quality rides out with a footman behind her on two
sleek, well-fed horses.
We have not a word to say against all this as exemplifying the spirit of the English Constitution, as a part of
the law of the land, or as an artful distribution of light
and shade in the social picture; but if any one insists at
the same time that " the laws of nature, which are the
laws of God, have doomed the poor and their families to
starve," because the principle of population has en



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croached upon and swallowed up the means of subsistence, so that not a mouthful of food is left by the grinlding law of necessity for the poor, we beg leave to deny
both fact and inference; and we put it to Mr. Malthus
whether we are not, in strictness, justified in doing so?
We have, perhaps, said enough to explain our feeling
on the subject of Mr. Malthus's merits and defects. We
think he had the opportunity and the means in his hands
of producing a great work on the principle of population; but we believe he has let it slip from his having an
eye to other things besides that broad and unexplored
question. He wished not merely to advance to the discovery of certain great and valuable truths, but at the
same time to overthrow certain unfashionable paradoxes by exaggerated statements-to curry favour with
existing prejudices and interests by garbled representations. He has, in a word, as it appears to us on a candid retrospect and without any feelings of controversial
asperity rankling in our minds, sunk the philosopher
and the friend of his species (a character to which he
might have aspired) in the sophist and party-writer.
The period at which Mr. Malthus came forward teemed
with answers to Modern Philosophy, with antidotes to
liberty and humanity, with abusive Histories of the
Greek and Roman republics, with fulsome panegyrics
on the Roman Emperors (at the very time when we
were reviling Buonaparte for his strides to universal empire) with the slime and offal of desperate servility;
and we cannot but consider the Essay as one of the poisonous ingredients thrown into the cauldron of Legitimacy "to make it thick and slab." Our author has
indeed so far done service to the cause of truth, that he
has counteracted many capital errors formerly prevailing as to the universal and indiscriminate encouragement of population under all circumstances; but he has




Mr. Malthus.


197


countenanced opposite errors which, if adopted in theory
and practice, would be even more mischievous, and has
left it to future philosophers to follow up the principle,
that some check must be provided for the unrestrained
progress of population, into a set of wiser and more
humane consequences. Mr. Godwin has lately attempted
an answer to the Essay (thus giving Mr. Malthus a
Roland for his Oliver) but we think he has judged ill in
endeavouring to invalidate the principle, instead of confining himself to point out the misapplication of it.
There is one argument introduced in this Reply, which
will, perhaps, amuse the reader as a sort of metaphysical puzzle.
" It has sometimes occurred to me whether Mr. Malthus did not catch the first hint of his geometrical ratio
from a curious passage of Judge Blackstone on consanguinity, which is as follows:" i The doctrine of lineal consanguinity is sufficiently
plain and obvious; but it is at the first view astonishing to
consider the number of lineal ancestors which every man
has within no very great number of degrees; and so
many different bloods is a man said to contain in his veins,
as he hath lineal ancestors. Of these he hath two in the
first ascending degree, his own parents; he hath four in
the second, the parents of his father and the parents of
his mother; he hath eight in the third, the parents of
his two grandfathers and two grandmothers; and by
the same rule of progression, he hath an hundred and
twenty-eight in the seventh: a thousand and twentyfour in the tenth; and at the twentieth degree, or
the distance of twenty generations, every man hath
above a million of ancestors, as common arithmetic
will demonstrate.
"This will seem surprising to those who are unacquainted with the increasing power of progressive num



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The Spirit of the Age.


bers; but it is palpably evident from the following table
of a geometrical progression, in which the first term is
2, and the denominator also 2; or, to speak more intelligibly, it is evident, that each of us has two ancestors in
the first degree, the number of which is doubled at every


remove, because each
ancestors of his own.


of our ancestors had also two




Lineal Degrees.                     Number of Ancestors.
1         -         -          -        2
2              -        -               4
3         -               -             8
4         -         -          -       16
5         -         -          -       32
6         -         -          -       64
7         -         --                128
8         -         -          -      256
9         -                    -      512
10         -         -          -     1024
11        -               -     -     2048
12         -         -          -     4096
13        -          -          -     8192
14        -                     -    16,384
15        -          -          -   32,768
16        -          -          -   65,536
17        -          --         -   131,072
18        -          -          -   262,144
19        -          -          -   524,288
20         -         -          - 1,048,576'
"This argument, however," (proceeds Mr. Godwin)
"from Judge Blackstone of a geometrical progression
would much more naturally apply to Montesquieu's
hypothesis of the depopulation of the world, and prove
that the human species is hastening fast to extinction,
than to the purpose for which Mr. Malthus has employed
it. An ingenious sophism-on the supposition that a
man can have no brother or sister, but that every pair
can only have one offspring-might be raised upon it, to
show that the race of mankind will ultimately termi



Mr. Malthus.


199


nate in unity. Mr. Malthus, indeed, should have reflected, that it is much more certain that every man has
had ancestors than that he will have posterity, and that
it is still more doubtful, whether he will have posterity
to twenty or to an indefinite number of generations." 1
Mr. Malthus's style is correct and elegant, his tone of
controversy mild and gentlemanly; and the care, with
which he has brought his facts and documents together,
deserves the highest praise. He has lately quitted his
favourite subject of population, and broken a lance with
Mr. Ricardo on the question of rent and value. The
partisans of Mr. Ricardo, who are also the admirers of
Mr. Malthus, say that the usual sagacity of the latter
has here failed him, and that he has shown himself to
be a very illogical writer. To have said this of him
formerly on another ground, was accounted a heresy and
a piece of presumption not easily to be forgiven. Indeed
Mr. Malthus has always been a sort of " darling in the
public eye," whom it was unsafe to meddle with. He
has contrived to make himself as many friends by his
attacks on the schemes of Human Perfectibility and on the
Poor-Laws, as Mandeville formerly procured enemies by
his attacks on Human Perfections and on Charity-Schools;
and among other instances that we might mention,
Plug Pulteney, the celebrated miser, of whom Mr. Burke
said on his having a large estate left him, "that now it
was to be hoped he would set up a pocket-handkerchief,"
was so enamoured with the saving schemes and humane
economy of the Essay, that he desired a friend to find
out the author and offer him a church living! This
liberal intention was (by design or accident) unhappily
frustrated.
Enquiry concerning Population, p. 100.








THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE
CANNING.








THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE CANNING.


M   R. CANNING was the cleverest boy at Eton: he
is, perhaps, the cleverest man in the House of
Commons. It is, however, in the sense in which, according to Mr. Wordsworth, " the child is father to the man."
He has grown up entirely out of what he then was. He
has merely engrafted a set of Parliamentary phrases and
the technicalities of debate on the themes and schoolexercises he was set to compose when a boy. Nor has
he ever escaped from the trammels imposed on youthful
genius; he has never assumed a manly independence
of mind. He has been all his life in the habit of getting
up a speech at the nod of a Minister, as he used to get
up a thesis under the direction of his schoolmaster. The
matter is nothing; the only question is, how he shall
express himself. The consequence has been as might
be expected. Not being at liberty to choose his own
side of the question, nor to look abroad into the world
for original (but perhaps unwelcome) observations, nor
to follow up a strict chain of reasoning into its unavoidable consequences, the whole force of his mind has been
exhausted in an attention to the ornaments of style and
to an agreeable and imposing selection of topics. It is
his business and his inclination to embellish what is trite,
to gloss over what is true, to vamp up some feeble
sophism, to spread the colours of a meretricious fancy
over the unexpected exposure of some dark intrigue,
some glaring iniquity



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The Spirit of the Age.


" Like as the sun-burnt Indians do array
Their tawny bodies in their proudest plight
With painted plumes in goodly order dight:
As those same plumes, so seemed he vain and light,
That by his gait might easily appear;
For still he fared as dancing in delight,
And in his hands a windy fan did bear,
That in the idle air he moved still here and there."
SPENSER.
His reasoning is a tissue of glistering sophistry; his
language is a cento of florid commonplaces. The smooth
monotony of his style is indeed as much borrowed, is as
little his own, as the courtly and often fulsome strain of
his sentiments.  He has no steady principles, no strong
passions, nothing original, masculine, or striking in
thought or expression. There is a feeble, diffuse, showy,
Asiatic redundancy in all his speeches-something vapid,
something second-hand in the whole cast of his mind.
The light that proceeds from it gleams from the mouldering materials of corruption: the flowers that are
seen there, gay and flaunting, bloom over the grave of
humanity!-Mr. Canning never, by any chance, reminds
one of the poet or the philosopher, of the admirer of
nature, or even the man of the world-he is a mere
House-of-Commons man, and since he was transferred
there from College, appears never to have seen or thought
of any other place. He may be said to have passed his
life in making and learning to make speeches. All
other objects and pursuits seem to have been quite lost
upon him.   He has overlooked the ordinary objects of
nature, the familiar interests of human life, as beneath
his notice.1 There is no allusion in any of his speeches
1 Mr. Canning, when on a tour to the Lakes, did Mr. Wordsworth
the honour of paying him a visit. The favour was duly acknow



The Right Hon. George Canning.


205


to anything passing out of the House, or not to be found
in the classics. Their tone is quite Parliamentary-his
is the Delphin edition of Nature. Not an image has
struck his eye, not an incident has touched his heart, any
farther than it could be got up for rhetorical and stage
effect.  This has an ill effect upon his speeches:-it gives
them that shining and bloated appearance which is the
result of the confined and heated atmosphere of the
House. They have the look of exotics, of artificial, hothouse plants. Their glossiness, their luxuriance, and
gorgeousness of colour are greater than their strength
or stamina: they are forced, not lasting, nor will they
bear transplanting from the rank and noxious soil in
which they grow. Or rather, perhaps, they bear the
same relation to eloquence that artificial flowers do to
real ones-alike, yet not the same, without vital heat or
the power of reproduction; painted, passionless, specious
mockeries. They are, in fact, not the growth of truth,
of nature, and feeling, but of state policy, of art, and
practice. To deny that Mr. Canning has arrived to a
great perfection (perhaps the greatest) in the manufacture of these sort of common-places, elegant, but somewhat tarnished, imposing, but not solid, would, we think,
show a want of candour: to affirm that he has ever done
any thing more (in his serious attempts) would, we
think, show an equal want of taste and understanding.1
The way in which MVr. Canning gets up the staplecommodity of his speeches appears to be this. He hears
an observation on the excellence of the English Constitution, or on the dangers of Reform and the fickleness
ledged, but quite unexpected. Really we do not know any one so
little capable of appreciating the Lyrical Ballads.
1 We once heard it said, that " Mr. Canning had the most elegant
mind since Virgil." But we could not assent to this remark, as we
just then happened to think of Claude Lorraine.




206


The Spirit of the Age.


and headstrong humours of the people, dropped by some
Member of the House, or he meets with it in an old
Debate in the time of Sir Robert Walpole, or in Paley's
Moral and Political Philosophy, which our accomplished
scholar read, of course, as the established text-book at
the University. He turns it in his mind: by dint of
memory and ingenuity he illustrates it by the application of some well-known and well-authenticated simile at
hand, such as " the vessel of the state," " the torrent of
popular fury," "the precipice of reform," " the thunderbolt of war," "the smile of peace," &c. He improves
the hint by the help of a little play upon words and upon
an idle fancy into an allegory, he hooks this on to a
verbal inference, which takes you by surprise, equally
from the novelty of the premises and the flatness of the
conclusion, refers to a passage in Cicero in support of
his argument, quotes his authority, relieves exhausted
attention by a sounding passage from Virgil, "like the
morn risen on mid-noon," and launches the whole
freight of wisdom, wit, learning, and fancy, on the floor
of St. Stephen's Chapel, where it floats and glitters
amidst the mingled curiosity and admiration of both
sides of the House"Scylla heard,
And fell Charybdis murmur'd soft applause."
Beneath the broad and gilded chandelier that throws its
light upon "the nation's Great Divan," Mr. Canning
piles the lofty harangue, high over-arched with metaphor,
dazzling with epithets, sparkling with jests-take it out
of doors, or examine it by the light of common sense,
and it is no more than a paltry string of sophisms, of
trite truisms, and sorry buffooneries. There is also a
House-of-Commons jargon as well as a scholastic pedantry in this gentleman's style of oratory, which is




The Right Hon. George Canning.


207


very displeasing to all but professional ears. "The
Honourable and Learned Gentleman," and " his Honourable and Gallant Friend," are trolled over the tongue of
the Honourable Speaker, "loud as a trumpet with a
silver sound," and fill up the pauses of the sense or the
gaps in the logic with a degree of burlesque self-complacency and pompous inanity. Mr. Canning speaks by
rote; and if the words he utters become the mouth and
round a period well, he cares little how cheaply he
comes by them, or how dear they cost the country!
Such mechanic helps to style and technical flourishes
and trappings of upstart self-importance are, however,
unworthy of the meanest underling of office.
There is, notwithstanding, a facility, a brilliancy, and
an elegance in Mr. Canning's general style: always graceful, never abrupt, never meagre, never dry, copious without confusion, dignified without stiffness, perspicuous
yet remote from common life, that must excite surprise
in an extempore speaker. Mr. Canning, we apprehend,
is not an extempore speaker. He only makes set speeches
on set occasions. He indeed hooks them in as answers
to some one that has gone before him in the debate, by
taking up and commenting on a single sentence or so;
but he immediately recurs to some old and favourite
topic, launches into the middle of the stream, or mounts
upon the high horse, and rides it to the end of the chapter. He never (that we are aware of) grappled with a
powerful antagonist, overthrew him on the spot, or contested the point with him foot to foot. Mr. Canning's
replies are evasions. He indeed made a capital and very
deservedly-admired reply to Sir John Coxe Hippesley;
but Sir John had given notice of all his motions a month
beforehand, and Mr. Canning had only to lie in ambush
for him with a whole magazine of facts, arguments,
alliterations, quotations, jests, and squibs prepared ready




208


The Spirit of the Age.


to explode and blow him up into the air in an instant.
In this manner he contrives to slip into the debate and
speak to the question, as if he had lately entered the
House and heard the arguments on the other side stated
for the first time in his life. He has conned his speeches
over for a week or a month previously; but he gives
these premeditated effusions the effect of witty impromptus-the spontaneous ebullitions of the laughter or
indignation or lofty enthusiasm of the moment. His
manner tells this. It is that of a person trying to recollect a speech, and reciting it from beginning to end
with studied gesture, and in an emphatic but monotonous and somewhat affected tone of voice, rather than
of a person uttering words and thoughts that have
occurred to him for the first time, and hurried away by
an involuntary impulse, speaking with more or less hesitation, faster or slower, and with more or less passion,
according as the occasion requires.
Mr. Canning is a conventional speaker; he is an
optional politician. He has a ready and splendid assortment of arguments upon all ordinary questions: he
takes that side or view of a question that is dictated by
his vanity, his interest, or his habits, and endeavours to
make the best he can of it. Truth, liberty, justice, humanity, war or peace, civilization or barbarism, are things
of little consequence, except for him to make speeches
upon them. He thinks "the worse the better reason,"
if he can only make it appear so to others; and in the
attempt to confound and mislead, he is greatly assisted
by really perceiving no difference himself. It is not
what a thing is, but what he can say about it, that is
ever uppermost in his mind; and why should he be
squeamish or have any particular choice, since his words
are all equally fine, and delivered with equal volubility
of tongue? His balanced periods are the scale " that




The Right Hon. George Canning.


209


makes these odds all even." Our Orator does not confine himself to any one view of a subject. He does not
blind himself by any dull prejudice: he does not tie
himself down to any pedantic rules or abstract principle.
He does not listen implicitly to common sense, nor does
he follow the independent dictates of his own judgment.
No, he picks and chooses among all these, as best suits
his purpose. He plucks out the grey hairs of a question,
and then again the black. He shifts his position; it is
a ride-and-tie system with him. He mounts sometimes
behind prejudice, and sometimes behind reason. He is
now with the wise, and then again with the vulgar. He
drivels, or he rages. He is now wedded to antiquity:
anon there is no innovation too startling for him. At
one time he is literal, at another visionary and romantic.
At one time the honour of the country sways him, at
another its interest. One moment he is all for liberty,
and the next for slavery. First we are to hold the
balance of Europe, and to dictate and domineer over the
whole world; and then we are to creep into our shells
and draw in our horns; one moment resembling Don
Quixote, and the next playing the part of Sancho Panza!
And why not? All these are topics, are cues used in
the game of politics, are colours in the changeable coat
of party, are dilemmas in casuistry, are pretexts in diplomacy; and Mr. Canning has them all at his fingers'
ends. What is there then to prevent his using any of
them as he pleases? Nothing in the world but feeling
or principle; and as Mr. Canning is not withheld by
these from running his heedless career, the application
of his ingenuity and eloquence in all such cases is perfectly arbitrary, " quite optional," as Mr. Liston expresses it. A wise man would have some settled opinion,
a good man would wish well to some cause, a modest
man would be afraid to act without feeling sure of his
P




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The Spirit of the Age.


ground, or to show an utter disregard of right or wrong.
Mr. Canning has the luckless ambition to play off the
tricks of a political rope-dancer, and he chooses to do it
on the nerves of humanity! He has called out for war
during thirty years without ceasing, "like importunate
Guinea fowls, one note day and night;" he has made
the House and the country ring with his vain clamour,
and now for the first time he is silent, " quite chopfallen."
Like Bottom in the play, "he aggravates his voice like
a sucking dove; " "he roars you an 'twere any nightingale! " After the failure of Buonaparte's Russian expedition, Mr. Canning exclaimed exultingly, and with a
daring enthusiasm that seemed to come from the heart,
that " he rejoiced that barbarism had been the first to resist
invasion, since it showed that the love of national independence was an instinctive principle in every country, superior even to the love of liberty." This plea served its turn
at the time, and we heard no more of it last year when
the French invaded Spain. In the war to restore Ferdinand, Mr. Canning echoed with lungs of brass the roar
of " the universal Spanish nation," and the words Liberty
and Humanity hung like music on his tongue; but when
the feeble Monarch was restored, and trod upon the
necks of those who had restored him, and threw down
the mock-scaffold of the Constitution that had raised
him once more to the throne, we heard no more of "the
universal Spanish nation," of Liberty and Humanity.
When the speeches of Mr. Canning and the Manifestos
of his friends had raised the power of France to a
gigantic height that hung like a precipice over our heads,
we were to go on, and fight out the battle of liberty and
independence, though "we buried ourselves under the
ruins of the civilized world." When a monstrous claim
that threatens the liberty and existence of the civilized
world is openly set up and acted upon, and a word from




The Right Hon. George Canning.


211


Mr. Canning would arrest its progress in the direction
in which it is moving with obscene, ghastly, bloodstained strides, he courteously and with great condescension reminds his hearers of " the inimitable satire
of Cervantes," and that there is a proverbial expression
borrowed from it, and that the epithet Quixotic would
be eminently applicable to the conduct of Great Britain
if she interfered in the affairs of the continent at the
present juncture. And yet there are persons who persist
in believing that Mr. Canning is anything more than a
pivot on whose oily hinges state policy turns easily at
this moment, unheard, unseen, and that he has views
and feelings of his own that are a pledge for his integrity. If all this were fickleness, caprice, forgetfulness,
accident, folly, it would be well or would not much signify; we should stand a chance of sometimes being
right, sometimes wrong; or if the ostensible motives
were the real ones, they would balance one another.
At one time we should be giving a lift to liberty, at
another we should be advancing our own interests: now
we should be generous to others, then we should be just
to ourselves, but always we should be doing something
or other fit to be done and to be named, and acting up
to one or other of Mr. Canning's fine pleas of religion,
morality, or social order. Is that the case? Nothing
was said for twenty years about the restoration of the
Bourbons as the object of the war. Who doubts it now?
This cause skulked behind the throne, and was not let
out in any of Mr. Canning's speeches. The cloven foot
was concealed by so much flaunting oratory, by so many
different facings and piebald patchwork liveries of ruinous policy or perfidious principle, as not to be suspected.
This is what makes such persons as Mr. Canning dangerbus. /Clever men are the tools with which bad men work.
The march of sophistry is devious: the march of power




212


The Spirit of the Age.


is one. Its means, its tools, its pretexts are various,
and borrowed like the hues of the chameleon from any
object that happens to be at hand: its object is ever the
same, and deadly as the serpent's fang. It moves on to
its end with crested majesty: erect, silent, with eyes
sunk and fixed, undiverted by fear, unabashed by shame;
and puny orators and patriot mountebanks play tricks
before it to amuse the crowd, till it crushes the world in
its monstrous folds. There is one word about which
nothing has been said all this while in accounting for
Mr. Canning's versatility of mind and vast resources in
reasoning-it is the word Legitimacy. It is the key
with which you " pluck out the heart of his mystery."
It is the touchstone by which all his other eloquence is
to be tried, and made good or found wanting. It is the
casting-weight in the scale of sound policy, or that makes
humanity and liberty kick the beam. It is the secret of
the Ayes and Noes: it accounts for the Majorities and
Minorities. It weighs down all other considerations,
hides all flaws, makes up for all deficiencies, removes all
obstacles, is the crown of success, and makes defeat
glorious. It has all the power of the Crown on its side,
and all the madness of the people. All Mr. Canning's
speeches are but so many different periphrases for this
one word-Legitimacy. It is the foundation of his magnanimity and the source of his pusillanimity. It is the
watchword equally of his oratory or his silence. It is
the principle of his interference and of his forbearance.
It makes him move forward, or retreat, or stand still.
With this word rounded closely in his ear, and with fifty
evasions for it in his mouth, he advances boldly to " the
deliverance of mankind "-into the hands of legitimate
kings, but can do nothing to deliver them out of their
power. When the liberty and independence of mankind
can be construed to mean the cause of kings and the




The Right Hon. George Canning.


213


doctrine of divine right, Mr. Canning is a virago on the
side of humanity-when they mean the cause of the
people and the reducing of arbitrary power within the
limits of constitutional law, his patriotism and humanity
flag, and he is
"' Of his port as meek as is a maid!"
This word makes his tropes and figures expand and
blaze out like phosphorus, or "freezes his spirits up
like fish in a pond." It smites with its petrific mace,
it deadens with its torpedo touch, the Minister, the
Parliament, the people, and makes this vast, free, enlightened, and enterprising country a body without a
soul, an inert mass, like the hulks of our men of war,
which Mr. Canning saw and described so well at
Plymouth. It is the same word that, announcing the
profanation of "the golden rounds that bind the hollow
temples of a king" by unhallowed hands, would fill
their sails, and hurl their thunders on rebel shores. It
denounces war: it whispers peace. It is echoed by the
groans of the nations, is sanctified by their blood, bought
by their treasure. It is this that fills the time-rent
towers of the Inquisition with tears and piercing cries;
and owing to this Manzotti shrieks in Italian dungeons,
while Mr. Canning soothes the House of Commons with
the soft accents of liberty and peace! In fine, Mr. Canning's success as an orator, and the space he occupies in
the public mind, are strong indications of the Genius of
the Age, in which words have obtained a mastery over
things, and " to call evil good and good evil," is thought
the mark of a superior and happy spirit. An accomplished statesman, in our day, is one who extols the
Constitution and violates it-who talks about religion
and social order, and means slavery and superstition.
The Whigs are always reminding the reigning family of




214           The Spirit of the Age.
the principles that raised them to the throne-the Tories
labour as hard to substitute those that will keep them
there. There is a dilemma here, which is not easily got
over; and to solve the difficulty and reconcile the contradiction, was the great problem of the late King's
reign. The doubtful lubricity of Mr. Canning's style
was one of the rollers by which the transition was
effected, and Legitimacy shown to be a middle term
between divine right and the choice of the people, compatible with both, and convertible into either, at the discretion of the Crown or pleasure of the speaker. Mr.
Canning does not disgrace his pretensions on other questions. He is a sophist by profession, a palliator of every
powerful and profitable abuse. His shuffling, trifling
speeches on Reform are well-known. He sometimes
adds the petulance of the school-boy to his stock of
worn-out invention; though his unfeeling taunt on the
"revered and ruptured Ogden" met with a reception
which will make him cautious how he tampers again
with human infirmity and individual suffering, as the
subject of ribald jests and profligate alliteration.
The thing in which Mr. Canning excels most is wit;
and his wit is confined to parody. The Rejected Addresses
have been much and deservedly admired; but we do not
think the parodies in them, however ingenious or ludicrous, are to be compared with those in the Poetry of the
Anti-Jacobin, and some of the very best of these are
by Mr. Canning. Among others are, we believe, the
German Play and the imitation of Mr. Southey's Sapphics.
Much as we admire, we do not wonder at Mr. Canning's
excellence in this department.  Real, original wit he
has none; for that implies sense and feeling, and an
insight into the real differences of things; but from a
want of sympathy with anything but forms and common-places, he can easily let down the sense of others




The Right Hon. George Canning.


215


so as to make nonsense of it. He has no enthusiasm or
sensibility to make him overlook the meanness of a subject, or a little irregularity in the treatment of it, from
the interest it excites: to a mind like his, the serious
and affecting is a kind of natural burlesque. It is a
matter of course for him     to be struck with the absurdity of the romantic or singular in any way, to whom
everything out of the beaten track is absurd, and " to
turn what is serious into farce " by transferring the
same expressions to perfectly indifferent and therefore
contemptible subjects. To make any description or
sentiment ludicrous, it is only necessary to take away all
feeling from it: the ludicrous is ready-made to Mr.
Canning's hands. The poetry, the heart-felt interest
of everything escapes through his apprehension, like a
snake out of its skin, and leaves the slough of parody
behind it. Anything more light or worthless cannot
well be imagined.'
We have said nothing of the impiety of Mr. Canning's parodies,
though a great deal has been said of the impiety of Mr. Hone's, which
unfortunately happen to be on the other side of the question. It is
true that "one man may steal a horse sooner than another can look
over a hedge." Mr. Hone is not a Cabinet Minister, and therefore is
not allowed to take liberties with the Liturgy. It is to no purpose
to urge that Mr. Hone is a very good-natured man, that he is mild and
inoffensive in his manners, that he is utterly void of guile, with a
great deal of sincere piety, and that his greatest vice is that he is
fond of a joke, and given to black-letter reading. The answer is"But he has written parodies "-and it is to no purpose to replySo has Mr. Canning! He is a Cabinet Minister, and therefore incapable of any thing vulgar or profane. One would think that the
triumphant question put by Mr. Hone to his Jury, " Whether Mr.
Jekyll's Parody on Black-eyed Susan was meant to ridicule Sir
William Curtis or the ballad of Black-eyed Susan? " would have put
an end for ever to the cant of this subject, if reason could put an end
to cant on any subject. The fate of different men is curious. Mr.
Canning, who has all his life been defending the most odious and




216              The Spirit of the Age.
mischievous men and measures, passes, on that very account, for a
most amiable character and an accomplished statesman. Mr. Hone,
who defended himself against a charge of blasphemy for a parody on
the Church Service, of which Mr. Canning had furnished him with a
precedent, rose from the attack by the force of good-nature, and by that
noble spirit of freedom and honesty, in which to be unjustly accused
is to be superior to all fear, and to speak truth is to be eloquentbut that he did not suffer himself to be crushed to atoms, and made
a willing sacrifice to the prejudice, talent, and authority arrayed
against him, is a resistance to the opinions of the world and the insolence of power, that can never be overlooked or forgiven.
" A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod:
An honest man's the noblest work of God! "
[Not only Canning, but Dr. Law, Bishop of Carlisle, father of the
Ellenborough, who tried Hone, made a parody, which Hone offered
in Court to hand up for his lordship to see.-ED.]




MR. GIFFORD.




0




MR. GIFFORD.1


M    R. GIFFORD was originally bred to some handicraft.  He afterwards contrived to learn Latin,
and was for some time an usher in a school, till he became a tutor in a nobleman's family. The low-bred,
self-taught man, the pedant, and the dependent on the
great, contribute to form  the Editor of the Quarterly
Review.   He is admirably qualified for this situation,
which he has held for some years, by a happy combination of defects, natural and acquired; and in the event
of his death it will be difficult to provide him a suitable
successor.
Mr. Gifford has no pretensions to be thought a man
of genius, of taste, or even of general knowledge. He
merely understands the mechanical and instrumental
part of learning. He is a critic of the last age, when
the different editions of an author or the dates of his
several performances were all that occupied the inquiries of a profound scholar, and the spirit of the
writer or the beauties of his style were left to shift for
themselves, or exercise the fancy of the light and superficial reader. In studying an old author, he has no
notion of any thing beyond adjusting a point, proposing
a different reading, or correcting, by the collation of
various copies, an error of the press.2
Compare with this Criticism A Letter to William Gifford, Esq.,
from William Hazlitt, Esq., 1819, reprinted infrd.-ED.
2 This is quite true. The late Mr. Dyce entertained a high




220


The Spirit of the Age.


In appreciating a modern one, if it is an enemy, the
first thing he thinks of is to charge him with bad grammar: he scans his sentences instead of weighing his
sense; or if it is a friend, the highest compliment he
conceives it possible to pay him is, that his thoughts and
expressions are moulded on some hackneyed model.
His standard of ideal perfection is what he himself now
is, a person of mediocre literary attainments: his utmost
contempt is shown by reducing any one to what he himself once was, a person without the ordinary advantages
of education and learning. It is accordingly assumed
with much complacency in his critical pages, that Tory
writers are classical and courtly as a matter of course,
as it is a standing jest and evident truism that Whigs
and Reformers must be persons of low birth and breeding, imputations from one of which he himself has
narrowly escaped, and both of which he holds in suitable
abhorrence. He stands over a contemporary performance with all the self-conceit and self-importance of a
country schoolmaster, tries it by technical rules, affects
not to understand the meaning, examines the handwriting, the spelling, shrugs up his shoulders and
chuckles over a slip of the pen, and keeps a sharp lookout for a false concord and-a flogging.
There is nothing liberal, nothing humane in his style
of judging: it is altogether petty, captious, and literal.
The Editor's political subserviency adds the last finishing
[stroke] to his ridiculous pedantry and vanity. He has all
his life been a follower in the train of wealth and power,
strives to back his pretensions on Parnassus by a place
at court, and to gild his reputation as a man of letters
opinion of Gifford's editorial ability; but I have always thought that
he was too capricious and arbitrary in his treatment of texts, and that
he owed his celebrity in large measure to his high literary position
and the low standard of such learning in his day.-ED.




M2~r. Giaford.


221


by the smile of greatness. He thinks his works are
stamped with additional value by having his name in
the Red-Book. He looks up to the distinctions of rank
and station as he does to those of learning, with the
gross and over-weening adulation of his early origin.
All his notions are low, upstart, servile. He thinks it
the highest honour to a poet to be patronised by a peer
or by some dowager of quality. He is prouder of a
court-livery than of a laurel-wreath, and is only sure of
having established his claims to respectability by having
sacrificed those of independence. He is a retainer to
the Muses, a door-keeper to learning, a lacquey in the
State. He believes that modern literature should wear
the fetters of classical antiquity; that truth is to be
weighed in the scales of opinion and prejudice; that
power is equivalent to right; that genius is dependent
on rules; that taste and refinement of language consist
in word-catching.
Many persons suppose that Mr. Gifford knows better
than he pretends, and that he is shrewd, artful and dea'
signing. But perhaps it may be nearer the mark gjo
suppose that his dulness is guarantee for his sincerity,
or that, before he is the tool of the profligacy of others,
he is the dupe of his own jaundiced feelings and narrow, hoodwinked perceptions.
" Destroy his fib or sophistry: i.n vainThe creature's at his dirty work again!"
But this is less from choice or perversity, than because
he cannot help it, and can do nothing else. He damns
a beautiful expression less out of spite than because he
really does not understand it; any novelty of thought
or sentiment gives him a shock from which he cannot
recover for some time; and he naturally takes his revenge for the alarm and uneasiness occasioned him without referring to venal or part? motives. He garbles




222


The Spirit of the Age.


an author's meaning, not so much wilfully, as because it
is a pain to him to enlarge his microscopic view to take
in the context, when a particular sentence or passage
has struck him as quaint and out of the way. He flyblows an author's style, and picks out detached words
and phrases for cynical reprobation, simply because he
feels himself at home, or takes a pride and pleasure in
this sort of petty warfare. He is tetchy and impatient
of contradiction, sore with wounded pride, angry at obvious faults, more angry at unforeseen beauties. He has
the chalk-stones in his understanding, and from  being
used to long confinement, cannot bear the slightest jostling or irregularity of motion. He may call out with
the fellow in the Tempest-" I am not Stephano, but a
cramp! "
He would go back to the standard of opinions, style,
faded ornaments and insipid formalities that came into
fashion about forty years ago. Flashes of thought,
flights of fancy, idiomatic expressions, he sets down
\among the signs of the times, the extraordinary occurrences of the age we live in. They are marks of a restles&s and revolutionary spirit: they disturb his composqtre of mind, and threaten (by implication) the safety
of the State.  His slow, snail-paced, bed-rid habits of
reasoning cannot keep up with the whirling, eccentric
motion, the rapid, perhaps extravagant combinations of
modern literature. He has long been stationary himself, and is determined that others shall remain so. The
hazarding a paradox is like letting off a pistol close to
his ear: he is alarmed and offended. The using an
elliptical mode of expression (such as he did not use to
find in Guides to the English Tongue) jars him like
coming suddenly to a step in a flight of stairs that you
were not aware of. He pishes and pshawvs at all this,
exercises a sort of irlrjectional criticism on what ex



Mr. Giford.


223


cites his spleen, his envy or his wonder, and hurls his
meagre anathemas ex cathedra at all those writers who
are indifferent alike to his precepts and his example!
Mr. Gifford, in short, is possessed of that sort of
learning which is likely to result from an over-anxious
desire to supply the want of the first rudiments of education: that sort of wit which is the offspring of illhumour or bodily pain: that sort of sense which arises
from a spirit of contradiction and a disposition to cavil
at and dispute the opinions of others: and that sort of
reputation which is the consequence of bowing to established authority and ministerial influence. He dedicates
to some great man, and receives his compliments in
return. He appeals to some great name, and the Undergraduates of the two Universities look up to him as an
oracle of wisdom. He throws the weight of his verbal
criticism and puny discoveries in black-letter reading
into the gap, that is supposed to be making in the Constitution by Whigs and Radicals, whom he qualifies
without mercy as dunces and miscreants, and so entitles
himself to the protection of the Church and State. The
character of his mind is an utter want of independence,
and magnanimity in all that he attempts. He cannot
go alone; he must have crutches, a go-cart and trammels,
or he is timid, fretful and helpless as a child. He can
not conceive of anything different from what he finds it,
and hates those who pretend to a greater reach of intellect or boldness of spirit than himself. He inclines, by
a natural and deliberate bias, to the traditional in laws
and government, to the orthodox in religion, to the safe
in opinion, to the trite'in imagination, to the technical
in style, to whatever implies a surrender of individual
judgment into the hands of authority and a subjection
of individual feeling to mechanic rules.
If he finds any one flying in the face of these, or




224


The Spirit of the Age.


straggling from the beaten path, he thinks he has them
at a notable disadvantage, and falls foul of them without loss of time, partly to soothe his own sense of mortified self-consequence, and as an edifying spectacle to his
legitimate friends. He takes none but unfair advantages. He twits his adversaries (that is, those who are
not in the leading-strings of his school or party) with
some personal or accidental defect. If a writer has
been punished for a political libel, he is sure to hear of
it in a literary criticism. If a lady goes on crutches
and is out of favour at court, she is reminded of it in
Mr. Gifford's manly satire. He sneers at people of low
birth or who have not had a college education, partly to
hide his own want of certain advantages, partly as welltimed flattery to those who possess them. He has a
right to laugh at poor, unfriended, untitled genius from
wearing the livery of rank and letters, as footmen behind a coronet-coach laugh at the rabble. He keeps
good company, and forgets himself. He stands at the
door of Mr. Murray's shop, and will not let any body
pass' but the well-dressed mob or some followers of the
court. To edge into the Quarterly Temple of Fame the
candidate must have a diploma from the Universities, a
passport from the Treasury. Otherwise, it is a breach
of etiquette to let him pass, an insult to the better sort
who aspire to the love of letters, and may chance to drop
in to the Feast of the Poets. Or, if he cannot manage it
thus, or get rid of the claim on the bare ground of
poverty or want of school-learning, he trumps up an excuse for the occasion, such as that "a man was confined
in Newgate a short time before." It is not a lie on the
part of the critic; it is only an amiable subserviency to
the will of his betters, like that of a menial who is
ordered to. deny his master: a sense of propriety, a
knowledge of the world, a poetical and moral license.




Mr. Gifford.


225


Such fellows (such is his cue from his employers) should
at any rate be kept out of privileged places: persons
who have been convicted of prose-libels ought not to be
suffered to write poetry. If the fact was not exactly
as it was stated, it was something of the kind, or it
ought to have been so; the assertion was a pious fraud;
the public, the court, the prince himself might read the
work, but for this mark of opprobrium set upon it. It
was not to be endured that an insolent plebeian should
aspire to elegance, taste, fancy; it was throwing down
the barriers which ought to separate the higher and the
lower classes, the loyal and the disloyal. The paraphrase
of the story of Dante was therefore to perform quarantine; it was to seem not yet recovered from the gaol
infection; there was to be a taint upon it, as there was
none in it; and all this was performed by a single slip
of MIr. Gifford's pen! We would willingly believe (if
we could) that in this case there was as much weakness
and prejudice as there was malice and cunning.
Again, we do not think it possible that under any
circumstances the writer of the Verses to Anna could
enter into the spirit or delicacy of Mr. Keats' poetry.
The fate of the latter somewhat resembled that of
" a bud bit by an envious worm,
Ere it could spread its sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate its beauty to the sun."
Mr. Keats' ostensible crime was that he had been praised
in the Examiner newspaper; a greater and more unpardonable offence probably was that he was a true poet, with
all the errors and beauties of youthful genius to answer
for. Mr. Gifford was as insensible to the one as he was
inexorable to the other. Let the reader judge from
the two subjoined specimens how far the one writer
could ever, without a presumption equalled only by a
Q




226


The Spirit of the Age.


want of self-knowledge, set himself in judgment on the
other.
"Out went the taper as she hurried in;
Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died:
She closed the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air and visions wide:
No utter'd syllable, or woe betide!
But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her heart in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.
"A casement high and triple-arch'd there was,
All garlanded with carven imag'ries
Of fruits and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.
"Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast.
As down she knelt for Heaven's grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint.
She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for Heaven:-Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.
"Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.




Mr. Gifford.


227


"Soon trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay,
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd
Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away:
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day:
Blissfully haven'd both from joy and pain;
Clasp'd like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again."l
With the rich beauties and the dim obscurities of lines
like these let us contrast the Verses addressed To a Tuft
of early Violets by the fastidious author of the Baviad
and Mseviad."Sweet flowers! that from your humble beds
Thus prematurely dare to rise,
And trust your unprotected heads
To cold Aquarius' watery skies.
"Retire, retire! These tepid airs
Are not the genial brood of May;
That sun with light malignant glares,
And flatters only to betray.
"Stern Winter's reign is not yet pastLo! while your buds prepare to blow,
On icy pinions comes the blast,
And nips your root, and lays you low.
"Alas, for such ungentle doom!
But I will shield you; and supply
A kindlier soil on which to bloom,
A nobler bed on which to die.
" Come then-'ere yet the morning ray
Has drunk the dew that gems your crest,
And drawn your balmiest sweets away;
0 come and grace my Anna's breast.


1 [Eve of St. Agnes (Poems by Milnes, 1854, p. 221-2)-ED.]




228               The Spirit of the Age.
"Ye droop, fond flowers! But did ye know
What worth, what goodness there reside,
Your cups with liveliest tints would glow;
And spread their leaves with conscious pride.
"For there has liberal Nature joined
Her riches to the stores of Art,
And added to the vigorous mind
The soft, the sympathising heart.
"Come then-'ere yet the morning ray
Has drunk the dew that gems your crest,
And drawn your balmiest sweets away;
0 come and grace my Anna's breast.
" 0! I should thilk-thatfragrant bed
Mfight I but hope with you to share-'
Years of anxiety repaid
By one short hour of transport there.
"More blest than me, thus shall ye live
Your little day; and when ye die
Sweet flowers! the grateful Muse shall give
A verse; the sorrowing maid, a sigh.
"While I alas! no distant date,
Mix with the dust from whence I came,
Without a friend to weep my fate,
Without a stone to tell my name."
We'subjoin one more specimen of these "wild strains" 2
What an awkward bedfellow for a tuft of violets!
2 "C How oft, O Dart! what time the faithful pair
Walk'd forth, the fragrant hour of eve to share,
On thy romantic banks, have my wild strains
(Not yet forgot amidst my native plains)
While thou hast sweetly gurgled down the vale,
Filled up the pause of love's delightful tale!
While, ever as she read, the conscious maid,
By faultering voice and downcast looks betray'd,




Mr. Gifford.                    229
said to be " Written two years after the preceding."  ECCE
ITERUM CRISPINUS!
"I wish I was where Anna lies;
For I am sick of lingering here,
And every hour Affection cries,
Go, and partake her humble bier.
"I wish I could! for when she died
I lost my all; and life has prov'd
Since that sad hour a dreary void,
A waste unlovely and unlov'd.
"But who, when I am turn'd to clay,
Shall duly to her grave repair,
And pluck the ragged moss away,
And weeds that have " no business there?"
Would blushing on her lover's neck recline,
And with her finger-point the tenderest line!"
Maviad, pp. 194, 202.
Yet the author assures us just before, that in these " wild strains"
"all was plain."
"Even then (admire, John Bell! my simple ways)
No heaven and hell danced madly through my lays,
No oaths, no execrations; all was plain;
Yet trust me, while thy ever jingling train
Chime their sonorous woes with frigid art,
And shock the reason and revolt the heart;
My hopes and fears, in nature's language drest,
Awakened love in many a gentle breast."
Ibid, v. 185-92.
If any one else had composed these " wild strains," in which " all
is plain," Mr. Gifford would have accused them of three things: " 1.
Downright nonsense. 2. Downright frigidity. 3. Downright doggrel;" and proceeded to anatomise them very cordially in his way.
As it is, he is thrilled with a very pleasing horror at his former
scenes of tenderness, and " gasps at the recollection" "of watery
Aquarius!"  Sed ohe! jam satis est! " Why rack a grub-a butterfly upon a wheel? "




230              The Spirit of the Age.
"And who, with pious hand, shall bring,
The flowers she cherish'd, snow-drops cold,
And violets that unheeded spring,
To scatter o'er her hallow'd mould?
"And who, while Memory loves to dwell
Upon her name for ever dear,
Shall feel his heart with passions swell,
And pour the bitter, bitter tear?
"I DID IT; and would fate allow,
Should visit still, should still deploreBut health and strength have left me now,
But I, alas! can weep no more.
"Take then, sweet maid! this simple strain,
The last I offer at thy shrine;
Thy grave must then undeck'd remain,
And all thy memory fade with mine.
"And can thy soft persuasive look,
That voice that might with music vie,
Thy air that every gazer took,
Thy matchless eloquence of eye"Thy spirits, frolicsome as good,
Thy courage, by no ills dismay'd,
Thy patience by no wrongs subdued,
Thy gay good-humour-can they " fade?"
"Perhaps —but sorrow dims my eye:
Cold turf, which I no more must view,
Dear name, which I no more must sigh,
A long, a last, a sad adieu! "
It may be said in extenuation of the low, mechanic
vein of these impoverished lines, that they were written
at an early age. They were the inspired production of
a youthful lover! Mr. Gifford was thirty when he
wrote them: Mr. Keats died when he was scarce twenty! 1
1 Keats died on the 23rd February, 1821, in his twenty-fourth
year. I remember his kind friend, Mr. Joseph Severn, well. I met
him at Leigh Hunt's.-ED.




Mr. Giford.


231


Farther it may be said, that Mr. Gifford hazarded his
first poetical attempts under all the disadvantages of a
neglected education: but the same circumstance, together
with a few unpruned redundancies of fancy and quaintnesses of expression, was made the plea on which Mr.
Keats was hooted out of the world, and his fine talents
and wounded sensibilities consigned to an early grave.
In short, the treatment of this heedless candidate for
poetical fame might serve as a warning, and was intended to serve as a warning, to all unfledged tyros, how
they venture upon any such doubtful experiments,
except under the auspices of some lord of the bedchamber or Government Aristarchus, and how they imprudently associate themselves with men of mere popular
talent or independence of feeling!
It is the same in prose works. The Editor scorns to
enter the lists of argument with any proscribed writer
of the opposite party. He does not refute, but denounces him. He makes no concessions to an adversary, lest they should in some way be turned against
him. He only feels himself safe in the fancied insignificance of others. He only feels himself superior
to those whom he stigmatizes as the lowest of mankind. All persons are without common-sense and
honesty who do not believe implicity (with him) in the
immaculateness of Ministers and the divine origin of
Kings.
Thus he informed the world that the author of TABLETALK was a person who could not write a sentence of
common English, and who could hardly spell his own
name, because he was not a friend to the restoration of
the Bourbons, and had the assurance to write Characters
of Shakespear's Plays in a style of criticism somewhat
different from Mr. Gifford's. He charged this writer
with imposing on the public by a flowery style; and




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The Spirit of the Age.


when the latter ventured to refer to a work of his, called
An Essay on the Principles of Human Action, which has
not a single ornament in it, as a specimen of his original
studies and the proper bias of his mind, the learned
critic, with a shrug of great self-satisfaction, said, "It
was amusing to see this person, sitting like one of
Brouwer's Dutch boors over his gin and tobacco-pipes,
and fancying himself a Leibnitz! "  The question was,
whether the subject of Mr. Gifford's censure had ever
written such a work or not; for if he had, he had
amused himself with something besides gin and tobaccopipes. But our Editor, by virtue of the situation he
holds, is superior to facts or arguments: he is accountable neither to the public nor to authors for what he
says of them, but owes it to his employers to prejudice
the work and vilify the writer, if the latter is not
avowedly ready to range himself on the stronger side.
The Quarterly Review, besides the political tirades and
denunciations of suspected writers, intended for the
guidance of the heads of families, is filled up with
accounts of books of Voyages and Travels for the amusement of the younger branches. The poetical department is almost a sinecure, consisting of mere summary
decisions and a list of quotations. Mr. Croker is understood to contribute the St. Helena articles and the
liberality, Mr. Canning the practical good sense, Mr.
D'Israeli the good-nature, Mr. Jacob the modesty, Mr.
Southey the consistency, and the Editor himself the
chivalrous spirit and the attacks on Lady Morgan. It
is a double crime, and excites a double portion of spleen
in the Editor, when female writers are not advocates of
passive obedience and non-resistance. This Journal,
then, is a depository for every species of political sophistry and personal calumny. There is no abuse or
' In the Letter to Gifford, 1819. —ED.




Mr. Gifford.


233


corruption that does not there find a jesuitical palliation
or a bare-faced vindication. There we meet the slime
of hypocrisy, the varnish of courts, the cant of pedantry,
the cobwebs of the law, the iron hand of power. Its
object is as mischievous as the means by which it is pursued are odious. The intention is to poison the sources
of public opinion and of individual fame, to pervert
literature from being the natural ally of freedom and
humanity into an engine of priestcraft and despotism, and
to undermine the spirit of the English constitution and
the independence of the English character. The Editor
and his friends systematically explode every principle of
liberty, laugh patriotism and public spirit to scorn,
resent every pretence to integrity as a piece of singularity or insolence, and strike at the root of all free
inquiry or discussion by running down every writer as
a vile scribbler and a bad member of society, who is not
a hireling and a slave. No means are stuck at in accomplishing this laudable end. Strong in patronage, they
trample on truth, justice and decency. They claim the
privilege of court-favourites. They keep as little faith
with the public as with their opponents.
No statement in the Quarterly Review is to be trusted:
there is no fact that is not misrepresented in it, no
quotation that is not garbled, no character that is not
slandered, if it can answer the purposes of a party to do
so. The weight of power, of wealth, of rank is thrown
into the scale, gives its impulse to the machine; and the
whole is under the guidance of Mr. Gifford's instinctive
genius-of the in-born hatred of servility for independence, of dulness for talent, of cunning and impudence
for truth and honesty. It costs him no effort to execute his disreputable task; in being the tool of a crooked
policy, he but labours in his natural vocation. He
patches up a rotten system, as he would supply the




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The Spirit of the Age.


chasms in a worm-eaten manuscript, from a grovelling
incapacity to do any thing better: thinks that if a single
iota in the claims of prerogative and power were lost,
the whole fabric of society would fall upon his head and
crush him: and calculates that his best chance for literary reputation is by black-balling one half of the competitors as Jacobins and levellers, and securing the
suffrages of the other half in his favour as a loyal subject and trusty partisan!
Mr. Gifford, as a satirist, is violent and abrupt. He
takes obvious or physical defects, and dwells upon them
with much labour and harshness of invective, but with
very little wit or spirit. He expresses a great deal of
anger and contempt; but you cannot tell very well why,
except that he seems to be sore and out of humour. His
satire is mere peevishness and spleen, or something
worse-personal antipathy and rancour. We are in
quite as much pain for the writer as for the object of
his resentment. His address to Peter Pindar is laughable from its outrageousness. He denounces him as a
wretch hateful to God and man for some of the most
harmless and amusing trifles that ever were written, and
the very good humour and pleasantry of which, we
suspect, constituted their offence in the eyes of this
Drawcansir.
His attacks on Mrs. Robinson were unmanly, and
even those on Mr. Merry and the Della-Cruscan School
were very much more ferocious than the occasion warranted. A little affectation and quaintness of style did
not merit such severity of castigation.1 As a translator, Mr. Gifford's version of the Roman satirist is the
baldest and, in parts, the most offensive of all others.
1 Mr. Merry was even with our author in personality of abuse.
See his Lines on the Story of the Ape that was given in charge to
the ex-tutor.




Mr. Gifford.


235


We do not know why he attempted it, unless he had got
it in his head that he should thus follow in the steps of
Dryden, as he had already done in those of Pope in the
Baviad and Meeviad. As an editor of old authors, Mr.
Gifford is entitled to considerable praise for the pains he
has taken in revising the text, and for some improvements he has introduced into it. He had better have
spared the notes in which, though he has detected the
blunders of previous commentators, he has exposed his
own ill-temper and narrowness of feeling more. As a
critic, he has thrown no light on the character and spirit
of his authors. He has shown no striking power of
analysis nor of original illustration, though he has
chosen to exercise his pen on writers most congenial to
his own turn of mind, from their dry and caustic veinMassinger and Ben Johnson. What he will make of
Marlowe, it is difficult to guess.' He has none of " the
fiery quality " of the poet.
Mr. Gifford does not take for his motto on these occasions Spiritus precipitandus est! His most successful
efforts in this way are barely respectable. In general,
his observations are petty, ill-concocted, and discover as
little tact, as they do a habit of connected reasoning.
Thus, for instance, in attempting to add the name of
Massinger to the list of Catholic poets, our minute critic
insists on the profusion of crucifixes, glories, angelic
visions, garlands of roses, and clouds of incense scattered
through the Virgin-Martyr, as evidence of the theological
sentiments meant to be inculcated by the play, when
the least reflection might have taught him, that they
proved nothing but the author's poetical conception of
the character and costume of his subject. A writer might,
He did not undertake that writer; but an edition of his plays
and poems was published in 1826 under the care of a Mr. Robinson;
and a very poor affair it was.-ED.




236


The Spirit of the Age.


with the same sinister, short-sighted shrewdness, be accused of Heathenism for talking of Flora and Ceres in
a poem on the Seasons! What are produced as the
exclusive badges and occult proofs of Catholic bigotry,
are nothing but the adventitious ornaments and external
symbols, the gross and sensible language-in a word,
the poetry of Christianity in general. What indeed
shows the frivolousness of the whole inference is that
Decker, who is asserted by our critic to have contributed some of the most passionate and fantastic of
these devotional scenes, is not even suspected of a leaning to Popery. In like manner, he excuses Massinger
for the grossness of one of his plots (that of the Unnatural Combat) by saying that it was supposed to take
place before the Christian era. By this shallow commonplace persuading himself, or fancying he could persuade
others, that the crime in question (which yet on the
very face of the story is made the ground of a tragic
catastrophe) was first made statutory by the Christian
religion.
The foregoing is a harsh criticism, and may be thought
illiberal. But as Mr. Gifford assumes a right to say
what he pleases of others, they may be allowed to speak
the truth of him!




MR. JEFFREY.








MR JEFFREY.


THE Quarterly Review arose out of the Edinburgh,
not as a corollary, but in contradiction to it. An
article had appeared in the latter on Don Pedro Cevallos, which stang the Tories to the quick by the free way
in which it spoke of men and things, and something
must be done to check these escapades of the Edinburgh.
It was not to be endured that the truth should out in
this manner, even occasionally and half in jest. A
startling shock was thus given to established prejudices;
the mask was taken off from grave hypocrisy, and the
most serious consequences were to be apprehended. The
persons who wrote in this Review seemed " to have their
hands full of truths," and now and then, in a fit of spleen
or gaiety, let some of them fly; and while this practice
continued, it was impossible to say that the Monarchy
or the Hierarchy was safe. Some of the arrows glanced:
others might stick, and in the end prove fatal. It was
not the principles of the Edinburgh Review, but the
spirit, that was looked at with jealousy and alarm. The
principles were by no means decidedly hostile to existing
institutions: but the spirit was that of fair and free discussion. A field was open to argument and wit; every




240


The Spirit of the Age.


question was tried upon its own ostensible merits, and
there was no foul play. The tone was that of a studied
impartiality (which many called trimming) or of a sceptical indifference.
This tone of impartiality and indifference, however,
did not at all suit those who profited or existed by
abuses, who breathed the very air of corruption. They
knew well enough that " those who are not for them are
against them." They wanted a publication impervious
alike to truth and candour, that, hoodwinked itself,
should lead public opinion blindfold, that should stick
at nothing to serve the turn of a party, that should be
the exclusive organ of prejudice, the sordid tool of
power: that should go the whole length ofs want of
principle in palliating every dishonest measure, of want
of decency in defaming every honest man: that should
prejudge every question, traduce every opponent: that
should give no quarter to fair inquiry or liberal sentiment: that should be "ugly all over with hypocrisy,"
and present one foul blotch of servility, intolerance,
falsehood, spite, and ill-manners.
The Quarterly Review was accordingly set up.
"Sithence no fairy lights, no quickning ray,
Nor stir of pulse, nor object to entice
Abroad the spirits; but the cloister'd heart
Sits squat at home, like Pagod in a niche
Obscure!"
This event was hailed (and the omen has been fulfilled!) as a great relief to all those of his Majesty's
subjects who are firmly convinced that the only way to
have things remain exactly as they are is to put a stop
to all inquiries whether they are right or wrong, and
that, if you cannot answer a man's arguments, you may
at least try to take away his character.




Mr. J efr ey.


241


We do not implicitly bow to the political opinions,
nor to the critical decisions of the Edinburgh Review;
but we must do justice to the talent with which they
are supported, and to the tone of manly explicitness
in which they are delivered.' They are eminently characteristic of the spirit of the age, as it is the express
object of the Quarterly Review to discountenance and
extinguish that spirit, both in theory and practice. The
Edinburgh Review stands upon the ground of opinion; it
asserts the supremacy of intellect. The pre-eminence it
claims is from an acknowledged superiority of talent
and information, and literary attainment; and it does
not build one tittle of its influence on ignorance, or prejudice, or authority, or personal malevolence. It takes
up a question, and argues it pro and con with great
knowledge and boldness and skill; it points out an absurdity, and runs it down fairly, and according to the
evidence adduced. In the former case, its conclusions
may be wrong; there may be a bias in the mind of the
writer; but he states the arguments and circumstances
on both sides, from which a judgment is to be formed.
It is not his cue: he has neither the effrontery nor the
meanness to falsify facts or to suppress objections.
In the latter case, or where a vein of sarcasm or irony
is resorted to, the ridicule is not barbed by some allusion
(false or true) to private history; the object of it has
brought the infliction on himself by some literary folly
or political delinquency, which is referred to as the understood and justifiable provocation, instead of being
held up to scorn as a knave for not being a tool, or as a
blockhead for thinking for himself. In the Edinburgh
1 The style of philosophical criticism, which has been the boast of
the Edinburgh Review, was first introduced into the Monthly Review about the year 1796 in a series of articles by Mr. William
Taylor of Norwich.
R




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The Spirit of the Age.


Review the talents of those on the opposite side are
always extolled pleno ore; in the Quarterly Review they
are denied altogether; and the justice that is in this way
withheld from them is compensated by a proportionable
supply of personal abuse.
A man of genius who is a lord, and who publishes
with Mr. Murray, may now and then stand as good a
chance as a lord who is not a man of genius and who
publishes with Messrs. Longman: but that is the utmost
extent of the impartiality of the Quarterly. From its
account you would take Lord Byron and Mr. Stuart
Rose for two very pretty poets; but Mr. Moore's Magdalen Muse is sent to Bridewell without mercy, to beat
hemp in silk stockings. In the Quarterly nothing is regarded but the political creed or external circumstances
of a writer; in the Edinburgh nothing is ever adverted
to but his literary merits. Or if there is a bias of any
kind, it arises from an affectation of magnanimity and
candour in giving heaped measure to those on the aristocratic side in politics, and in being critically severe
on others. Thus Sir Walter Scott is lauded to the skies
for his romantic powers without any allusion to his political demerits (as if this would be compromising the
dignity of genius and of criticism by the introduction
of party-spirit), while Lord Byron is called to a grave
moral reckoning. There is, however, little of the cant
of morality in the Edinburgh Review; and it is quite free
from that of religion. It keeps to its province which is
that of criticism, or to the discussion of debateable topics,
and acquits itself in both with force and spirit.
This is the natural consequence of the composition of
the two Reviews. The one appeals with confidence to
its own intellectual resources, to the variety of its topics,
to its very character and existence as a literary journal,
which depend on its setting up no pretensions but those




Mr. Jeffrey.


243


which it can make good by the talent and ingenuity it
can bring to bear upon them. It therefore meets every
question, whether of a lighter or a graver cast, on its
own grounds; the other blinks every question, for it
has no confidence but in the powers that be, shuts itself
up in the impregnable fastnesses of authority, or makes
some paltry cowardly attack (under cover of anonymous
criticism) on individuals, or dispenses its award of merit
entirely according to the rank or party of the writer.
The faults of the Edinburgh Review arise out of the very
consciousness of critical and logical power. In political
questions it relies too little on the broad basis of liberty
and humanity, enters too much into mere dry formalities, deals too often in moot-points, and descends too
readily to a sort of special-pleading in defence of home
truths and natural feelings. In matters of taste and
criticism, its tone is sometimes apt to be supercilious and
cavalier from its habitual faculty of analysing defects
and beauties according to given principles, from its
quickness in deciding, from its facility in illustrating its
views. In this latter department it has been guilty of
some capital oversights.
The chief was in its treatment of the Lyrical Ballads
at their first appearance-not in its ridicule of their
puerilities, but in its denial of their beauties, because
they were included in no school, because they were reducible to no previous standard or theory of poetical
excellence. For this, however, considerable reparation
has been made by the prompt and liberal spirit that has
been shown in bringing forward other examples of
poetical genius. Its capital sin, in a doctrinal point of
view, has been (we shrewdly suspect) in the uniform
and unqualified encouragement it has bestowed on Mr.
Malthus's systen. We do not mean that the Edinburgh
Review was to join in the general hue and cry that was




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The Spirit of the Age.


raised against this writer; but while it asserted the
soundness of many of his arguments, and yielded its
assent to the truths he has divulged, it need not have
screened his errors. On this subject alone we think the
Quarterly has the advantage of it. But as the Quarterly
Review is a mere mass and tissue of prejudices on all
subjects, it is the foible of the Edinbutrgh Review to affect
a somewhat fastidious air of superiority over prejudices
of all kinds, and a determination not to indulge in any
of the amiable weaknesses of our nature, except as it
can give a reason for the faith that is in it. Luckily, it
is seldom reduced to this alternative: " reasons" are
with it "as plenty as blackberries! "
Mr. Jeffrey is the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, and
is understood to have contributed nearly a fourth part
of the articles from its commencement. No man is
better qualified for this situation, nor indeed so much
so. He is certainly a person in advance of the age, and
yet perfectly fitted both from knowledge and habits of
mind to put a curb upon its rash and headlong spirit.
He is thoroughly acquainted with the progress and pretensions of modern literature and philosophy; and to
this he adds the natural acuteness and discrimination
of the logician with the habitual caution and coolness
of his profession.  If the Edinburgh Review may be
considered as the organ of or at all pledged to a party,
that party is at least a respectable one, and is placed in
the middle between two extremes. The Editor is bound
to lend a patient hearing to the most paradoxical opinions
and extravagant theories which have resulted in our
times from the "infinite agitation of wit," but he is
disposed to qualify them by a number of practical objections, of speculative doubts, of checks and drawbacks,
arising out of actual circumstances and prevailing opinions, or the frailties of human nature. He has a great




Mr. Jeffrey.


245


range of knowledge, an incessant activity of mind; but
the suspension of his judgment, the well-balanced moderation of his sentiments, is the consequence of the
very discursiveness of his reason. What may be considered as a common-place conclusion is often the result
of a comprehensive view of all the circumstances of a
case. Paradox, violence, nay even originality of conception is not seldom owing to our dwelling long and pertinaciously on some one part of a, subject, instead of
attending to the whole.
Mr. Jeffrey is neither a bigot nor an enthusiast. He
'is not the dupe of the prejudices of others, nor of his
own. He is not wedded to any dogma; he is not long
the sport of any whim. Before he can settle in any fond
or fantastic opinion, another starts up to match it, like
beads on sparkling wine. A too restless display of
talent, a too undisguised statement of all that can be
said for and against a question, is perhaps the great
fault that is to be attributed to him. Where there is so
much power and prejudice to contend with in the opposite scale, it may be thought that the balance of truth
can hardly be held with a slack or an even hand, and
that the infusion of a little more visionary speculation,
of a little more popular indignation into the great Whig
Review would be an advantage both to itself and to the
cause of freedom. Much of this effect is chargeable
less on an Epicurean levity of feeling or on partytrammels than on real sanguineness of disposition and a
certain fineness of professional tact.
Our sprightly Scotchman is not of a desponding and
gloomy turn of mind. He argues well for the future
hopes of mankind from the smallest beginnings, watches
the slow, gradual, reluctant growth of liberal views, and
smiling sees the aloe of Reform blossom at the end of a
hundred years; while the habitual subtlety of his mind




246


The Spirit of the Age.


makes him perceive decided advantages, where vulgar
ignorance or passion sees only doubts and difficulty; and
a flaw in an adversary's argument stands him instead of
the shout of a mob, the votes of a majority, or the fate
of a pitched battle. The Editor is satisfied with his own
conclusions, and does not make himself uneasy about
the fate of mankind. The issue, he thinks, will verify
his moderate and well-founded expectations. We believe also that late events have given a more decided
turn to Mr. Jeffrey's mind, and that he feels that as, in
the struggle between liberty and slavery, the views of
the one party have been laid bare with their success, so
the exertions on the other side should become more
strenuous, and a more positive stand be made against
the avowed and appalling encroachments of priestcraft
and arbitrary power.
The characteristics of Mr. Jeffrey's general style as a
writer correspond, we think, with what we have here
stated as the characteristics of his mind. He is a master
of the foils; he makes an exulting display of the dazzling fence of wit and argument. His strength consists
in great range of knowledge, an equal familiarity with
the principles and the details of a subject, and in a
glancing brilliancy and rapidity of style. Indeed, we
doubt whether the brilliancy of his manner does not
resolve itself into the rapidity, the variety and aptness
of his illustrations. His pen is never at a loss, never
stands still, and would dazzle for this reason alone, like
an eye that is ever in motion. Mr. Jeffrey is far from a
flowery or affected writer; he has few tropes or figures,
still less any odd startling thoughts or quaint innovations
in expression; but he has a constant supply of ingenious
solutions and pertinent examples. He never proses,
never grows dull, never wears an argument to tatters,
and by the number, the liveliness and facility of his




Mr. Jeffrey.


247


transitions keeps up that appearance of vivacity, of
novel and sparkling effect, for which others are too often
indebted to singularity of combination or tinsel ornaments.
It may be discovered by a nice observer, that Mr.
Jeffrey's style of composition is that of a person accustomed to public speaking. There is no pause, no meagreness, no inanimateness, but a flow, a redundance and
volubility like that of a stream or of a rolling-stone.
The language is more copious than select, and sometimes
two or three words perform the office of one. This copiousness and facility is perhaps an advantage in extempore speaking, where no stop or break is allowed in the
discourse, and where any word or any number of words
almost is better than coming to a dead stand; but in
written compositions it gives an air of either too much
carelessness or too much labour. Mr. Jeffrey's excellence, as a public speaker, has betrayed him into this
peculiarity. He makes fewer blots in addressing an audience than anyone we remember to have heard. There is
not a hair's-breadth space between any two of his words,
nor is there a single expression either ill-chosen or out
of its place. He speaks without stopping to take breath,
with ease, with point, with elegance, and without "spinning the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of
his argument." He may be said to weave words into
any shapes he pleases for use or ornament, as the glassblower moulds the vitreous fluid with his breath; and
his sentences shine like glass from their polished smooth'ness, and are equally transparent. His style of eloquence,
indeed, is remarkable for neatness, for correctness and
epigrammatic point; and he has applied this as a standard to his written compositions, where the very same
degree of correctness and precision produces, from the
contrast between writing and speaking, an agreeable




248


The Spirit of the Age.


diffuseness, freedom and animation. Whenever the
Scotch advocate has appeared at the bar of the English
House of Lords, he has been admired by those who were
in the habit of attending to speeches there, as having
the greatest fluency of language and the greatest subtlety of distinction of any one of the profession. The
law-reporters were as little able to follow him from the
extreme rapidity of his utterance as from the tenuity
and evanescent nature of his reasoning.
Mr. Jeffrey's conversation is equally lively, various,
and instructive. There is no subject on which he is not
auj ait: no company in which he is not ready to scatter
his pearls for sport. Whether it be politics, or poetry, or
science, or anecdote, or wit, or raillery, he takes up his
cue without effort, without preparation, and appears
equally incapable of tiring himself or his hearers. His
only difficulty seems to be, not to speak, but to be silent.
There is a constitutional buoyancy and elasticity of mind
about him that cannot subside into repose, much less
sink into dulness. There may be more original talkers,
persons who occasionally surprise or interest you more;
few, if any, with a more uninterrupted flow of cheerfulness and animal spirits, with a greater fund of information, and with fewer specimens of the bathos in their
conversation. He is never absurd, nor has he any
favourite points which he is always bringing forward.
It cannot be denied that there is something bordering
on petulance of manner; but it is of that least offensive
kind which may be accounted for from merit and from
success, and implies no exclusive pretensions nor the
least particle of ill-will to others. On the contrary, Mr.
Jeffrey is profuse of his encomiums and admiration of
others, but still with a certain reservation of a right to
differ or to blame. He cannot rest on one side of a
question; he is obliged by a mercurial habit and dispo



Mr. Jeffirey.


249


sition to vary his point of view. If he is ever tedious, -
it is from an excess of liveliness: he oppresses from a
sense of airy lightness. He is always setting out on a
fresh scent: there are always relays of topics; the harness is put to, and he rattles away as delightfully and as
briskly as ever. New causes are called; he holds a
brief in his hand for every possible question. This is a
fault. Mr. Jeffrey is not obtrusive, is not impatient of
opposition, is not unwilling to be interrupted; but what
is said by another seems to make no impression on
him; he is bound to dispute, to answer it, as if he was
in Court, or as if it were in a paltry Debating Society,
where young beginners were trying their hands. This
is not to maintain a character, or for want of goodnature: it is a thoughtless habit. He cannot help crossexamining a witness, or stating the adverse view of the
question. He listens not to judge, but to reply. In
consequence of this, you can as little tell the impression
your observations make on him as what weight to assign
to his.
Mr. Jeffrey shines in mixed company; he is not good
in a tete-a-tete. You can only show your wisdom or your
wit in general society: but in private your follies or your
weaknesses are not the least interesting topics; and our
critic has neither any of his own to confess, nor does he
take delight in hearing those of others. Indeed in Scotland generally the display of personal character, the indulging your whims and humours in the presence of a
friend, is not much encouraged; every one there is
looked upon in the light of a machine or a collection of
topics. They turn you round like a cylinder to see what
use they can make of you, and drag you into a dispute
with as little ceremony as they would drag out an article
from an Encyclopedia. They criticise every thing, analyse every thing, argue upon every thing, dogmatise




250


The Spirit of the Age.


upon every thing; and the bundle of your habits, feelings, humours, follies and pursuits is regarded by them
no more than a bundle of old clothes. They stop you in
a sentiment by a question or a stare, and cut you short
in a narrative by the time of night. The accomplished
and ingenious person of whom we speak has been a little
infected by the tone of his countrymen; he is too
didactic, too pugnacious, too full of electrical shocks,
too much like a voltaic battery, and reposes too little on
his own excellent good sense, his own love of ease, his
cordial frankness of temper and unaffected candour. He
ought to have belonged to us!
The severest of critics (as he has been sometimes
termed) is the best-natured of men. Whatever there may
be of wavering or indecision in Mr. Jeffrey's reasoning,
or of harshness in his critical decisions, in his disposition
there is nothing but simplicity and kindness. He is a
person that no one knows without esteeming, and who
both in his public connections and private friendships,
shows the same manly uprightness and unbiassed independence of spirit. At a distance, in his writings or
even in his manner, there may be something to excite
a little uneasiness and apprehension: in his conduct
there is nothing to except against. He is a person of
strict integrity himself without pretence or affectation,
and knows how to respect this quality in others without
prudery or intolerance. He can censure a friend or a
stranger, and serve him effectually at the same time.
He expresses his disapprobation, but not as an excuse for
closing up the avenues of his liberality. He is a Scotchman without one particle of hypocrisy, of cant, of servility, or selfishness in his composition. He has not been
spoiled by fortune-has not been tempted by power-is
firm without violence, friendly without weakness-a
critic and even-tempered, a casuist and an honest man




Mr. Jeffrey.                 251
-and, amidst the toils of his profession and the distractions of the world, retains the gaiety, the unpretending carelessness and simplicity of youth. Mr. Jeffrey
in his person is slight, with a countenance of much expression and a voice of great flexibility and acuteness of
tone.




I




M-,,R. BR1OUGHAM-SJR FRANCIS
BURDETT.




I
I
i




MR. BROUGHAM-SIR F. BURDETT.


THERE is a class of eloquence which has been described and particularly insisted on under the style
and title of Irish Eloquence: there is another class which
it is not absolutely unfair to oppose to this, and that is
the Scotch. The first of these is entirely the offspring
of impulse, the last of mechanism. The one is as full of
fancy as it is bare of facts: the other excludes all fancy,
and is weighed down with facts. The one is all fire,
the other all ice: the one nothing but enthusiasm, extravagance, eccentricity; the other nothing but logical
deductions and the most approved postulates. The one
without scruple, nay, with reckless zeal, throws the reins
loose on the neck of the imagination: the otherpulls up
with a curb-bridle, and starts at every casual object it
meets in the way as a bug-bear. The genius of Irish
oratory stands forth in the naked majesty of untutored
nature, its eye glancing wildly round on all objects, its
tongue darting forked fire. The genius of Scottish eloquence is armed in all the panoply of the schools; its
drawling, ambiguous dialect seconds its circumspect
dialectics; from behind the vizor that guards its mouth
and shadows its pent-up brows, it sees no visions but its
own set purpose, its own data, and its own dogmas. It
" has no figures, nor no fantasies," but "those which
busy care draws in the brains of men," or which set
off its own superior acquirements and wisdom. It scorns
to " tread the primrose path of dalliance "-it shrinks




256


The Spirit of the Age.


back from it as from a precipice, and keeps in the iron
rail-way of the understanding.
Irish oratory, on the contrary, is a sort of aironaut:
it is always going up in a balloon, and breaking its neck,
or coming down in the parachute. It is filled full with
gaseous matter, with whim and fancy, with alliteration
and antithesis, with heated passion and bloated metaphors, that burst the slender silken covering of sense;
and the airy pageant, that glittered in empty space and
rose in all the bliss of ignorance, flutters and sinks
down to its native bogs! If the Irish orator riots in a
studied neglect of his subject and a natural confusion of
ideas, playing with words, ranging them into all sorts
of fantastic combinations, because in the unlettered void
or chaos of his mind there is no obstacle to their coalescing into any shapes they please, it must be confessed
that the eloquence of the Scotch is encumbered with an
excess of knowledge, that it cannot get on for a crowd
of difficulties, that it staggers under a load of topics,
that it is so environed in the forms of logic and rhetoric
as to be equally precluded from originality or absurdity,
from beauty or deformity. The plea of humanity is lost
by going through the process of law; the firm and manly
tone of principle is exchanged for the wavering and
pitiful cant of policy; the living bursts of passion are
reduced to a defunct common-place; and all true imagination is buried under the dust and rubbish of learned
models and imposing authorities.
If the one is a bodiless phantom, the other is a lifeless
skeleton: if the one in its feverish and hectic extravagance resembles a sick man's dream, the other is akin
to the sleep of death-cold, stiff, unfeeling, monumental!
Upon the whole, we despair less of the first than of the
last, for the principle of life and motion is, after all, the
primary condition of all genius. The luxuriant wildness




Mr. Brougham —Sir F. Burdett.


257


of the one may be disciplined, and its excesses sobered
down into reason; but the dry and rigid formality of
the other can never burst the shell or husk of oratory.
It is true that the one is disfigured by the puerilities and
affectation of a Phillips; but then it is redeemed by the
manly sense and fervour of a Plunket, the impassioned
appeals and flashes of wit of a Curran, and by the golden
tide of wisdom, eloquence and fancy, that flowed from
the lips of a Burke. In the other, we do not sink so
low in the negative series; but we get no higher in the
ascending scale than a Mackintosh or a Brougham.l It
may be suggested that the late Lord Erskine enjoyed a
higher reputation as an orator than either of these: but
he owed it to a dashing and graceful manner, to presence
of mind, and to great animation in delivering his sentiments. Stripped of these outward and personal advantages, the matter of his speeches, like that of his
writings, is nothing, or perfectly inert and dead.
Mr. Brougham is from the North of England; but he
was educated in Edinburgh, and represents that school
of politics aud political economy in the House. He
differs from Sir James Mackintosh in this, that he deals
less in abstract principles, and more in individual details.
He makes less use of general topics, and more of immediate facts. Sir James is better acquainted with the
balance of an argument in old authors, Mr. Brougham
with the balance of power in Europe. If the first is
better versed in the progress of history, no man excels
the last in a knowledge of the course of exchange. He
is apprised of the exact state of our exports and imports,
and scarce a ship clears out its cargo at Liverpool or
Hull, but he has notice of the bill of lading. Our colonial policy, prison discipline, the state of the Hulks,


Mr. Brougham is not a Scotchman literally, but by adoption.
S




258           The Spirit of the Age.
agricultural distress, commerce and manufactures, the
Bullion question, the Catholic question, the Bourbons or
the Inquisition, " domestic treason, foreign levy "-nothing can come amiss to him. He is at home in the
crooked mazes of rotten boroughs, is not baffled by
Scotch law, and can follow the meaning of one of Mr.
Canning's speeches.
With so many resources, with such variety and solidity of information, Mr. Brougham is rather a powerful and alarming, than an effectual debater. In so many
details (which he himself goes through with unwearied
and unshrinking resolution) the spirit of the question is
lost to others who have not the same voluntary power of
attention or the same interest in hearing that he has in
speaking; the original impulse that urged him forward
is forgotten in so wide a field, in so interminable a
career. If he can, others cannot carry all he knows in
their heads at the same time; a rope of circumstantial
evidence does not hold well together, nor drag the unwilling mind along with it (the willing mind hurries on
before it, and grows impatient and absent). HIe moves
in an unmanageable procession of facts and proofs, instead of coming to the point at once;. and his premises
(so anxious is he to proceed on sure and ample grounds)
overlay and block up his conclusion, so that you cannot
arrive at it, or not till the first fury and shock of the
onset is over. The ball, from the too great width of the
calibre from which it is sent, and from striking against
such a number of hard, projecting points, is almost
spent before it reaches its destination.
He keeps a ledger or a debtor-and-creditor account
between the Government and the Country, posts so much
actual crime, corruption and injustice against so much
contingent advantage or sluggish prejudice, and at the
bottom of the page brings in the balance of indignation




Mr. Brougham-Sir P. Burdett.


259


and contempt, where it is due. But people are not to
be calculated into contempt or indignation on abstract
grounds; for however they may submit to this process
where their own interests are concerned, in what regards
the public good we believe they must see and feel instinctively, or not at all. There is (it is to be lamented)
a good deal of froth as well as strength in the popular
spirit, which will not admit of being decanted or served
out in formal driblets; nor will spleen (the soul of Opposition) bear to be corked up in square patent bottles,
and kept for future use! In a word, Mr. Brougham's
is ticketed and labelled eloquence, registered and in
numeros (like the successive parts of a Scotch Encyclopedia). It is clever, knowing, imposing, masterly: an
extraordinary display of clearness of head, of quickness
and energy of thought, of application and industry; but
it is not the eloquence of the imagination or the heart,
and will never save a nation or an individual from perdition.
Mr. Brougham has one considerable advantage in
debate: he is overcome by no false modesty, no deference to others. But then, by a natural consequence or
parity of reasoning, he has little sympathy with other
people, and is liable to be mistaken in the effect his arguments will have upon them. He relies too much,
among other things, on the patience of his hearers, and
on his ability to turn everything to his own advantage.
He accordingly goes to the full length of his tether (in
vulgar phrase) and often overshoots the mark. C'est
dommage. He has no reserve of discretion, no retentiveness of mind or check upon himself. He needs, with so
much wit,
" As much again to govern it."


He cannot keep a good thing or a shrewd piece of in



260


The Spirit of the Age.


formation in his possession, though the letting it out
should mar a cause. It is not that he thinks too much
of himself, too little of his cause; but he is absorbed in
the pursuit of truth as an abstract inquiry. He is led
away by the headstrong and over-mastering activity of
his own mind. He is borne along almost involuntarily,
and not impossibly against his better judgment, by the
throng and restlessness of his ideas as by a crowd of
people in motion.
His perceptions are literal, tenacious, epileptic: his
understanding voracious of facts, and equally communicative of them-and he proceeds to
cc ---- Pour out all as plain
As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne"without either the virulence of the one or the bonhommie
of the other. The repeated, smart, unforeseen discharges
of the truth jar those that are next him. He does not
dislike this state of irritation and collision, indulges his
curiosity or his triumph, till, by calling for more facts or
hazarding some extreme inference, he urges a question
to the verge of a precipice, his adversaries urge it over,
and he himself shrinks back from the consequence" Scared at the sound himself has made!"
Mr. Brougham    has great fearlessness, but not equal
firmness; and after going too far on theforlore hope, turns
short round without due warning to others or respect for
himself. He is adventurous, but easily panic-struck, and
sacrifices the vanity of self-opinion to the necessity of
self-preservation. He is too improvident for a leader,
too petulant for a partisan, and does not sufficiently
consult those with whom he is supposed to act in concert. He sometimes leaves them in the lurch, and is
sometimes left in the lurch by them. He wants the




Mr. Brougham —    Sir F. Burdett.


261


principle of co-operation. He frequently, in a fit of
thoughtless levity, gives an unexpected turn to the political machine, which alarms older and more experienced
heads. If he was not himself the first to get out of
harm's way and escape from the danger, it would be
well! We hold indeed, as a general rule, that no man
born or bred in Scotland can be a great orator, unless he
is a mere quack, or a great statesman, unless he turns
plain knave. The national gravity is against the first:
the national caution is against the last.
To a Scotchman if a thing is, it is; there is an end
of the question with his opinion about it. He is positive
and abrupt, and is not in the habit of conciliating the
feelings or soothing the follies of others. His only way
therefore to produce a popular effect is to sail with the
stream of prejudice, and to vent common dogmas, "the
total grist, unsifted, husks and all," from some evangelical pulpit. This may answer, and it has answered.
On the other hand, if a Scotchman, born or bred, comes
to think at all of the feelings of others, it is not as they
regard them, but as their opinion reacts on his own
interest and safety. He is therefore either pragmatical and offensive, or if he tries to please, he becomes
cowardly and fawning. His public spirit wants pliancy;
'his selfish compliances go all lengths. He is as impracticable as a popular partisan, as he is mischievous as a
tool of Government. We do not wish to press this argument farther, and must leave it involved in some
degree of obscurity, rather than bring the armed intellect of a whole nation on our heads.
Mr. Brougham speaks in a loud and unmitigated tone
of voice, sometimes almost approaching to a scream.
He is fluent, rapid, vehement, full of his subject, with
evidently a great deal to say, and very regardless of the
manner of saying it. As a lawyer, he has not hitherto




262


The Spirit of the Age.


been remarkably successful. He is not profound in cases
and reports, nor does he take much interest in the peculiar features of a particular cause, or show much adroitness in the management of it. He carries too much
weight of metal for ordinary and petty occasions: he
must have a pretty large question to discuss, and must
make thorough-stitch work of it. He, however, had an
encounter with Mr. Phillips the other day, and shook all
his tender blossoms, so that they fell to the ground, and
withered in an hour; but they soon bloomed again!
Mr. Brougham writes almost, if not quite, as well as he
speaks. In the midst of an Election contest he comes
out to address the populace, and goes back to his study
to finish an article for the Edinburgh Review, sometimes
indeed wedging three or four articles (in the shape of
rifaccimentos of his own pamphlets or speeches in parliament) into a single number. Such indeed is the activity
of his mind that it appears to require neither repose nor
any other stimulus than a delight in its own exercise.
He can turn his hand to anything, but he cannot be
idle.
There are few intellectual accomplishments which he
does not possess, and possess in a very high degree. He
speaks French (and, we believe, several other modern
languages) fluently, is a capital mathematician, and
obtained an introduction to the celebrated Carnot in
this latter character, when the conversation turned on
squaring the circle, and not on the propriety of confining
France within the natural boundary of the Rhine. Mr.
Brougham is, in fact, a striking instance of the versatility and strength of the human mind, and also in one
sense of the length of human life, if we make a good
use of our time. There is room enough to crowd almost
every art and science into it. If we pass " no day without a line," visit no place without the company of a




Mr. Brougham-Sir F. Burdett.


263


book, we may with ease fill libraries or. empty them of
their contents. Those who complain of the shortness
of life, let it slide by them without wishing to seize
and make the most of its golden minutes. The more
we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are,
the more leisure we have. If any one possesses any advantage in a considerable degree, he may make himself
master of nearly as many more as he pleases, by employing his spare time and cultivating the waste faculties of
his mind. While one person is determining on the
choice of a profession or study, another shall have made
a fortune or gained a merited reputation. While one
person is dreaming over the meaning of a word, another
will have learned several languages.
It is not incapacity, but indolence, indecision, want
of imagination, and a proneness to a sort of mental
tautology, to repeat the same images and tread the
same circle, that leaves us so poor, so dull and inert as
we are, so naked of acquirement, so barren of resources! While we are walking backwards and forwards between Charing-Cross and Temple-Bar, and
sitting in the same coffee-house every day, we might
make the grand tour of Europe, and visit the Vatican
and the Louvre. Mr. Brougham, among other means of
strengthening and enlarging his views, has visited, we
believe, most of the courts, and turned his attention to
most of the Constitutions of the continent. He is, no
doubt, avery accomplished, active-minded, and admirable
person.
$ir Francis Burdett, in many respects, affords, a contrast to the foregoing character. He is a plain, unaffected, unsophisticated English gentleman. He is a
person of great reading too and considerable information;
but he makes very little display of these, unless it be to
quote Shakespear, which he does often with extreme




264


The Spirit of the Age.


aptness and felicity. Sir Francis is one of the most
pleasing speakers in the House, and is a prodigious
favourite of the English people. So he ought to be:
for he is one of the few remaining examples of the old
English understanding and old English character. All
that he pretends to is common sense and common
honesty; and a greater compliment cannot be paid to
these than the attention with which he is listened to in
the House of Commons. We cannot conceive a higher
proof of courage than the saying things which he has
been known to say there; and we have seen him blush
and appear ashamed of the truths he has been obliged
to utter, like a bashful novice. He could not have
uttered what he often did there, if, besides his general
respectability, he had not been a very honest, a very
good-tempered, and a very good-looking man.
But there was evidently no wish to shine, nor any
desire to offend. It was painful to him to hurt the feelings of those who heard him; but it was a higher duty
in him not to suppress his sincere and earnest convictions. It is wonderful how much virtue and plain-dealing a man may be guilty of with impunity, if he has
no vanity or ill-nature, or duplicity to provoke the contempt or resentment of others, and to made them impatient of the superiority he sets up over them. We do
not recollect that Sir Francis ever endeavoured to atone
for any occasional indiscretions or intemperance by
giving the Duke of York credit for the battle of Waterloo, or congratulating Ministers on the confinement of
Buonaparte at St. Helena. There is no honest cause
which he dares not avow, no oppressed individual that
he is not forward to succour. He has the firmness of
manhood with the unimpaired enthusiasm of youthful
feeling about him. His principles are mellowed and improved, without having become less sound with time:




Mr. Brougham-Sir F. Burdett.


265


for at one period he sometimes appeared to come charged
to the House with the petulance and caustic sententiousness he had imbibed at Wimbledon Common.
He is never violent or in extremes, except when the
people or the parliament happen to be out of their
senses; and then he seems to regret the necessity of
plainly telling them he thinks so, instead of pluming
himself upon it or exulting over impending calamities.
There is only one error he seems to labour under (which,
we believe, he also borrowed from Mr. Horne Tooke or
Major Cartwright') the wanting to go back to the early
times of our Constitution and history in search of the
principles of law and liberty. He might as well
" Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream."
Liberty, in our opinion, is but a modern invention (the
growth of books and printing), and whether new or old,
is not the less desirable. A man may be a patriot without being an antiquary. This is the only point on which
Sir Francis is at all inclined to a tincture of pedantry.
In general, his love of liberty is pure, as it is warm and
steady: his humanity is unconstrained and free. His
heart does not ask leave of his head to feel; nor does
prudence always keep a guard upon his tongue or his
pen. No man writes a better letter to his Constituents
than the Member for Westminster; and his compositions
of that kind ought to be good, for they have occasionally
cost him  dear. He is the idol of the people of Westminster: few persons have a greater number of friends
and well-wishers; and he has still greater reason to be
proud of his enemies, for his integrity and independence
l Major Cartwright used to bring in his Reform Bill every year,
just as honourable members now bring in bills for marriage with
deceased wives' sisters, &c. He was an Irishman, and Moore had
a rather lame joke about the major's Reform Pill.-ED.




266           The Spirit of the Age.
have made them so. Sir Francis Burdett has often been
left in a Minority in the House of Commons, with only
one or two on his side. We suspect, unfortunately for
his country, that History will be found to enter its protest on the same side of the question!




LORD ELDON
AND
MR. WILBERFORCE.








LORD ELDON AND MR. WILBERFORCE.


LORD ELDON is an exceedingly good-natured man;
but this does not prevent him, like other good-natured people, from consulting his own ease or interest.
The character of good-nature, as it is called, has been a
good deal mistaken; and the present Chancellor is not a
bad illustration of the grounds of the prevailing error..
When we happen to see an individual whose countenance
is " all tranquillity and smiles," who is full of good-humour and pleasantry, whose manners are gentle and
conciliating, who is uniformly temperate in his expressions, and punctual and just in his every-day dealings:
we are apt to conclude from so fair an outside, that
" All is conscience and tender heart"
within also, and that such a one would not hurt a fly.
And neither would he without a motive. But mere
good-nature (or what passes in the world for such) is
often no better than indolent selfishness. A person
distinguished and praised for this quality will not needlessly offend others, because they may retaliate; and,
besides, it ruffles his own temper. He likes to enjoy a
perfect calm, and to live in an interchange of kind
offices. He suffers few things to irritate or annoy him.
He has a fine oiliness in his disposition, which smooths
the waves of passion as they rise. He does not enter
into the quarrels or enmities of others, bears their ca



270


The Spirit of the Age.


lamities with patience; he listens to the din and clang
of war, the earthquake and the hurricane of the political
and moral world with the temper and spirit of a philosopher; no act of injustice puts him beside himself; the
follies and absurdities of mankind never give him a
moment's uneasiness; he has none of the ordinary causes
of fretfulness or chagrin that torment others from the
undue interest they take in the conduct of their neighbours or in the public good.
None of these idle or frivolous sources of discontent,
that make such havoc with the peace of human life, ever
discompose his features or alter the serenity of his pulse.
If a nation is robbed of its rights,
" If wretches hang that Ministers may dine,"the laughing jest still collects in his eye, the cordial
squeeze of the hand is still the same. But tread on the
toe of one of these amiable and imperturbable mortals,
or let a lump of soot fall down the chimney, and spoil
their dinners, and see how they will bear it. All their
patience is confined to the accidents that befal others:
all their good-humour is to be resolved into giving
themselves no concern about anything but their own
ease and self-indulgence. Their charity begins and
ends at home. Their being free from the common infirmities of temper is owing to their indifference to the
common feelings of humanity; and if you touch the
sore place, they betray more resentment, and break out
(like spoiled children) into greater fractiousness than
others, partly from a greater degree of selfishness, and
partly because they are taken by surprise, and mad to
think they have not guarded every point against annoyance or attack by a habit of callous insensibility and
pampered indolence.
An instance of what we mean occurred but the other




Lord Eldon-Mr. Wilberforce.


271


day. An allusion was made in the House of Commons
to something in the proceedings in the Court of Chancery; and the Lord Chancellor comes to his place in the
Court, with the statement1 in his hand, fire 2 in his eyes,
and a direct charge of falsehood in his mouth, without
knowing anything certain of the matter, without making
any inquiry into it, without using any precaution or
putting the least restraint upon himself, and all on no
better authority than a common newspaper report. The
thing was (not that we are imputing any strong blame
in this case, we merely bring it as an illustration) it
touched himself, his office, the inviolability of his jurisdiction, the unexceptionableness of his proceedings; and
the wet blanket of the Chancellor's temper instantly
took fire like tinder! All the fine balancing was at an
end; all the doubts, all the delicacy, all the candour real
or affected, all the chances that there might be a mistake
in the report, all the decencies to be observed towards a
Member of the House, are overlooked by the blindness
of passion; and the wary Judge pounces upon the paragraph without mercy, without a moment's delay, or the
smallest attention to forms! This was indeed serious
business; there was to be no trifling here; every instant
was an age till the Chancellor had discharged his sense
of indignation on the head of the indiscreet interloper
on his authority.
Had it been another person's case, another person's
dignity that had been compromised, another person's
conduct that had been called in question, who doubts
but that the matter might have stood over till the next
term, that the Noble Lord would have taken the Newspaper home in his pocket, that he would have compared
it carefully with other newspapers, that he would have


I Newspaper-autograph MS.


2 Passion-MS.




272


The Spirit of the Age.


written in the most mild and gentlemanly terms to the
Honourable Member to inquire into the truth of the
statement, that he would have watched a convenient
opportunity good-humouredly to ask other Honourable
Members what all this was about, that the greatest caution and fairness would have been observed, and that to
this hour the lawyers' clerks and the junior counsel
would have been in the greatest admiration of the Chancellor's nicety of discrimination and the utter inefficacy
of the heats, importunities, haste, and passions of others
to influence his judgment? This would have been true;
yet his readiness to decide and to condemn, where he
himself is concerned, shows that passion is not dead in
him, nor subject to the control of reason; but that selflove is the mainspring that moves it, though on all beyond that limit he looks with the most perfect calmness
and philosophic indifference.
" Resistless passion sways us to the mood
Of what it likes or loathes."
All people are passionate in what concerns themselves,
or in what they take an interest in. The range of this
last is different in different persons; but the want of
passion is but another name for the want of sympathy
and imagination.
The Lord Chancellor's impartiality and conscientious
exactness are proverbial, and is, we believe, as inflexible
as it is delicate in all cases that occur in the stated routine of legal practice. The impatience, the irritation,
the hopes, the fears, the confident tone of the applicants
move him not a jot from his intended course; he looks
at their claims with the "lack-lustre eye" of professional
indifference. Power and influence apart, his next strongest passion is to indulge in the exercise of professional
learning and skill, to amuse himself with the dry details




Lord Eldon —Mr. Wilberforce.


273


and intricate windings of the law of equity. He delights
to balance a straw, to see a feather turn the scale, or
make it even again, and divides and subdivides a scruple
to the smallest fraction. lIe unravels the web of argument and pieces it together again, folds it up and lays it
aside that he may examine it more at his leisure. He
hugs indecision to his breast, and takes home a modest
doubt or a nice point to solace himself with it in protracted, luxurious dalliance. Delay seems, in his mind,
to be of the very essence of justice. He no more hurries
through a question than if no one was waiting for the
result, and he was merely a dilettanti, fanciful judge,
who played at my Lord Chancellor, and busied himself
with quibbles and punctilios as an idle hobby and harmless illusion.
The phlegm of the Chancellor's disposition gives one
almost a surfeit of impartiality and candour; we are
sick of the eternal poise of childish dilatoriness, and
would wish law and justice to be decided at once by a
cast of the dice (as they were in Rabelais) rather than
be kept in frivolous and tormenting suspense. But
there is a limit even to this extreme refinement and scrupulousness of the Chancellor. The understanding acts
only in the absence of the passions. At the approach of
the loadstone, the needle trembles, and points to it. The
air of a political question has a wonderful tendency to
brace and quicken the learned Lord's faculties. The
breath of a court speedily oversets a thousand objections,
and scatters the cobwebs of his brain. The secret wish
of power is a thumping make-weight, where all is so
nicely balanced beforehand. In the case of a celebrated
beauty and heiress and the brother of a Noble Lord, the
Chancellor hesitated long, and went through the forms,
as usual: but who ever doubted, where all this indecision would end? No man in his senses for a single
T




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The Spirit of the Age.


instant! We shall not press this point, which is rather
a ticklish one. Some persons thought that from entertaining a fellow-feeling on the subject, the Chancellor
would have been ready to favour the Poet-Laureat's
application to the Court of Chancery for an injunction
against Wat Tyler. His Lordship's sentiments on such
points are not so variable; he has too much at stake.
He recollected the year 1794, though Mr. Southey had
forgotten it!
The personal always prevails over the intellectual,
where the latter is not backed by strong feeling and
principle. Where remote and speculative objects do not
excite a predominant interest and passion, gross and immediate ones are sure to carry the day, even in ingenuous
and well-disposed minds. The will yields necessarily
to some motive or other; and where the public good or
distant consequences excite no sympathy in the breast,
either from short-sightedness or an easiness of temperament that shrinks from any violent effort or painful
emotion, self-interest, indolence, the opinion of others, a
desire to please, the sense of personal obligation, come in
and fill up the void of public spirit, patriotism and humanity. The best men in the world in their own natural
dispositions or in private life (for this reason) often become the most dangerous public characters, from their
pliancy to the unruly passions of others and from their
having no set-off in strong moral stamina to the temptations that are held out to them, if, as is frequently
the case, they are men of versatile talent or patient
industry.
Lord Eldon has one of the best-natured faces in the
world; it is pleasant to meet him in the street, plodding
along with an umbrella under his arm, without one trace
of pride, of spleen, or discontent in his whole demeanour, void of offence, with almost rustic simplicity and




Lord Eldon-Mr. Wilberforce.


275


honesty of appearance-a man that makes friends at
first sight, and could hardly make enemies, if he would;
and whose only fault is that he cannot say Nay to power,
or subject himself to an unkind word or look from a
King or a Minister. He is a thorough-bred Tory.
Others boggle or are at fault in their career, or give
back at a pinch; they split into different factions, have
various objects to distract them, their private friendships or antipathies stand in their way; but he has
never flinched, never gone back, never missed his way;
he is an out-and-outer in this respect. His allegiance
has been without flaw, like "one entire and perfect
chrysolite," his implicit understanding is a kind of
taffeta-lining to the Crown; his servility has assumed
an air of the most determined independence, and he has
"' Read his history in a Prince's eyes!"There has been no stretch of power attempted in his
time that he has not seconded: no existing abuse so
odious or so absurd, that he has not sanctioned it. He
has gone the whole length of the most unpopular designs
of Ministers. When the heavy artillery of interest,
power, and prejudice is brought into the field, the paper
pellets of the brain go for nothing: his labyrinth of nice,
lady-like doubts explodes like a mine of gunpowder.
The Chancellor may weigh and palter: the courtier is
decided, the politician is firm, and riveted to his place in
the Cabinet!
On all the great questions that have divided party
opinion or agitated the public mind, the Chancellor has
been found uniformly and without a single exception on
the side of prerogative and power, and against every
proposal for the advancement of freedom. He was a
strenuous supporter of the wars and coalitions against
the principles of liberty abroad; he has been equally




276


The Spirit of the Age.


zealous in urging or defending every act and infringement of the Constitution for abridging it at home. He
at the same time opposes every amelioration of the penal
laws, on the alleged ground of his abhorrence of even the
shadow of innovation: he has studiously set his face
against Catholic emancipation; he laboured hard in his
vocation to prevent the abolition of the Slave Trade;
he was Attorney-General in the trials for High Treason
in 1794, and the other day, in giving his opinion on the
Queen's Trial, shed tears and protested his innocence
before God!
This was natural and to be expected; but on all occasions he is to be found at his post, true to the call of
prejudice, of power, to the will of others and to his own
interest. In the whole of his public career, and with all
the goodness of his disposition, he has not shown " so
small a drop of pity as a wren's eye."  He seems to be
on his guard against every thing liberal and humane as
his weak side. Others relax in their obsequiousness
either from satiety or disgust, or a hankering after
popularity, or a wish to be thought above narrow prejudices. The Lord Chancellor alone is fixed and immovable. Is it want of understanding or of principle?
No, it is want of imagination, a phlegmatic habit, an
excess of false complaisance and good-nature. He signs
a warrant in Council, devoting ten thousand men to an
untimely death with steady nerves. Is it that he is cruel
and unfeeling? No; but he thinks neither of their sufferings nor their cries; he sees only the gracious smile,
the ready hand stretched out to thank him for his compliance with the dictates of rooted hate. He dooms a
Continent to slavery. Is it that he is a tyrant or an
enemy to the human race? No! but he cannot find in
his heart to resist the commands or to give pain to a
kind and generous benefactor.




Lord Eldon-Mr. Wilberforce.


277


Common sense and justice are little better than vague
terms to him; he acts upon his immediate feelings and
least irksome impulses. The King's hand is velvet to
the touch; the Woolsack is a seat of honour and profit!
That is all he knows about the matter. As to abstract
metaphysical calculations, the ox that stands staring at
the corner of the street troubles his head as much about
them as he does: yet this last is a very good sort of
animal with no harm or malice in him, unless he is
goaded on to mischief; and then it is necessary to keep
out of his way, or warn others against him!
Mr. Wilberforce is a less perfect character in his way.
He acts from mixed motives. He would willingly serve
two masters, God and Mammon. He is a person of many
excellent and admirable qualifications; but he has made
a mistake in wishing to reconcile those that are incompatible. He has a most winning eloquence: specious,
persuasive, familiar, silver-tongued: is amiable, charitable, conscientious, pious, loyal, humane, tractable to
power, accessible to popularity, honouring the king, and
no less charmed with the homage of his fellow-citizens.
" What lacks he then? "  Nothing but an economy of
good parts. By aiming at too much, he has spoiled all,
and neutralised what might have been an estimable
character, distinguished by signal services to mankind. A man must take his choice not only between
virtue and vice, but between different virtues. Otherwise, he will not gain his own approbation, or secure
the respect of others. The graces and accomplishments of private life mar the man of business and the
statesman.
There is a severity, a sternness, a self-denial, and a
painful sense of duty required in the one, which illbefits the softness and sweetness which should cha



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racterise the other.  Loyalty, patriotism, friendship,
humanity, are all virtues; but may they not sometimes
clash? By being unwilling to forego the praise due to
any, we may forfeit the reputation of all, and instead of
uniting the suffrages of the whole world in our favour,
we may end in becoming a sort of by-word for affectation, cant, hollow professions, trimming, fickleness, and
effeminate imbecility. It is best to choose and act up
to some one leading character, as it is best to have some
settled profession or regular pursuit in life.
We can readily believe that Mr. Wilberforce's first
object and principle of action is to do what he thinks
right: his next (and that we fear is of almost equal
weight with the first) is to do what will be thought so
by other people. He is always at a game of hawk and
buzzard between these two; his " conscience will not
budge," unless the world goes with it. He does not
seem greatly to dread the denunciation in Scripture, but
rather to court it-" Woe unto you, when all men shall
speak well of you! " We suspect he is not quite easy in
his mind, because West-India planters and Guinea
traders do not join in his praise. His ears are not
strongly enough tuned to drink in the execrations of
the spoiler and the oppressor as the sweetest music. It
is not enough that one half of the human species (the
images of God carved in ebony, as old Fuller calls them)
shout his name as a champion and a saviour through
vast burning zones, and moisten their parched lips with
the gush of gratitude for deliverance from chains: he
must have a Prime-Minister drink his health at a
Cabinet-dinner for aiding to rivet on those of his
country and of Europe!
He goes hand and heart along with Government in
all their notions of legitimacy and political aggrandizement, in the hope that they will leave him a sort of no



Lord Eldon —Mr. Wilberforce.


279


man's ground of humanity in the Great Desert, where
his reputation for benevolence and public spirit may
spring up and flourish, till its head touches the clouds,
and it stretches out its branches to the farthest part of
the earth. He has no mercy on those who claim a property in negro-slaves as so much live-stock on their
estates; the country rings with the applause of his wit,
his eloquence, and his indignant appeals to common
sense and humanity on this subject. But not a word
has he to say, not a whisper does he breathe, against
the claim set up by the Despots of the Earth over
their Continental subjects, but does everything in his
power to confirm  and sanction it!   He must give
no offence. Mr. Wilberforce's humanity will go. all
lengths that it can with safety and discretion; but
it is not to be supposed that it should lose him his
seat for Yorkshire, the smile of Majesty, or the countenance of the loyal and pious. He is anxious to do
all the good he can without hurting himself or his
fair fame.
His conscience and his character compound matters
very amicably. He rather patronises honesty than is a
martyr to it. His patriotism, his philanthropy are not
so ill-bred, as to quarrel with his loyalty or to banish
him from the first circles. He preaches vital Christianity
to untutored savages, and tolerates its worst abuses in
civilized states. He thus shews his respect for religion
without offending the clergy, or circumscribing the
sphere of his usefulness. There is in all this an appearance of a good deal of cant and tricking. His patriotism
may be accused of being servile, his humanity ostentatious, his loyalty conditional, his religion a mixture of
fashion and fanaticism. " Out upon such half-faced
fellowship!"  Mr. Wilberforce has the pride of being
familiar with the great, the vanity of being popular, the




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The Spirit of the Age.


conceit of an approving conscience. He is coy in his
approaches to power; his public spirit is, in a manner,
under the rose. He thus reaps the credit of independence
without the obloquy, and secures the advantages of servility without incurrirrg any obligations. He has two
strings to his bow: he by no means neglects his worldly
interests, while he expects a bright reversion in the
skies.
Mr. Wilberforce is far from being a hypocrite; but he
is, we think, as fine a specimen of moral equivocation as
can well be conceived. A hypocrite is one who is the
very reverse of, or who despises the character he pretends to be: Mr. Wilberforce would be all that he
pretends to be, and he is it in fact, as far as words, plausible theories, good inclinations and easy services go, but
not in heart and soul, or so as to give up the appearance
of any one of his pretensions to preserve the reality of
any other. He carefully chooses his ground to fight the
battles of loyalty, religion and humanity; and it is such
as is always safe and advantageous to himself! This is
perhaps hardly fair, and it is of dangerous or doubtful
tendency. Lord Eldon, for instance, is known to be a
thorough-paced ministerialist: his opinion is only that
of his party. But Mr. Wilberforce is not a party-man.
He is the more looked up to on this account, but not
with sufficient reason. By tampering with different
temptations and personal projects, he has all the air of
the most perfect independence, and gains a character for
impartiality and candour, when he is only striking a
balance in his mind between the eclat of differing from
a Minister on some 'vantage ground and the risk or
odium that may attend it. He carries all the weight of
his artificial popularity over to the Government on vital
points and hard-run questions; while they, in return,
lend him a little of the gilding of court-favour to set




Lord Eldon-Mr. Wilberforce.


281


off his disinterested philanthropy and tramontane enthusiasm.
As a leader or a follower, he makes an odd jumble of interests. By virtue of religious sympathy, he has brought
the Saints over to the side of the abolition of Negro slavery. This his adversaries think hardand stealing a march
upon them. What have the SAINTS to do with freedom
or reform of any kind? Mr. Wilberforce's style of
speaking is not quite parliamentary; it is halfway between that and evangelical. He is altogether a doubleentendre: the very tone of his voice is a double-entendre.
It winds and undulates, and glides up and down on
texts of Scriptures and scraps from Paley, and trite
sophistry, and pathetic appeals to his hearers in a
faltering, inprogressive, side-long way, like those birds
of weak wing, that are borne from their straightforward
course
" By every little breath that under heaven is blown."
Something of this fluctuating, time-serving principle
was visible even in the great question of the Abolition
of the Slave Trade. He was, at one time, half inclined
to surrender it into Mr. Pitt's dilatory hands, and seemed
to think the gloss of novelty was gone from it, and the
gaudy colouring of popularity sunk into the sable ground
from which it rose! It was, however, persisted in and
carried to a triumphant conclusion.
Mr. Wilberforce said too little on this occasion of one,
compared with whom he was but the frontispiece to that
great chapter in the history of the world-the mask, the
varnishing and painting. The man that effected it by
Herculean labours of body and equally gigantic labours
of mind was Clarkson, the true Apostle of human Redemption on that occasion, and who, it is remarkable,
resembles in his person and lineaments more than one.f




282             The Spirit of the Age.
of the Apostles in the Cartoons of Raphael.       He deserves to be added to the Twelve! 1
1 After all, the best as well as most amusing comment on the
character just described was that made by Sheridan who, being
picked up in no very creditable plight by the watch, and asked
rather roughly who he was, made answer-" I am Mr. Wilberforce!"
The guardians of the night conducted him home with all the honours
due to Grace and Nature.




MR. COBBETT.




0




MR. COBBETT.1


PEOPLE have about as substantial an idea of Cobbett
as they have of Cribb. His blows are as hard, and
he himself is as impenetrable. One has no notion of him
as making use of a fine pen, but a great mutton-fist; his
style stuns his readers, and he "filips the ear of the
public with a three-man beetle."  He is too much for
any single newspaper antagonist, "lays waste" a city
orator or Member of Parliament, and bears hard upon
the Government itself. He is a kind of fourth estate in
the politics of the country.
He is not only unquestionably the most powerful
political writer of the present day, but one of the best
writers in the language. He speaks and thinks plain,
broad, downright English. He might be said to have
the clearness of Swift, the naturalness of Defoe, and
the picturesque satirical description of Mandeville: if
all such comparisons were not impertinent. A really
great and original writer is like nobody but himself. In
one sense, Sterne was not a wit, nor Shakespear a poet.
It is easy to describe second-rate talents, because they
fall into a class and enlist under a standard: but firstrate powers defy calculation or comparison, and can be
defined only by themselves. They are sui generis, and
make the class to which they belong. I have tried halfa-dozen times to describe Burke's style without ever
succeeding: its severe extravagance, its literal boldness,.
1 First printed in the second edition.-ED.




286


The Spirit of the Age.


its matter-of-fact hyperboles, its running away with a
subject and from it at the same time; but there is no
making it out, for there is no example of the same thing
any where else. We have no comimon measure to refer
to; and his qualities contradict even themselves.
Cobbett is not so difficult. He has been compared to
Paine; and so far it is true there are no two writers who
come more into juxtaposition from the nature of their
subjects, from the internal resources on which they
draw, and from the popular effect of their writings and
their adaptation (though that is a bad word in the present case) to the capacity of every reader. But still, if
we turn to a volume of Paine's (his Common Sense or
Rights of Man) we are struck (not to say somewhat
refreshed) by the difference. Paine is a much more sententious writer than Cobbett. You cannot open a page
in any of his best and earlier works without meeting
with some maxim, some antithetical and memorable saying, which is a sort of starting-place for the argument,
and the goal to which it returns.
There is not a single bon-mot, a single sentence in
Cobbett that has ever been quoted again. If any thing
is ever quoted from him, it is an epithet of abuse or a
nickname. He is an excellent hand at invention in that
way, and has "damnable iteration in him."   What
could be better than his pestering Erskine year after
year with his second title of Baron Clackmannan? He
is rather too fond of such phrases as the Sons and Daughters of Corruption. Paine affected to reduce things to
first principles, to announce self-evident truths. Cobbett troubles himself about little but the details and
local circumstances. The first appeared to have made
up his mind beforehand to certain opinions, and to try to
find the most compendious and pointed expressions for
them: his successor appears to have no clue, no fixed or




Mr. Cobbett.


~.287


leading principles, nor ever to have thought on a question till he sits down to write about it. But then there
seems no end of his matters of fact and raw materials,
which are brought out in all their strength and sharpness from not having been squared or frittered down or
vamped up to suit a theory. He goes on with his descriptions and illustrations as if he would never come to
a stop; they have all the force of novelty with all the
familiarity of old acquaintance. His knowledge grows
out of the subject; and his style is that of a man who
has an absolute intuition of what he is talking about,
and never thinks of any thing else. He deals in, premises and speaks to evidence: the coming to a conclusion and summing up (which was Paine's forte) lies in
a smaller compass. The one could not compose an elementary treatise on politics to become a manual for the
popular reader; nor could the other in all probability have
kept up a weekly journal for the same number of years
with the same spirit, interest and untired perseverance.
Paine's writings are a sort of introduction to political
arithmetic on a new plan; Cobbett keeps a day-book, and
makes an entry at full of all the occurrences and troublesome questions that start up throughout the year.
Cobbett with vast industry, vast information and the
utmost power of making what he says intelligible, never
seems to get at the beginning or come to the end of any
question: Paine in a few short sentences seems by his
peremptory manner "to clear it from all controversy,
past, present and to come." Paine takes a bird's-eye
view of things; Cobbett sticks close to them, inspects
the component parts, and keeps fast hold of the smallest
advantages they afford him. Or, if I might here be indulged in a pastoral allusion, Paine tries to enclose his
ideas in a fold for security and repose; Cobbett lets his
' The Weekly Political Register.




288


The Spirit of the Age.


pour out upon the plain like a flock of sheep to feed and
batten.  Cobbett is a pleasanter writer for those to read
who do not agree with him; for he is less dogmatical,
goes more into the common grounds of fact and argument to which all appeal, is more desultory and various,
and appears less to be driving at a previous conclusion
than urged on by the force of present conviction. He is
therefore tolerated by all parties, though he has made
himself by turns obnoxious to all; and even those he
abuses read him. The Reformers read him when he
was a Tory, and the Tories read him now that he is a
Reformer. He must, I think, however, be caviare to the
Whigs.'
If he is less metaphysical and poetical than his celebrated prototype, he is more picturesque and dramatic.
His episodes, which are numerous as they are pertinent,
are striking, interesting, full of life and naivete, minute,
double measure running over, but never tedious —iuwtquam sufflaminaandus erat. He is one of those writers
who can never tire us, not even of himself; and the
reason is, he is always " full of matter."  He never runs
to lees, never gives us the vapid leavings of himself, is
never " weary, stale, and unprofitable," but always setting
out afresh on his journey, clearing away some old
nuisance, and turning up new mould. His egotism is
delightful, for there is no affectation in it. He does not
talk of himself for lack of something to write about, but
because some circumstance that has happened to himself
is the best possible illustration of the subject; and he is
not the man to shrink from giving the best possible
illustration of the subject from a squeamish delicacy.
He likes both himself and his subject too well. He
does not put himself before it, and say "admire me
1 Lord Chancellor Thurlow used to say that Cobbett was the only
writer that deserved the name of a political reasoner.




Mr. Cobbett.


289


first," but places us in the same situation with himself,
and makes us see all that he does. There is no blind-man's
buff, no conscious hints, no awkward ventriloquism, no
testimonies of applause, no abstract, senseless self-complacency, no smuggled admiration of his own person by
proxy. It is all plain and above-board.
He writes himself plain William Cobbett, strips himself quite as naked as any body could wish: in a word,
his egotism is full of individuality, and has room for
very little vanity in it. We feel delighted, rub our
hands, and draw our chair to the fire, when we come to
a passage of this sort: we know it will be something
new and good, manly and simple, not the same insipid
story of self over again. We sit down at table with the
writer, but it is of a course of rich viands-flesh, fish,
and wild fowl-and not to a nominal entertainment,
like that given by the Barmecide in the Arabian Nights,
who put off his visitor with calling for a number of exquisite things that never appeared and with the honour
of his company. Mr. Cobbett is not a make-believe.
writer. His worst enemy cannot say that of him. Still
less is he a vulgar one. He must be a puny commonplace
critic indeed, who thinks him so. How fine were the
graphical descriptions he sent us from America: what a.
transatlantic flavour, what a native gusto, what a fine
sauce piquante of contempt they were seasoned with! If
he had sat down to look at himself in the glass, instead
of looking about him like Adam in Paradise, he would
not have got up these articles in so capital a style.
What a noble account of his first breakfast after his
arrival in America! It might serve for a month. There
is no scene on the stage more amusing.
How well he paints the gold and scarlet plumage of
the American birds, only to lament more pathetically
the want of the wild wood-notes of his native- land!
U




290


The Spirit of the Age.


The groves of the Ohio that had just fallen beneath the
axe's stroke, "live in his description," and the turnips
that he transplanted from Botley "look green " in prose!
How well at another time he describes the poor sheep
that had got the tick, and had tumbled down in the
agonies of death! It is a portrait in the manner of
Bewick, with the strength, the simplicity, and feeling
of that great naturalist. What havoc he makes, when
he pleases, of the curls of Dr. Parr's wig and of the Whig
consistency of Mr. —      His Grammar, too, is as entertaining as a story-book. He is too hard,'however, upon
the style of others, and not enough (sometimes) on his own.
As a political partisan, no one can stand against him.
With his brandished club, like Giant Despair in the
Pilgrim's Progress, he knocks out their brains: and not
onlv no individual, but no corrupt system, could hold out
against his powerful and repeated attacks. But with the
same weapon swung round like a flail, with which he
levels his antagonists, he lays his friends low, and puts
his own party hors de combat. This is a bad propensity
and a worse principle in political tactics, though a
common one. If his blows were straightforward and
steadily directed to the same object, no unpopular minister could live before him; instead of which he lays
about right and left impartially and remorselessly,
makes a clear stage, has all the ring to himself, and
then runs out of it, just when he should stand his
ground. He throws, his head into his adversary's stomach, and takes away from him all inclination for the
fight, hits fair or foul, strikes at every thing, and as you
come up to his aid or stand ready to pursue his advantage, trips up your heels or lays you sprawling, and
pummels you when down as much to his heart's content
as ever the Yanguesian carriers belaboured Rosinante
with their pack-staves. "He has the back-trick simply
the best of any man in Illyria."




Mr. Cobbett.


291


He pays off both scores of old friendship and newacquired enmity in a breath, in one perpetual volley, one
raking fire of " arrowy sleet " shot from his pen. However his own reputation or the cause may suffer in consequence, he cares not one pin about that, so that he
disables all who oppose or who pretend to help him. In
fact, he cannot bear success of any kind, not even of his
own views or party; and if any principle were likely to
become popular, would turn round against it, to show
his power in shouldering it on one side. In short,
wherever power is, there is he against it: he naturally
butts at all obstacles, as unicorns are attracted to oaktrees, and feels his own strength only by resistance to
the opinions and wishes of the rest of the world. To
sail with the stream, to agree with the company, is not
his humour. If he could bring about a Reform in Parliament, the odds are that he would instantly fall foul
of and try to mar his own handy-work; and he quarrels
with his own creatures as soon as he has written them
into a little vogue-and a prison. I do not think this is
vanity or fickleness so much as a pugnacious disposition,
that must have an antagonist power to contend with,
and only finds itself at ease in systematic opposition.
If it were not for this, the high towers and rotten places
of the world would fall before the battering-ram of his
hard-headed reasoning: but if he once found them tottering, he would apply his strength to prop them up, and
disappoint the expectations of his followers. He cannot
agree to any thing established, nor to set up any thing
else in its stead. While it is established, he presses hard
against it, because it presses upon him, at least in imagination. Let it crumble under his grasp, and the
motive to resistance is gone. He then requires some
other grievance to set his face against.
His principle is repulsion, his nature contradiction:
he is made up of mere antipathies; an Ishmaelite indeed




292


The Spirit of the Age.


without a fellow. He is always playing at hunt-theslipper in politics. He turns round upon whoever is
next to him. The way to wean him from any opinion,
and make him conceive an intolerable hatred against it,
would be to place somebody near him who was perpetually dinning it in his ears. When he is in England,
he does nothing but abuse the Boroughmongers, and
laugh at the whole system: when he is in America, he
grows impatient of freedom and a republic. If he had
stayed there a little longer, he would have become a
loyal and a loving subject of his Majesty King George
IV. He lampooned the French Revolution when it was
hailed as the dawn of liberty by millions; by the time it
was brought into almost universal ill-odour by some
means or other (partly no doubt by himself) he had
turned, with one or two or three others, staunch Bonapartist. He is always of the militant, not of the triumphant party: so far he bears a gallant show of magnanimity. But his gallantry is hardly of the right stamp:
it wants principle. For though he is not servile or mercenary, he is the victim of self-will. He must pull
down and pull in pieces: it is not in his disposition to
do otherwise. It is a pity; for with his great talents he
might do great things, if he would go right forward to
any useful object, make thorough-stitch work of any
question, or join hand and heart with any principle.
He changes his opinions as he does his friends, and
much on the same account. He has no comfort in fixed
principles: as soon as any thing is settled in his own
mind, he quarrels with it. He has no satisfaction but
in the chase after truth, runs a question down, worries
and kills it, then quits it like vermin, and starts some
new game, to lead him a new dance, and give him a
fresh breathing through bog and brake, with the rabble
yelping at his heels and the leaders perpetually at fault.




Mr. Cobbett.


293


This he calls sport-royal. He thinks it as good as
cudgel-playing or single-stick, or any thing else that has
life in it. He likes the cut and thrust, the falls, bruises
and dry blows of an argument: as to any good or useful
results that may come of the amicable settling of it, any
one is welcome to them for him. The amusement is
over, when the matter is once fairly decided.
There is another point of view in which this may be
put. I might say that Mr. Cobbett is a very honest
man with a total want of principle; and I might explain
this paradox thus. I mean that he is, I think, in downright earnest in what he says, in the part he takes at the
time; but, in taking that part, he is led entirely by
headstrong obstinacy, caprice, novelty, pique or personal
motive of some sort, and not by a steadfast regard for
truth or habitual anxiety for what is right uppermost in
his mind. He is not a feed, time-serving, shuffling advocate (no man could write as he does who did not
believe himself sincere); but his understanding is the
dupe and slave of his momentary, violent and irritable hu\mours. He does not adopt an opinion " deliberately or
for money;" yet his conscience is at the mercy of the
first provocation he receives, of the first whim he takes
in his head. He sees things through the medium of heat
and passion, not with reference to any general principles;
and his whole system of thinking is deranged by the
first object that strikes his fancy or sours his temper.
One cause of this phenomenon is perhaps his want of
a regular education. He is a self-taught man, and has
the faults as well as excellences of that class of persons
in their most striking and glaring excess. It must be
acknowledged that the Editor of the Political Register
(the two-penny trash, as it was called, till a Bill passed
the House to raise the price to sixpence) is not "the
gentleman and scholar," though he has qualities that,




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2Thbe Spirit of the Age.


with a little better management, would be worth (to the
public) both those titles. For want of knowing what
has been discovered before him, he has not certain
general landmarks to refer to or a general standard of
thought to apply to individual cases. He relies on his
own acuteness and the immediate evidence, without
being acquainted with the comparative anatomy or philosophical structure of opinion.  He does not view
things on a large scale or at the horizon (dim and airy
enough perhaps); but as they affect himself-close, palpable, tangible. Whatever he finds out is his own, and
he only knows what he finds out. He is in the constant
hurry and fever of gestation: his brain teems incessantly with some fresh project. Every new light is the
birth of a new system, the dawn of a new world to him.
He is continually outstripping and overreaching himself.
The last opinion is the only true one. He is wiser today than he was yesterday. Why should he not be wiser
to-morrow than he was to-day?
Men of a learned education are not so sharp-witted as
clever men without it; but they know the balance of
the human intellect better. If they are more stupid,
they are more steady, and are less liable to be led astray
by their own sagacity and the overweening petulance of
hard-earned and late-acquired wisdom. They do not
fall in love with every meretricious extravagance at first
sight, or mistake an old battered hypothesis for a vestal,
because they are new to the ways of this old world.
They do not seize upon it as a prize, but are safe from
gross imposition by being as wise and no wiser than
those who went before them.
Paine said on some occasion, " What I have written, I
have written," as rendering any farther declaration of
his principles unnecessary. Not so Mr. Cobbett. What
he has written is no rule to him what he is to write. He




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295


learns something every day, and every week he takes
the field to maintain the opinions of the last six days
I against friend or foe. I doubt whether this outrageous
inconsistency, this headstrong fickleness, this understood
want of all rule and method, does not enable him to go
on with the spirit, vigour and variety that he does.
He is not pledged to repeat himself. Every new Register
is a kind of new Prospectus. He blesses himself from
all ties and shackles on his understanding; he has no
mortgages on his brain; his notions are free and unincumbered. If he was put in trammels, he might become
a vile hack like so many more. But he gives himself
" ample scope and verge enough."  He takes both sides
of a question, and maintains one as sturdily as the
other. If nobody else can argue against him, he is a
very good match for himself. He writes better in favour
of reform than any body else; he used to write better
against it. Wherever he is, there is the tug of war, the
weight of the argument, the strength of abuse.
He is not like a man in danger of being bed-rid in his
faculties: he tosses and tumbles about his unwieldy
bulk, and when he is tired of lying on one side, relieves
himself by turning on the other. His shifting his point
of view from time to time not merely adds variety and
greater compass to his topics (so that the Political
Register is an armoury and magazine for all the materials
and weapons of political warfare): but it gives a greater
zest and liveliness to his manner of treating them. Mr.
Cobbett takes nothing for granted, as what he has proved
before; he does not write a book of reference. We see
his ideas in their first concoction, fermenting and overflowing with the ebullitions of a lively conception. We
look on at the actual process, and are put in immediate
possession of the grounds and materials on which he
forms his sanguine, unsettled conclusions. He does not




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The Spirit of the Age.


give us samples of reasoning, but the whole solid mass,
refuse and all.
-" He pours out all as plain
As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne."
This is one cause of the clearness and force of his
writings. An argument does not stop to stagnate and
muddle in his brain, but passes at once to his paper.
His ideas are served up, like pancakes, hot and hot.
Fresh theories give him fresh courage. He is like a
young and lusty bridegroom, that divorces a favourite
speculation every morning, and marries a new one every
night. He is not wedded to his notions, not he. He
has not one Mrs. Cobbett among all his opinions. He
makes the most of the last thought that has come in his
way, seizes fast hold of it, rumples it about in all directions with rough strong hands, has his wicked will of it,
takes a surfeit, and throws it away. Our author's changing his opinions for new ones is not so wonderful; what
is more remarkable is his felicity in forgetting his old
ones. He does not pretend to consistency (like Mr.
Coleridge); he frankly disavows all connection with
himself. He feels no personal responsibility in this way,
and cuts a friend or principle with the same decided
indifference that Antipholis of Ephesus cuts  Egeon
of Syracuse. It is a hollow thing. The only time he
ever grew romantic was in bringing over the relics of
Mr. Thomas Paine with him from America, to go a progress with them through the disaffected districts. Scarce
had he landed in Liverpool, when he left the bones of a
great man to shift for themselves; and no sooner did he
arrive in London, than he made a speech to disclaim all
participation in the political and theological sentiments
of his late idol, and to place the whole stock of his admiration and enthusiasm towards him to the account of




Mr. Cobbett.


297


his financial speculations, and of his having predicted
the fate of paper-money.
If he had erected a little gold statue to him, it might
have proved the sincerity of this assertion; but to make
a martyr and a patron.saint of a man, and to dig up
" his canonized bones " in order to expose them as objects
of devotion to the rabble's gaze, asks something that has
more life and spirit in it, more mind and vivifying soul,
than has to do with any calculation of pounds, shillings
and pence! The fact is, he ratted from his own project.
He found the thing not so ripe as he had expected. His
heart failed him; his enthusiasm fled; and he made his
retraction. His admiration is short-lived: his contempt only is rooted, and his resentment lasting. The
above was only one instance of his building too much
on practical data. He has an ill habit of prophesying,
and goes on, though still deceived. The art of prophesying does not suit Mr. Cobbett's style. He has a knack
of fixing names and times and places. According to
him, the Reformed Parliament was to meet in March,
1818; it did not, and we heard no more of the matter.
When his predictions fail, he takes no farther notice of
them, but applies himself to new ones, like the countrypeople, who turn to see what weather there is in the
almanac for the next week, though it has been out in
its reckoning every day of the last.
Mr. Cobbett is great in attack, not in defence: he
cannot fight an up-hill battle. He will not bear the
least punishing. If any one turns upon him (which few
people like to do), he immediately turns tail. Like an
overgrown school-boy, he is so used to have it all his own
way, that he cannot submit to any thing like competition or a struggle for the mastery: he must lay on all
the blows, and take none. He is bullying and cowardly;
a Big Ben in politics, who will fall upon others and




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The Spirit of the Age.


crush them by his weight, but is not prepared for resistance, and is soon staggered by a few smart blows.
Whenever he has been set upon, he has slunk out of the
controversy. The Edinburgh Review made (what is
called) a dead set at him some years ago, to which he
only retorted by an eulogy on the superior neatness of
an English kitchen-garden to a Scotch one. I remember going one day into a bookseller's shop in Fleet-street
to ask for the Review; and on my expressing my opinion
to a young Scotchman, who stood behind the counter,
that Mr. Cobbett might hit as hard in his reply, the
North Briton said with some alarm-" But yon don't
think, Sir, Mr. Cobbett will be able to injure the Scottish nation? "  I said I could not speak to that point,
but I thought he was very well able to defend himself.
He however did not, but has borne a grudge to the Edinburgh Review ever since, which he hates worse than the
Quarterly. I cannot say I do.
MIr. Cobbett speaks almost as well as he writes. The
only time I ever saw him he seemed to me a very pleasant man: easy of access, affable, clear-headed, simple
and mild in his manner, deliberate and unruffled in his
speech, though some of his expressions were not very
qualified. His figure is tall and portly: he has a good
sensible face, rather full, with little grey eyes, a hard,
square forehead, a ruddy complexion, with hair grey or
powdered: and had on a scarlet broad-cloth waistcoat,
with the flaps of the pockets hanging down, as was the
custom for gentlemen-farmers in the last century, or
as we see it in the pictures of Members of Parliament in
the reign of George I. I certainly did not think less
favourably of him for seeing him.




MR. CAMPBELL AND MR. CRABBE.








MR. CAMPBELL AND MR. CRABBE.


1/ R. CAMPBELL may be said to hold a place
(among modern poets) between Lord Byron and
Mr. Rogers. With much of the glossy splendour, the
pointed vigour and romantic interest of the one, he possesses the fastidious refinement, the classic elegance of
the other. Mr. Rogers, as a writer, is too effeminate,
Lord Byron too extravagant: Mr. Campbell is neither.
The author of the Pleasures of Memory polishes his lines
till they sparkle with the most exquisite finish; he attenuates them into the utmost degree of trembling softness: but we may complain, in spite of the delicacy and
brilliancy of the execution, of a want of strength and
solidity. The author of the Pleasures of Hope, with a
richer and deeper vein of thought and imagination,
works it out into figures of equal grace and dazzling
beauty, avoiding on the one hand the tinsel of flimsy
affectation, and on the other the vices of a rude and
barbarous negligence. His Pegasus is not a rough,
skittish colt, running wild among the mountains, covered
with bur-docks and thistles, nor a tame, sleek pad, unable
to get out of the same ambling pace; but a beautiful
manege-horse, full of life and spirit in itself, and subject
to the complete control of the rider. Mr. Campbell
gives scope to his feelings and his fancy, and embodies
them in a noble and naturally interesting subject; and
he at the same time conceives himself called upon (in




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The Spirit of the Age.


these days of critical nicety) to pay the exactest attention to the expression of each thought, and to modulate
each line into the most faultless harmony. The character of his mind is a lofty and self-scrutinizing ambition,
that strives to reconcile the integrity of general design
with the perfect elaboration of each component part,
that aims at striking effect, but is jealous of the means
by which this is to be produced.
Our poet is not averse to popularity (nay, he is tremblingly alive to it); but self-respect is the primary law,
the indispensable condition on which it must be obtained.
We should dread to point out (even if we could) a false
concord, a mixed metaphor, an imperfect rhyme, in any
of Mr. Campbell's productions; for we think that all
his fame would hardly compensate to him for the discovery. He seeks for perfection, and nothing evidently
short of it can satisfy his mind. He is a high finisher in
poetry, whose every work must bear inspection, whose
slightest touch is precious: not a coarse dauber, who is
contented to impose on public wonder and credulity by
some huge, ill-executed design, or who endeavours to
wear out patience and opposition together by a load of
lumbering, feeble, awkward, improgressive lines. On
the contrary, Mr. Campbell labours to lend every grace
of execution to his subject, while he borrows his ardour
and inspiration from it, and to deserve the laurels he has
earned by true genius and by true pains. There is an
apparent consciousness of this in most of his writings.
He has attained to great excellence by aiming at the
greatest, by a cautious and yet daring selection of topics,
and by studiously (and with a religious horror) avoiding
all those faults which arise from grossness, vulgarity,
haste, and disregard of public opinion.
He seizes on the highest point of eminence, and strives
to keep it to himself; he " snatches a grace beyond the




Mr. Campbell and Mr. Crabbe.


303


reach of art," and will not let it go; he steeps a single
thought or image so deep in the Tyrian dyes of a gorgeous imagination, that it throws its lustre over a whole
page. Every where vivid ideal forms hover (in intense
conception) over the poet's verse, which ascends, like
the aloe, to the clouds with pure flowers at its top. Or,
to take an humbler comparison (the pride of genius
must sometimes stoop to the lowliness of criticism), Mr.
Campbell's poetry often reminds us of the purple gilliflower, both for its colour and its scent, its glowing
warmth, its rich, languid, sullen hue,
"Yet sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath!"
There are those who complain of the little that Mr.
Campbell has done in poetry, and who seem to insinuate
that he is deterred by his own reputation from making
any farther or higher attempts. But after having produced two poems that have gone to the heart of a nation,
and are gifts to a world, he may surely linger out the
rest of his life in a dream of immortality. There are
moments in our lives so exquisite that all that remains
of them afterwards seems useless and barren; and there
are lines and stanzas in our author's early writings in
which he may be thought to have exhausted all the
sweetness and all the essence of poetry,'so that nothing
farther was left to his efforts or his ambition. Happy is
it for those few and fortunate worshippers of the Muse
(not a subject of grudging or envy to others), who
already enjoy in their life-time a foretaste of their future
fame, who see their names accompanying them, like a
cloud of glory, from youth to age,
" And by the vision splendid
Are on their way attended"and who know that they have built a shrine for the




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The Spirit of the Age.


thoughts and feelings that were most dear to them in
the minds and memories of other men, till the language
which they lisped in childhood is forgotten, or the
human heart shall beat no more!
The Pleasures of Hope alone would not have called
forth these remarks from us; but there are passages in
the Gertrude of Wyoming of so rare and ripe a beauty,
that they challenge, as they exceed all praise. Such,
for instance, is the following peerless description of Gertrude's childhood:
"A loved bequest,-and I may half impart
To those that feel the strong paternal tie,
How like a new existence to his heart
That living flow'r uprose beneath his eye,
Dear as she was from cherub infancy,
From hours when she would round his garden play,
To time when as the rip'ning years went by,
Her lovely mind could culture well repay,
And more engaging grew, from pleasing day to day.
" I may not paint those thousand infant charms;
(Unconscious fascination, undesign'd!)
The orison repeated in his arms,
For God to bless her sire and all mankind;
The book, the bosom on his knee reclined,
Or how sweet fairy-lore he heard her con,
(The playmate ere the teacher of her mind):
All uncompanion'd else her heart had gone
'Till now, in Gertrude's eyes, their ninth blue summer shone.
" And summer was the tide, and sweet the hour,
When sire and daughter saw, with fleet descent,
Ani Indian from his bark approach their bow'r,
Of buskin'd limb and swarthy lineament;
The red wild feathers on his brow were blent,
And bracelets bound the arm that help'd to light
A boy, who seem'd, as he beside him went,
Of Christian vesture and complexion bright,
Led by his dusky guide, like morning brought by night."




Mr. Campbell and Mr. Crabbe.


305


In.the foregoing stanzas we particularly admire the
line"'Till now, in Gertrude's eyes, their ninth blue summer shone."
It appears to us like the ecstatic union of natural
beauty and poetic fancy, and in its playful sublimity
resembles the azure canopy mirrored in the smiling
waters: bright, liquid, serene, heavenly! A great outcry, we know, has prevailed for some time past against
poetic diction and affected conceits, and, to a certain
degree, we go along with it; but this must not prevent
us from feeling the thrill of pleasure when we see beauty
linked to beauty, like kindred flame to flame, or from
applauding the voluptuous fancy that raises and adorns
the fairy fabric of thought, that nature has begun!
Pleasure is "scattered in stray-gifts o'er the earth ";
beauty streaks the "famous poet's page" in occasional
lines of inconceivable brightness; and wherever this is
the case, no splenetic censures or "jealous leer malign,"
no idle theories or cold indifference should hinder us
from greeting it with rapture. There are other parts
of this poem equally delightful, in which there is a light
startling as the red-bird's wing, a perfume like that of
the magnolia, a music like the murmuring of pathless
woods or of the everlasting ocean.
We conceive, however, that Mr. Campbell excels
chiefly in sentiment and imagery. The story moves
slow, and is mechanically conducted, and rather resembles a Scotch canal carried over lengthened aqueducts and with a number of locks in it, than one of those
rivers that sweep in their majestic course, broad and
full, over Transatlantic plains, and lose themselves in
rolling gulfs, or thunder down lofty precipices. But in
the centre, the inmost recesses of our poet's heart, the
pearly dew of sensibility is distilled and collects, like
x




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The Spirit of the Age.


the diamond in the mine; and the structure of his fame
rests on the crystal columns of a polished imagination.
We prefer the Gertrude to the Pleasures of Hope, because
with perhaps less brilliancy there is more of tenderness
and natural imagery in the former. In the Pleasures of
Hope Mr. Campbell had not completely emancipated
himself from the trammels of the more artificial style of
poetry, from epigram, and antithesis and hyperbole.
The best line in it, in which earthly joys are said to be" Like angels' visits, few and far between"is a borrowed one.1 But in the Gertrude of Wyoming
"we perceive a softness coming over the heart of the
author, and the scales and crust of formality, that fence
in his couplets and give them a somewhat glittering and
rigid appearance, fall off;" and he has succeeded in engrafting the wild and more expansive interest of the
romantic school of poetry on classic elegance and precision. After the poem we have just named, Mr. Campbell's SONGS are the happiest efforts of his Muse: breathing freshness, blushing like the morn, they seem, like
clustering roses, to weave a chaplet for love and liberty;
or their bleeding words gush out in mournful and
hurried succession, like " ruddy drops that visit the sad
heart" of thoughtful Humanity. The Battle of Hohen
linden is of all modern compositions the most lyrical in
spirit and in sound. To justify this encomium, we need
only recall the lines to the reader's memory.
" On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay th' untrodden snow,
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.


" Like angels' visits, short and far between "Blair's Grave.




Mr. Campbell and Mr. Crabbe.


307


But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.
By torch and trumpet fast array'd,
Each horseman drew his battle blade,
And furious every charger neigh'd,
To join the dreadful revelry.
Then shook the hills with thunder riv'n,
Then rush'd the steed to battle driv'n,
And louder than the bolts of heav'n
Far flash'd the red artillery.
But redder yet that light shall glow
On Linden's hills of stained snow,
And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling 1 dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun
Shout in their sulph'rous canopy.
The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory, or the grave!
Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave!
And charge with all thy chivalry!
Few, few shall part, where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre."
Mr. Campbell's prose-criticisms on contemporary and
other poets (which have appeared in the New Monthly
Magazine) are in a style at once chaste, temperate,
guarded, and just.
Mr.Crabbe presents an entire contrast to Mr. Camp-.,Is not this word, which occurs in the last line but one, (as well
as before) an instance of that repetition, which we so often meet with
in the most correct and elegant writers?




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The Spirit of the Age.


bell. The one is the most ambitious and aspiring of
living poets, the other the most humble and prosaic. If
the poetry of the one is like the arch of the rainbow,
spanning and adorning the earth, that of the other is
like a dull, leaden cloud hanging over it. Mr. Crabbe's
style might be cited as an answer to Audrey's question " Is
poetry a true thing? " There are here no ornaments,
no flights of fancy, no illusions of sentiment, no tinsel of
words. His song is one sad reality, one unraised, unvaried note of unavailing woe. Literal fidelity serves
him in the place of invention; he assumes importance
by a number of petty details; he rivets attention by
being tedious. He not only deals in incessant matters
of fact, but in matters of fact of the most familiar, the
least animating, and the most unpleasant kind. But he
relies for the effect of novelty on the microscopic minuteness with which he dissects the most trivial objects, and
for the interest he excites, on the unshrinking determination with which he handles the most painful.
His poetry has an official and professional air. He is
called in to cases of difficult births, of fractured limbs or
breaches of the peace, and makes out a parochial list of
accidents and offences. He takes the most trite, the
most gross and obvious, and revolting part of nature,
for the subject of his elaborate descriptions; but it is
Nature still, and Nature is a great and mighty Goddess!
It is well for the Reverend Author that it is so. Individuality is, in his theory, the only definition of poetry.
Whatever is, he hitches into rhyme. Whoever makes
an exact image of any thing on the earth, however deformed or insignificant, according to him, must succeed;
and he himself has succeeded.
Mr. Crabbe is one of the most popular and admired
of our living authors. That he is so, can be accounted
for on no other principle than the strong ties that bind




Mr. Campbell and Mr. Crabbe.


309


us to the world about us and our involuntary yearnings
after whatever in any manner powerfully and directly
reminds us of it. His Muse is not one of the Daughters
of Memory, but the old toothless, mumbling, dame herself, doling out the gossip and scandal of the neighbourhood, recounting totidem verbis et literis what happens in
every place of the kingdom every hour in the year, and
fastening always on the worst as the most palatable
morsels. But she is a circumstantial old lady, communicative, scrupulous, leaving nothing to the imagination,
harping on the smallest grievances, a village oracle and
critic, most veritable, most identical, bringing us acquainted with persons and things just as they chanced
to exist, and giving us a local interest in all she knows
and tells.
Mr. Crabbe's Helicon is choked up with weeds and
corruption; it reflects no light from heaven; it emits no
cheerful sound; no flowers of love, of hope, or joy spring
up near it, or they bloom only to wither in a moment
Our poet's verse does not put a spirit of youth in every
thing, but a spirit of fear, despondency and decay. It
is not an electric spark to kindle or expand, but acts
like the torpedo's touch to deaden or contract. It lends
no dazzling tints to fancy; it aids no soothing feelings
in the heart; it gladdens no prospect, it stirs no wish;
in its view the current of life runs slow, dull, cold, dispirited, half under ground, muddy, and clogged with
all creeping things. The world is one vast infirmary;
the hill of Parnassus is a penitentiary, of which our
author is the overseer. To read him is a penance, yet
we read on!
Mr. Crabbe, it must be confessed, is a repulsive writer.
He contrives to "turn diseases to commodities," and
makes a virtue of necessity. He puts us out of conceit
with this world, which perhaps a severe divine should do,




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The Spirit of the Age.


yet does not, as a charitable divine ought, point to another.
His morbid feelings droop and cling to the earth, grovel
where they should soar, and throw a dead weight on
every aspiration of the soul after the good or beautiful.
By degrees we submit, and are reconciled to our fate,
like patients to the physician, or prisoners in the condemned cell. We can only explain this by saying, as
we said before, that Mr. Crabbe gives us one part of
nature: the mean, the little, the disgusting, the distressing, that he does this thoroughly and like a master;
and we forgive all the rest.
Mr. Crabbe's first poems were published so long ago
as the year 1782, and received the approbation of Dr.
Johnson only a little before he died. This was a testimony from an enemy; for Dr. Johnson was not an admirer of the simple in style or minute in description.
Still he was an acute, strong-minded man, and could
see truth when it was presented to him, even through
the mist of his prejudices and his foibles. There was
something in Mr. Crabbe's intricate points that did not,
after all, so ill accord with the Doctor's purblind vision;
and he knew quite enough of the petty ills of life to
judge of the merit of our poet's descriptions, though he
himself chose to slur them over in high-sounding dogmas
or genera] invectives. Mr. Crabbe's earliest poem of
the Village was recommended to the notice of Dr. Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds; and we cannot help thinking that a taste for that sort of poetry, which leans for
support on the truth and fidelity of its imitations of
nature, began to display itself much about that time,
and, in a good measure, in consequence of the direction
of the public taste to the subject of painting. Booklearning, the accumulation of wordy common-places, the
gaudy pretensions of poetical fiction, had enfeebled and
perverted our eye for nature. The study of the fine arts,




Mr. Campbell and Mr. Crabbe.


311


which came into fashion about forty years ago, and was
then first considered as a polite accomplishment, would
tend imperceptibly to restore it.
Painting is essentially an imitative art; it cannot
subsist for a moment on empty generalities: the critic
therefore, who had been used to this sort of substantial
entertainment, would be disposed to read poetry with
the eye of a connoisseur, would be little captivated with
smooth, polished, unmeaning periods, and would turn with
double eagerness and relish to the force and precision of
individual details transferred, as it were, to the page
from the canvas. Thus an admirer of Teniers or Hobbima might think little of the pastoral sketches of Pope
or Goldsmith; even Thomson describes not so much the
naked object as what he sees in his mind's eye, surrounded and glowing with the mild, bland, genial vapours of his brain. But the adept in Dutch interiors,
hovels and pig-styes must find in Mr. Crabbe a man
after his own heart. He is the very thing itself; he
paints in words instead of colours: there is no other
difference. As Mr. Crabbe is not a painter, only because he does not use a brush and colours, so he is for
the most part a poet, only because he writes in lines of
ten syllables. All the rest might be found in a newspaper, an old magazine, or a county-register.
Our author is himself a little jealous of 'the prudish
fidelity of his homely Muse, and tries to justify himself
by precedents. He brings as a parallel instance of
merely literal description, Pope's lines on the gay Duke
of Buckingham, beginning "In the worst inn's worst
room see Villiers lies!"  But surely nothing can be
more dissimilar.  Pope describes what is striking:
Crabbe would have described merely what was there.
The objects in Pope stand out to the fancy from the
mixture of the mean with the gaudy, from the contrast




312


The Spirit of the Age.


of the scene and the character. There is an appeal to
the imagination; you see what is passing in a poetical
point of view. In Crabbe there is no foil, no contrast,
no impulse given to the mind. It is all on a level and
of a piece. In fact, there is so little connection between
the subject-matter of Mr. Crabbe's lines and the ornament of rhyme which is tacked to them, that many of
his verses read like serious burlesque, and the parodies
which have been made upon them are hardly so quaint
as the originals.
Mr. Crabbe's great fault is certainly that he is a sickly,
a querulous, a uniformly dissatisfied poet. He sings the
country; and he sings it in a pitiful tone. He chooses
this subject only to take the charm out of it, and to
dispel the illusion, the glory and the dream, which had
hovered over it in golden verse from Theocritus to
Cowper. He sets out with professing to overturn the
theory which had hallowed a shepherd's life, and made
the names of grove and valley music to our ears, in
order to give us truth in its stead; but why not lay
aside the fool's cap and bells at once? Why not insist
on the unwelcome reality in plain prose? If our author
is a poet, why trouble himself with statistics? If he
is a statistic writer, why set his ill news to harsh and
grating verse? The philosopher, in painting the dark
side of human nature, may have reason on his side, and
a moral lesson or remedy in view. The tragic poet, who
shows the sad vicissitudes of things and the disappointments of the passions, at least strengthens our yearnings
after imaginary good, and lends wings to our desires, by
which we, " at one bound, high overleap all bound " of
actual suffering. But Mr. Crabbe does neither. He
gives us discoloured paintings of life: helpless, repining,
unprofitable, unedifying distress. He is not a philosopher, but a sophist, a misanthrope in verse; a namby



Mr. Campbell and Mr. Crabbe.


313


pamby Mandeville, a Malthus turned metrical romancer.
He professes historical fidelity; but his vein is not dramatic; nor does he give us the pros and cons of that
versatile gipsey Nature. He does not indulge his fancy
or sympathise with us, or tell us how the poor feel; but
how he should feel in their situation, which we do not
want to know. He does not weave the web of their
lives of a mingled yarn, good and ill together, but
clothes them all in the same dingy linsey-woolsey, or
tinges them with a green and yellow melancholy. He
blocks out all possibility of good, cancels the hope or
even the wish for it as a weakness, checkmates Tityrus
and Virgil at the game of pastoral cross-purposes, disables all his adversary's white pieces, and leaves none
but black ones on the board.
The situation of a country clergyman is not necessarily favourable to the cultivation of the Muse. He is
set down, perhaps, as he thinks, in a small curacy for
life, and he takes his revenge by imprisoning the reader's
imagination in luckless verse. Shut out from social
converse, from learned colleges and halls, where he
passed his youth, he has no cordial fellow-feeling with
the unlettered manners of the Village or the Borough;
and he describes his neighbours as more uncomfortable
and discontented than himself. All this while he dedicates successive volumes to rising generations of noble
patrons; and while he desolates a line of coast with
sterile, blighting lines, the only leaf of his books where
honour, beauty, worth, or pleasure bloom, is that inscribed to the Rutland family! We might adduce
instances of what we have said from every page of his
works: let one suffice"C Thus by himself compelled to live each day,
To wait for certain hours the tide's delay;
At the same times the same dull views to see,.:.'".




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The Spirit of the Age.


The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree
The water only when the tides were high,
When low, the mud half-covered and half-dry;
The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks,
And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks;
Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,
As the tide rolls by the impeded boat.
When tides were neap, and in the sultry day,
Through the tall bounding mud-banks made their way,
Which on each side rose swelling, and below
The dark warm flood ran silently and slow;
There anchoring, Peter chose from man to hide,
There hang his head, and view the lazy tide
In its hot slimy channel slowly glide;
Where the small eels, that left the deeper way
For the warm shore, within the shallows play;
Where gaping mussels, left upon the mud,
Slope their slow passage to the fall'n flood:
Here dull and hopeless he'd lie down and trace
How side-long crabs had crawled their crooked race;
Or sadly listen to the tuneless cry
Of fishing gull or clanging golden-eye;
What time the sea-birds to the marsh would come,
And the loud bittern, from the bull-rush home,
Gave from the salt-ditch-side the bellowing boom:
He nursed the feelings these dull scenes produce
And loved to stop beside the opening sluice;
Where the small stream, confined in narrow bound,
Ran with a dull, unvaried, saddening sound;
Where all, presented to the eye or ear,
Oppressed the soul with misery, grief, and fear."
This is an exact fac-simile of some of the most unlovely parts of the creation. Indeed the whole of Mr.
Crabbe's Borough, from which the above passage is
taken, is done so to the life, that it seems almost like
some sea-monster, crawled out of the neighbouring
slime, and harbouring a breed of strange vermin, with a
strong local scent of tar and bulge-water.
Mr. Crabbe's Tales are more readable than his Poems;




Mr. Campbell and Mr. Orabbe.        315
but in proportion as the interest increases, they become
more oppressive. They turn, one and all, upon the same
sort of teazing, helpless, mechanical, unimaginative distress; and though it is not easy to lay them down, you
never wish to take them up again Still in this way they
are highly finished, striking, and original portraits, worked
out with an eye to nature, and an intimate knowledge of
the small and intricate folds of the human heart. Some
of the best are the Confidant, the story of Silly Shore,
the Young Poet, the Painter. The episode of Phoebe
Dawson, in the Village, is one of the most tender and
pensive; and the character of the methodist parson who
persecutes the sailor's widow with his godly, selfish love
is one of the most profound. In a word, if Mr. Crabbe's
writings do not add greatly to the store of entertaining
and delightful fiction, yet they will remain, " as a thorn
in the side of poetry," perhaps for a century to come!




IL




MR. T. MOORE.-MR. L. HUNT.




0




MR. T. MOORE. MR. LEIGH HUNT.


" Or winglet of the fairy humming-bird,
Like atoms of the rainbow fluttering round."
CAMPBELL.
T   HE lines placed at the head of this sketch, from a
contemporary writer, appear to us very descriptive
of Mr. Moore's poetry. His verse is like a shower of
beauty, a dance of images, a stream of music, or like
the spray of the water-fall, tinged by the morning-beam
with rosy light. The characteristic distinction of our
author's style is this continuous and incessant flow of
voluptuous thoughts and shining allusions. He ought
to write with a crystal pen on silver paper. His subject is set off by a dazzling veil of poetic diction, like a
wreath of flowers gemmed with innumerous dew-drops,
that weep, tremble and glitter in liquid softness and
pearly light, while the song of birds ravishes the ear,
and languid odours breathe around; and Aurora opens
Heaven's smiling portals, Peris and nymphs peep
through the golden glades, and an Angel's wing glances
over the glossy scene.
" No dainty flower or herb that grows on ground,
No arboret with painted blossoms drest,
And smelling sweet, but there it might be found
To bud out fair, and its sweet smells throw all around.




320


The Spirit of the Age.


No tree, whose branches did not bravely spring;
No branch, whereon a fine bird did not sit;
No bird, but did her shrill notes sweetly sing;
No song, but did contain a lovely dit:
Trees, branches, birds, and songs were framed fit
For to allure frail minds to careless ease."...
Mr. Campbell's imagination is fastidious and select;
and hence, though we meet with more exquisite beauties
in his writings, we meet with them more rarely: there
is comparatively a dearth of ornament. But Mr. Moore's
strictest economy is " wasteful and superfluous excess: "
he is always liberal and never at a loss; for sooner than
not stimulate and delight the reader, he is willing to be
tawdry, or superficial, or common-place. His Muse must
be fine at any rate, though she should paint, and wear
cast-off decorations. Rather than have any lack of excitement, he repeats himself; and "Eden, and Eblis,
and cherub-smiles" fill up the pauses of the sentiment
with a sickly monotony. It has been too much our
author's object to pander to the artificial taste of the
age; and his productions, however brilliant and agreeable, are in consequence somewhat meretricious and
effeminate. It was thought formerly enough to have an
occasionally fine passage in the progress of a story or a
poem, and an occasionally striking image or expression
in a fine passage or description. But this style, it seems,
was to be exploded as rude, Gothic, meagre and dry.
Now all must be raised to the same tantalising and preposterous level. There must be no pause, no interval,
no repose, no gradation. Simplicity and truth yield up
the palm to affectation and grimace. The craving of
the public mind after novelty and effect is a false and
uneasy appetite that must be pampered with fine words
at every step: we must be tickled with sound, startled
with show, and relieved by the importunate, uninter



Mr. Moore.-Mr. Leigh Hunt.


321


rupted display of fancy and verbal tinsel as much as
possible from the fatigue of thought or shock of feeling.
A poem is to resemble an exhibition of fireworks,
with a continual explosion of quaint figures and devices,
flash after flash, that surprise for the moment, and leave
no trace of light or warmth behind them. Or modern
poetry in its retrograde progress comes at last to be constructed on the principles of the modern OPERA, where
an attempt is made to gratify every sense at every
instant, and where the understanding alone is insulted
and the heart mocked. It is in this view only that we
can discover that Mr. Moore's poetry is vitiated or immoral: it seduces the taste and enervates the imagination. It creates a false standard of reference, and inverts or decompounds the natural order of association, in
which objects strike the thoughts and feelings. His is
the poetry of the bath, of the toilette, of the saloon, of
the fashionable world: not the poetry of nature, of the
heart, or of human life. He stunts and enfeebles equally
the growth of the imagination and the affections by not
taking the seed of poetry and sowing it in the ground
of truth, and letting it expand in the dew and rain, and
shoot up to heaven,
" And spread its sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate its beauty to the sun,"instead of which he anticipates and defeats his own object by plucking flowers and blossoms from the stem,
and setting them in the ground of idleness and folly,
or in a cap of his own vanity, where they soon wither
and disappear, "dying or ere they sicken! "  This is
but a sort of child's play, a short-sighted ambition. In
Milton we meet with many prosaic lines, either because
the subject does not require raising, or because they are
necessary to connect the story, or serve as a relief to
Y




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The Spirit of the Age.


other passages. There is no such thing to be found in
all Mr. Moore's writings.
His volumes present us with "a perpetual feast of
nectar'd sweets;" but we cannot add, " where no crude
surfeit reigns." He indeed cloys with sweetness; he
obscures with splendour; he fatigues with gaiety. We
are stifled on beds of roses. We literally lie "on the
rack of restless ecstacy."  His flowery fancy "looks so
fair and smells so sweet, that the sense aches at it." His
verse droops and languishes under a load of beauty, like
a lough laden with fruit. His gorgeous style is like
" another morn risen on mid-noon."  There is no passage that is not made up of blushing lines, no line that
is not enriched with a sparkling metaphor, no image
that is left unadorned with a double epithet. All his
verbs, nouns, adjectives, are equally glossy, smooth and
beautiful. Every stanza is transparent with light, perfumed with odours, floating with liquid harmony, melting in luxurious, evanescent delights. His Muse is
never contented with an offering from one sense alone,
but brings another rifled charm to match it, and revels
in a fairy round of pleasure. The interest is not dramatic, but melo-dramatic: it is a mixture of painting,
poetry, and music, of the natural and preternatural, of
obvious sentiment and romantic costume. A rose is a
Gut, a nightingale a Bulbul. #We might fancy ourselves
in an eastern harem, amidst ottomans and otto of roses,
and veils and spangles, and marble pillars, and cool
fountains, and Arab maids and Genii, and magicians,
and Peris, and cherubs and what not?
Mr. Moore has a little mistaken the art of poetry for
the cosmetic art. He does not compose an historic group
or work out a single figure, but throws a variety of elementary sensations, of vivid impressions, together, and
calls it a description. He makes out an inventory of




Mr. Moore.-Mr. Leigh Hunt.


323


beauty: the smile on the lips, the dimple on the cheeks,
item, golden locks, item, a pair of blue wings, item, a
silver sound, with breathing fragrance and radiant light,
and thinks it a character or a story.   He gets together
a number of fine things and fine names, and thinks that,
flung on heaps, they make up a fine poem.     This dissipated, fulsome, painted, patch-work style may succeed
in the levity and languor of the boudoir, or might have
been adapted to the Pavilions of royalty; but it is not the
style of Parnassus, nor a passport to Immortality. It is
not the taste of the ancients, "'tis not classical lore,"
nor the fashion of Tibullus or Theocritus, or Anacreon,
or Virgil, or Ariosto, or Pope, or Byron, or any great
writer among the living or the dead; but it is the style
of our English Anacreon, and it is (or was) the fashion
of the day!
Let one example (and that an admired one) taken
from  Lalla Rookh, suffice to explain the mystery, and
soften the harshness of the foregoing criticism.
" Now, upon Syria's land of roses
Softly the light of eve reposes,
And, like a glory, the broad sun
Hangs over sainted Lebanon;
Whose head in wintry grandeur towers,
And whitens with eternal sleet,
While summer, in a vale of flowers,
Is sleeping rosy at his feet.
To one who look'd from upper air
O'er all the' enchanted regions there,
How beauteous must have been the glow,
The life, the sparkling from below!
Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sunlight falls;Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
Of ruin'd shrines, busy and bright
As they were all alive with light;



324


The Spirit of the Age.


And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich restless wings, that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam
Of the warm west,-as if inlaid
With brilliants from the mine, or made
Of tearless rainbows, such as span
Th' unclouded skies of Peristan!
And then, the mingling sounds that come,
Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum
Of the wild bees of Palestine,
Banquetting through the flowery vales;And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine,
And woods so full of nightingales!"
The following lines are the very perfection of Della
Cruscan sentiment and affected orientalism of style.
The Peri exclaims on finding that old talisman         and
hackneyed poetical machine, " a penitent tear "' Joy, joy for ever! my task is doneThe gates are pass'd, and Heaven is won!
Oh! am I not happy? I am, I amTo thee, sweet Eden! how dark and sad
Are the diamond turrets of Shadukiam,
And the fragrant bowers of Amberabad!"
There is in all this a play of fancy, a glitter of words, a
shallowness of thought and a want of truth and solidity,
that is wonderful, and that nothing but the heedless,
rapid glide of the verse could render tolerable. It seems
that the poet, as well as the lover,
"May bestride the Gossamer,
That wantons in the idle, summer air,
And yet not fall, so light is vanity!"
Mr. Moore ought not to contend with serious difficulties or with entire subjects. He can write verses, not a




Mr. Moore.-Mr. Leigh Hunt.            825
poem. There is no principle of massing or of continuity
in his productions, neither height nor breadth nor depth
of capacity. There is no truth of representation, no
strong internal feeling, but a continual flutter and display of affected airs and graces, like a finished coquette,
who hides the want of symmetry by extravagance of
dress and the want of passion by flippant forwardness
and unmeaning sentimentality.
All is flimsy, all is florid to excess. His imagination
may dally with insect beauties, with Rosicrucian spells:
may describe a butterfly's wing, a flower-pot, a fan; but
it should not attempt to span the great outlines of nature, or keep pace with the sounding march of events,
or grapple with the strong fibres of the human heart.
The great becomes turgid in his hands, the pathetic
insipid. If Mr. Moore were to describe the heights of
Chimboraco, instead of the loneliness, the vastness and
the shadowy might, he would only think of adorning it
with roseate tints, like a strawberry-ice, and would transform a magician's fortress in the Himalaya (stripped of
its mysterious gloom and frowning horrors) into a
jeweller's toy, to be set upon a lady's toilette. In proof
of this, see above "the diamond turrets of Shadukiam,"
&c. The description of Mokanna in the fight, though it
has spirit and grandeur of effect, has still a great alloy
of the mock-heroic in it. The route of blood and death,
which is otherwise well-marked, is infested with a swarm
of " fire-fly " fancies.
"In vain Mokanna, 'midst the general flight,
Stands, like the red moon, in some stormy night,
Among the fugitive clouds, that hurrying by,
Leave only her unshaken in the sky."
This simile is fine, and would have been perfect, but
that the moon is not red, and that she seems to hurry
by the clouds, not they by her.




326


The Spirit of the Age.


The description of the warrior's youthful adversary,
-" Whose coming seems
A light, a glory, such as breaks in dreams-"
is fantastic and enervated: a field of battle has nothing
to do with dreams. And again, the two lines immediately after,
"And every sword, true as o'er billows dim
The needle tracks the load-star, following him "are a mere piece of enigmatical ingenuity and scientific
vm imminee-pimminee.
We cannot except the Irish Melodies from the same
censure. If these national airs do indeed express the
soul of impassioned feeling in his countrymen, the case
of Ireland is hopeless. If these prettinesses pass for
patriotism, if a country can heave from its heart's core
only these vapid, varnished sentiments, lip-deep, and let
its tears of blood evaporate in an empty conceit, let it
be governed as it has been. There are here no tones to
waken Liberty, to console Humanity.    Mr. Moore converts the wild harp of Erin into a musical snuff-box! 1
We do except from this censure the author's political
squibs and the " Twopenny Post-bag." These are essences, are "nests of spicery," bitter and sweet, honey
and gall together. No one can so well describe the set
speech of a dull formalist2 or the flowing locks of a
Dowager,
"In the manner of Ackermann's dresses for May."
Compare his songs with Burns's.
2 <C There was a little man, and he had a little soul,
And he said, Little soul, let us try," &c.
Parody on
" There was a little man, and he had a little gun."One should think this exquisite ridicule of a pedantic effusion
might have silenced for ever the automaton that delivered it: but the




Mr. Moore.-Mr. Leigh Hunt.


327


His light, agreeable, polished style pierces through
the body of the court, hits off the faded graces of "an
Adonis of fifty," weighs the vanity of fashion in tremulous scales, mimics the grimace of affectation and folly,
shows up the littleness of the great, and spears a phalanx of statesmen with its glittering point as with a
diamond brooch.
"In choosing songs the Regent named,
' Had I a heart for falsehood fram'd:'
While gentle Hertford begg'd and pray'd
For 'Young I am, and sore afraid."
Nothing in Pope or Prior ever surpassed the delicate insinuation and adroit satire of these lines and, hundreds
more of our author's composition. We wish he would
not take pains to make us think of them with less pleasure than formerly.   The "Fudge Family" is in the
same spirit, but with a little falling-off. There is too
great a mixture of undisguised Jacobinism and fashionable slang. The " divine Fanny Bias " and " the mountains a la Russe " figure in somewhat quaintly with
Buonaparte and the Bourbons. The poet also launches
the lightning of political indignation; but it rather plays
round and illumines his own pen than reaches the
devoted heads at which it is aimed!
Mr. Moore is in private life an amiable and estimable
man. The embellished and voluptuous style of his
poetry, his unpretending origin and his mignon figure,
soon introduced him to the notice of the great; and his
gaiety, his wit, his good-humour, and many agreeable
accomplishments fixed him there, the darling of his
official.personage in question at the close of the Session addressed an
extra-official congratulation to the Prince Regent on a bill that had
not passed, as if to repeat and insist upon our errors were to justify
them.




328


The Spirit of the Age.


friends and the idol of fashion. If he is no longer familiar with Royalty as with his garter, the fault is not
his; his adherence to his principles caused the separation; his love of his country was the cloud that intercepted the sunshine of court-favour. This is so far well.
Mr. Moore vindicates his own dignity; but the sense of
intrinsic worth, of wide-spread fame, and of the intimacy of the great makes him perhaps a little too fastidious and exigeant as to the pretensions of others. He
has been so long accustomed to the society of Whig
Lords, and so enchanted with the smile of beauty and
fashion, that he really fancies himself one of the set to
which he is admitted on sufferance, and tries very unnecessarily to keep others out of it. He talks familiarly
of works that are or are not read " in our circle," and,
seated smiling and at his ease in a coronet-coach, enlivening the owner by his brisk sallies and Attic conceits, is shocked, as he passes, to see a Peer of the realm
shake hands with a poet.
There is a little indulgence of spleen and envy, a little
servility and pandering to aristocratic pride in this proceeding. Is Mr. Moore bound to advise a Noble Poet to
get as fast as possible out of a certain publication,1 lest
he should not be able to give an account at Holland or
at Lansdown House, how his friend Lord Byron had
associated himself with his friend Leigh Hunt? Is he
afraid that the " Spirit of Monarchy "2 will eclipse the
" Fables for the Holy Alliance " in virulence and plainspeaking? Or are the members of the "Fudge Family"
to secure a monopoly for the abuse of the Bourbons and
the doctrine of Divine Right? Because he is genteel
and sarcastic, may not others be paradoxical and argumentative?  Or must no one bark at a Minister or
' The Liberal.-ED.
2 A paper contributed by Hazlitt to the Liberal. —ED.




Mr. Moore.-Mr. Leigh Hunt.


329


General, unless they have been first dandled, like a little
French pug-dog, in the lap of a lady of quality? Does
Mr. Moore insist on the double claim of birth and genius
as a title to respectability in all advocates of the popular
side-but himself? Or is he anxious to keep the pretensions of his patrician and plebeian friends quite
separate, so as to be himself the only point of union, a
sort of double meaning, between the two? It is idle to
think of setting bounds to the weakness and illusions of
self-love as long as it is confined to a man's own breast;
but it ought not to be made a plea for holding back the
powerful hand that is stretched out to save another
struggling with the tide of popular prejudice, who has
suffered shipwreck of health, fame and fortune in a
common cause, and who has deserved the aid and the
good wishes of all who are (on principle) embarked in
the same cause by equal zeal and honesty, if not by equal
talents, to support and to adorn it!
We shall conclude the present article with a short
notice of an individual who, in the cast of his mind and
in political principle, bears no very remote resemblance
to the patriot and wit just spoken of, and on whose
merits we should descant at greater length, but that
personal intimacy might be supposed to render us partial.
It is well when personal intimacy produces this effect;
and when the light, that dazzled us at a distance, does
not on a closer inspection turn out an opaque substance.
This is a charge that none of his friends will bring
against Mr. Leigh Hunt. He improves upon acquaintance. The author translates admirably into the man.
Indeed, the very faults of his style are virtues in the
individual. His natural gaiety and sprightliness of
manner, his high animal spirits, and the vinous quality
of his mind, produce an immediate fascination and intoxication in those who come in contact with him, and




330


The Spirit of the Age.


carry off in society whatever in his writings may to some
seem flat and impertinent. From great sanguineness of
temper, from great quickness and unsuspecting simplicity, he runs on to the public as he does at his own
fire-side, and talks about himself, forgetting that he is
not always among friends. His look, his tone are required
to point many things that he says: his frank, cordial
manner reconciles you instantly to a little over-bearing,
over-weening self-complacency. "To be admired, he
needs but to be seen:" but perhaps he ought to be seen to
be fully appreciated. No one ever sought his society who
did not come away with a more favourable opinion of
him: no one was ever disappointed, except those who had
entertained idle prejudices against him. He sometimes
trifles with his readers, or tires of a subject (from not
being urged on by the stimulus of immediate sympathy);
but in conversation he is all life and animation, combining the vivacity of the school-boy with the resources
of the wit and the taste of the scholar. The personal character, the spontaneous impulses, do not appear to excuse
the author, unless you are acquainted with his situation
and habits: like some great beauty who gives herself
what we think strange airs and graces under a mask,
but who is instantly forgiven when she shews her face.
We have said that Lord Byron is a sublime coxcomb:
why should we not say that Mr. Hunt is a delightful
one? There is certainly an exuberance of satisfaction
in his manner which is more than the strict logical premises warrant, and which dull and phlegmatic constitutions know nothing of, and cannot understand till they
see it. He is the only poet or literary man we ever
knew, who puts us in mind of Sir John Suckling or
Killigrew, or Carew; or who united rare intellectual
acquirements with outward grace and natural gentility.
Mlr. Hunt ought to have been a gentleman born, and to
have patronised men of letters. He might then have




Mr. Moore.-Mr. Leigh Hunt.


331


played, and sung, and laughed, and talked his life away;
have written manly prose, elegant verse: and his Story
of Rimini would have been praised by Mr. Blackwood.
As it is, there is no man now living who at the same
time writes prose and verse so well, with the exception
of Mr. Southey (an exception, we fear, that will be little
palatable to either of these gentlemen).  His prose
kwritings, however, display more consistency of principle
than the Laureate's, his verses more taste. We will venture to oppose his Third Canto of the Story of Rimini
for classic elegance and natural feeling to any equal
number of lines from Mr. Southey's Epics or from Mr.
Moore's Lalla Rookh. In a more gay and conversational
style of writing, we think his Epistle to Lord Byron' on
his going abroad is a masterpiece; and the Feast of the
Poets has run through several editions. A light, familiar
grace, and mild unpretending pathos, are the characteristics of his more sportive or serious writings, whether
in poetry or prose. A smile plays round the sparkling
features of the one; a tear is ready to start from the
thoughtful gaze of the other. He perhaps takes too little
pains, and indulges in too much wayward caprice in both.
A wit and a poet, Mr. Hunt is also distinguished by
fineness of tact and sterling sense: he has only been a
visionary in humanity, the fool of virtue. What then
is the drawback to so many shining qualities, that has
made them useless, or even hurtful to their owner? His
crime is, to have been Editor of the Examiner ten years
ago, when some allusion was made in it to the age of the
present king,2 and though his Majesty has grown older,
our luckless politician is no wiser than he was then!
1 First printed, I believe, in Foliage, 1818, p. lxix. et seq. Hazlitt
selected it as a favourable example of Leigh Hunt's poetry in the
New Elegant Extracts, 1824.-ED.
2 The well-known reference to the Prince Regent as an Adonis of
fifty. See p. 327, saprd.-E).




k




ELIA AND GEOFFREY CRAYON.




a




ELIA, AND GEOFFREY CRAYON.


SO Mr. Charles Lamb and Mr. Washington Irving
choose to designate themselves; and as their lucubrations under one or other of these noms de guerre have
gained considerable notice from the public, we shall
here attempt to discriminate their several styles and
manner, and to point out the beauties and defects of each
in treating of somewhat similar subjects.
Mr. Irving is, we take it, the more popular writer of
the two, or a more general favourite: Mr. Lamb has
more devoted and perhaps more judicious partisans.
Mr. Irving is by birth an American, and has, as it were,
skimmed the crea/m, and taken off patterns with great
skill and cleverness, from our best-known and happiest
writers, so that their thoughts and almost their reputation are indirectly transferred to his page, and smile
upon us from another hemisphere, like "the pale reflex
of Cynthia's brow." He succeeds to our admiration and
our sympathy by a sort of prescriptive title and traditional privilege. Mr. Lamb, on the contrary, being
"native to the manner here," though he too has borrowed from previous sources, instead of availing himself of the most popular and admired, has groped out




336


The Spirit of the Age.


his way, and made his most successful researches among
the more obscure and intricate, though certainly not the
least pithy or pleasant of our writers. Mr. Washington
Irving has culled and transplanted the flowers of modern
literature for the amusement of the general reader:  Ir.
Lamb has raked among the dust and cobwebs of a more
remote period, has exhibited specimens of curious relics.
and pored over moth-eaten, decayed manuscripts1 for
the benefit of the more inquisitive and discerning part
of the public. Antiquity after a time has the grace
of novelty, as old fashions revived are mistaken for new
ones; and a certain quaintness and singularity of style
is an agreeable relief to the smooth and insipid monotony
of modern composition.
Mr. Lamb has succeeded, not by conforming to the
Spirit of the Age, but in opposition to it. He does not
march boldly along with the crowd, but steals off the
pavement to pick his way in the contrary direction. He
prefers bye-ways to highways.  When the full tide of
human life pours along to some festive show, to some
pageant of a day, Elia would stand on one side to look
over an old book-stall, or stroll down some deserted
pathway in search of a pensive description over a tottering doorway, or some quaint device in architecture,
illustrative of embryo art and ancient manners. Mr.
Lamb has the very soul of an antiquarian, as this implies a reflecting humanity; the film of the past hovers
forever before him. He is shy, sensitive, the reverse of
every thing coarse, vulgar, obtrusive, and commono-place.
He would fain " shuffle off this mortal coil;" and his
1 The author of these remarks was not an antiquary himself, or
he would have known that Lamb did nothing of the kind. The
utmost that he achieved in that way was his extracts from the
Garrick Plays and occasional excerpta from old printed books in his
own collection.-ED.




Elia.-Geoffrey Crayon.


337


spirit clothes itself in the garb of elder time, homelier,
but more durable. He is borne along with no pompous
paradoxes, shines in no glittering tinsel of a fashionable
phraseology, is neither fop nor sophist. He has none of
the turbulence or froth of new-fangled opinions. His
style runs pure and clear, though it may often take
an  underground course, or be conveyed through oldfashioned conduit-pipes. Mr. Lamb does not court
popularity, nor strut in gaudy plumes, but shrinks from
every kind of ostentatious and obvious pretension into
the retirement of his own mind.
" The self-applauding bird, the peacock see:Mark what a sumptuous pharisee is he!
Meridian sun-beams tempt him to unfold
His radiant glories, azure, green, and gold:
He treads as if, some solemn music near,
His measured step were governed by his ear:
And seems to say-' Ye meaner fowl, give place,
I am all splendour, dignity, and grace!'
Not so the pheasant on his charms presumes,
Though he too has a glory in his plumes.
He, Christian-like, retreats with modest mien
To the close copse or far sequestered green,
And shines without desiring to be seen."
These lines well describe the modest and delicate
beauties of Mr. Lamb's writings, contrasted with the
lofty and vain-glorious pretensions of some of his contemporaries. This gentleman is not one of those who
pay all their homage to the prevailing idol: he thinks
that
"New-born gauds are made and moulded of things past,"
nor does he
"Give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted."
z




338


The Spirit of the Age.


His convictions "do not in broad rumour lie," nor are
they "set off to the world in the glistering foil" of
fashion, but " live and breathe aloft in those pure eyes,
and perfect judgment of all-seeing time."
Mr. Lamb rather affects and is tenacious of the obscure and remote, of that which rests on its own intrinsic and silent merit; which scorns all alliance or
even the suspicion of owing any thing to noisy clamour,
to the glare of circumstances. There is a fine tone of
chiaro-scuro, a moral perspective in his writings. He
delights to dwell on that which is fresh to the eye of
memory; he yearns after and covets what soothes the
frailty of human nature. That touches him most nearly
which is withdrawn to a certain distance, which verges
on the borders of oblivion: that piques and provokes
his fancy most, which is hid from a superficial glance.
That which, though gone by, is still remembered, is in
his view more genuine, and has given more " vital signs
that it will live," than a thing of yesterday, that may
be forgotten to-morrow. Death has in this sense the
spirit of life in it; and the shadowy has to our author
something substantial in it. Ideas savour most of
reality in his mind; or rather his imagination loiters
on the edge of each, and a page of his writings recals
to our fancy the stranger on the grate, fluttering in its
dusky tenuity, with its idle superstition and hospitable
welcome!
Mr. Lamb has a distaste to new faces, to new books,
to new buildings, to new customs. He is shy of all ~
imposing appearances, of all assumptions of self-importance, of all adventitious ornaments, of all mechanical advantages, even to a nervous excess. It is not
merely that he does not rely upon, or ordinarily avail
himself of them; he holds them in abhorrence; he utterly abjures and discards them, and places a great




Elia.-Geoffrey Crayon.


339


gulph between him  and them. He disdains all the
vulgar artifices of authorship, all the cant of criticism
and helps to notoriety. He has no grand swelling
theories to attract the visionary and the enthusiast, no
passing topics to allure the thoughtless and the vain.
He evades the present; he mocks the future. His
affections revert to, and settle on the past; but then even
this must have something personal and local in it to
interest him deeply and thoroughly. He pitches his
tent in the suburbs of existing manners, brings down
the account of character to the few straggling remains
of the last generation, seldom ventures beyond the bills
of mortality, and occupies that nice point between
egotism and disinterested humanity. No one makes the
tour of our southern metropolis, or describes the manners of the last age, so well as Mr. Lamb: with so fine
and yet so formal an air: with such vivid obscurity:
with such arch piquancy, such picturesque quaintness,
such smiling pathos.
How admirably he has sketched the former inmates
of the South-Sea House; what " fine fretwork he makes
of their double and single entries! " With what a firm,
yet subtle pencil he has embodied Mrs. Battle's Opinions
on Whist! How notably he embalms a battered beau;
how delightfully an amour, that was cold forty years
ago, revives in his pages! With what well-disguised
humour he introduces us to his relations, and how freely
he serves up his friends! Certainly, some of his portraits arefixtures, and will do to hang up as lasting and
lively emblems of human infirmity. Then there is no
one who has so sure an ear for "the chimes at midnight," not even excepting Mr. Justice Shallow; nor
could Master Silence himself take his "cheese and
pippins" with a more significant and satisfactory air.
With what a gusto Mr. Lamb describes the Inns and




340


The Spirit of the Age.


Courts of law, the Temple and Gray's-Inn, as if he had
been a student there for the last two hundred years, and
had been as well acquainted with the person of Sir
Francis Bacon as he is with his portrait or writings!
It is hard to say whether St. John's Gate is connected
with more intense and authentic associations in his
mind, as a part of old London Wall, or as the frontispiece (time out of mind) of the Gentleman's Magazine.
He haunts Watling-street like a gentle spirit; the avenues to the play-houses are thick with panting recollections; and Christ's-Hospital still breathes the balmy
breath of infancy in his description of it! Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination for Mr. Lamb's
historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily forgave
a certain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out
of his hands.l The streets of London are his fairy-land,
teeming with wonder, with life and interest to his retrospective glance, as it did to the eager eye of childhood; he has contrived to weave its tritest traditions
into a bright and endless romance!
Mr. Lamb's taste in books is also fine; and it is peculiar. It is not the worse for a little idiosyncrasy. He
does not go deep into the Scotch Novels; but he is at
home in Smollett or Fielding. He is little read in
Junius or Gibbon; but no man can give a better account of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, or Sir Thomas
Brown's Urn - Burial, or Fuller's Worthies, or John
Bunyan's Holy War. No one is more unimpressible to
a specious declamation; no one relishes a recondite
beauty more. His admiration of Shakespear and Milton
does not make him despise Pope; and he can read
Hazlitt, to wit, who contributed to the Examiner in 1821 A Defence of Guy Faux. Lamb's paper in the London Magazine on the
same subject did not appear till 1823. See Mevmoirs of Hazlitt, 1867,
316.-ED.




Elia.-Geoffrey Crayon.


341


Parnell with patience and Gay with delight. His taste
in French and German literature is somewhat defective;
nor has he made much progress in the science of Political Economy or other abstruse studies, though he has
read vast folios of controversial divinity, merely for the
sake of the intricacy of style, and to save himself the
pain of thinking.
Mr. Lamb is a good judge of prints and pictures.
His admiration of Hogarth does credit to both, particularly when it is considered that Leonardo da Vinci is
his next greatest favourite, and that his love of the actual
does not proceed from a want of taste for the ideal. His
worst fault is an over-eagerness of enthusiasm, which
occasionally makes him take a surfeit of his highest
favourites. Mr. Lamb excels in familiar conversation
almost as much as in writing, when his modesty does
not overpower his self-possession. He is as little of a
proser as possible; but he blurts out the finest wit and
sense in the world. He keeps a good deal in the background at first, till some excellent conceit pushes him
forward, and then he abounds in whim and pleasantry.
There is a primitive simplicity and self-denial about his
manners and a Quakerism in his personal appearance,
which is, however, relieved by a fine Titian 1 head, full of
dumb eloquence!
Mr. Lamb is a general favourite with those who know
him. His character is equally singular and amiable.
He is endeared to his friends not less by his foibles than
his virtues; he insures their esteem by the one, and does
not wound their self-love by the other. He gains ground
in the opinion of others by making no advances in his
own. We easily admire genius where the diffidence of
the possessor makes our acknowledgment of merit
t It was, perhaps, the notion of this Titian head, which led Hazlitt
to paint Lamb in the garb of a Venetian senator.-ED.




342


The Spirit of the Age.


seem like a sort of patronage or act of condescension,
as we willingly extend our good offices where they are
not exacted as obligations or repaid with sullen indifference.
The style of the Essays of Elia is liable to the charge
of a certain mannerism.  His sentences are cast in the
mould of old authors; his expressions are borrowed
from them; but his feelings and observations are
genuine and original, taken from actual life or from his
own breast; and he may be said (if any one can) "to
have coined his heart for jests," and to have split his
brain for fine distinctions! Mr. Lamb, from the peculiarity of his exterior and address as an author, would
probably never have made his way by detached and
independent efforts; but, fortunately for himself and
others, he has taken advantage of the Periodical Press,
where he has been stuck into notice; and the texture of
his compositions is assuredly fine enough to bear the
broadest glare of popularity that has hitherto shone
upon them. Mr. Lamb's literary efforts have procured
him civic honours (a thing unheard of in our times),
and he has been invited, in his character of ELIA, to dine
at a select party with the Lord Mayor. We should
prefer this distinction to that of being poet-laureat.
We would recommend to Mr. Waithman's perusal (if
Mr. Lamb has not anticipated us) the Rosamund Gray
and the John Woodvil of the same author, as an agreeable
relief to the noise of a City feast and the heat of City
elections.
A friend, a short time ago, quoted some lines from
the last-mentioned of these works, which meeting Mr.
The description of sports in the forest:
" To see the sun to bed and to arise,
Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes," &c.




Elia.-Geoffrey Crayon.


343


Godwin's eye, he was so struck with the beauty of the
passage and with a consciousness of having seen it
before, that he was uneasy till he could recollect where,
and after hunting in vain for it in Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and other not unlikely places, sent
to Mr. Lamb to know if he could help him to the
author!
Mr. Washington Irving's acquaintance with English
literature begins almost where Mr. Lamb's ends,-with
the Spectator, Tom  Brown's works and the wits of
Queen Anne. He is not bottomed in our elder writers,
nor do we think he has tasked his own faculties much,
at least on English ground. Of the merit of his Knickerbocker and New York stories we cannot pretend to judge.
But in his Sketch-book and Bracebridge-Hall he gives us
very good American copies of our British Essayists and
Novelists, which may be very well on the other side of
the water, or as proofs of the capabilities of the national
genius, but which might be dispensed with here, where
we have to boast of the originals. Not only Mr. Irving's
language is with great taste and felicity modelled on that
of Addison, Goldsmith, Sterne, or Mackenzie: but the
thoughts and sentiments are taken at the rebound, and,
as they are brought forward at the present period, want
both freshness and probability.
Mr. Irving's writings are literary anachronisms. He
comes to England for the first time, and being on the
spot, fancies himself in the midst of those characters
and manners which he had read of in the Spectator and
other approved authors, and which were the only idea
he had hitherto formed of the parent country. Instead
of looking round to see what we are, he sets to work to
describe us as we were-at second hand. He has Parson
Adams or Sir Roger de Coverley in his " mind's eye; "
and he makes a village curate or a country 'squire in




344


The Spirit of the Age.


Yorkshire or Hampshire sit to these admired models for
their portraits in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Whatever the ingenious author has been most delighted with in the representations of books he transfers to his port-folio, and swears that he has found it
actually existing in the course of his observation and
travels through Great Britain. Instead of tracing the
changes that have taken place in society since Addison
or Fielding wrote, he transcribes their account in a different hand-writing, and thus keeps us stationary, at
least in our most attractive and praise-worthy qualities
of simplicity, honesty, hospitality, modesty, and goodnature. This is a very flattering mode of turning fiction
into history or history into fiction; and we should
scarcely know ourselves again in the softened and altered
likeness, but that it bears the date of 1820, and issues
from the press in Albemarle-street.
This is one way of complimenting our national and
Tory prejudices, and, coupled with literal or exaggerated
portraits of Yankee peculiarities, could hardly fail to
please. The first Essay in the Sketch-book, that on
National Antipathies, is the best; but, after that, the
sterling ore of wit or feeling is gradually spun thinner
and thinner, till it fades to the shadow of a shade. Mr.
Irving is himself, we believe, a most agreeable and deserving man, and has been led into the natural and pardonable error we speak of by the tempting bait of European popularity, in which he thought there was no more
likely method of succeeding than by imitating the style
of our standard authors, and giving us credit for the
virtues of our forefathers.
We should not feel that we had discharged our obligations to truth or friendship, if we were to let this
volume go without introducing into it the name of the




Elia.-Geoffrey Crayon.


345


author of Virginius. This is the more proper, inasmuch as
he is a character by himself and the only poet now living
that is a mere poet. If we were asked what sort of a man
Mr. Knowles is, we could only say, "he is the writer of
Virginius."  His most intimate friends see nothing in
him by which they could trace the work to the author.
The seeds of dramatic genius are contained and fostered
in the warmth of the blood that flows in his veins; his
heart dictates to his head. The most unconscious, the
most unpretending, the most artless of mortals, he instinctively obeys the impulses of natural feeling, and
produces a perfect work of art. He has hardly read a
poem or a play, or seen any thing of the world; but
he hears the anxious beatings of his own heart, and
makes others feel them by the force of sympathy.
Ignorant alike of rules, regardless of models, he follows
the steps of truth and simplicity; and strength, proportion and delicacy are the infallible results. By thinking
of nothing but his subject, he rivets the attention of the
audience to it. All his dialogue tends to action; all his
situations form classic groups. There is no doubt that
Virginius is the best acting tragedy that has been produced on the modern stage. Mr. Knowles himself was
a player at one time, and this circumstance has probably
enabled him to judge of the picturesque and dramatic
effect of his lines, as we think it might have assisted
Shakespear.  There is no impertinent display, no
flaunting poetry; the writer immediately conceives how
a thought would tell if he had to speak it himself. Mr.
Knowles is the first tragic writer of the age; in other
respects he is a common man, and divides his time and
his affections between his plots and his fishing-tackle,
between the Muses' spring and those mountain-streams
which sparkle like his own eye, that gush out like his
own voice at the sight of an old friend. We have
A




346           The Spirit of the Age.
known him almost from a child, and we must say he
appears to us the same boy-poet that he ever was. He
has been cradled in song, and rocked in it as in a dream,
forgetful of himself and of the world!




FREE THOUGHTS
ON
PUBLIC    AFFAIRS
IN A LETTER ADDRESSED TO
A MEMBER OF THE OLD OPPOSITION.
(1806.)




[Of this pamphlet, printed at the author's own risk, and doubtless
the rarest of all his works, a sufficient account will be found in the
Memoirs of Hazlitt, 1867, i., 129. It has never hitherto been republished, but the character of Pitt was abstracted in the Eloquence of
the British Senate, 1807, and subsequently included in the little
volume entitled Winterslow, 12mo., 1850, which constitutes part of the
present collected Series. My copy of the original impression was the
Author's.-ED.]




ADVICE TO A PATRIOT;
IN
A LETTER
ADDRESSED
TO A MEMBER OF THE OLD OPPOSITION.
SIR,
IF the opposition of character between the individuals
of different nations is that which attaches every one
the most strongly to his own country; if the love of
liberty instilled from our very cradle is any security for
the hatred of oppression; if a spirit of independence,
and a constitutional stubbornness of temper are not forward to crouch under the yoke of unjust ambition; if to
look up with heart-felt admiration to the great names,
whether heroes or sages, which England has produced,
and to be unwilling that the country which gave birth
to Shakespear and Milton should ever be enslaved by a
mean and servile foe; if to love its glory-that virtue,
that integrity, that genius, which have distinguished it
from all others, and in which its true greatness consists,
-is to love one's country, there are few persons who have
a better right than myself (on the score of sincerity)
to offer that kind of advice which is the subject of the
following letter, however weak or defective it may be
found.




350


Advice to a Patriot.


To love one's country is to wish well to it; to prefer
its interests to our own; to oppose every measure inconsistent with its welfare; and to be ready to sacrifice
ease, health, and life itself in its defence. But there is
a false kind of patriotism, loud and noisy, and ever
ready to usurp that name from others, as an honourable
covering either for selfish designs or blind zeal, to which
I shall make no pretensions. It has been called patriotism, to flatter those in power at the expence of the
people; to sail with the stream; to make a popular prejudice the stalking-horse of ambition, to mislead first
and then betray; to enrich yourself out of the public
treasure; to strengthen your influence by pursuing such
measures as give to the richest members of the community an opportunity of becoming richer, and to laugh
at the waste of blood and the general misery which they
occasion; to defend every act of a party, and to treat
all those as enemies of their country who do not think
the pride of a minister and the avarice of a few of his
creatures of more consequence than the safety and happiness of a free, brave, industrious, and honest people;
to strike at the liberty of other countries, and through
them at your own; to change the maxims of a state, to
degrade its spirit, to insult its feelings, and tear from it
its well-earned and proudest distinctions; to soothe the
follies of the multitude, to lull them in their sleep, to
goad them on in their madness, and, under the terror of
imaginary evils, to cheat them of their best privileges;
to blow the blast of war for a livelihood in journals
and pamphlets, and by spreading abroad incessantly a
a spirit of defiance, animosity, suspicion, distrust, and
the most galling contempt, to make it impossible that
we should ever remain at peace or in safety, while insults
and general obloquy have a tendency to provoke those
passions in others which they are intended to excite.




Advice to a Patriot.


351


Being then of opinion, that to flatter is not always the
duty of a friend; that it is no part of the love of one's
country to be blind to her errors, or to wish her to persist
in them; I may take the liberty of stating freely such observations as have occurred to an unprejudiced but not
indifferent spectator on the present state of things: and
there is at least this advantage in reflections which are
not the echo of the popular cry, that something may be
found in them, however unsupported or frivolous in
general, which may be turned to good account by persons of sounder judgment and more extensive means of
information. It has been said that " there is wisdom in
a multitude of counsellors;" but if they only raise a
clamour by repeating all of them the same thing, I do
see how this advantage can be obtained.
What I would chiefly remark upon is,-How far the
principles and views acted upon by the late administrations are such as to afford us the safest and most
honourable ground for prosecuting a war which is said
to be carried on for the existence of the empire.
Had I to engage with an enemy in a struggle of this
kind, the ground which I should choose to occupy would
be such a one as that he must feel himself to be the
aggressor. In a conflict which is to decide the fate of a
people, I think the greatest care should be taken to
remove all doubtful or frivolous causes of debate,
to suffer no sinister motives to divert their minds
from the great object in which they are engaged or
lessen their steady confidence in the justice of their
cause. It is hardly to be expected that the mass
of a people should defend the patrimony of independence which they inherit from their ancestors with the
reverence, intrepidity, and dauntless zeal required of
them, when they see a minister ready to gamble it away
for the first idle object that excites his cupidity, or opens




352


Advice to a Patriot.


a door to the spirit of intrigue. Examining the conduct
of those who were the advisers and authors of the late
renewal of hostilities according to these maxims, which
seem to me well founded, it is not easy to imagine any
thing more remote from true dignity, magnanimity, or
wisdom, than the manner in which we choose to enter
upon a war on which we were to stake our all. We
chose to rest a dispute, which was to involve every
thing near and dear to us, on a diplomatic'ambiguity;
on a technical question, as to the manner how and to
whom we were to give up a barren rock which was of
no use to us, and to which we had resigned all pretensions. It was clear that we had refused to fulfil our
share of a treaty which had been formally ratified; but
the reasons which we gave for doing this were by no
means equally clear and satisfactory. They sounded
more like the excuses of those seeking a pretence for the
continuance of an unsuccessful contest, than the remonstrances of persons sincerely anxious for peace, and opposed by real difficulties. I remember at the time when
the design of retaining Malta was first made known,
every one's remark was,-Had we not agreed to give it
up? And as to the official reasons for this change of
measures, which were afterwards detailed to the public
with such pomp and circumstance, viz., that it was to
have been given up to the Order that formerly possessed it only on the supposition of that Order's remaining entire, though no such condition had been expressed,
and under the guarantee of another power whose consent had neither been asked or obtained, I believe that
no one who was not either indifferent to peace or desirous of war ever thought them of sufficient consequence
to justify us in exposing ourselves to unnecessary
reproach and odium, and plunging into a sea of unknown troubles. It is certain that by the generality of




Advice to a Patriot.


353


people they could neither be felt nor understood. On
this tottering fonudation did Mr. Addington think
proper to take his stand. Doubt, perplexity, evasion, a
general indifference as to the immediate object of the
dispute, and a direct accusation of breach of faith on the
part of the enemy were the auspices under which we
were to begin a war, which ought (from the tremendous
consequences attached to it) to have had no motives but
what came home to the bosoms and businesses of men;
to every manly, generous, and honest feeling; that
*might not have been uttered boldly without fear of contradiction in the face of an enemy; that must not have
beat in every heart, have strung every arm, and animated every tongue. If the situation of the country
was believed to be at all precarious; if there was even a
chance that the contest might really lead to the dreadful
alternative held out to us, the want either of cautious
prudence or of manly wisdom in ministers was at that
time inexcusable. It is no part of wisdom to hang the
fate of kingdoms in the balance with straws. It is no
part of courage to fight, to show that you are not afraid
of fighting. Calm steady courage does not distrust
itself; nor is it afraid that by giving up a trifling or
doubtful point, it may afterwards be bullied into dangerous compliances. Firmness and moderation seem to
me not only not incompatible with each other, but that
the one is a necessary consequence of the other. On the
other hand, meanness and pride are nearly allied together. In common life we should think that a readiness to seize the first occasion of quarrel shewed a man
to be either a bully or a coward; it would seem as if he
was afraid that by deferring his resentment he should
either want courage or opportunity for shewing it another
time. Yet the great excuse for our going into the war
was,-that by yielding any thing to the demands of the




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enemy, we should soon lose all power of resistance, and
crouch in abject submission at his feet. This was
not a proud confidence in ourselves, but a mean dread of
our own pusillanimity and want of firmness. It was to
suppose that we had no security for our firmness, but in
the heat of our passions and the infliction of mutual
injuries. But it may be said, that whatever was the
cause of the war, the consequences were the same. The
critical situation in which we stood, and the threats of
the enemy made it necessary for us to repel force by
force, to call forth every energy of which we were possessed, and to stand forth as one man in defence of the
country. But whatever this might prove as to the conduct of the people, it forms no justification of the conduct of ministers. It was not the danger of invasion
which produced the taking up arms, but the determination to take up arms which produced the fear of invasion. The threatened invasion was not the cause of
the war, but the consequence of it. This reasoning, as
applied to the commencement of the war is preposterous.
It is the same absurdity as to give yourself an infectious disease in order that you may call in the physician,
instead of calling in the physician because you are attacked by the disease. It is ridiculous, I say, to argue
that the war was necessary to repel the horrors and
ravages of invasion; when, if the war had not taken
place, no such evils would have been possible. It was
true, that so long as we determined to carry on the war,
it was necessary to guard ourselves against the consequences of war; but to suppose (which seemed to be generally the case with the good people of England in the
height of their panic) that to doubt for a moment of the
necessity of the war was the same thing as wishing that
the French might come here and put every one to the
sword (when one chief object of peace would be to pre



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vest all such wild alarms), implies such an intricate confusion of ideas as I am not able to unravel. At least I
can account for it only in one way; by supposing that
this reluctance to distinguish between the necessity of
our going to war, and the necessity of self-defence,
brought upon us by it, arose from a deep consciousness
in the human mind of the importance of the motives by
which we have been actuated to the success of our
undertakings, and a belief that he who lessens your confidence in the grounds of your proceeding, thereby unnerves your resolution, and lessens your safety. I know
that immediate danger, however incurred, produces the
same necessity for self defence; but it does not produce
the same temper of mind and motives for going through
it. It may also produce the same mechanical courage
at the moment; but perseverence, superiority to fear
or disaster, self-confidence, a cheerful determined submission to the greatest hardships and sufferings from
a sense that they were unavoidable, "the unconquerable will, and courage never to submit or yield, and
what else is not to be overcome;" all these are not
in the gift of fear, or folly, or ignorance, or hatred.
It is therefore of the highest consequence to ascertain the true grounds and motives of a war, such as
the present, and to know the spirit and sentiments by
which it was brought about, and to what part of our
character, whether to its strong or its weak side, whether
to our vices or our virtues, those motives were addressed
which called forth our ardour and readiness to engage
in it. It is not from loud boasting, from what we think
or say of ourselves, but from what we really are; not
from a pretended, but real love of justice, of independence, of honour, and of our country's welfare, that we
can expect the fruits of victory. If we find in those
who lead, no higher principle of action than a wish to
I




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serve their own interests, or gratify their own passions,
and in those who are led, only that zeal which arises
from the drunken uproar of an ale-house, the low credulity of ignorance, or the idle vanity of wearing a red
coat and shbuldering a firelock-I will not say that the
situation of the country is desperate indeed, but I think
it is not such as to afford the most solid grounds of confidence in our security against a spirit of unbounded
ambition; the insolence of almost unexampled success,
resentment for supposed injuries, and the most consummate military skill. " The still small voice is wanting."
It is not in the order of nature that an administration acting upon such principles as I have here described should feel, or be capable of inspiring into others,
either true patriotism, a sincere and manly spirit of
independence, or any particle of that high-souled
energy, which is necessary to contend with inordinate
ambition, armed with strength and cunning. That
administration is no more: I trust that its spirit has not
survived it!
It seems almost impertinent at present to turn back
to the diplomatic pedantry and legal quibbling by which
the retention of Malta was so gravely justified at the
time. After the repeated declarations that have been
made in parliament, and after having witnessed those
tragical events, to which, it seems, it was the necessary
prelude, there can be little doubt as to the real motives
of that measure. From these motives then we are to
form our opinion of the conduct of ministers. If it was
a wise and necessary measure to plunge Europe again
into the calamities of war, to bathe it once more in that
"fountain of blood," then and then only was our refusing to fulfil our engagements a wise and necessary determination; for the now avowed reason of our going to
war was, that we might not remain at peace! Here




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then was a war voluntarily undertaken for its own sake,
peace studiously shunned, and all the evils consequent
upon such a step incurred, for the sake of making one
more desperate effort to reduce the power of France and
humble it with the dust. We therefore entered upon
this wild Quixotic scheme at our own peril, and the responsibility of the war devolved upon us. We ought
therefore to have had strong grounds, either from a confidence in the result or from the justice of the principle,
for making such an attempt. But we have seen what
has been the result with respect to the other powers of
Europe, it remains to be seen how it will terminate with
respect to ourselves. As to the justice and generosity
of the design, I may perhaps speak of that hereafter.
I will not pretend to censure the general practice of
obtaining a war under false pretences, I leave it to the
politicians to settle the rules of honour among themselves:
but I cannot help thinking that in a war which is to try
the spirit of a people, they ought not to be tricked, or
bullied, or unnecessarily forced into it. With respect to
the suspension of the war in consequence of the treaty
of Amiens, it certainly had this good effect (on the supposition that it was absolutely necessary to go on with
the contest), that it gave those who had been enemies of
the old war, and had been afterwards disgusted by the
conduct of the French, but did not like to relinquish
their opinion while the original cause of dispute remained-it gave all persons of this class (of which there
were great numbers) an opportunity to quit the ranks
of discontent without exposing themselves to the charge
of inconsistency. As it was a new war, they thought
they had a fair right to have a new opinion about it;
and they exercised their freedom of election as eagerly
in approving the conduct of ministers in entering upon
the present war, as they had done in condemning their




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continuance of the former one. For myself, I confess I
have always looked upon the present war as a continuance of the last, carried on upon the same principles and
for the same purposes, only without any hopes of success,
and therefore infinitely more wanton and foolish. For
as, in the commencement of the last war, it was our intention to conquer France, in this we can only hope to
defend ourselves. Of the necessity of this defence there
can be but one opinion. But to confound this with the
necessity of the war itself, or to argue as if the discontinuance of the war would increase the dangers arising
from it, is an improvement in political logic, a luminous
arrangement of ideas, that must have crept in with the
benefits of the Union.
The first plea that was made use of to give a colouring of interest to the renewal of hostilities, before the
discovery of that profound train of policy, the explosion
of which has left Europe a heap of ruins, was, that after
the incautious surrender of Malta, it had been found to
be of much greater importance to Great Britain than
had been imagined at the time; and that it could not be
suffered to fall into the hands of the French, or even become subject to their influence, without endangering
one of the chief sources of the wealth and prosperity of
this country. It seems Malta was the enchanted island,
into which Buonaparte was to convey himself by stealth,
and thence passing easily into Egypt was, at another
vast stride, to come down souse upon our possessions in
India. With these resting-places, and the help of the
thousand-league boots which our imagination had lent
him, the political magician was to take but a hop, step
and a jump, from one hemisphere into the other. Or,
in the language of the day, Malta was the key to Egypt,
and Egypt was the key to our Eastern conquests. Both
the points assumed in this statement were directly




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359


denied, and their fallacy exposed at the time by one to
whose authority or reasonings on the subject I can add
nothing; but I may be permitted to make one general
remark with respect to this part of the subject, that if
the mere possibility of the loss of an object of national
aggrandisement is to be considered as a sufficient ground
of war, there never could be such a thing as peace among
mankind. If one party is to be kept in a state of perpetual alarm from a distant apprehension of losing the
superiority they possess in wealth, or luxury, or power,
and the other to be perpetually goaded on by the hope
of speculative plunder; if one party is determined to
forgo nothing, and the other to grasp at everything; if
future causes of contention are to be anticipated, and we
are to fight now to defend an object that may never
come into dispute hereafter; if we are not to wait till
we see and feel our danger, but to create it out of every
fantastic occasion; if our selfishness must be of that
refined calculating comprehensive kind as to overlook
no possibility of danger or advantage however remote
or uncertain, and at the same time so inflexibly disinterested as to think no sacrifices too great in pursuit of its
favourite object-it is easy to see that the world would
soon be dispeopled. It is well for mankind that our
passions naturally circumscribe themselves, and contain
their own antidote within them. The only excuse for our
narrow, selfish passions is their shortsightedness: were
it not for this, the jealousies of individuals and of nations
would never leave them a moment's interval of rest or
quiet. It is well that the headlong passions which make
us rush on our own destruction and that of others are
only excited by gross, palpable objects; and are therefore transient and limited in their operation. It is well
that those motives which owe nothing to reason in their
birth should not afterwards receive either nourishment




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and support from it. If in their present desultory state
they produce so many mischiefs, what would be the case
if they were to be organized into systems, and under the
direction of pure abstract reason? Any object that
provoked a momentary resentment or excited our jealousy might plunge us into a war that could only be
expiated by seas of blood. But in a war of mere interest or passion, it is surely allowable to sit down and
count the cost, and to strive to moderate our pride and
resentment instead of inflaming them. Virtue, truth,
and patriotism require nothing of us but an inviolable
resolution and integrity in the defence of those rights
which are the common privilege of humanity; the rest
is a calculation of prudence, not a stern command of
duty that admits neither of compromise or delay. To
defend at the point of the sword, and at the risk of every
thing valuable, our title to the possessions that are
neither necessary nor durable in their own nature, that
are never worth a hundred years' purchase, that may
crumble to pieces of their own accord, or slip out of our
hands in various ways before the end of the contest, and
which afterwards will be no more secure " against infection and the hand of war," against the insidious or desperate designs of the enemy, against the breath of accident or unforeseen decay than they were before-is
madness and folly. It is to defeat the intended favours
of Fortune, by paying for them beforehand a price much
greater than they can ever be worth. It is to squander
away the whole estate of our present happiness and comfort in purchasing security for that, for which no security
ever was or can be given-the continued smiles of fortune. We cannot without a presumption that will involve its own punishment think of placing beyond the
reach of chance or fate that which by its own nature and
the fluctuation of human affairs is liable to change.




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But this must be the case with all distant and maritime possessions: indeed all naval superiority is attended
with this necessary disadvantage; that, though actual
power, it is not self-dependent, or the source of its own
permanence. We cannot secure the possession of the
sea in the same manner by taking ships as we can the
possession of the land by taking fortresses and countries.
The longer a successful continental warfare is carried
on, the more able is the conqueror to carry it on: every
new conquest that he makes furnishes him with the
means of making more, and secures to him what-he has
already gained by striking at the heart of power, by disarming resistance, and by very liberally rewarding the
expence and trouble of keeping it-Whereas the advantages that are gained at sea are, like that element itself,
infinitely treacherous and uncertain. We may take
their ships; but this will not hinder them from building others. We cannot build forts or erect passes on
the seas, or dig them into trenches to keep out the
enemy. We cannot enter their country and cut down
their forests; we cannot enter their ports and destroy
their magazines;-all their means and sources of power
remain untouched. We cannot prevent their exertions,
though we may constantly render them abortive. Thus,
while at an enormous expence we maintain our actual
superiority, we make no advances to our object-which
is security; but are rather further from it. If we ever
make peace, which I suppose will happen sooner or later,
we shall find that we have not in any one respect lessened
the means or palsied the energies of our rivals; and
while we remain at war we are teaching them two very
dangerous things, resolution and skill. I conceive no
power can be long superior to the attacks of another,
unless where it has the means of crushing its resistance
in embryo. Naval dominion is in this respect what a
B B




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government would be that should give to insurgents a
free communication with each other, full liberty of
forming plans and of organizing themselves into regular
bodies of troops, and the privilege of never being attacked
till they themselves gave the signal for the onset. Military conquests are therefore in their nature to a certain
degree secure; because in maintaining them we have to
contend with those whom we have bound hand and foot,
from whom we have taken all effectual power of resistance; while in maintaining our naval superiority, we
strengthen our adversary by struggling with him, since
he has the full use of every limb and muscle, has every
inducement as well as opportunity to exert himself to
the utmost, and is in no danger of receiving any material
hurt; at least this must be the consequence where our
natural strength and advantages are at all equal. I
know nothing but some such reasoning as this on the
inefficacy of naval advantages, as a means of reducing
the enemy to terms of submission, that could form the
least excuse for the late ministers in their desperate
attempt to turn the course of the war from a channel in
which it was sure to be successful, into one in which
it was sure to be disastrous; to throw the game knowingly and wilfully into the enemy's hands, and ruin
us in our allies. They seemed to anticipate with fatal
apprehension the most splendid success that ever adorned
the annals of the British navy, and to be determined by
an inverted ambition to match it with a pattern, in their
own style, of equal horror, discomfiture, and dismay.
They seemed to conspire maliciously with fortune, in
depriving Englishmen of the pure, unalloyed triumph of
that day.-For the present, the errors of the cabinet
have entirely defeated whatever advantages we might
have derived from our naval success; and the effect of
our mistaken policy has been, that while we remain undisputed masters of the seas, and are grasping at the




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363


commerce of the world, we see the ports of Europe
about to be shut against us. War on the continent is
therefore hopeless; war at sea useless, or worse than
useless: for methinks there is neither policy nor wisdom
nor humanity " in resolving to set no limits to your hostility but with your existence," when you have to contend with a great and formidable foe; when you only
know that he is safe from your attacks; when you can
only distress him, when you gain no advantage yourself
in the mean time, and cannot possibly gain any that can
be put in competition with such an alternative; when
we consider that such a resolution (however heroically
it may be formed) cannot be always persisted in (for
the desire of peace is natural, and war revolting to the
human mind); that the longer it is adhered to, the
more mischievous it will become, and the more dangerous in its consequences afterwards, and will render the
diminution of that maritime preponderance, which we
have held with such a convulsive grasp, more and more
an object both of policy and revenge to other powers.
I have promised to say something of the justice of the
war in its principle, not as a war of defence but as a
war of interference; though I think the less is said on
this subject the better; it can only open "another Iliad
of woes." It must lead to a train of recollections that
can be of no use to us at present; or revive sentiments
and a spirit that should be recalled only (if it were possible) to be disclaimed. The less we retain of a spirit
of offence, and the sooner we forget ourselves in the character of aggressors, in however just a cause, the better
shall we be qualified for our present posture of defence:
for there is no ground of resistance so sure as a determined belief, for the time at least, that all aggression
must be wrong. I am far from thinking that the arbitrary conduct of a government, even where it does not
affect ourselves, is not a just ground of war, or that the




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conduct of the French government was not marked by
a spirit of violent and unjust ambition. Of course if
that spirit can be resisted with effect, there is no injustice, and there is a great deal of policy in doing it.
But before we can plead generous indignation and an
uncontrolable love of justice in excuse for our rashness
and imprudence, it must be clear that pride, revenge,
and the lust of dominion have had no share in producing this ardent concern for the rights and liberties of
mankind. It is not the nature or justice of the occasion,
but the use intended to be made of it; the principles
and views on which we act, and the character of those
with whom we are associated in a common cause, that
gives us a right to arrogate to ourselves the title of
assertors of the liberties of mankind. If, however, our
motives are not such as to be above all suspicion, it is
not enough that we are able to hide them from ourselves,
unless we can at the same time impose upon those who
have not the same interest in being deceived by the thin
disguise that covers them. Instead then of enquiring
into the abstract justice of the war (a sort of enquiry
now very nearly exploded, and which would be of little
use in guiding our practical conclusions), let us examine
in what manner our remonstrances would be likely to
be received by the government to whom they were addressed, and how far the common feelings of humanity
would compel them " to bow their crested pride " at the
feet of their accusers. Would they forget then that the
undue and dangerous influence in the affairs of Europe,
which was so loudly complained of, had been the consequence of the combined efforts of all Europe to accomplish their destruction, and was so far from being the
cause of the hostility of other states, that it was their
only security against it? That their unjust and tyrannical encroachments on the independence of the neigh



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365


bouring states had been made in defending their own
independence from the aggressions of which they were
made the instruments? They would say, that to think
of restoring the independence of those countries would
be putting into the hands of a mortal enemy, whom you
have just disarmed, the weapons with which he may
most surely effect your destruction; that whatever advantages they had gained had been bought with their
blood, shed for their country; that if there had been
any instance of unjust aggression, or inordinate ambition, it might at least be accounted for from that natural
jealousy of others, and that fierce impatience of control,
that must become habitual to those who had had every
kind of difficulty to encounter, and who had triumphed
over all opposition. The gigantic strength and towering greatness of France had arisen from her convulsive
struggles for existence, and in the cause of that liberty
which was denied her. They, who had insulted her
weakness and blasted her hopes, had no right to complain of her strength or her despair. Those who had
not been able to make their country free and happy,
would be instigated by a just revenge to make her great
and formidable to her enemies. They might say, " You
left us no choice between the highest point of glory, and
the most abject submission; we must either be conquerors or slaves. If you gained an advantage, you
pursued it; if you were defeated, you returned to the
charge; neither success nor misfortune inclined you to
listen to terms of accommodation: we saw that we
could never hope for peace, but either by giving to
France such an ascendancy as would overawe the rest
of Europe, or by throwing ourselves at last on the mercy
of our unrelenting foe. We had not forgotten the partition of Poland, the massacres of Ismael and Warsaw;
and'we could not satisfy ourselves but that those who




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had had the chief concern in these events, or had witnessed them without dismay, might have other objects
in view in entering France, besides the tranquillity of
the people, the restoration of order, or a disinterested
regard for the safety of thrones, and the independence
of Europe. We could not conceive that an implacable
enmity to France was a full atonement for all other
crimes, or a security for every virtue. Pursued, hunted
down, driven to madness, we turned upon our pursuers,
and trampled them under our feet; and in the career of
our fury, and the plenitude of our triumph, you charge us
with excesses, from which we ourselves were the greatest
sufferers; and with not having observed those rules of
justice and moderation, which reason required of us.
We were to have no indemnity, no security: we were
to give back every conquest, as soon as made; to fight
every battle over again; to rely solely on the faith or
generosity of our adversaries, as a pledge that no advantage would be taken of our confidence; or, if it
were ten times betrayed, we were not to complain, as
we had no right to advantages obtained by unjust violence, in a cause that exposed us to the enmity and detestation of the human race: we were to plead guilty to
our own condemnation; to set the seal on our own infamy, and to receive as a mark of favour and lenity,
whatever implied our admission into the common rank
and privileges of mankind; and, after endless sacrifices
and exertions, we were only to prepare for new struggles and insults, without ever hoping to end them. But
from whom were we to learn this extreme moderation,
or that respect for the rights of justice or the ties of
humanity, which could be no defence to us? Why
were we not to pursue the objects of our ambition, with
the same obstinacy as those with whom we had to contend pursued the objects of their revenge? It could




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367


hardly be expected that all the concessions were to be
made by those who were intoxicated with the pride of
victory, in favour of those who had reaped nothing but
disappointment, and who were only urged on by a sullen
despair. In this manner was the war protracted, year
after year, by open hostility, by civil dissentions, and
pretended treaties; lingered out under various pretexts,
which were artfully substituted for each other as occasion required, so as to make it impossible ever to arrive
at any decisive issue to the contest. When defeated, the
continuance of the war was necessary to their own defence and safety; when flushed with victory for a time,
then nothing less than full indemnity for the past, as
well as security for the future would satisfy them;
and then their favourite object, the subjugation of
France, and destruction of the republic, was resumed
with fresh ardour, and tempted them on till their hopes
again ended in defeat and ruin: thus adapting every
aspect of affairs to their own purposes, they constantly
returned in the same circle to the point from which they
set out, and war was always necessary, peace always unattainable. Or if at any time the fainting resolution
and exhausted strength of our adversaries seemed to
promise us that repose which was so necessary to us,
we saw the dying embers of war again eagerly rekindled
by a country that, standing aloof from the contagion,
shouted from her rocky shores to see the flames that
consumed the vitals of Europe. The bitterest enmity
that our early struggles in the cause of liberty had drawn
down upon us was to be shewn by a people 'that had
long insulted the slavery of Europe, by the loudness of
its boasts of freedom.' English solicitation and English gold were always ready to defeat that object, which
was to be the reward of so many triumphs, and of so
many years of suffering, of havoc, uncertainty, and dis



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may. A reluctant peace was at length extorted from
her: but her jealousy, avarice, and pride made her
choose to risk every thing rather than remain in a state
so unnatural to her. Delicate in her moral sentiments,
disinterested in all her proceedings, she was shocked at
some violences of ours, which permitted her no longer
to remain an indifferent spectator of the calamities of
other nations, and she sought the first opportunity of
evading the treaty that had been concluded, by alarming the fears of her merchants for the safety of their
Eastern possessions. She lost no time in rousing to her
aid her former confederates in wrong. By her incantations, the hydra-headed monster, which we thought
we had finally subdued, again feels new life and vigour
restored to it, unites its severed folds, and with its triple
crown moves onward to its prey, and France must submit or perish, that England may preserve her commerce."   In some such manner as this would a Frenchman repel the charges brought against his countrymen;
and, if we allow for the strength of national prejudices,
there appears to be some appearance of reason in what
he says.1 If the present quarrel had been so managed
as to have been completely disentangled from the former one, we should have been better able to answer
their reproaches, and I think to resist their menaces.
Had not Austria been precipitated unwisely into that
quarrel in the manner she was, she could not have fallen
to the ground without a struggle.
In what further remarks I have to make, I shall consider whether the system of internal policy pursued by
the late minister was in its general tendency likely to
increase the spirit of independence, and consequently
the security of the country. It seems to me a desirable
As to the real grounds and views on which the former coalitions
were begun and carried on, see Burke's Regicide Peace, Second Part.




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369


object to refer as much as possible of our proceedings
both at home and abroad to the influence of that minister's character on the national feelings, and to the blind
confidence generally placed in his talents and integrity.
The errors that we have been led into by a confidence of
this sort will be sooner retrieved than if they proceeded
from a change in our own habits and dispositions. It
is well if we can save the credit of our national character, a little at the expence of our understandings; for I
cannot think that our confidence in that minister was
well bestowed. I know it is a general maxim, that we
are not to war with the dead. We ought not, indeed,
to trample on their bodies; but with their minds we
may and must make war, unless we would be governed
by them after they are dead. They who wish their
sentiments to survive them in the memories of men,
must also expect to live in their censures.
The character of Mr. Pitt was, perhaps, one of the
most singular that ever existed. With few talents, and
fewer virtues, he acquired and preserved in one of the
most trying situations, and in spite of all opposition,
the highest reputation for the possession of every moral
excellence, and as having carried the attainments of
eloquence and wisdom as far as human abilities could go.
This he did (strange as it appears) by a negation (together
with the common virtues) of the common vices of human
nature, and by the complete negation of every other
talent that might interfere with the only one which he
possessed in a supreme degree, and which indeed may be
made to include the appearance of all others-an artful
use of words, and a certain dexterity of logical arrangement. In these alone his power consisted; and the defect of all other qualities, which usually constitute greatness, contributed to the more complete success of these.
Having no strong feelings, no distinct perceptions, his




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mind having no link, as it were, to connect it with the
world of external nature, every subject presented to him
nothing more than a tabula rasa, on which he was at
liberty to lay whatever colouring of language he pleased;
having no general principles, no comprehensive views
of things, no moral habits of thinking, no system of
action, there was nothing to hinder him from pursuing
any particular purpose by any means that offered; having
never any plan, he could not be convicted of inconsistency, aad his' own pride and obstinacy were the only
rules of his conduct. Having no insight into human
nature, no sympathy with the passions of men, or apprehension of their real designs, he seemed perfectly insensible to the consequences of things, and would believe
nothing till it actually happened. The fog and haze in
which he saw every thing communicated itself to others,
and the total indistinctness and uncertainty of his own
ideas tended to confound the perceptions of his hearers
more effectually than the most ingenious misrepresentation could have done. Indeed, in defending his conduct he never seemed to consider himself as at all
responsible for the success of his measures, or that future
events were in our own power; but that as the best laid
schemes might fail, and there was no providing against
all possible contingences, this was a sufficient excuse
for our plunging at once into any dangerous or absurd
enterprise without the least regard to consequences.
His reserved logic confined itself solely to the possible
and the impossible, and he appeared to regard the probable
and improbable, the only foundation of moral prudence
or political wisdom, as beneath the notice of a profound
statesman; as if the pride of the human intellect were
concerned in never entrusting itself with subjects, where
it may be compelled to acknowledge its weakness.1
One instance may serve as an example for all the rest:-When




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From his manner of reasoning, he seemed not to have
believed that the truth of his statements depended on
the reality of the facts, but that the things depended on
the order in which he arranged them in words: you
would not suppose him to be agitating a serious question, which had real grounds to go upon, but to be declaiming upon an imaginary thesis, proposed as an
exercise in the schools.  He never set himself to examine
the force of the objections that were brought against
his measures, or attempted to establish them upon clear,
solid grounds of his own; but constantly contented
himself with first gravely stating the logical form, or
dilemma to which the question reduced itself, and then,
Mr. Fox last summer predicted the failure of the new confederacy
against France, from a consideration of the circumstances and relative
situation of both parties, that is, from an exact knowledge of the actual
state of the case, Mr. Pitt contented himself with answering-and, as
in the blindness of his infatuation, he seemed to think quite satisfactory,-" That he could not assent to the honourable gentleman's reasoning, for that it went to this, that we were never to attempt to mend
the situation of our affairs, because in so doing we might possibly
make them worse." No; it was not on account of this abstract possibility in human affairs, or because we were not absolutely sure of
succeeding (for that any child might know), but because it was in
the highest degree probable, or morally certain that the scheme would
fail, and leave us in a worse situation than we were before, that Mr.
Fox disapproved of the attempt. There is in this a degree of weakness and imbecility, a defect of understanding bordering on idiotism,
a fundamental ignorance of the first principles of human reason and
prudence, that in a great minister is utterly astonishing, and almost
incredible. Nothing could ever drive him out of his dull forms, and
naked generalities; which as they are susceptible neither of degree
nor variation, are therefore equally applicable to every emergency
that can happen: and in the most critical aspect of affairs he saw
nothing but the same flimsy web of remote possibilities and metaphysical uncertainty. In his mind the wholesome pulp of practical
wisdom and salutary advice was immediately converted into the dry
chaff and husks of a miserable logic.




372            Advice to a Patriot.
after having declared his opinion, proceeded to amuse
his hearers by a series of rhetorical common-places, connected together in grave, sonorous, and elaborately constructed periods, without ever shewing their real application to the subject in dispute. Thus if any member
of the opposition disapproved of any measure, and enforced his objections by pointing out the many evils
with which it is fraught, or the difficulties attending its
execution, his only answer was, " that it was true there
might be inconveniences attending the measure proposed,
but we were to remember, that every expedient that
could be devised might be said to be nothing more than
a choice of difficulties, and that all that human prudence
could do was to consider on which side the advantages
lay; that for his part he conceived that the present
measure was attended with more advantages and fewer
disadvantages than any other that could be adopted;
that if we were diverted from our object by every appearance of difficulty, the wheels of government would
be clogged by endless delays and imaginary grievances;
that most of the objections made to the measure appeared
to him trivial, others of them unfounded and improbable; or that if a scheme free from all these objections could be proposed, it might after all prove
inefficient; while, in the mean time, a material object
remained unprovided for, or the opportunity of action
was lost." This mode of reasoning is admirably described by Hobbes, in speaking of the writings of some
of the Schoolmen, of whom he says, that "they had
learned the trick of imposing what they list upon their
readers, and declining the force of true reason by verbal
forks, that is distinctions which signify nothing, but
serve only to astonish the multitude of ignorant men."
That what I have here stated comprehends the whole
force of his mind, which consisted solely in this evasive




Advice to a Patriot.


373


dexterity and perplexing formality, assisted by a copiousness of words and common-place topics, will, I think,
be evident to any one who carefully looks over his
speeches, undazzled by the reputation or personal influence of the speaker. It will be in vain to look in them
for any of the common proofs of human genius or wisdom. He has not left behind him a single memorable
saying-not one profound maxim-one solid observation
-one forcible description-one beautiful thought-one
humourous picture-one affecting sentiment. He has
made no addition whatever to the stock of human knowledge. He did not possess any one of those faculties
which contribute to the instruction and delight of mankind-depth of understanding, imagination, sensibility,
wit, vivacity, clear and solid judgment. But it may be
asked, If these qualities are not to be found in him,
where are we to look for them? And I may be required
to point out instances of them. I shall answer then,
that he had none of the profound, legislative wisdom,
piercing sagacity, or rich, impetuous, high-wrought
imagination of Burke; the manly eloquence, strong
sense, exact knowledge, vehemence and natural simplicity of Fox; the ease, brilliancy, and acuteness of
Sheridan. It is not merely that he had not all these
qualities in the degree that they were severally possessed
by his rivals, but he had not any of them in any degree.
His reasoning is a technical arrangement of unmeaning
common-places, his eloquence merely rhetorical, his style
monotonous and artificial. If he could pretend to any
one excellence in an eminent degree, it was to taste in
composition. There is certainly nothing low, nothing
puerile, nothing far-fetched or abrupt in his speeches;
there is a kind of faultless regularity pervading them
throughout; but in the confined, mechanical, passive
mode of eloquence which he adopted, it seemed rather




374


Advice to a Patriot.


more difficult to commit errors than to avoid them. A
man who is determined never to move out of the beaten
road cannot lose his way. However, habit, joined to
the peculiar mechanical memory which he possessed,
carried his correctness to a degree which, in an extemporaneous speaker, was almost miraculous; he perhaps
hardly ever uttered a sentence that was not perfectly
regular and connected. In this respect, he not only had
the advantage over his own contemporaries, but perhaps
no one that ever lived equalled him in this singular
faculty. But for this, he would always have passed for
a common man; and to this the constant sameness,
and, if I may say so, vulgarity of his ideas must have
contributed not a little, as there was nothing to distract
his mind from this one object of his unintermitted attention; and as even in his choice of words he never aimed
at anything more than a certain general propriety and
stately uniformity of style. His talents were exactly fitted
for the situation in which he was placed; where it was
his business not to overcome others, but to avoid being
overcome. He was able to baffle opposition, not from
strength or firmness, but from the evasive ambiguity
and impalpable nature of his resistance, which gave no
hold to the rude grasp of his opponents: no force could
bind the loose phantom, and his mind (though "not
matchless, and his pride humbled by such rebuke,")
soon rose from defeat unhurt,
" And in its liquid texture mortal wound
Receiv'd no more than can the fluid air." 1
By this lucky combination of strength and weakness,
he succeeded in maintaining an undiminished influence
over the opinions of his own country for a number of
I would recommend to the reader a masterly and unanswerable
essay on this subject in the Morning Post, by Mr. Coleridge, in
February 1800, from which, and the conversation of the author, most




Advice to a Patriot.


375


years, in wielding her energies as he pleased, and guiding the counsels of almost all Europe. With respect to
his influence on the continent, that is an illusion that is
past, and not worth inquiring about; but it may still be
of some use to inquire by what means he strengthened
his influence at home, as this may more immediately concern our future conduct. This I think he effected in
two ways: by lessening the free spirit of the country as
much as he could, and by giving every possible encouragement to its commercial spirit. I shall not here examine how far both these designs were wise and salutary
at the time; but I conceive that neither a spirit of dependence nor an unbounded and universal spirit of trade
will be the best security for our safety at present. An
indifference to liberty is not likely to increase the love of
independence; nor is an exclusive regard to private gain
likely to produce a disinterested concern for the public
welfare. Mr. Pitt, in making war, always considered
peace as an object perfectly indifferent in itself; and, in
of the above remarks are taken. I will only add, that it is the property of true genius to force the admiration even of enemies. No
one was ever hated or envied for his powers of mind, if others were
convinced of their real excellence. The jealousy and uneasiness produced in the mind by the display of superior talents almost always
arises from a suspicion that there is some trick or deception in the case,
and that we are imposed on by an appearance of what is not really
there. True warmth and vigour communicate warmth and vigour;
and we are no longer inclined to dispute the inspiration of the oracle,
when we feel the " presens Divus " in our own bosoms. But when,
without gaining any new light or heat, we only find our ideas thrown
into perplexity and confusion by an art that we cannot comprehend,
this is a kind of superiority which must always be painful, and can
never be cordially admitted. For this reason the extraordinary
talents of Mr. Pitt were always viewed, except by those of his own
party, with a sort of jealousy, and grudgingly acknowledged; while
those of his rivals were admitted by all parties in the most unreserved manner, and carried by acclamation.




376


Advice to a Patriot.


securing the prerogative of the crown, seemed to think
that the privileges of the people did not deserve a moment's attention. I do not in this mean to condemn
his conduct: perhaps we may suppose that the restrictions which he introduced on the liberty of the subject,
and the spirit of passive obedience and non-resistance
which was every where industriously diffused, the contempt and obloquy which were poured on the very name
of liberty, might be required by the circumstances of the
time, and necessary to prevent the contagion of a dangerous example, and the mischiefs of civil anarchy and
confusion. The public were perhaps justly surfeited with
metaphysical treatises overturning the foundation of all
civil rights, and the very notion of liberty, with historical disquisitions proving that the popular spirit of
political institutions was the bane of all internal quiet
and happiness, the source of endless violence and bloodshed, and the final cause of their dissolution; that
human happiness could never reach its utmost point of
perfection but under the mild and tranquil reign of universal despotism; that the forms of all governments
were alike indifferent, provided they secured the same
servile obedience and death-like apathy in the state.
Perhaps it was then necessary that we should be told,
e.c cathedrcd, that the people had nothing to do with the
laws but to obey them: perhaps it was right that we
should be amused with apologies for the corrupt influence of the crown; that integrity, honour, the love of
justice, public spirit, or a zeal for the interests of the
community should be laughed at as absurd chimeras,
and that an ardent love of liberty, or determined resistence to powerful oppression should be treated as madness and folly. But however wise or necessary a temporary fashion of this kind might be to counteract the
poison of other views and sentiments, I am sure it can




Advice to a Patriot.


377


neither be wise nor safe to continue it at present. We
ought to do every thing in our power to get rid of the
effects of so dangerous a habit as soon as possible. The
fewer curbs there are on the spirit of the people, the more
vigorous and determined will it shew itself; the greater
the encouragement that is given to the principles of liberty,
and the greater confidence that is placed in the general
disposition of the country, the greater and more irresistible will be their habitual attachment to liberty and
independence. You give a manifest advantage to an
enemy if you in any way lessen the sources of enthusiasm, or in any way check the ardour, confine the
energy, degrade the sentiments, or discountenance the
erect, manly, independent spirit of your country. It is
dangerous to let any thing fall into disrepute or contempt which may serve as a watch-word to startle the
dull ear, or rouse the frozen blood; but to this purpose
it is not enough that the name is retained, if the habitual
feeling is destroyed. A tame acquiescence in every encroachment of power or exertion of undue influence, a
disposition to assert our own rights or those of others
no further than fear or interest permit, a habit of looking on the welfare of our country or the rights of mankind as secondary considerations, no further to be
regarded than as they are connected with our own
danger or convenience, these are not the symptoms of
the durable greatness and independence of a people. The
causes of the ruin of states have been almost always laid
in the relaxation of their moral habits and political prejudices. No kingdom can be secure in its independence
against a greater power that is not free in its spirit, as
well as in its institutions. I shall be happy if I have
been mistaken in thinking these observations at all applicable to our own country: but the observations themselves are serious, and worth attending to. They are
c




378


Advice to a Patriot.


such as have been recognised in all nations and ages,
except those indeed where their having been so would
have rendered them suspected.
On the other hand, a commercial spirit is a very weak
as well as dangerous substitute for a spirit of freedom:
a sense of self-interest, of mere mercenary advantage,
can but ill supply the place of principle. The love of
gain, however active or persevering this principle may
be in accomplishing its own particular ends, can never
be safely trusted to as an ally in a cause where there
are other objects to be attended to. Men who are actuated by this sole principle will very obstinately, no doubt,
defend their wealth, while they can retain it; but when
that is no longer the case, they will think nothing else
worth retaining, and meanly compromise their independence for their safety. That common birthright which
they receive from nature, in which every Englishman
has an equal interest as such, appears of little value in
their eyes. Liberty is in their eyes a coarse, homely
figure, but for the jewels that sparkle in her hair, and
the rings on her fingers. It is inconceivable to them
how a man can have any attachment to a simple shed,
or can take any pride in his title to that respect, which
is due to him only because he feels himself to be free.
They will defend England as connected with her colonies,
with her proud canopies of Eastern state, her distant
spicy groves and the rich spoils of her Western isles;
but will they defend her as she is England, as their
country? Strip her of her conquests, her slaves, and
her plantations, her bales of goods, her gold and silver,
and leave her only herself, what would there be in all
the rest worth the labour of a struggle? Her barren
acres, her brave, simple, generous, honest-hearted, hardy
race of men, her liberty, her fame, her integrity they
look upon with the most sovereign contempt and indif



Advice to a Patriot.


379


ference, and would be ready to sacrifice them all for the
purchase of some new golden settlement, " some happier island in the watery waste" Where slaves no more their native land behold,
But fiends torment, and Christians thirst for gold."
They would defend their country not as her children,
but as her masters; as a property, not as a state. There
may be the same pride and luxury in other classes of
men, but they are accompanied with other feelings, and
drawn from other sources. It has been a customary
compliment to consider those as best entitled to come
forward conspicuously in defence of their country who
had what is called the greatest stake in it. This is
perhaps true of the real, old hereditary nobility and
gentry, of those who find their names enrolled high in
the annals of their country, whose affections have grown
to her soil as it were in a long course of centuries, who
have an interest in looking forward to posterity, and a
pride in looking back upon their ancestors, who have
not only present possessions and advantages to defend,
but feelings of inveterate prejudice and inbred honour
to defend them. The loss of respect, or of their former
privileges, is a change which to them appears like something out of the course of nature, to which no force or
accidental circumstances can ever reconcile them. They
are also men of liberal education; and this is a great
point gained. There is certainly this advantage in a
classical education, if not counteracted by other causes,
that it gives men long views; it accustoms the mind to
take an interest in things foreign to itself, to love virtue
for its own sake, to prefer fame to life, and glory to
riches, and to fix our thoughts on the great and permanent instead of narrow and selfish objects. It teaches
us to believe that there is something really great and




380


Advice to a Patriot.


excellent in the world, surviving all the shocks of accident and fluctuations of opinion, and to feel respect for
that which is made venerable by its nature and antiquity instead of that low and servile dread which bows
only to present power and upstart authority. It is
hard to find in minds otherwise formed either a delicate
sense of honour, or an inflexible regard to truth and
justice. But the spirit of trade is the very reverse of
all this. It is the principle of this set of men to cry
"Long life to the conqueror," to feel a contempt for all
obligations that are not founded in self-interest, and to
consider all generous pursuits and the hope of unfading
renown as romance and folly. "Virtue is not their
habit, they are out of themselves in any course of conduct recommended only by conscience and glory." They
would not give a hundred hogsheads of sugar or a halfyear's income for all the posthumous fame that was ever
acquired in the world. If things should unhappily ever
come to extremities, they are not the people who will
retrieve them, either by their exertions or example.
They have neither grand and elevated views, nor the
warm, genuine feelings of nature. They have no principles of action. Irresolute, temporizing, every thing is
with them made a subject of selfish calculation. Their
friendships as well as their enmities are the creatures of
the occasion. Confident, insolent in the day of success,
and while their cause is triumphant, they are as soon
dejected and driven to despair, when they find the tide
turned against them. Fortune is with them the first of
goddesses: success the only title to authority and respect; and possession the truest right. Accustomed to
all the fluctuations of hope and fear, they consider
nothing stable in human affairs; thrown into the possession of power and affluence by accidents which they
know not how to account for, it can hardly seem strange




Advice to a Patriot.


381


to them that they should again be stripped of them.
They do not " lay the fault upon themselves but on their
stars, that they are underlings." If I hear a man say
that we are to give up our public principles whenever
circumstances render it necessary, that we are to inquire
upon all occasions not what is right, but what is prudent
to be done, that those feelings, which lead us to adhere
to the cause of truth and justice if at all unpopular, or
to incur any personal risk or inconvenience in defeuding
what is right, are weak and vulgar prejudices, I know
that that man will be first to truckle to an enemy, and
the last voluntarily to risk his life in defence of his
independence.
The courage of the soldier and the citizen are essentially different. The one is momentary and involuntary;
the other permanent and voluntary. It is one thing to
do all in your power to repel danger when it is unavoidable, and another to expose yourself to it when you may
avoid going into it. Fear, or rashness, or necessity
may be supposed to kindle all the fury of battle: but
principle alone can make us willing to return to the
charge after defeat. It is for this reaction that we ought
to be chiefly prepared. For this nothing can prepare us
but a true love of our country, not taken up as a fashion,
but felt as a duty; a spirit of resistance not measured
by our convenience, but by the strength of our attachment and the real value of the object; but steady enthusiasm; but a determination never to submit while
hope or life remained, and an indifference to every thing
else but that one great object.
What resistance has Holland ever made to the power
of France from the first moment? Commerce had spread
its sordid mantle completely over her. Wrapped closely
up in this, she fell without resistance and without a
groan: she was not of a temper to fall in love with




382


Advice to a Patriot.


danger, to court disasters. Since that time she has not
made a struggle or breathed a sigh for her release, but
lies supine, secure, unmoved, and torpid,
" Dull as her lakes that slumber in the storm."
Two hundred years of commerce and riches, which had
gone over her, since, in that noble struggle for thirty
years together, she had defied the whole power and the
utmost vengeance of Spain, had prepared her for this
striking change. But England is not yet quite commercial: the spirit of trade has not spread its poison
through the whole mass of our blood and vital juices t
As I do not wish that England (with all her high hopes,
and called to a far different destiny) may ever share the
fate of Holland, I do not wish that she may ever resemble her in herself; that every other feeling should
give way to that of interest alone, but that she may
tremble at ever realizing the warning picture of the poet,
"When, stript of all her charms,
The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms,
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
Where kings have toil'd and poets wrote for fame,
One sink of level avarice shall lie,
And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonour'd die."
Though a state cannot look to its commerce for its
security, it may be involved in endless difficulty and
danger by the views of commercial aggrandizement.
The views of men wholly engrossed in such pursuits are
altogether low and mechanical. If they see far, it is
always in a straight line before them; their sagacity is
confined to what immediately concerns their own interest.
They are so intent upon that one object that they overlook every thing else; and their eagerness to accumulate is such, that they would rather hazard all than
relinquish a pursuit which promises them some new
acquisition. WVhile they are successful, it is impossible




Advice to a:Patriot.


383


to persuade them that they ever can be otherwise, or to
restrain their rashness by any considerations of prudence
or humanity. Actuated only by gross, palpable objects,
and full of themselves, they laugh at all distant danger.
All general reasonings on the principles of human
nature, or the operation of causes by which they do not
find themselves influenced, appear to them perfectly
futile and visionary. " They think there is nothing
real but that which they can handle; which they can
measure with a two-foot rule, which they can tell upon
ten fingers."  As they believe money to be the only
substantial good, they are also persuaded that it is the
only instrument of power. With this they think themselves invulnerable, and that the more of it they have,
the more secure they are. As long as their credit remains unimpaired, and their remittances are regularly
made, they consider the fate of battles and the intrigues
of pabinets as of very little comparative importance.
They look up with more awe and admiration to a stockjobbing broker surrounded with his clerks than they do
to a victorious general at the head of his army. The
rise and fall of stocks, and the demand for our manufactures abroad, are in their opinion the only criterions of
national prosperity. On the other hand, whatever affects
their own interest, the loss of an island, or the stopping
up of a port, is found immediately to threaten the ruin
of the country. Their fears are as rash and groundless
as their confidence. Every thing in which they themselves are concerned is viewed through a magnifying
medium, and demands all our vigilance and attention,
while every thing else dwindles into insignificance. I
therefore think there ought to be as little connection as
possible between the measures of government and the
maxims of the Exchange, and that the interests of a great
empire ought not to be managed by a company of factors.




384            Advice to a Patriot.
I have thus expressed the sentiments which occurred
to me on the present situation of our affairs, and some
of the steps which led to it. I have done this as freely
and unreservedly as I could, because if they are wrong,
it is not likely that they will be much attended to; but if
they are right, they may be of some use. And I conceive that even they who may think the view I have
taken of the measures of the last administration, and the
application of particular observations to our own conduct altogether unfounded, will not deny the truth of
the general principles on which they are built. Or that
the sentiments of justice, of honour, of reason and liberty,
by which I think our views and conduct ought to have
been regulated, can be too deeply impressed on our
minds.




A LETTER
TO
WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ.,
FROM
WILLIAM HAZLITT, ESQ.
(1819.)




[The title of the original edition of this tract, now become rare, is:A Letter to William Gifford, Esq. From William Hazlitt, Esq. " Fit
pugil, et medicum urget." London: Printed for John Mliller, Burlington Arcade, Piccadilly. 1819. Price Three Shillings. My copy
belonged to the author, and has on the title-page "W. H. March,
1819," and a short list of Errata at the back in the same hand.
In the following year a new title was printed to the unsold copies,
with Second Edition upon it, and at the foot, "London: Printed for
Robert Stodart, 81, Strand. 1820." I have a copy of this reissue,
which belonged to John Hunt, and has a few MS. notes by him.
As to the publication and the circumstances which led to it, see
Memoirs of Hazlitt, 1867, i., 242 et seqq.-ED.]




A LETTER
TO
WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ.
SIR,
JOU have an ugly trick of saying what is not true of
any one you do not like; and it will be the object
of this letter to cure you of it. You say what you please
of others: it is time you were told what you are. In
doing this, give me leave to borrow the familiarity of
your style:-for the fidelity of the picture I shall be
answerable.
You are a little person, but a considerable cat's-paw;
and so far worthy of notice. Your clandestine connexion with persons high in office.constantly influences
your opinions, and alone gives importance to them.
You are the Government Critic, a character nicely differing from that of a government spy-the invisible
link, that connects literature with the police. It is
your business to keep a strict eye over all writers who
differ in opinion with his Majesty's Ministers, and to
measure their talents and attainments by the standard
of their servility and meanness. For this office you are




388


Letter to William Gifford.


well qualified. Besides being the Editor of the Quarterly Review, you are also paymaster of the band of
Gentlemen Pensioners; and when an author comes
before you in the one capacity, with whom you are
not acquainted in the other, you know how to deal
with him. You have your cue beforehand. The distinction between truth and falsehood you make no account of: you mind only the distinction between Whig
and Tory. Accustomed to the indulgence of your mercenary virulence and party-spite, you have lost all relish
as well as capacity for the unperverted exercises of the
understanding, and make up for the obvious want of
ability by a bare-faced want of principle. The same set
of thread-bare common-places, the same second-hand
assortment of abusive nick-names, the same assumption
of little magisterial airs of superiority, are regularly
repeated; and the ready convenient lie comes in aid of
the dearth of other resources, and passes off, with impunity, in the garb of religion and loyalty. If no one finds
it out, why then there is no harm done, snug's the word;
or if it should be detected, it is a good joke, shews spirit
and invention in proportion to its grossness and impudence, and it is only a pity that what was so well meant
in so good a cause, should miscarry! The end sanctifies
the means; and you keep no faith with heretics in religion or government. You are under the protection of
the Court; and your zeal for your king and country entitles you to say what you chuse of every public writer
who does not do all in his power to pamper the one into
a tyrant, and to trample the other into a herd of slaves.
You derive your weight with the great and powerful
from the very circumstance that takes away all real
weight from your authority, viz. that it is avowedly, and
upon every occasion, exerted for no one purpose but to
hold up to hatred and contempt whatever opposes in the




Letter to William Gifford.


389


slightest degree and in the most flagrant instances of
abuse their pride and passions. You dictate your opinions
to a party, because not one of your opinions is formed
upon an honest conviction of the truth or justice of the
case, but by collusion with the prejudices, caprice, interest or vanity of your employers. The mob of welldressed readers who consult the Quarterly Review, know
that there is no offence in it. They put faith in it because
they are aware that it is "false and hollow, but will
please the ear;" that it will tell them nothing but what
they would wish to believe. Your reasoning comes
under the head of Court-news; your taste is a standard
of the prevailing ton in certain circles, like Ackerman's
dresses for May. When you damn an author, one knows
that he is not a favourite at Carlton House. When you
say that an author cannot write common sense or English, you mean that he does not believe in the doctrine
of divine right. Of course, the clergy and gentry will
not read such an author. Your praise or blame has
nothing to do with the merits of a work, but with the
party to which the writer belongs, or is in the inverse
ratio of its merits. The dingy cover that wraps the
pages of the Quarterly Review does not contain a concentrated essence of taste and knowledge, but is a receptacle for the scum and sediment of all the prejudice,
bigotry, ill-will, ignorance, and rancour, afloat in the
in the kingdom. This the fools and knaves who pin
their faith on you know, and it is on this account they
pin their faith on you. They come to you for a scale
not of literary talent but of political subserviency. They
want you to set your mark of approbation on a writer
as a thorough-paced tool, or of reprobation as an honest
man. Your fashionable readers, Sir, are hypocrites as
well as knaves and fools; and the watch-word, the practical intelligence they want, must be conveyed to them




390


Letter to William Gifford.


without implied offence to their candour and liberality,
in the patois and gibberish of fraud of which you are a
master. When you begin to jabber about common sense
and English, they know what to be at, shut up the
book, and wonder that any respectable publisher can be
found to let it lie on his counter, as much as if it were
a Petition for Reform. Do you suppose, Sir, that such
persons as the Rev. Gerard Valerian Wellesley and the
Rev. Weeden Butler would not be glad to ruin what
they call a Jacobin author as well as a Jacobin stationer? 1 Or that they will not thank you for persuading them that their doing so in the former case is a
proof of their taste and good sense, as well as loyalty
and religion? You know very well that if a particle of
truth or fairness were to find its way into a single
number of your publication, another Quarterly Review
would be set up to-morrow for the express purpose of
depriving every author, in prose or verse, of his reputation and livelihood, who is not a regular hack of
the vilest cabal that ever disgraced this or any other
country.
There is something in your nature and habits that fits
you for the situation into which your good fortune has
thrown you. In the first place, you are in no danger of
exciting the jealousy of your patrons by a mortifying
display of extraordinary talents, while your sordid devotion to their will and to your own interest at once
ensures their gratitude and contempt. To crawl and
lick the dust is all they expect of you, and all you can
do. Otherwise they might fear your power, for they
could have no dependence on your fidelity: but they
1 See the Examiner, Feb. 9. [Case of Rogers, stationer in Sloane
Street, for whom a subscription was afterwards raised by the proprietors of the Examinler.-MS. note by John Hunt in his copy of
the issue of 1820.-ED.]




Letter to William Gifford.


391


take you with safety and fondness to their bosoms; for
they know that if you cease to be a tool, you cease to be
any thing. If you had an exuberance of wit, the unguarded use of it might sometimes glance at your employers; if you were sincere yourself, you might respect
the motives of others; if you had sufficient understanding, you might attempt an argument, and fail in it. But
luckily for yourself and your admirers, you are but the
dull echo, " the tenth transmitter" of some hackneyed
jest: the want of all manly and candid feeling in yourself only excites your suspicion and antipathy to it in
others, as something at which your nature recoils: your
slowness to understand makes you quick to misrepresent; and you infallibly make nonsense of what you
cannot possibly conceive. What seem your wilful blunders are often the felicity of natural parts, and your
want of penetration has all the appearance of an affected
petulance!
Again, of an humble origin yourself, you recommend
your performances to persons of fashion by always
abusing low people, with the smartness of a lady's waiting woman, and the independent spirit of a travelling
tutor. Raised from the lowest rank to your present despicable eminence in the world of letters, you are indignant that any one should attempt to rise into notice,
except by the same regular trammels and servile gradations, or should go about to separate the stamp of
merit from the badge of sycophancy. The silent listener
in select circles, and menial tool of noble families, you
have become the oracle of Church and State. The purveyor to the prejudices or passions of a private patron
succeeds, by no other title, to regulate the public taste.
You have felt the inconveniences of poverty, and look up
with base and groveling admiration to the advantages of
wealth and power: you have had to contend with the




392


Letter to William Giaford.


mechanical difficulties of a want of education, and you
see nothing in learning but its mechanical uses. A selftaught man naturally becomes a pedant, and mistakes
the means of knowledge for the end, unless he is a
man of genius; and you, Sir, are not a man of genius.
From having known nothing originally, you think it a
great acquisition to know any thing now, no matter
what or how small it is-nay, the smaller and more
insignificant it is, the more curious you seem to think it,
as it is farther removed from common sense and human
nature. The collating of points and commas is the
highest game your literary ambition can reach to, and
the squabbles of editors are to you infinitely more
important than the meaning of an author. You think
more of the letter than the spirit of a passage; and in
your eagerness to show your minute superiority over
those who have gone before you, generally miss both.
In comparing yourself with others, you make a considerable mistake. You suppose the common advantages of a liberal education to be something peculiar
to yourself, and calculate your progress beyond the rest
of the world from the obscure point at which you first
set out. Yet your overweening self-complacency is never
easy but in the expression of your contempt for others;
like a conceited mechanic in a village ale-house, you
would set down every one who differs from you as an
ignorant blockhead; and very fairly infer that any one
who is beneath yourself must be nothing. You have
been well called an Ultra-CrepidarianI critic. From
the difficulty you yourself have in constructing a sentence of common grammar, and your frequent failures,
you instinctively presume that no author who comes
under the lash of your pen can understand his motherSee Ultra- Crepidarius, by Leigh Hunt, 1825.-MS. note by
John Hunt.




Letter to William Gifford.


393


tongue: and again, you suspect every one who is not
your " very good friend " of knowing nothing of the
Greek or Latin, because you are surprised to think how
you came by your own knowledge of them. There is
an innate littleness and vulgarity in all you do. In
combating an opinion, you never take a broad and
liberal ground, state it fairly, allow what there is of
truth or an appearance of truth, and then assert your
own judgment by exposing what is deficient in it, and
giving a more masterly view of the subject. No: this
would be committing your powers and pretensions where
you dare not trust them. You know yourself better.
You deny the meaning altogether, misquote or misapply,
and then plume yourself on your own superiority to the
absurdity you have created. Your triumph over your
antagonists is the triumph of your cunning and meanspiritedness over some nonentity of your own making;
and your wary self-knowledge shrinks from a comparison with any but the most puny pretensions, as the
spider retreats from the caterpillar into its web.
There cannot be a greater nuisance than a dull, envious, pragmatical, low-bred man, who is placed as you
are in the situation of the Editor of such a work as the
Quarterly Review. Conscious that his reputation stands
on very slender and narrow grounds, he is naturally
jealous of that of others. He insults over unsuccessful
authors; he hates successful ones. He is angry at the
faults of a work; more angry at its excellences. If an
opinion is old, he treats it with supercilious indifference;
if it is new, it provokes his rage. Every thing beyond
his limited range of inquiry, appears to him a paradox
and an absurdity: and he resents every suggestion of
the kind as an imposition on the public, and an imputation on his own sagacity. He cavils at what he does
not comprehend, and misrepresents what he knows to be
DD




394


Letter to William Gifford.


true. Bound to go through the nauseous task of abusing
all those who are not like himself the abject tools of
power, his irritation increases with the number of obstacles he encounters, and the number of sacrifices he is
obliged to make of common sense and decency to his
interest and self-conceit. Every instance of prevarication he wilfully commits makes him more in love with
hypocrisy, and every indulgence of his hired malignity
makes him more disposed to repeat the insult and the
injury. His understanding becomes daily more distorted,
and his feelings more and more callous. Grown old
in the service of corruption, he drivels on to the last
with prostituted impotence and shameless effrontery;
salves a meagre reputation for wit, by venting the
driblets of his spleen and impertinence on others;
answers their arguments by confuting himself;. mistakes
habitual obtuseness of intellect for a particular acuteness,
not to be imposed upon by shallow appearances; unprincipled rancour for zealous loyalty; and the irritable,
discontented, vindictive, peevish effusions of bodily pain
and mental imbecility for proofs of refinement of taste
and strength of understanding.
Such, Sir, is the picture of which you have sat for the
outline:-all that remains is to fill up the little, mean,
crooked, dirty details. The task is to me no very pleasant one; for I can feel very little ambition to follow
you through your ordinary routine of pettifogging objections and barefaced assertions, the only difficulty of
making which is to throw aside all regard to truth and
decency, and the only difficulty in answering them is to
overcome one's contempt for the writer. But you are a
nuisance, and should be abated.
I shall proceed to shew, first, your want of common
honesty, in speaking of particular persons; and, secondly,
your want of common capacity, in treating of any general




Letter to William Gifford.


395


question. It is this double negation of understanding
and principle that makes you all that you are.-As an
instance of the summary manner in which you dispose
of any author who is not to your taste, you began
your account of the first work of mine you thought
proper to notice (the Round Table), with a paltry and
deliberate falsehood. I need not be at much pains to
shew that your opinion on the merits of a work is not of
much value, after I have shewn that your word is not
to be taken with respect to the author. The charges
which you brought against me as the writer of that
work, were chiefly these four:-1st, That I pretended
to have written a work in the manner of the Spectator;
I answer, this is a falsehood. The Advertisement to that
work is written expressly to disclaim any such idea, and
to apologise for the work's having fallen short of the
original intention of the projector (Mr. Leigh Hunt), from
its execution having devolved almost entirely upon me,
who had undertaken merely to furnish a set of essays and
criticisms, which essays and criticisms were here collected
together.-2. That I was not only a professed imitator
of Addison, but a great coiner of new words and phrases:
I answer, this is also a deliberate and contemptible
falsehood. You have filled a paragraph with a catalogue
of these new words and phrases, which you attribute to
me, and single out as the particular characteristics of
my style, not any one of which I have used. This you
knew.-3. You say I write eternally about washerwomen.
I answer, no such thing. There is indeed one paper in
the Round Table on this subject, and I think a very
agreeable one. I may say so, for it is not my writing.
-4. You say that "I praise my own chivalrous eloquence: " and I answer, that's a falsehood; and that
you knew that I had not applied these words to myself,
because you knew that it was not I who had used them.




396


Letter to William Giford.


The last paragraph of the article in question is true: for as
if to obviatethe detection of this tissue of little, lying, loyal,
catch-penny frauds, it contains a cunning, tacit acknowledgment of them; but says, with equal candour and
modesty, that it is not the business of the writer to distinguish (in such trifling cases) between truth and falsehood. That may be; but I cannot think that for the editor
of the Quarterly Review to want common veracity, is any
disgrace to me. It is necessary, Sir, to go into the details of this fraudulent transaction, this Albemarle-street
hoax, that the public may know, once for all, what to
think of you and me. The first paragraph of the Review
is couched in the following terms.
"Whatever may have been the preponderating feelings with which we closed these volumes, we will not
refuse our acknowledgments to Mr. Hazlitt for a few
mirthful sensations," (that they were very few, I can
easily believe,) " which he has enabled us to mingle with
the rest, by the hint that his Essays were meant to be
'in the manner of the Spectator and Tatler.' The passage in which this is conveyed, happened to be nearly the
last to which we turned; and we were about to rise from
the Round Table, heavily oppressed with a recollection
of vulgar descriptions, silly paradoxes, flat truisms, misty
sophistry, broken English, ill humour, and rancorous
abuse, when we were first informed of the modest pretensions of our host. Our thoughts then reverted with
an eager impulse to the urbanity of Addison, his unassuming tone, and clear simplicity; to the ease and softness of his style, to the chearful benevolence of his heart.
The playful gaiety too, and the tender feelings of his
coadjutor, poor Steele, came forcibly to our memory.
The effect of the ludicrous contrast thus presented to
us, it would be somewhat difficult to describe. We think
that it was akin to what we have felt from the admirable




Letter to William Gifford.


397


nonchalance with which Liston, in the complex character
of a weaver and an ass, seems to throw away all doubt
of his being the most accomplished lover in the universe,
and receives, as if they were merely his due, the
caresses of the fairy queen."-Quarterly Review, No.
xxxiii. p. 154.
The advertisement prefixed to the Round Table, in
which the hint is conveyed which afforded you "a few
mirthful sensations," stood thus." The following work falls somewhat short of its title
and original intention. It was proposed by my friend
Mr. Hunt, to publish a series of papers in the Examiner,
in the manner of the early periodical essayists, the Spectator and Tatler. These papers were to be contributed
by various persons on a variety of subjects; and Mr.
Hunt, as the editor, was to take the characteristic or
dramatic part of the work upon himself. I undertook
to furnish occasional essays and criticisms; one or two
other friends promised their assistance; but the essence
of the work was to be miscellaneous. The next thing was
to fix upon a title for it. After much doubtful consultation, that of THE ROUND TABLE was agreed upon, as
most descriptive of its nature and design. But our plan
had been no sooner arranged and entered upon, than
Buonaparte landed at Frejus, et voila la Table Ronde
dissoute. Our little Congress was broken up as well as
the great one. Politics called off the attention of the
Editor from the belles lettres; and the task of continuing the work fell chiefly upon the person who was least
able to give life and spirit to the original design. A
want of variety in the subjects, and mode of treating
them, is, perhaps, the least disadvantage resulting from
this circumstance. All the papers in the two volumes
here offered to the public, were written by myself and
Mr. Hunt, except a letter communicated by a friend in




398


Letter to William   Gifford.


the sixteenth number. Out of the fifty-two numbers,
twelve are Mr. Hunt's, with the signatures L. H. or
H. T. For all the rest I am answerable. W. HAZLITT."
Such, Sir, is the passage to which you allude, with so
much hysterical satisfaction, as having let you into the
secret that I fancied myself to have produced a work
" in the manner of the Spectator and Tatler; " and as
having relieved you from the extreme uneasiness you
had felt in reading through the "vulgar descriptions,
silly paradoxes, flat truisms, misty sophistry, broken
English, ill humour, and rancorous abuse," contained in
the Round Table. If I had indeed given myself out for
a second Steele or Addison, I should have made a very
ludicrous mistake. As it is, it is you have made a very
wilful misstatement. Your oppression, Sir, in rising
from the Round Table, must have been great to put you
upon so desperate an expedient to divert your chagrin, as
that of affecting to suppose that I had said just the contrary of what I did say, in order that you might affect " a
few mirthful sensations " at my expence. I cannot say
that I envy you the little voluntary revulsion which your
feelings underwent, at the ludicrous comparison which
you fancy me to make between myself and Addison, on
purpose to indulge the suggestions of your spleen and
prejudice. These are among the last refinements, the
menus plaisirs of hypocrisy, of which I must remain in
ignorance. I will not require you to retract the assertion
you have made, but I will take care before I have done,
that any assertion you may make with respect to me
shall not be taken as current. As to your praise of the
Tatler and Spectator, I must at all times agree to it:
but as far as it was meant as a tacit reproof to my vanity
in comparing myself with these authors, it appears to
have been unnecessary. You say elsewhere, speaking of
some passage of mine-" Addison never wrote any thing




Letter to William Gifford.


399


so fine! "-and again that I fancy myself a finer writer
than Addison. By your uneasy jealousy of the selfconceit of other people, it should seem that you are in
the habit of drawing comparisons, " secret, sweet, and
precious," between yourself and your " illustrious predecessors " not much to their advantage. As you have
here thought proper to tell me what I do not think, I will
tell you what I do think, which is, that you could not have
written the passage in question, On the Progress of Art, because you never felt half the enthusiasm for what is fine.
2. After stating the pretensions of the work, you proceed to the style in which it is written.-" There is one
merit which this author possesses besides that of successful imitation-he is a very eminent creator of words
and phrases. Amongst a vast variety which have newly
started up we notice' firesider '-' kitcheny'-' to smooth
up '-' to do off '-and 'to tiptoe down.' To this we add
a few of the author's new-born phrases, which bear sufficient marks of a kindred origin to entitle them to a
place by their side. Such is the assertion that Spenser
' was dipt in poetic luxury;' the description of 'a
minute coil which clicks in the baking coal '-of 'a
numerousness scattering an individual gusto '-and of
' curls that are ripe with sunshine.' Our readers areperhaps by this time as much acquainted with the style of this
author as they have any desire to be," &c.
I have nothing to do at present with the merits of the
words or phrases, which you here attribute to me, and
make the test of my general style, as if your readers
truly if they persisted would find only a constant repetition of them in my writings. I say that they are not
mine at all; that they are not characteristic of my style,
that you knew this perfectly, and also that there were
reasons which prevented me from pointing out this petty
piece of chicanery; and farther, I say that I am so far




400


Letter to William Gifford.


from  being "a very eminent creator of words and
phrases," that I do not believe you can refer to an
instance in any thing I have written in which there is a
single new word or phrase. In fact, I am as tenacious
on this score of never employing any new words to express my ideas, as you, Sir, are of never expressing any
ideas that are not perfectly threadbare and commonplace. My style is as old as your matter. This is the
fault you at other times find with it, mistaking the
common idiom of the language for "broken English."
3. You say that "I write eternally about washerwomen;" and pray, if I did, what is that to you, Sir?
There is a littleness in your objections which makes
even the answers to them ridiculous, and which would
make it impossible to notice them, were you not the
Government-Critic. You say yourself indeed afterwards
that "It is he " (Mr. Hunt) " who devotes ten or twelve
pages to a dissertation on washerwomen." Good: what
you say on this subject is a fair specimen of your mind
and manners. The playing at fast-and-loose with the
matter-of-fact may be passed over as a matter of course
in your hypercritical lucubrations. There is but one
half paper on this interdicted subject in the Round
Table:-you have filled one page out of five of the
article in the Review with a ridicule of this paper on
account of the vulgarity of the subject, which offends
you exceedingly; you recur to it twice afterwards en
passant, and end your performance (somewhat in the
style of a quack-doctor aping his own merry-andrew)
with "two or three conclusive digs in the side at it."
There is something in the subject that makes a strong
impression on your mind. You seem " to hate it with a
perfect hatred." 1 Now I would ask where is the harm
1 I hated my profession " (the business of a shoemaker, to which
he was bound prentice) " with a perfect hatred." See Mr. Gifford's




Letter to William Gifford.


401


of this dissertation on washerwomen inserted in the
Round Table, any more than those of Dutch and Flemish
kitchen-pieces, the glossy brilliancy and high finishing
of which must have become familiar to your eye in the
collections of Earl Grosvenor,1 Lord Mulgrave, and the
Marquis of Stafford?  What has Mr. Hunt done in this
never-to-be forgiven paper to betray the lowness of his
breeding or sentiments, or to shew that he who wrote it
is "the droll or merry fellow of the piece," and that I
who did not write it am "a sour Jacobin, who hate every
thing but washerwomen? " Would Addison or Steele,
" poor Steele " as you call him, have brought this as a
capital charge against their " imitators? " Did they
instinctively direct their speculations or limit their views
of human life to "remarks on gentlemen and gentlewomen? " They often enough treated of low people and
familiar life without any consciousness of degradation.
" Their gorge did not rise" at the humble worth or
homely enjoyments of their fellow-creatures, like your's.
A coronet or a mitre were not the only things that
caught their jaundiced eye, or soothed their rising gall.
They who are always talking of high and low people
are generally of a vulgar origin themselves, and of an
inherent meanness of disposition which nothing can
overcome. Besides, there is a want of good faith, as
well as of good taste, in your affected fastidiousness on
this point. " You assume a vice, though you have it
not," or not to the degree, which your petulance and
Life of Himself prefixed to his Juvenal. He seems to have liked few
things else better from that day to this. He tells us in the same
work (though this is hardly what I should call being " a good hater")
that he did not much like his father, and was not sorry when he
died. This candid and amiable personage always overflowed with
"the milk of human kindness."
1 Mr. Gifford was private tutor to the present Earl Grosvenor.John Hunt (1820).




402


Letter to William Gifford.


servility would have us suppose. A short time before
you wrote this uncalled-for tirade against Mr. Hunt as
an exclusive patroniser of that class of females, ycleped
"washerwomen," he had quoted with praise in the
Examiner, and as a mark of tender and humane feelings
in the author, in spite of appearances to the contrary,
the following epitaph from the Gentleman's Magazine.
"EPITAPH BY WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ.
We are no friends, publicly speaking, to the author of
the following epitaph. We differ much with his politics,
and with the cast of his satire; and do not think him,
properly speaking, a poet, as many do. But we always
admired the spirit that looked forth from his account of
his own life, and the touching copy of verses on a departed friend, that are to be found in the notes to one of
his satires; and there are feelings and circumstances in
this world, before which politics and satire, and poetry,
are of little importance "-(How little knew'st thou of
Calista!)-" feelings, that triumph over infirmity and
distaste of every sort, and only render us anxious, in our
respect for them, to be thought capable of appreciating
them ourselves. The world, with all its hubbub, slides
away from before one on such occasions; and we only
see humanity in all its better weakness, and let us add,
in all its beauty.
The author will think what he pleases of this effusion
of ours. It is an interval in the battle, during which
we only wish to show ourselves fellow-men with him.
Afterwards, he may resume his hostilities, if he has any,
and we will draw our swords as before.
For the Gentlemsan's Magazine. Dec. 18, 1815.
Mr. Urban,-I am one of those who love to contemplate the " frail memorials " of the dead, and do not,
therefore, count the solitary hours, occasionally spent in




Letter to William Gifford.


403


a church-yard, among the most melancholy ones of my
life. But in London, this is a gratification rarely to be
found; for, either through caution, or some less worthy
motive, the cemeteries are closed against the stranger.
I have been in the practice of passing by the chapel in
South Audley-street, Grosvenor-square, almost every
day, for several weeks, yet never saw the door of the
burying-ground open till yesterday. I did not neglect
the opportunity thus offered, but walked in. I found it
far more spacious and airy than I expected; but I met
with nothing very novel or interesting till I came to a
low tomb, plain but neat, where I was both pleased and
surprised by the following inscription, which, I believe,
has never yet appeared in print, and which seems not
unworthy of your miscellany.                     M. D.
Here lies the Body
of ANN DAVIES,
(for more than twenty years)
Servant to William Gifford.'
She died February 6, 1815,
in the forty-third year of her age,
of a tedious and painful malady,
which she bore
with exemplary patience and resignation.
Her deeply-afflicted master
erected this stone to her memory,
as a faithful testimony
of her uncommon worth,
and of his perpetual gratitude,
respect and affection,
for her long and meritorious services.
Though here unknown, dear Ann, thy ashes rest,
Still lives thy memory in one grateful breast,
That traced thy course through many a painful year,
And marked thy humble hope, thy pious fear.O! when this frame, which yet, while life remained,
Thy duteous love, with trembling hand, sustained,
1 " Undoubtedly the translator of Juvenal."




404


Letter to William Gifford.


Dissolves (as soon it must) may that Bless'd Pow'r
Who beamed on thine, illume my parting hour!
So shall I greet thee, where no ills annoy,
And what was sown in grief, is reap'd in joy;
Where worth, obscured below, bursts into day,
And those are paid, whom Earth could never pay."
It seems then, you can extract the pathetic though not
the humorous, out of persons who are not " gentlemen
or gentlewomen." It was the amiable weakness thus
noticed, that made you take such pains to do away the
suspicion of a particular partiality for low people. You
could not afford "the frail memorial" of your private
virtues to get beyond the inscription on a tomb-stone, or
the poet's corner of the Gentleman's Magazine. The
natural sympathies of the undoubted translatorof Juvenal
might be a prejudice to the official character of the
anonymous editor of the Quarterly Review. You were
determined to hear no more of this epitaph, and " other
such dulcet diseases " 2 of yours.-You perhaps recollect,
Sir, that the columns of the Examiner newspaper, which
gave you such a premature or posthumous credit for
some " compunctious visitings of nature," also contained
the first specimen of the Story of Rimini.  You seem to
to have said on that occasion with Iago, " You are well
tuned now,-but I'll set down the pegs that make this
music, as honest as I am."-That Mr. Hunt should have
supposed it possible for a moment, that a government
automaton was accessible to any thing like a liberal con1 " It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Mr. Gifford here
seems to exclude his band of gentlemen-pensioners, whom he pays on
earth, from bursting with obscure worth into the realms of day. It
is thus that Jacobin sentiments sprout from the commonest sympathy, and are even unavoidable in a government critic, when the
common claims of humanity touch his pity or self-love.
2 A quotation of Mr. Gifford's from Shakespeare. Yet he reproaches me with quoting from Shakespeare.




Letter to William Gifford.


405


cession, is one of those deplorable mistakes which constantly put men who are " made of penetrable stuff," at
the mercy of those who are not. The amiable and elegant author of Rimini thought he was appealing to
something human in your breast, in the recollection of
your " Dear Ann Davies; " he touched the springs, and
found them " stuffed with paltry blurred sheets " of the
Quarterly Review, with notes from Mr. Murray, and
directions how to proceed with the author, from the
Admiralty Scribe. You retorted his sympathy with
" one whom earth could never pay," by laughing to scorn
his honest laborious " tub-tumbling viragos," whose red
elbows and coarse fists presented so inelegant a contrast
to the pining and sickly form whose loss you deplore.
Is there any thing in your nature and disposition that
draws to it only the infirm in body and oppressed in
mind; or that, while it clings to power for support,
seeks consolation in the daily soothing spectacle of physical malady or morbid sensibility? The air you breathe
seems to infect; and your friendship to be a canker-worm
that blights its objects with unwholesome and premature
decay. You are enamoured of suffering, and are at peace
only with the dead.-Even if you had been accessible to
remorse as a political critic, Mr. Hunt had committed
himself with you (past forgiveness) in your character of
a pretender to poetry about town. The following lines in
his Feast of the Poets, must have occasioned you " a
few mirthful sensations," which you have not yet
acknowledged, except by deeds." A hem was then heard, consequential and snapping,
And a sour little gentleman walked with a rap in.
He bow'd, look'd about him, seem'd cold, and sat down,
And said,' I'm surpris'd that you'll visit this town:To be sure, there are one or two of us who know you,
But as for the rest, they are all much below you.
1 To Apollo.




406


Letter to William Giflord.


So stupid, in general, the natives are grown,
They really prefer Scotch reviews to their own;
So that what with their taste, their reformers, and stuff,
They have sicken'd myself and my friends long enough.'
' Yourself and your friends ' cried the God in high glee;
And pray my frank visitor, who may you be?'
' Who be?' cried the other; 'why really-this toneWilliam Gifford's a name, I think pretty well known.'
'Oh-now I remember,' said Phcebus;-' ah trueMy thanks to that name are undoubtedly due:
The rod, that got rid of the Cruscas and Lauras,
-'That plague of the butterflies-sav'd me the horrors;
The Juvenal too stops a gap in one's shelf,
At least in what Dryden has not done himself;
And there's something, which even distaste must respect,
In the self-taught example, that conquer'd neglect.
But not to insist on the recommendations
Of modesty, wit, and a small stock of patience,
My visit just now is to poets alone,
And not to small critics, however well known.'
So saying, he rang, to leave nothing in doubt,
And the sour little gentleman bless'd himself out."
Thus painters write their names at Co.     For this passage and the temperate and judicious note which accompanies it, it is no wonder that you put the author-of
Rimini, in Newgate, without the Sheriff's warrant. In
order to give as favourable an impression of that poem
as you could, you began your account of it by saying
that it had been composed in Newgate, though you
knew that it had not; but you also knew that the name
of Newgate would sound more grateful to certain ears,
to pour flattering poison into which is the height of
your abject ambition. In this courtly innuendo which
ushered in your wretched verbal criticism (it is the more
disgusting to see such gross and impudent prevarication
combined with such petty captiousness) you were guided
not by a regard to truth, but to your own ends; and yet
you say somewhere, very oracularly, out of contradiction




Letter to William   Gijford.


407


to me, that "not to prefer the true to the agreeable,
where they are inconsistent, is folly." You have mistaken the word: it is not folly, but knavery.l
4. You say you have no objection to my " praising
my own chivalrous eloquence;" and I say that the insinuation is impertinent and untrue. The paper in
which that phrase occurs is written by Mr. Hunt, as
you know, and is an answer to some observations of
mine on the poetical temperament in a preceding number On the Causes of Methodism.    Mr. Hunt's having
taken upon him    "to praise my chivalrous eloquence,"
without consulting you, appeared no doubt a great piece
of presumption; and you punished me by magnifying
this indiscretion into the enormity of my having praised
myself.  I might as well say that Mr. Canning had
made a fulsome eulogy on his own private virtues and
public principles in your dedication of the edition of
Ben Jonson to him.-You say indeed in the last paragraph of your criticism that " you understand some of
the papers to be by Mr. Hunt; that it is he who is the
droll or merry fellow of the piece; who has shocked you
by writing eternally about washerwomen, &c. but that
you cannot stay to distinguish between us, and that we
must divide our respective share of merit between ourselves." The share of merit in that work may indeed
be so small that it is of little consequence who has the
1 Humanity stands as little in this author's way as truth when his
object is to please. It was in the same spirit of unmanly adulation
that he struck at Mrs. Robinson's lameness and "her crutches," with
a hand, that ought to have been withered in the attempt by the
lightning of public indignation and universal scorn. Mr. Sheridan
once spoke of certain politicians in his day who " skulked behind the
throne, and made use of the sceptre as a conductor to carry off the
lightning of national indignation which threatened to consume them."
There are certain small critics and poetasters who have always been
tryhig to do the same thing.




408


Letter to William Giford.


reversion of any part of it, but I will take care that a
cat's-paw shall not be put on the pannel of my quantum
reruit, nor take measure of my capacity with a mechanic
rule, marked by ignorance and servility, nor turn the
scale of public opinion by throwing in false weights as
he pleases, nor make both of us ridiculous, by attributing to each the peculiarities of the other, with whatever
exaggerated interpretation he chuses to put upon them.
By this transposition of persons, which is not a matter
of indifference as you pretend, you gain this advantage
which you have no right to gain. You can at any time
apply to me or MIr. Hunt the obnoxious points in your
account of either, and improve upon them, as it suits
your purpose. By combining the extremes of individual
character, you make a very strange and wilful compound
of your own. It is the same person, and yet it is not
one person but two persons, according to the critical
creed you would establish, who is a merry fellow, and a
sour Jacobin; who is all gaiety and all gloom; a person
who rails at poets, and yet is himself a poet; a hater of
cats, and of cat's-paws;l a reviler of Mr. Pitt, and a
panegyrist upon washerwomen. If, Sir, your friend,
Mr. Hoppner, of whom, as you tell us 2 you discreetly
said nothing, while he was struggling with obscurity,
lest it should be imputed to the partiality of friendship,
but whom you praised and dedicated to, as soon as he
became popular, to shew your disinterestedness and
This word is not very choice English: the character is not
English.
2 See the Maeviad, 1. 365, &c.
" I too, whose voice no claims but truth's e'er mov'd,
Who long have seen thy merits, long have lov'd;
Yet lov'd in silence, lest the rout should say,
Too partial friendship tun'd the applausive lay;
Now, now, that all conspire thy name to raise,
May join the shout of unsuspected praise."




Letter to William   Gifford.


409


deference to public opinion, if even this artist, whom
you celebrate as a painter of flattering likenesses, had
undertaken to unite in one piece the most striking features and characteristic expression of his and your common friends, had improved your lurking archness of
look into Mr. Murray's gentle, downcast obliquity of
vision; 1 had joined Mr. Canning's drooping nose to Mr.
Croker's aspiring chin, the clear complexion (the splendida bilis) of the one, to the candid self-complacent
aspect of the other; had forced into the same preposterous medley, the invincible hauteur and satanic pride
of Mr. Pitt's physiognomy; with the dormant meaning
and admirable nonchalance of Lord Castlereagh's featares, the manly sleekness of Charles Long, and the
monumental outline of John Kemble-what mortal
would have owned the likeness!-I too, Sir, must claim
the privilege of the principium individuationis, for myself as well as my neighbours; I will sit for no man's
picture but my own, and not to you for that; I am
not desirous to play so many parts as Bottom, and
as to his ass's head which you would put upon my
shoulders, it will do for you to wear the next time you
shew yourself in Mr. Murray's shop, or for your friend
Mr. Southey to take with him, whenever he appears at
Court.
As to the difference of political sentiment between
the writer of the Round Table and the writer of the
article in the Review, which forms the heavy burthen
of your flippant censure, I cannot consider that as an
1 H. M. admitted that Mr. Murray did squint, but then no more
than a gentleman might! If H. M. had at the same time informed
us how much a gentleman ought to squint, he would have added considerably to our obligations.-John Hunt, in the copy of 1820. But
this pleasantry, such as it is, had long before been current about
Wilkes, I think.-ED.
EE




410


Letter to William Gifford.


accusation. You have many other objections to make:
such as that, because Mr. Addison wrote some very
pleasing papers on the Pleasures of the Imagination, I
am not willing to fall short of "my illustrious predecessor;" and "accordingly," you say, " we hear much
of poetry and of painting, and of music and of gusto."
Is this the only reason you can conceive why any one
should take an interest in such things; or did you write
your Baviad and Mseviad that you might not fall short
of Pope, your translation of Juvenal that you might
surpass Dryden, or did you turn commentator on the
poets, that you might be on a par with " your illustrious
predecessors "-" from slashing Bentley down to piddling
Theobalds?"  Of Hogarth you make me say, quoting
from your favourite treatise on washerwomen, that "he
is too apt to perk morals and sentiments in your face."
You cannot comprehend my definition of gusto, which
you do not ascribe to any defect in yourself. My
account of Titian and Vandyke's colouring, appears to
you very odd, because it is like the things described,
and you have no idea of the things described. If I had
described the style of these two painters in terms applicable to them both, and to all other painters, you
would have thought the precision of the style equal to
the justness of the sentiment. A distinction without
a difference satisfies you, for you can understand or
repeat a common-place. It is the pointing out the real
differences of things that offends you, for you have
no idea of what is meant; and a writer who gets at
all below the surface of a question, necessarily gets
beyond your depth, and you can hardly contain your
wonder at his presumption and shallowness. You quote
half a dozen detached sentences of mine, as "convincing
instances of affectation and paradox," (such as, The defi.
nition of a true patriot is a good hater-He who speaks two




Letter to William Gifford.


411


languages has no country, 4c.) and which taken from the
context to which they belong, and of which they are
brought as extreme illustrations, may be so, but which
you cannot answer in the connection in which they
stand, and which you detach from the general speculation
with which you dare not cope, to bring them more into
the focus of your microscopic vision, and that you may
deal with them more at ease and in safety on your old
ground of literal and verbal quibbling.
You do not like the subjects of my Essays in general.
You complain in particular of "my eager vituperation
of good nature and good-natured people;" and yet
with this you have, as I should take it, nought to do:
you object to my sweeping abuse of poets, as (with the
exception of Milton) dishonest men,1 with which you
have as little to do; you are no poet, and of course,
honest! You do not like my abuse of the Scotch at
which the Irish were delighted, nor my abuse of the Irish
at which the Scotch were not displeased, nor my abuse
of the English, which I can understand; but I wonder
you should not like my abuse of the French. You say
indeed that " no abuse which is directed against whole
classes of men is of much importance," and yet you and
your Anti-Jacobin friends have been living upon this sort
of abuse for the last twenty years. You add with characteristic "no meaning " —"If undeserved, it is utterly
impotent and may be well utterly despised." The
last part of the proposition may be true, but abuse is
not without effect, because undeserved, nor is a thing
utterly impotent because it is thoroughly despicable.
You, Sir, have power which is considerable, in proportion as it is despicable!
I confess, Sir, the Round Table did not take; "it was
" To be honest as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of
ten thousand."-Shakespeare.




412


Letter to William Gifford.


Caviare to the multitude," but the reason, I think, was
not that the abuse in it was undeserved, but that I
have there spoken the truth of too many persons and
things. In writing it, I preferred the true to the agreeable, which I find to be an unpardonable fault. Yet I
am not aware of any sentiment in the work which ought
to give offence to an honest and inquiring mind, for I
think there is none that does not evidently proceed from
a conviction of its truth and a bias to what is right.
}My object in writing it was to set down such observations as had occurred to me from time to time on different subjects, and as appeared to be any ways worth
preserving. I wished to make a sort of Liber Veritatis, a
set of studies from human life. As my object was not
to flatter, neither was it to offend or contradict others,
but to state my own feelings or opinions such as they
really were, but more particularly of course when this
had not been done before, and where I thought I could
throw any new light upon a subject. In doing so, I
endeavoured to fix my attention only on the thing I was
writing about, and which had struck me in some particular manner, which I wished to point out to others,
with the best reasons or explanations I could give. I
was not the slave of prejudices; nor do I think I was
the dupe of my own vanity. To repeat what has been
said a thousand times is common-place: to contradict it
because it has been so said, is not originality. A truth
is, however, not the worse but the better for being new.
I did not try to think with the multitude nor to differ
with them, but to think for myself; and the having
done this with some boldness and some effect is the
height of my offending. I wrote to the public with the
same sincerity and want of disguise as if I'had been
making a register of my private thoughts; and this has
been construed by some into a breach of decorum. The




Letter to William  Gifford.


413


affectation I have been accused of was merely my sometimes stating a thing in an extreme point of view for
fear of not being understood; and my love.of paradox
may, I think, be accounted for from the necessity of
counteracting the obstinacy of prejudice. If I have
been led to carry a remark too far, it was because others
would not allow it to have any force at all. My object
was to shew the latent operation of some unsuspected
principle, and I therefore took only some one view of
that particular subject. I was chiefly anxious that the
germ of thought should be true and original; that I
should put others in possession of what I meant, and then
left it to find its level in the operation of common sense,
and to have its excesses corrected by other causes. The
principle will be found true, even where the application
is extravagant or partial. I have not been wedded to
my particular speculations with the spirit of a partisan.
I wrote for instance an Essay on Pedantry, to qualify
the extreme contempt into which it has fallen, and to
shew the necessary advantages of an absorption of the
whole mind in some favourite study, and I wrote an
Essay on the Ignorance of the Learned to lessen the
undue admiration of Learning, and to shew that it is
not every thing. I gained very few converts to either
of these opinions. You reproach me with the cynical
turn of many of my Essays, which are in fact prosesatires; but when you say I hate every thing but washerwomen, you forget what you had before said that I was
a great imitator of Addison, and wrote much about
" poetry and painting, and music and gusto."  You make
no mention of my character of Rousseau, or of the paper
on Actors and Acting. You also forget my praise of
John Buncle! As to my style, I thought little about it.
I only used the word which seemed to me to signify the
idea I wanted to convey, and I did not rest till I had got it.




414


Letter to William Gifford.


In seeking for truth, I sometimes found beauty. As to
the facility of which you, Sir, and others accuse me, it
has not been acquired at once nor without pains. I was
eight years in writing eight pages, under circumstances
of inconceivable and ridiculous discouragement. As to
my figurative and gaudy phraseology, you reproach me
with it because you never heard of what I had written
in my first dry manner. I afterwards found a popular
mode of writing necessary to convey subtle and difficult
trains of reasoning, and something more than your
meagre vapid style, to force attention to original observations, which did not restrict themselves to making a
parade of the discovery of a worm-eaten date, or the
repetition of an obsolete prejudice. You say that it is
impossible to remember what I write after reading it:One remembers to have read what you write-before!
In that you have the advantage of me, to be sure. You
in vain endeavour to account for the popularity of some
of my writings, from the trick of arranging words in a
variety of forms without any correspondent ideas, like
the newly-invented optical toy. You have not hit upon
the secret, nor will you be able to avail yourself of it
when I tell you. It is the old story-that I think what
I please, and say what I think. This accounts, Sir, for
the difference between you and me in so many respects.
I think only of the argument I am defending; you are
only thinking whether you write grammar. Iy opinions
are founded on reasons which I try to give; yours are
governed by motives which you keep to yourself. It
has been my business all my life to get at the truth as
well as I could, merely to satisfy my own mind: it has
been yours to suppress the evidence of your senses and
the dictates of your understanding, if you ever found
them at variance with your convenience or the caprices
of others. I do not suppose you ever in your life took




Letter to William Gifford.


415


an interest in any abstract question for its own sake, or
have a conception of the possibility of any one else
doing so. If you had, you would hardly insist on my
changing characters with you. Yet you make this the
condition of my receiving any favour or lenity at your
hands. It is no matter, Sir: I will try to do without it.
It appears by your own account, that all the other
offences of the Round Table would hardly have roused
your resentment, had it not been that I have spoken of
Mr. Pitt and Mr. Burke, not in the hackneyed terms of
a treasury underling. It was this that filled up the
measure of my iniquity, and the storm burst on my devoted head. After quoting one or two half sentences
from the character of Mr. Pitt,1 in which I ascribe the
influence of his oratory almost entirely to a felicitous
and imposing arrangement of words, and the whole of a
short note on Mr. Burke's political apostacy, which I
had fancifully ascribed to his jealousy of Rousseau, you
add with great sincerity-" We are far from intending
to write a single word in answer to this loathsome
trash:" (it would have been well if you had made and
kept the same resolution in other cases,) " but we confess that these passages chiefly excited us to take the
trouble of noticing the work. The author might have
described washerwomen for ever; complimented himself
unceasingly on his own " chivalrous eloquence;" prosed
interminably about Chaucer; written, if possible, in a
more affected, silly, confused, ungrammatical style, and
believed, as he now believes, that he was surpassing Addison, we should not have meddled with him; but if the
creature, in his endeavours to crawl into the light, must
I This character, (which has not been relished,) appeared originally in a small pamphlet in 1806, called Free Thoughts on Public
Affairs, with a note acknowledging my obligations for the leading
ideas to an article of Mr. Coleridge's, in the Morning Post, Feb. 1800.




416


Letter to William Gifford.


take his way over the tombs of illustrious men, disfiguring the records of their greatness with the slime and filth
which marks his track, it is right to point him out that
he may be flung back to the situation in which nature
designed that he should grovel" p. 159. And this, Sir,
from you who wrote or procured to be inserted in the
Quarterly Review, that nefarious attack on the character of Mr. Fox, which was distinguished and is still
remembered among the slime and filth which has marked
its track into day, over the characters and feelings of
the living and the dead. If I, Sir, had written that
"foul and vulgar invective" against an individual
whom you did not choose to let " rest in his grave," if I
had been " such a thing " as the writer of that article, I
might, (as you say,) have described washerwomen for
ever, and have fancied myself a better writer than " the
courtly Addison," and you, Sir, would have encouraged
me in the delusion, for I should have been a court-tool,
your tool. But you state the thing clearly and unanswerably. I was not a court-tool, your tool, and
therefore I was to be made your victim. There is a
difference of political opinion between you and me;
therefore you undertake not only to condemn that
opinion, but to proscribe the writer. Do you do this on
your own authority, or on Mr. Croker's, or on whose? As
I did not consider it as sacrilege to criticise the style and
the opinions of the two great men who have contributed
to make this country what it is, a feof held by a junto,
of which men like you are the organs, in trust and for
the benefit of the common cause of despotism throughout Europe, I, and every other writer like me, professing
or maintaining any thing like independence of spirit or
consistency of opinion, is "to be flung back into his
original obscurity, and stifled in the filth and slime " of
the Quarterly Review, or its drain, Blackwood's Edin



Letter to William Gifford.


417


burgh Magazine. You began the experiment upon the
Round Table; you have tried it twice since, and for the
last time.
If any doubts could ever have been entertained on the
subject of your motives and views, you have taken care
to remove them. Thus you conclude your account of
the character of Shakespear's plays with saying, that
you should not have condescended to notice the senseless and wicked sophistry of the work at all, but that
"you conceived it might not be unprofitable to shew
how small a portion of talent and literature is necessary
to carry on the trade of sedition." I should think it requires as much talent and literature to carry on my trade
as yours. This acknowledgment of yours is "remarkable for its truth and naivete."  It is a pledge from
your own mouth of your impartiality and candour.
With this object in view, "you have selected a few
specimens of my ethics and criticism," (they are very
few, and of course you would select no others,) just sufficient, (with your garbling and additions,) to prove
" that my knowledge of Shakespear and the English language is exactly on a par with the purity of my morals,
and the depth of my understanding." But did it not
occur to you in making this officious declaration, or
would it not occur to any one else in reading it, that this
undertaking of yours might be no less " profitable " and
acceptable, even supposing the portion of talent displayed by the author not to be small but great? Would
it not be more necessary in this case to do away the
scandal that there was any talent or literature on the
side of "sedition? "  The greater the shock given to
the complacency of servility and corruption, by an opinion
getting abroad that there was any knowledge of Shakespear or the English language except on the minister's
side of the question, would it not be the more absolutely




418


Letter to William   Gifford.


incumbent on you as the head of the literary police, to
arrest such an opinion in the outset, to crush it before it
gathered strength, and to produce the article in question
as your warrant? Why, what a disgrace to literature
and to loyalty, if owing to the neglect and supineness of
the editor of the Quarterly Review, a work written without an atom of cant or hypocrisy, and of course with a
very small portion of talent and literature, should, in
the space of three months get into a second edition, and
be fast advancing to a third, be noticed in the Edinburgh
Review, and be talked of by persons who never looked
into the Examiner; and how necessary without loss of
time, to counteract the mischievous inference from all this,
restore the taste of the public to its legitimate tone, and
satisfy the courteous reader, who " was well affected to
the constitution in church and state as now established,"
that in future he must look for a knowledge of Shakespear only in the editor of Ben Jonson, of the English
language in the private tutor of Lord Grosvenor, for
purity of morals in the translator of Juvenal, and for
depth of understanding in the notes to the Baviad and
Mseviad! Your employers, Mr. Gifford, do not pay
their hirelings for nothing-for condescending to notice
weak and wicked sophistry; for pointing out to contempt what excites no admiration; for cautiously selecting a few specimens of bad taste and bad grammar,
where nothing else is to be found. They want your
invincible pertness, your mercenary malice, your impenetrable dulness, your barefaced impudence, your pragmatical self-sufficiency, your hypocritical zeal, your
pious frauds to stand in the gap of their prejudices and
pretensions, to fly-blow and taint public opinion, to defeat independent efforts, to apply not the sting of the
scorpion but the touch of the torpedo to youthful hopes, to
crawl and leave the slimy track of sophistry and lies over




Letter to William   Gifford.


419


every work that does not " dedicate its sweet leaves " to
some luminary of the Treasury Bench, or is not fostered
in the hot-bed of corruption. This is your office; " this
is what is looked for at your hands, and this you do not
baulk "-to sacrifice what little honesty, and prostitute
what little intellect you possess to any dirty job you are
commissioned to execute. " They keep you as an ape
does an apple, in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed to
be last swallowed."  You are, by appointment, literary
toad-eater to greatness, and taster to the court. You
have a natural aversion to whatever differs from your
own pretensions, and an acquired one for what gives
offence to your superiors. Your vanity panders to your
interest, and your malice truckles only to your love of
power. If your instinctive or premeditated abuse of
your enviable trust were found wanting in a single
instance; if you were to make a single slip in getting
up your select Committee of Inquiry and Green Bag
Report of the State of Letters, your occupation would
be gone. You would never after obtain a squeeze of the
hand from a great man, or a smile from a punk of
quality. The great and powerful (whom you call the wise
and good) do not like to have the privacy of their selflove startled by the obtrusive and unmanageable claims
of literature and philosophy, except through the intervention of persons like you, whom, if they have common
penetration, they soon find out to be without any superiority of intellect; or, if they do not, whom they can
despise for their meanness of soul. You "have the
office opposite to St. Peter."  You "keep a corner in
the public mind, for foul prejudice and corrupt power to
knot and gender in;" you volunteer your services to
people of quality to ease scruples of mind and qualms
of conscience; you " lay the flattering unction " of venal
prose and laurelled verse to their souls. You persuade




420


Letter to William Giflord.


them that there is neither purity of morals, nor depth of
understanding, except in themselves and their hangerson; and would prevent the unhallowed names of liberty
and humanity from being ever whispered in ears polite!
You, Sir, do you not do all this? I cry you mercy then:
I took you for the Editor of the Quarterly Review!
In general, you wisely avoid committing yourself
upon any question, farther than to hint a difference of
opinion, and to assume an air of self-importance upon
it. Thus you say, after quoting some remarks of mine,
not very respectful to Henry VIII. "We need not
answer this gabble," as if you were offended at its absurdity, not at its truth; and were yourself ready to
assert (were it worth while) that Henry VIII. was an
estimable character, or that he had not his minions and
creatures about him in his life-time, who were proud
to hail him as the best of kings. If so, you have the
authority of Mr. Burke against you, who indulges himself in a very Jacobinical strain of invective against this
bloated pattern of royalty, and brute-image of the Divinity. Do you mean to say, that the circumstances of
external pomp and unbridled power, which I have
pointed out in " the gabble you will not answer " as
determining the character of kings, do not make them
what for the most part they are, feared in their lifetime and scorned by after-ages? If so, you must think
Quevedo a libeller and incendiary, who makes his guide
to the infernal regions, on being asked " if there were no
more kings," answer emphatically-" Here are all that
ever lived! " You say that " the mention of a court or
of a king always throws me into a fit of raving." Do
you then really admire those plague spots of history,
and scourges of human nature, Richard II., Richard III.,
King John, and Henry VIII.? Do you with Mr. Coleridge, in his late Lectures, contend that not to fall down




Letter to William    Gifford.


421 -

in prostration of soul before the abstract majesty of
kings as it is seen in the diminished perspective of centuries, argues an inherent littleness of mind? Or do
you extend the moral of your maxim-" Speak not of
the imputed weaknesses of the Great "-beyond the
living to the dead, thus passing an attainder on history,
and proving "truth to be a liar " from the beginning?
"Speak out, Grildrig! "
You do well to confine yourself to the hypocrite; for
you have too little talent for the sophist. Yet in two
instances you have attempted an answer to an opinion
I had expressed; and in both you have shewn how little
you can understand the commonest question. The first
is as follows:-" In his remarks upon Coriolanus, which
contain the concentrated venom of his malignity, he has
libelled our great poet as a friend of arbitrary power, in
order that he may introduce an invective against human
nature. ' Shakspeare himself seems to have had a leaning to the arbitrary side of the question, perhaps from
some feeling of contempt for his own origin; and to
have spared no occasion of baiting the rabble.' "
How do you prove that he did not? By shewing
with a little delicate insinuation how he would have
done just what I say he did.-" Shall we not be dishonouring the gentle Shakspeare by answering such
calumny, when every page of his works supplies its
refutation? 1-Who has painted with more cordial feelings the tranquil innocence of humble life? " [True.]
" Who has furnished more instructive lessons to the
great upon ' the insolence of office '-'the oppressor's
wrong '-or the abuses of brief authority "-[which you
would hallow through all time]-"or who has more
This extreme tenderness, it is to be observed, is felt by a person
who in his Life of Ben Jonson, hopes that God will forgive Shakspeare for having written his plays!




422


Letter to William Giflord.


severely stigmatised those 'who crook the pregnant
hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning? '"
[Granted, none better.] " It is true he was not actuated
by an envious hatred of greatness "-[so that to stigmatise servility and corruption does not always proceed
from envy and a love of mischief]-" he was not at all
likely, had he lived in our time, to be an orator in Spafields or the editor of a seditious Sunday newspaper "[To have delivered Mr. Coleridge's Conciones ad Pop)ulum, or to have written Mr. Southey's Wat Tyler]-" he
knew what discord would follow if degree were taken
away "-[As it did in France from the taking away the
degree between the tyrant and the slave, and those little
convenient steps and props of it, the Bastile, Lettres de
Cachet, and Louis XV.'s Palais aux cerfs]-" And therefore, with the wise and good of every age, he pointed
out the injuries that must arise to society from a turbulent rabble instigated to mischief by men not much
more enlightened, and infinitely more worthless than
themselves."
So that it would appear by your own account that
Shakspeare had a discreet leaning to the arbitrary side
of the question, and, had he lived in our time, would
probably have been a writer in the Courier, or a contributor to the Quarterly Review! It is difficult to
know which to admire most in this, the weakness or the
cunning. I have said that Shakspeare has described
both sides of the question, and you ask me very wisely,
" Did he confine himself to one? " No, I say that he
did not: but I suspect that he had a leaning to one side,
and has given it more quarter than it deserved. My words
are: "Coriolanus is a storehouse of political commonplaces. The arguments for and against aristocracy and
democracy, on the privileges of the few and the claims
of the many, on liberty and slavery, power and the abuse




Letter to William  Gifford.


423


of it, peace and war, are here very ably handled, with
the spirit of a poet and the acuteness of a philosopher.
Shakspeare himself seems to have had a leaning to the
arbitrary side of the question, perhaps from some feeling of contempt for his own origin, and to have spared
no occasion of baiting the rabble. What he says of them
is very true: what he says of their betters is also very true,
though he dwells less upon it."
I then proceed to account for this by shewing how
it is that "the cause of the people is but little calculated for a subject for poetry; or that the language of
poetry naturally falls in with the language of power."
I affirm, Sir, that poetry, that the imagination, generally speaking, delights in power, in strong excitement,
as well as in truth, in good, in right, whereas pure
reason and the moral sense approve only of the true
and good. I proceed to shew that this general love or
tendency to immediate excitement or theatrical effect, no
matter how produced, gives a bias to the imagination
often inconsistent with the greatest good, that in poetry
it triumphs over principle, and bribes the passions to
make a sacrifice of common humanity. You say that it
does not, that there is no such original sin in poetry,
that it makes no such sacrifice or unworthy compromise
between poetical effect and the still small voice of reason.
And how do you prove that there is no such principle
giving a bias to the imagination, and a false colouring
to poetry? Why by asking in reply to the instances
where this principle operates, and where no other can,
with much modesty and simplicity-" But are these the
only topics that afford delight in poetry, &c." No; but
these objects do afford delight in poetry, and they afford
it in proportion to their strong and often tragical effect,
and not in proportion to the good produced, or their desirableness in a moral point of view? "Do we read




424


Letter to William Giflord.


with more pleasure of the ravages of a beast of prey, than
of the shepherd's pipe upon the mountain? " No; but
we do read with pleasure of the ravages of a beast of prey,
and we do so on the principle I have stated, namely,
from the sense of power abstracted from the sense of
good; and it is the same principle that makes us read
with admiration and reconciles us in fact to the triumphant progress of the conquerors and mighty hunters of
mankind, who come to stop the shepherd's pipe upon
the mountains, and sweep away his listening flock. Do
you mean to deny that there is any thing imposing to
the imagination in power, in grandeur, in outward shew,
in the accumulation of individual wealth and luxury, at
the expense of equal justice and the common weal? Do
you deny that there is any thing in " the pride, pomp,
and circumstance of glorious war, that makes ambition
virtue," in the eyes of admiring multitudes? Is this a
new theory of the Pleasures of the Imagination, which
says that the pleasures of the imagination do not take
rise solely in the calculations of the understanding? Is
it a paradox of my making, that " one murder makes a
villain, millions a hero! " Or is it not true that here,
as in other cases, the enormity of the evil overpowers
and makes a convert of the imagination by its very
magnitude? You contradict my reasoning, because you
know nothing of the question, and you think that no
one has a right to understand what you do not. My
offence against purity in the passage alluded to, " which
contains the concentrated venom of my malignity," is,
that I have admitted that there are tyrants and slaves
abroad in the world; and you would hush the matter
up, and pretend that there is no such thing, in order
that there may be nothing else. Farther, I have explained the cause, the subtle sophistry of the human
mind, that tolerates and pampers the evil, in order to




Letter to William   Gifford.


425


guard against its approaches; you would conceal the
cause in order to prevent the cure, and to leave the
proud flesh about the heart to harden and ossify into
one impenetrable mass of selfishness and hypocrisy, that
we may not " sympathise in the distresses of suffering
virtue " in any case, in which they come in competition
with the factitious wants and " imputed weaknesses of
the great."  You ask "are we gratified by the cruelties
of Domitian or Nero?" No, not we-they were too
petty and cowardly to strike the imagination at a distance; but the Roman Senate tolerated them, addressed
their perpetrators, exalted them into Gods, the Fathers
of their people; they had pimps and scribblers of all
sorts in their pay, their Senecas, &c. till a turbulent
rabble thinking that there were no injuries to society
greater than the endurance of unlimited and wanton
oppression, put an end to the farce, and abated the nuisance as well as they could. Had you and I lived in
those times, we should have been what we are now, I
" a sour mal-content," and you " a sweet courtier." Your
reasoning is ill put together; it wants sincerity, it wants
ingenuity. To prove that I am wrong in saying that
the love of power and heartless submission to it extend
beyond the tragic stage to real life, to prove that there
has been nothing heard but the shepherd's pipe upon
the mountain, and that the still sad music of humanity
has never filled up the pauses to the thoughtful ear, you
bring in illustration the cruelties of Domitian and Nero,
whom you suppose to have been without flatterers, trainbearers, or executioners, and " the crimes of revolutionary
France of a still blacker die," (a sentence which alone
would have entitled you to a post of honour and secrecy
under Sejanus,) which you suppose to have been without
aiders or abettors. You speak of the horrors' of Robespierre's reign; (there you tread on velvet;) do you mean
F F




426


Letter to William Gifford.


that these atrocities excited nothing but horror in revolutionary France, in undelivered France, in Paris, the
centre and focus of anarchy and crime; or that the
enthusiasm and madness with which they were acted
and applauded, was owing to nothing but a long-deferred
desire for truth and justice, and the collected vengeance
of the human race? You do not mean this, for you
never mean any thing that has even an approximation
to unfashionable truth in it. You add, "We cannot
recollect, however, that these crimes were heard of with
much satisfaction in this country." Then you have
forgotten the years 1793 and 94, you have forgotten
the addresses against republicans and levellers, you have
forgotten Mr. Burke, and his 80,000 incorrigible Jabobins."-" Nor had we the misfortune to know any individual, (though we will not take upon us to deny that
Mr. Hazlitt may have been of that description," (I will
take upon me to deny that) " who cried havoc, and enjoyed the atrocities of Robespierre and Carnot." Then
at that time, Sir, you had not the good fortune to know
Mr. Southey.1
To return, you find fault with my toleration of those
pleasant persons, Lucio, Pompey, and Master Froth, in
Measure for Measure, and with my use of the word
"natural morality."  And yet, "the word is a good
word, being whereby a man may be accommodated." If
Pompey was a common bawd, you, Sir, are a court pimp.
That is artificial morality. " Go to, a feather turns the
scale of your avoir-du-pois." I have also, it seems,
erred in using the term  zoral in a way not familiar to
1 It was a phrase, (I have understood,) common in this gentleman's
mouth, that Robespierre, by destroying the lives of thousands, saved
the lives of millions. Or, as Mr. Wordsworth has lately expressed
the same thought with a different application, "Carnage is the
daughter of humanity."




Letter to William Gfford.


427


yon, as opposed to physical; and in that sense have applied it to the description of the mole on Imogen's neck,
" cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops i'th' bottom of
a cowslip."  I have stated that there is more than a physical-there is a moral beauty in this image, and I think
so still, though you may not comprehend how.
You assert roundly that there is no such person as
the black prince Morocchius,l in the Merchant of Venice.
"He, (Mr. Hazlitt,) objects entirely to a personage of
whom we never heard before, the black Prince Marocchius. With this piece of blundering ignorance, which,
with a thousand similar instances of his intimate acquaintance with the poet, clearly prove that his enthusiasm for Shakespear is all affected, we conclude what
we have to say of his folly; it remains to say a few
words of his mischief."  No. xxxiv. p. 463. I could
not at first, Sir, comprehend your drift in this passage,
and I can scarcely believe it yet. But I perceive that
in Chalmers's edition, the tawny suitor of Portia, who
is called Morocchius in my common edition, goes by the
style and title of Morocco. This important discovery
proves, according to you, that my admiration of Shakespear is all affected, and that I can know nothing of
the poet or his characters. So that the only title to admiration in Shakespear, not only in the Merchant of
Venice, but in his other plays, all knowledge of his
beauties, or proof of an intimate acquaintance with his
genius, is confined to the alteration which Mr. Chalmers
has adopted in the termination of the two last syllables of
the name of this blackamoor, and his reading Morocco for
Morocchius. Admirable grammarian, excellent critic!
I do not wonder you think nothing of my Characters of
Shakespear's plays, when I see what it is that you really
1 You have spelt it wrong (Marocchius), on purpose for what I
know.




428


Letter to William    Gifford.


admire and think worth the study in them. No, no, Mr.
Gifford, you shall not persuade me by your broken English and "red-lattice phrases," that the only thing in
Shakespear worth knowing, was the baptismal name of
this Prince of Morocco, or that no one can admire the
author's plays out of Mr. Chalmers's edition, or find any
thing to admire even there, except the new nomenclature of the dramatis personce. If this is not your meaning in the passage here quoted, I do not know what it
is; if it is not, I have done you great injustice in supposing that it is, for I am sure it cannot mean any
thing else so foolish and contemptible. You had begun
this curious paragraph by saying, that "I had run
through my set of phrases, and was completely at a
stand;'" and you bring as a damning proof of this, a
repetition of two phrases. Do you believe that I had
filled 300 pages with the repetition of two phrases?
"Go, go, you're a censorious ill man."
The deliberate hypocrisy of Regan and Gonerill, of
which I spoke, I had explained in the sentence before
by a periphrasis to mean their "hypocritical pretensions
to virtue." If I had no right to use the word hastily
in this absolute sense, you had still less to confound the
meaning of a whole passage. Edmund is indeed "a
hypocrite to his father; he is a hypocrite to his brother,
and to Regan and Gonerill; " but he is not a hypocrite
to himself. This is that consummation of hypocrisy
of which I spoke, and of which you ought to know
something.
I have commenced my observations on Lear, you say,
with " an acknowledgment remarkable for its naivete
and its truth;" the import of which remarkable acknowledgment is, that I find myself incompetent to do justice
to this tragedy, by any criticism upon it. This you
construe into a " determination on my part to write




Letter to William  Gifford.


429


nonsense;" you seem, Sir, to have sat down with a determination to write something worse than nonsense.
As a proof of my having fulfilled the promise, (which I
had not made,) you cite these words, "It is then the
best of all Shakespear's plays, for it is the one in
which he was most in earnest; " and add significantly,
" Macbeth and Othello were mere jeux d'esprit, we presume." You may presume so, but not from what I have
said. You only aim at being a word-catcher, and fail
even in that. In like manner, you say, " If this means
that we sympathise so much with the feelings and sentiments of Hamlet, that we identify ourselves with the
character, we have to accuse Mr. Hazlitt of strangely
misleading us a few pages back." " The moral of Othello
comes directly home to the business and bosoms of men;
the interest in Hamlet is more remote and reflex."
"And yet it is we who are Hamlet."-Yes, because we
sympathise with Hamlet, in the way I have explained,
and which you ought to have endeavoured at least to
understand. as reflecting and moralising on the general
distresses of human life, and not as particularly affected
by those which come home to himself, as we see in
Othello. You accuse me of stringing words together
without meaning, and it is you who cannot connect two
ideas together.
You call me "a poor cankered creature," "a trader
in sedition," "a wicked sophist," and yet you would
have it believed that I am "principally distinguished
by an indestructible love of flowers and odours, and dews
and clear waters, and soft airs and sounds and bright
skies, and woodland solitudes and moonlight bowers."'
I do not understand how you reconcile such " welcome
and unwelcome things," but any thing will do to feed


' Quoted from the Edinburgh Review; No. 56.




430


Letter to William Gifford.


your spleen at another's expence, when it is the person
and not the thing you dislike. Thus you complain of
my style, that it is at times figurative, at times poetical,
at times familiar, not always the same flat dull thing
that you would have it. You point out the omission of
a line in a quotation from a well-known passage in
Shakespear. You do not however think the detection
of this omission a sufficient proof of your sagacity, but
you proceed to assign as a motive for it, " That I do it
to improve the metre," which is ridiculous. You say I
conjure up objections to Shakespear which nobody ever
thought of, in order to answer them. The objection to
Romeo and Juliet, which I have answered, was made by
the late AMr. Curran, as well as the objection to the want
of interest and action in Paradise Lost, which I have
answered in another place. —" Thus he endeavours to
convince one class of critics, that the poet's genius was
not confined to the production of stage effect by supernatural means. In another place he expresses his astonishment that Shakespear should be considered as a
gloomy writer, who painted nothing but gorgons, hydras,
and chimeras dire." One of these classes of critics which,
you say, " are phantoms of my own creating," comprehends the whole French nation, and the other the greatest
part of the English with Dr. Johnson at their head, who
in his Preface, "one of the most perfect pieces of criticism since the days of Quintilian " (and which might
have been written in the days of Quintilian just as well
as in ours) has neglected to expatiate on Shakespear's
" indestructible love of flowers and odours, and woodland
solitudes and moonlight bowers." You know nothing
of Shakespear, nor of what is thought about him: you
mind only the text of the commentators. With respect
to AIr. Wordsworth's Ode, which I have dragged into
my account of Romeo and Juliet, I did not quarrel with




Letter to William Gifford.


431


the poetical conceit, but with the metaphysical doctrine
founded upon it by his school. There is a difference
between "ends of verse and sayings of philosophers."
If Shakespear had been a great German transcendental
philosopher (either at the first or second hand) his talking of the music of the spheres might have rendered
him suspected. You compare my account of Hamlet
to the dashing style of a showman: I think the showman's speech is proper to a show, and mine to Hamlet.
You, Sir, have no sympathy in common with Hamlet;
nothing to make him seem ever " present to your mind's
eye;" no feeling to produce such an hallucination in
your mind, nor to make you tolerate it In others. You
are an Ultra-Crepidarian critic.
You laugh at my theory, that "Filch's picking of
pockets has ceased to be so good a jest as formerly,"
from the degeneracy of the age, that is, from the diminution of the practice, as at variance with the Police
Report. Shortly after I had hazarded this piece of
conjectural criticism, the Beggar's Opera was hooted off
the stage in America-because they have no Police Report there. I may have been premature in applying
this conclusion from a highly advanced state of civilization, or from the degeneracy of the age we live in, to
our own country.
What you say of my remarks on the use which Shakespear makes of the principal analogy in Cymbeline, and
of contrast in Macbeth is beneath an answer. You should
confine yourself to mere matters of verbal criticism. Thus
you object to my use of the term " logical diagrams " as
unprecedented and barbarous: yet we talk of syllogising
in mode and figure, and besides, the word has been made
pretty malleable by Mr. Burke. What do you say to
his talking of " the geometricians and chemists of France,
bringing the one from the dry bones of their diagrams,




432


Letter to William Gfbford.


and the other from the soot of their furnaces, dispositions worse than indifferent to common feelings and
habitudes;" would you call this " slip-slop absurdity? "
But to talk of thie dry bones of diagrams and escape with
impunity from the censure of small critics, a man must
assert that the king of this country "holds his crown
in contempt of the choice of the people."
I am obliged to you for informing me of the real name
of the person who wrote the ingenious parallel between
Richard the Third and Macbeth.
The article in the last Review on my Lectures on
English Poetry, requires a very short notice.-You would
gladly retract what you have said, but you dare not.
You are a coward to public opinion and to your own.
You begin by observing, " Mr. Hazlitt seems to have
bound himself like Hannibal to wage everlasting war,
not indeed against Rome, but against accurate reasoning, just observation, and precise, or even intelligible
language."  This might be true, if the opinion of the
Quarterly Review were synonymous with accurate
reasoning, just observation, and knowledge of language.
"We have traced him in his two former predatory excursions on taste and common sense. Had he written
on any other subject, we should scarcely have thought of
watching his movements." You were " principally excited to notice " the Round Table by some political
heresies which had crept into it: you "condescended
to notice" the Characters of Shakespear's Plays, "to
shew how small a portion of talent and literature was
necessary to carry on the trade of sedition." You have
been tempted to watch my movements in the present
work to shew how little talent and literature is necessary to write a popular work on poetry. " But though
his book is dull, his theme is pleasing, and interests in
spite of the author. As we read, we forget Mr. Hazlitt,




Letter to William Gibford.


433


to think of those concerning whom he writes." Do you
think, Sir, that a higher compliment could come from
you?
It would neither be for my credit nor your own that
I should follow you in detail through your abortive
attempts to deny me exactly those qualifications which
you feel conscious that I possess, or afraid that others
will ascribe to me. You are already bankrupt of your
word, nor can I be admitted as an evidence in my own
case. You say that I am utterly without originality,
without a power of illustration, or language to make myself understood!-I shall leave it to the public to judge
between us. There is one objection however which you
make to me which is singular enough: viz. that I quote
Shakespear. I can only answer, that "I would not
change that vice for your best virtue." " If a trifling
thing is to be told, he will not mention it in common
language: he must give it, if possible, in words which
the Bard of Avon has somewhere used. Were the beauty
of the applications conspicuous, we might forget or at least
forgive, the deformity produced by the constant stitching
in of these patches "-[i.e. by the beauty of the applications.] " Unfortunately, however, the phrases thus obtruded upon us seem to be selected, not on account of
any intrinsic beauty, but merely because they are fantastic
and unlike what would naturally occur to an, ordinary
writer."  Certainly, Sir, your style is very different from
Shakespear's. I observe in your notes to the Baviad
and Mseviad, you diversify your matter by frequently
quoting Greek.-Now it appears to me that these quotations of your's add to the wit only by varying the type. If
these learned patches "plagued the Cruscas and Lauras,"
my quotations have given other people " the horrors! "
You, quote my definition of poetry, and say that it is
not a definition of any thing, because it is completely




434


Letter to William  Gibford.


unintelligible. To prove this, you take one word which
occurs in it, and is no way important, the word sympathy, which you tell us has two significations, one anatomical, and the other moral; and poetry, according to
you, " has no skill in surgery or ethics.' I do not think
this shews a want of clearness in my definition, but a
want of good faith or understanding in you.
You say that I get at a number of extravagant conclusions "by means sufficiently simple and common.
He employs the term poetry in three distinct meanings,
and his legerdemain consists in substituting one of these
for the other. Sometimes it is the general appellation of
a certain class of compositions, as when he says that
poetry is graver than history. Secondly, it denotes the
talent by which these compositions are produced; and
it is in this sense that he calls poetry that fine particle
within us, which produces in our being rarefaction, expansion, elevation and purification."  [This is Mr. Gifford's academic style, not mine.] " Thirdly, it denotes
the subjects of which these compositions treat. It is in
this meaning that he uses the term, when he says that
all that is worth remembering in life is the poetry of it;
that fear is poetry, that hope is poetry, that love is
poetry; and in the very same sense he might assert that
fear is sculpture and painting and music; that the
crimes of Verres are the eloquence of Cicero, and the
poetry of Milton the criticism of Mr. Hazlitt."  It is
true I have used the word poetry in the three senses
above imputed to me, and I have done so, because the
word has these three distinct meanings in the English
language, that is, it signifies the composition produced,
the state of mind or faculty producing it, and, in certain
cases, the subject-matter proper to call forth that state
of mind. Your objection amounts to this, that in reasoning on a difficult question I write common English, and




Letter to William Gifford.


435


this is the whole secret of my extravagance and obscurity.-Do you mean that the distinguishing between
the compositions of poetry, the talent for poetry, or the
subject-matter of poetry, would have told us whatpoetry
is? This is what you would say, or you have no meaning at all. I have expressly treated the subject according to this very division, and I have endeavoured to define that common something which belongs to these
several views of it, and determines us in the application
of the same common name, viz. an unusual vividness in
external objects or in our immediate impressions, exciting a movement of imagination in the mind, and leading by natural association or sympathy in harmony of
sound and the modulation of verse in expressing it.
This is what you, Sir, cannot understand. I could not
"assert in the same sense that fear is sculpture and
painting, &c." because this would be an abuse of the
English language: we talk of the poetry of painting, &c.
which could not be, if poetry was confined to the
technical sense of " lines in ten syllables." The crimes
of Yerres, I also grant, were not the same thing as the
eloquence of Cicero, though I suspect you confound the
crimes of revolutionary France with Mr. Pitt's speeches;
and as to Milton's poetry and my criticisms, there is
almost as much difference between them as between
Milton's poetry and your verses. You say, "the principal subjects of which poetry treats, are the passions
and affections of mankind; we are all under the influence of our passions and affections, that is, in Mr.
Hazlitt's new language, we all act on the principles of
poetry, and are in truth all poets. We all exert our
muscles and limbs, therefore we are anatomists and surgeons; we have teeth which we employ in chewing,
therefore we are dentists," &c. Not at all; we are all
poets, inasmuch as we are under the influence of the




436


Letter to William Giffrd.


passions and imagination, that is, as we have certain
common feelings, and undergo the same process of mind
with the poet, who only expresses in a particular manner what he and all feel alike; but in exerting our
muscles, we do not dissect them; in chewing with our
teeth, we do perform the part of dentists, &c. There is
nothing parallel in the two cases. "You anticipate,"
you say, "these brilliant conclusions for me;" and do
not perceive the difference between the extension of a
logical principle, and an abuse of common language.You proceed, "As another specimen of his definitions,
we may take the following. 'Poetry does not define
the limits of sense, nor analyse the distinctions of the
understanding, but signifies the excess of the imagination beyond the actual or ordinary impression of any
object or feeling.' Poetry was at the beginning of the
book asserted to be ac znmpression; it is now the excess of
the imainagztion beyond an impression; what this excess
is we cannot tell, but at least it must be something very
unlike an impression."  Poetry at the beginning of the
book was asserted to be not simply an impression, "but
an impression by its vividness exciting an, involuntary
novemzent of the imagination: now, you say it is the excess
of the imagination beyond an impression; and you bring
this as a proof of a contradiction in terms. An impression by its vividness exciting a movement of the imagination, you discover, must be something very unlike an
impression, and as to the imagination itself, you cannot
tell what it is; it is an unknown power in your poetical
creed. What is most extraordinary is, that you had
quoted the very passage which you here represent as a
total contradiction to the latter, only two pages before.
What, Sir, do you think of your readers? What must
they think of you!-" Though the total want of meatning," you add, "is the weightiest objection to such




Letter to William    Gifford.


437


writing, yet the abuse which it involves of particular
words and phrases" (in addition to a total want of meaning) " is very remarkable," (it must be so,) "and will
not be overlooked by those who are aware of the inseparatle connexion between justness of thought and precision of language." (You are not aware that there is
no precise measure of thought or expression.)  "What,
in strict reasoning, can be meant by the impression of a
feeling? " (The impression which it makes on the mind,
as distinct from some other to which it gives birth, is
what I meant.) " How can actual and ordinary be used as
synonymous? " (They are not.) " Every impression
must be an actual impression; " (there is then no such
thing as an imaginary impression;) "and the use of that
epithet annihilates the limitations which Mr. Hazlitt
meant" (in the.total want of all meaning,) "to guard his
proposition."  We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. You say, " you have not the faintest
conception of what I mean by the heavenly bodies returning on the squares of the distances or on Dr. Chalmers's
Discourses."  Nor will I tell you what I meant. A
knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear. "As to the assertion
that there can never be another Jacob's dream, we see
no reason why dreams should be scientific." Shakespear
says, that dreams " denote a foregone conclusion."  You
quote what I say of Swift, and misrepresent it. "Mr.
Hazlitt's doctrine, therefore, is, that the inability to become mad, is very likely to drive a man mad."   My
doctrine is, that the inability to get rid of a favourite
idea, when constantly thwarted, or of the impression of
any object, however painful, merely because it is true,
is likely to drive a man mad. It is this tenaciousness
on a particular point that almost always destroys the
general coherence of the understanding. I do not say
that the inability to get rid of the distinction between




438


Letter to William Giford.


right and wrong continued in Swift's mind after he was
mad-I say it contributed to drive him mad. I mean
that a sense of great injustice often produces madness
in individual cases, and that a strong sense of general
injustice, and an abstracted view of human nature sich
as it is, compared with what it ought to be, is likely to
produce the same effect in a mind like that of the author
of Gulliver's Travels. Do you understand yet? You
do not go into my general character of Swift, which
might have drawn you into something of a wider field
of speculation; and you pick out a straggling sentence
or two to cavil at in my account of Pope, of Chaucer, of
Milton, and Shakespear, on which you are glad to discharge the gall that has been accumulating in your mind
for several pages. If you think by this means, to put
me or the public out of conceit with my writings, you
have mistaken the matter entirely. You can only put
down my arguments by meeting them fairly, or my
style, by writing better than you do.
"We occasionally," you proceed, "discover a faint
semblance of connected thinking in Mr. Hazlitt's pages;
but wherever this is the case, his reasoning is for the
most part incorrect." This is a curious inference. "This
faint semblance of connected thinking," is, it appears,
when I maintain some opinion, which is " a sprout from
some popular doctrine; " but if I push it a little farther
than you were aware of, my reasoning becomes incorrect. Thus it has been a popular doctrine with some
critics, (which yet you do not admit)-" That the progress of science is unfavourable to the culture of the
imaginatiou. It is no doubt true, that the individual
who devotes his labour to the investigation of abstract
truth, must acquire habits of thought very different
from those which the exercise of the fancy demands."
You add in italics, " the cause lies in the exclusive appro



Letter to William Gifford.


439


priation of his time to reasoning, and not in the logical
accuracy with which he reasons."  Whenever I have any
discovery to communicate, which I think you cannot
comprehend, I will in future put it in italics, to make it
equally profound and clear. It appears by you, that
the incompatibility between the successful pursuit of
different studies does not arise from any thing incompatible in the studies themselves, but from the time devoted to each. The mind is equally incapacitated from
passing from one to the other, whether they are the
most opposite or the most alike. The dreams of alchemy,
and the schemes of astrology, the traditional belief in
the doctrine of ghosts and fairies, though made up
almost entirely of imagination, self-will, superstition
and romance, were not a jot more favourable to the
caprices and fanciful exaggerations of poetry, either in
the public mind, or in that of individuals, than the
modern system which excludes (both by the logical
accuracy with which it proceeds, and a constant appeal
to demonstrable facts), every alloy of passion, and all
exercise of the imagination. You should never put your
thoughts in italics. If I were to attempt a character of
verbal critics, I should be apt to say, that their habits of
mind disqualify them for general reasoning or fair discussion: that they are furious about trifles, because they
have nothing else to interest them; that they have no
way of giving dignity to their insignificant discoveries,
but by treating those who have missed them with contempt; that they are dogmatical and conceited, in proportion as they have little else to guide them in their
quaint' researches but caprice and accident; that the
want of intellectual excitement gives birth to increasing
personal irritability, and endless petty altercation. You,
Sir, would make all this self-evident, by the help of
italics, and say, that the cause lies not in any thing in the




440


Letter to William Gifford.


natu;re of verbal criticis.m, but the exclusive appropriation of
their time to it.
You next run foul of my account of the pleasure derived from tragedy. You are afraid to understand what
I say on any subject, and it is not therefore likely you
should ever detect what is erroneous in it. I have
shewn by a reference to facts, and to the authority of
Mfr. Burke (whom you would rather contradict than
believe me) that the objects which are supposed to please
only in fiction, please in reality; that "if there were
to be a public execution of some state criminal in the
next street; the theatre would soon be empty "-that
therefore the pleasure derived from tragedy is not any
thing peculiar to it, as poetry or fiction; but has its
ground in the common love of strong excitement. You
say I have mistated the fact, to give a false view of the
question, which, according to you, is " why that which
is painful in itself, pleases in works of fiction."  I
answer, I have shewn that this is not a fair statement
of the question, by stating the fact, that what is painful
in itself, pleases not the sufferer indeed, but the spectator, in reality as well as in works of fiction. The
common proverb proves it-" What is sport to one, is
death to another."
You observe, that " Some lines I have quoted from
Chaucer, are very pleasing--       Emelie that fayrer was to sene
Than is the lilie upon his stalke grene,
And fresher than the May with floures newe:
For with the rose-colour strove hire hewe:
I n'ot which was the finer of hem too."
" But surely the beauty does not lie in the last line,
though it is with this that Mr. Hazlitt is chiefly struck.
'This scrupulousness' he observes, 'about the literal




Letter to William Gifford.


441


preference, as if some question of matter of fact were at
issue, is remarkable."'
That is, I am not chiefly struck with the beauty of the
last line, but with its peculiarity as characteristic of
Chaucer. The beauty of the former lines might be in
Spenser: the scrupulous exactness of the latter could
be found no where but in Chaucer. I had said just before, that this poet "introduces a sentiment or a simile,
as if it were given in upon evidence."  I bring this
simile as an instance in point, and you say I have not
brought it to prove something else.
You charge me with misrepreseuting Longinus, and
prove that I have not. The word evaywvov signifies not
as you are pleased to paraphrase it " vehemently energetic," but simply "full of contests." Must the Greek
language be new-fangled, to prove that I am ignorant
of it?
The only mistake you are able to point out, is a slip of
the pen, which you will find to have been corrected long
ago in the second edition.-Your pretending to say that
Dr. Johnson was an admirer of Milton's blank verse, is
not a slip of the pen-you know he was not. There is
as little sincerity in your concluding paragraph. You
would ascribe what little appearance of thought there is
in my writings to a confusion of images, and what appearance there is of imagination to a gaudy phraseology.
If I had neither words nor ideas, I should be a profound
philosopher and critic. How fond you are of reducing
every one else to your own standard of excellence!
I have done what I promised. You complain of the
difficulty of remembering what I write; possibly this
Letter will prove an exception. There is a train of
thought in your own mind, which will connect the links
together: and before you again undertake to run down
a writer for no other reason, than that he is of an oppoGG




442


Letter to Williamz Giford.


site party to yourself, you will perhaps recollect that
your wilful artifices and shallow cunning, though they
pass undetected, will hardly screen you from your own
contempt, nor, when once exposed, will the gratitude of
your employers save you from public scorn.
Your conduct to me is no new thing: it is part of a
system which has been regularly followed up for many
years. Mr. Coleridge, in his Literary Life, has the following passage to shew the treatment which he and his
friends received from your predecessor, the editor of the
Anti-Jacobin Review.-" I subjoin part of a note from
the Beauties of the Anti-Jacobin, in which having previously informed the public that I had been dishonoured
at Cambridge for preaching Deism, at a time when for
my youthful ardour in defence of Christianity I was
decried as a bigot by the proselytes of French philosophy, the writer concludes with these words-' Since this
time he has left his native country, commenced citizen of the
world, left his poor children fatherless, and his wife destitute. Ex hoc disce his friends, Lamb and Southey.' With
severest truth," continues Mr. Coleridge, "it may be
asserted that it would not be easy to select two men
more exemplary in their domestic affections than those
whose names were thus printed at full length, as in the
same rank of morals with a denounced infidel and fugitive, who had left his children fatherless, and his wife
destitute! Is it surprising that many good men remained
longer than perhaps they otherwise would have done, adverse to a party which encouraged and openly rewarded the
authors of such atrocious calumnies?"
With me, I confess, the wonder does not lie there:
all I am surprised at is, that the objects of these atrocious calumnies were ever reconciled to the authors of
them and their patrons. Doubtless, they had powerful
arts of conversion in their hands, who could with im



Letter to William Gifford.


443


punity and in triumph take away by atrocious calumnies
the characters of all who disdained to be their tools;
and rewarded with honours, places, and pensions all those
who were. It is in this manner, Sir, that some of my old
friends have become your new allies and associates.They have changed sides, not I; and the proof that I
have been true to the original ground of quarrel is, that
I have you against me. Your consistency is the undeniable pledge of their tergiversation. The instinct of
self-interest and meanness of servility are infalible and
safe; it is speculative enthusiasm and disinterested love
of public good, that being the highest strain of humanity, are apt to falter, and " dying, make a swan-like
end." This tendency to change was, in the case of our
poetical reformists, precipitated by another cause. The
spirit of poetry is, as I have shewn elsewhere, favourable
to liberty and humanity, but not when its aid is most
wanted, in encountering the shocks and disappointments
of the world. Poetry may be described as having the
range of the universe; it traverses the empyrean, and
looks down on nature from a higher sphere. When it
lights upon the earth, it loses some of its dignity and its
use. Its strength is in its wings; its element is the air.
Standing on its feet, jostling with the crowd, it is liable
to be overthrown, trampled on, and defaced; for its
wings are of a dazzling brightness, " sky-tinctured," and
the least soil upon them shews to disadvantage. Sullied,
degraded as I have seen it, I shall not here insult over
it, but leave it to Time to take out the stains, seeing it
is a thing immortal as itself. "Being so majestical, I
should do it wrong to offer it but the shew of violence."
-The reason why I have not changed my principles
with some of the persons here alluded to, is, that I had
a natural inveteracy of understanding which did not
bend to fortune or circumstances. I was not a poet,




444


Letter to William Gifford.


but a metaphysician; and I suspect that the conviction
of an abstract principle is alone a iatch for the prejudices of absolute power, The love of truth is the best
foundation for the love of liberty. In this sense, I
might have repeated" Love is not love that alteration finds:
Oh! no, it is an everfixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken."
Besides, I had another reason. I owed something to
truth, for she had done something for me. Early in
life I had made (what I thought) a metaphysical discovery; and after that, it was too late to think of retracting. My pride forbad it: my understanding revolted
at it. I could not do better than go on as I had begun.
I too, worshipped at no unhallowed shrine, and served in
no mean presence. I had laid my hand on the ark, and
could not turn back! I have been called "a writer of
third-rate books." For myself, there is no work of
mine which I should rate so high, except one, which I
dare say you never heard of-An Essay on the Principles of Human Action. I do not think the worse of
it on that account; nor though you might not be able
to understand it, could you attribute this to the gaudiness of the phraseology, nor the want of thought. I
will here, Sir, explain the nature of the argument as
clearly and in as few words as I can.
The object of that Essay (and I have written this
Letter partly to introduce it through you to the notice
of the reader) is to leave free play to the social affections, and to the cultivation of the more disinterested
and generous principles of our nature, by removing a
stumbling-block which has been thrown in their way,
and which turns the very idea of virtue or humanity
into a fable, viz. the metaphysical doctrine of the innate




Letter to William   Gifford.


445


and necessary selfishness of the human mind. Do you
understand so far? The question I propose to examine
is not the practical question, how far man is more or
less selfish or social in the actual sum-total of his habits
and affections, nor the moral or political question, to
what degree of perfection he can be advanced still further in the one, or weaned from the other; but my intention is to state and answer the previous question,
whether there is, as it has been contended, a total incapacity and physical impossibility in the human mind, of
feeling an interest in any thing beyond itself, so that
both the common feelings of compassion, natural affection, friendship, &c. and the more refined and abstracted ones of the love of justice, of country, or of
kind, are, and must be a delusion, believed in only by
fools, and turned to their advantage by knaves. This
doctrine which has been sedulously and confidently
maintained by the French and English metaphysicians
of the two last centuries, by Hobbes, Mandeville, Rochefoucault, Helvetius and others, and is a principal cornerstone of what is called the modern philosophy, I think
tends to, and has done a great deal of mischief, and I
believe I have found out a view of the subject, which
gets rid of it unanswerably and for ever, in manner and
form following. I conceive, that to establish the doctrine of exclusive and absolute selfishness on a metaphysical basis, that is to say, on the original and impassable distinction of the faculties of the human mind, it
is necessary to make it appear, that there is some peculiar and abstracted principle which gives it an immediate, mechanical, and irresistible interest in whatever
relates to itself, and which by the same rule shuts out
and is a bar to the very possibility of our feeling not an
equal, but any kind or degree of interest whatever,
at any moment of our lives, in the history and fate of




446


Letter to William Giford.


others.-This is so far from being true, that the contrary is demonstrable. Thus, Sir, MY self-interest in
any thing signifies (by the statement) the particular
manner in which whatever relates to myself affects me,
so as to create an anxiety about it, and be a motive to
action. Now the same word, self, is indifferently applied
to the whole of my being, past, present, and to come;
and it is supposed from the use of language and the
habitual association of ideas, that this self is one thing
as well as one word, and my interest in it all along the
same necessary, identical interest. That a man must
love himself as such, seems a self-evident and simple
proposition. The idea appears like an absolute truth,
and resists every attempt at analysis, like an element in
nature. Some persons, who formerly took the pains to
read this work, imagined (do not be alarmed, Sir!) that
I wanted to argue them out of their own existence,
merely because I endeavoured to define the nature and
meaning of this word, self; to take in pieces, by metaphysical aid, this fine illusion of the brain and forgery
of language, and to shew what there is real, and what
false in it. The word denotes, by common consent,
three different selves, my past, my present, and my
future self. Now it is taken for granted by some, and
insisted upon by others, that I must have the same unavoidable interest in all these, because they are all equally
myself. But that is impossible; for in truth my personal
identity is founded only on my personal consciousness,
and that does not extend beyond the present moment.
-It must be maintained, on the other side of the question, that my past, my present, and my future self are
inseparably linked together, equally identified by an
intimate communion of transferable thoughts and feelings in one metaphysical principle of self-interest, before
they can be equally myself, the same identical thing, to




Letter to William   Gifford.


447


any purpose of sentiment or for any motive of action.
It will easily be seen how far this is the case, and how
far it is not. I have a peculiar, exclusive self-interest
or sympathy (never mind the word, Sir,) with my present self, by means of sensation (or consciousness,) and
with my past self, by means of memory, which I have
not, and cannot have with the past or present feelings or
interests of others; for this reason that these faculties
are exclusive, peculiar, and confined to myself. But I
have no exclusive, or peculiar, or independent faculty,
like sensation or memory, giving me the same absolute,
unavoidable, instinctive interest in my own future sensations, and none at all in those of others. This ideal
self is then nominally the same, but strictly different;
composed of distinct and unequal parts; bound together by laws and principles which have no parity of
relation to each other. By shewing how personal identity produces self interest as far as it goes, we shall see
exactly when and how it ceases.-If I touch a burning
coal, this gives me a present sensation differing in kind
and degree from any impression I can receive from the
same sensation being inflicted on another: there is no
communication between another's nerves and my brain
producing a correspondent jar and magnetic sympathy
of frame. Again, if I have suffered a pain of this sort
in time past, this leaves traces in my mind, by my continued identity with myself, or by means of memory,
of a kind totally distinct from any conception I can
form of the same pain inflicted a year ago (for instance)
on another. These two important faculties then give
me an appropriate and exclusive interest only in what
happens or has happened to myself. So far as the operation of these two faculties goes, I am strictly a selfish
being, I am necessarily cut off from all knowledge of
or sympathy with the feelings of any one but myself.




448


Letter to William Gioord.


But if I am to undergo a certain pain at a future time,
the next year or the next moment, however near or
remote, I have no faculty impressing this feeling intuitively and with mechanical force and certainty on my
mind beforehand, as my present or past impressions are
stamped upon it by means of sensation and memory. I
have no principle of thought or sentiment in the original
conformation of my mind, projecting me forward into
my future being, giving me a present unavoidable consciousness of it, and removed from all cognisance of
what happens to others; I have no faculty identifying
my future interests inseparably with my present feelings, and therefore I have no exclusive, mechanical and
proper self-interest in them, merely because they are
mine: for that which is mine, is that which touches me
by secret springs, and in a way in which what relates to
others can take no hold of me. The only faculty by
which I can anticipate what is to befal myself in future,
is the same common and disposeable faculty in kind and
in mode of operation, by which I can, I do, and must
anticipate in degree, and more or less according to circumstances, the feelings and thoughts of others, and
take a proportionable interest in them, viz. the imagination. To suppose that there is a principle of self-interest in the mind, without a faculty of self-interest, is an
absurdity and a contradiction. This idea of an abstract,
exclusive, metaphysical self-interest in my own being
generally, is taken (by a gross and blind prejudice)
from the manner in which the faculties of sensation and
memory affect me, and applied to a part of my being,
where I have no such interest in myself, because I have
no such faculty giving it me. What proves that there is
no mechanical sympathy identifying my future with my
present being, is, that I am for the most part, indifferent
to, ignorant of what is to happen to myself hereafter.




Letter to William Girffd.


449


There is no presentiment in the case. If the house is
about to fall on my head, this occasions no uneasiness
to my self-love, unless there are circumstances to alarm
my imagination beforehand. To suppose, that besides
the ideal or rational interest I have in the event, I have
another real metaphysical interest in it, without object
or consciousness, is as if I should say, that I have a
particular interest in the past, without remembering it,
or in the present without feeling it.-But the future is
the only subject of action, that is, of a practical or
rational interest at all, either of self-love or benevolence.
All voluntary action, that is, all action undertaken with
a view to produce a certain event or the contrary, must
relate to the future. The primary, essential motive of
the volition of any thing must be the idea of that thing,
and the idea solely. For the thing itself, which is the
object of desire and pursuit, is by the supposition a nonentity. It is willed for that very reason, that it is supposed not to exist. If it did exist, or had existed, it
would be absurd to will it to exist or not to exist; and
as a thing which does not exist, but which we will to be
or not to be, it is a mere fiction of the mind, and can
exert no power over the thoughts, nor influence the will
or the affections in any way, except through the imagination. The future, whether as it relates to myself or
others, exists only in the mind; and in the mind, not
by memory, not by sensation, which are exclusive and
selfish faculties, but by the imagination, which is not
a limited, narrow faculty, but common, discursive, and
social. If my sympathy with others is not a sensible
substantial mechanical interest, neither is my self-interest any thing but an imaginary and ideal one, I am
bound to my future interest only by the same fine links
of fancy and reason, which give that of others a hold
on my affections. As a voluntary agent, I am neces



450


Letter to William Gifford.


sarily, and in the first instance, that is, in the metaphysical sense of the question, a disinterested one. I
could not love myself, if I were not so formed, as to
be capable of loving others. I have no solid, material,
gross, actual self-interest in my own future welfare,
and I therefore can only have the same airy, notional,
hypothetical interest in it, which I must have in kind,
though not in degree, in the pleasures and pains of
others, which I get at the knowledge of and sympathise
with in the same way. There is then no exclusive
ground of self-interest, incompatible with sympathy,
and rendering it a chimera; self-love and sympathy
both rest on the same general ground of reason, of imagination, and of common sense.-It may be said, that
my own future interests have a reality beyond the mere
idea. So have the interests of others, and the only
question is, whether the sympathy, the motive to action,
is not equally imaginary in both cases. It may be said,
that I shall become my future self, but that is no reason
why I should take a particular interest in it till I do.
If a pin pricks me in any part of my body, I am instantly
apprised of it, and feel an interest in removing it; but
my future self does not find any means of apprising me
of its sensations, in which I can feel no interest, except
from previous apprehension. Lastly, it may be said that
I do feel an interest in myself and my future welfare,
which I do not, and cannot feel in that of others. This
I grant; but that does not prove a metaphysical antecedent self-interest, precluding the possibility of all interest in others, (for the social affections are as much a
matter of fact, as the influence of self-love) but a practical self-interest, arising out of habit and circumstances,
and more or less consistent with other disinterested and
humane feelings, according to habit, opinion, and circumstances. I love myself better than my neighbour,




Letter to William  Gifford.


451


for the same reason (and for no other) that I love my
child better than a stranger's-from having my thoughts
more fixed upon its welfare, my time more taken up in
providing for it, and from my knowing better by experience, what its wants and wishes are. People have
accounted for natural affection as an innate idea, as they
have for self-love. According to the metaphysical doctrine of selfishness, my own child or a stranger's, and
every one else, are equally and perfectly indifferent to
me, as much as if they were mere machines. As to a
paramount universal abstract notion of personal identity,
impelling and overruling all my actions, thoughts, feelings, &c. to one sole object, and centre of self-interest,
there is no such thing in nature. It requires almost as
much pains and discipline, to make us attentive to our
own real and permanent happiness, as to that of others.
Is it not the constant theme of moralists and divines,
that man is the sport of impulse, and the creature of
habit?  I would ask, whether the convivialist is deterred
from indulging in his love of the bottle, by any consideration of the ruin of his health or business? Is the
debauchee restrained in the career of his passions, any
more by reflecting on the disgrace or probable diseases
he is bringing on himself, than on the injury he does to
others? It would be as hard a task to make the spendthrift prudent, as the miser generous. Man is governed
by his passions, and not by his interest.-The selfish
theory is founded on mixing up vulgar prejudices, and
scholastic distinctions; and by being insisted on, tends to
debase the mind, and not at all promote the cause of truth.
I do not think I should illustrate the foregoing
reasoning so well by any thing I could add on the subject, as by relating the manner in which it first struck
me. I remember I had been reading a speech which
Mirabaud (the author of the work, called the System of




452


Letter to William Giffbrd.


Nature) has put into the mouth of a supposed infidel at
the day of Judgment; and was afterwards led on by
some means or other, to consider the question, whether
it could properly be said to be an act of virtue in any
one to sacrifice his own final happiness to that of any
other person, or number of persons, if it were possible
for the one ever to be made the price of the other. Suppose it be my own case-that it were in my power to
save twenty other persons, by voluntarily consenting to
suffer for them, why should I not do a generous thing.
and never trouble myself about what might be the consequences to myself thousands of years hence? Now
the reason, I thought, why a man should prefer his own
future welfare to that of others, was, that he has a necessary, or abstract interest in the one, which he cannot
have in the other, and this again is the consequence of
his being always the same individual, of his continued
identity with himself. The distinction is this, that however insensible I may be to my own interest at any
future period, yet when the time comes, I shall feel very
differently about it. I shall then judge of it from the
actual impression of the object, that is, truly and certainly; and as I shall still be conscious of my past feelings, and shall bitterly repent my own folly and insensibility, I ought, as a rational agent, to be determined
now by what I shall then wish I had done, when I shall
feel the consequences of my actions most deeply and
sensibly. It is this continued consciousness of my own
feelings which gives me an immediate interest in whatever relates to my future welfare, and makes me at
all times accountable to myself for my own conduct.
As therefore this consciousness will be renewed in me
after death, if I exist again at all-But stop  As I
must be conscious of my past feelings to be myself, and
as this conscious being will be myself, how, if that




Letter to William Gifford.


453


consciousness should be transferred to some other
being?  How am I to know that I am not imposed
upon by a false claim of identity? But that is impossible, because I shall have no other self than that
which arises from this very consciousness. Why then,
if so, this self may be multiplied in as many different
beings as the Deity may think proper to endue with the
same consciousness, which, if it can be renewed by an
act of omnipotence in any one instance, may clearly be
so in a hundred others. Am I to regard all these as
equally myself? Am I equally interested in the fate of
all? Or if I must fix upon some one of them in particular as my representative and other self, how am I to
be determined in my choice? - IHere then I saw an
end to my speculations about absolute self-interest and
personal identity. I saw plainly, that the consciousness
of my own feelings, which is made the foundation of my
continued interest in them, could not extend to what
had never been, and might never be, that my identity
with myself must be confined to the connection between
my past and present being, that with respect to my
future feelings and interests they could have no communication with, or influence over my present feelings
and interests, merely because they were future, that I
shall be hereafter affected by the recollection of my
former feelings and actions, and my remorse be equally
heightened by reflecting on my past folly, and late-earned
wisdom, whether I am really the same thinking being, or
have only the same consciousness renewed in me; but
that to suppose that this remorse can re-act in the
reverse order on my present feelings, or create an immediate interest in my future feelings before it exists,
is an express contradiction. For, how can this pretended unity of consciousness which is only reflected
from the past, which makes me so little acquainted with




454


Letter to Tilliam Giflord.


the future, that I cannot even tell for a moment how
long it will be continued, whether it will be entirely
interrupted by, or renewed in me after death, and which
might be multiplied in I don't know how many different
beings, and prolonged by complicated sufferings, without my being any the wiser for it; how, I ask, can a
principle of this sort transfuse my present into my
future being, and make me as much a participator in
what does not at all affect me as if it were actually impressed upon my senses? I cannot, therefore, have a
principle of active self-interest arising out of the connexion between my future and present being, for no
such connexion exists or is possible. I am what I am
in spite of the future. My feelings, actions, and interests are determined by causes already existing and
acting, and cannot depend on any thing else, without a
complete transposition of the order in which effects
follow one another in nature.
In this manner, Sir, may a man learn to distinguish
the limits which circumscribe his identity with himself,
and the frail tenure on which he holds his fleeting existence. Here indeed, " on this bank and shoal of time,"
we give ourselves credit for a few years, and so far
make sure of our continued identity-as far as we can
see the horizon before us, while the same busy scene
exists, while the same objects, passions, and pursuits
engross our attention, we seem to grasp the realities of
things; they are incorporated with our imagination and
take hold of our affections, and we cannot doubt of our
interest in them. Farther than this, we do not go with
the same confidence; the indistinctness of another state
of being takes away its reality, and we lose the abstract
idea of self for want of objects to attach it to. But the
reasoning is the same in both cases. The next year, the
next hour, the next moment is but a creation of the




Letter to William Gifford.


455


mind; in all that we hope or fear, love or hate, in all
that is nearest and dearest to us, we but mistake the
strength of illusion for certainty, and follow the mimic
shews of things and catch at a shadow and live in a
waking dream. Every thing before us exists in an ideal
world. The future is a blank and dreary void, like
sleep or death, till the imagination brooding over it
with wings outspread, impregnates it with life and
motion. The forms and colours it assumes are but
the pictures reflected on the eye of fancy, the unreal
mockeries of future events. The solid fabric of time
and nature moves on, but the future always flies before
it. The present moment stands on the brink of nothing.
We cannot pass the dread abyss, or make a broad and
beaten way over it, or construct a real interest in it, or
identify ourselves with what is not, or have a being,
sense, and motion, where there are none. Our interest
in the future, our identity with it, cannot be substantial;
that self which we project before us into it is like a
shadow in the water, a bubble of the brain. In becoming
the blind and servile drudges of self-interest, we bow
down before an idol of our own making, and are spellbound by a name. Those objects to which we are most
attached, make no part of our present sensations or real
existence; they are fashioned out of nothing, and rivetted
to our self-love by the force of a reasoning imagination,
(the privilege of our intellectual nature)-and it is the
same faculty that carries us out of ourselves as well as
beyond the present moment, that pictures the thoughts,
passions and feelings of others to us, and interests us in
them, that clothes the whole possible world with a
borrowed reality, that breathes into all other forms the
breath of life, and endows our sympathies with vital
warmth, and diffuses the soul of morality through all
the relations and sentiments of our social being.




456


Letter to William Gifford.


Such, Sir, is the metaphysical discovery of which I
spoke; and which I made many years ago. From that
time I felt a certain weight and tightness about my
heart taken off, and cheerful and confident thoughts
springing up in the place of anxious fears and sad forebodings. The plant I had sown and watered with my
tears, grew under my eye; and the air about it was
wholesome and pleasant. For this cause it is, that I
have gone on little discomposed by other things, by
good or adverse fortune, by good or ill report, more
hurt by public disappointments than my own, and not
thrown into the hot or cold fits of a tertian ague, as the
Edinburgh or Quarterly Review damps or raises the
opinion of the town in my favour. I have some love of
fame, of the fame of a Pascal, a Leibnitz, or a Berkeley
(none at all of popularity) and would rather that a
single inquirer after truth should pronounce my name,
after I am dead, with the same feelings that I have
thought of theirs, than be puffed in all the newspapers,
and praised in all the reviews, while I am living. I myself have been a thinker; and I cannot but believe that
there are and will be others, like me. If the few and
scattered sparks of truth, which I have been at so much
pains to collect, should still be kept alive in the minds
of such persons, and not entirely die with me, I shall be
satisfied.
I am, Sir,
Yours, &c.
WILLIAM HAZLITT.


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ELLIS (G.) Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances, relating to
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ETHELWERD. Chronicle of. - See
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FLORENCE OF WORCESTER'S
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from the Departure of the Romans to the
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GESTA ROMANORUM, or Entertaining Moral Stories invented by the
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GILDAS. Chronicle of.-See Six 0. E.
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ORDERICUS VITALIS' Ecclesiastical
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WILLIAM       OF MALMESBURY'S
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YULE-TIDE STORIES. A Collection
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ILLUSTRA TED LIBRARY.           x


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ARISTOPHANES' Comedies. Trans.,
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BOHN'S CHEAP SERIES.             21
HAZLITT (W.).-Continued.
LECTURES ON THE CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS.
LECTURES ON THE LITERATURE OF THE AGE OF
ELIZABETH, chiefly Dramatic.
IR VtNG (WASHINGTON).LIFE OF MOHAMMED. With Portrait.
LIVES OF SUCCESSORS OF MOHAMMED.
LIFE OF GOLDSMITH.
SKETCH-BOOK.
TALES OF A TRAVELLER.
TOUR ON THE PRAIRIES.
CONQUESTS OF GRANADA AND SPAIN. Two Parts.
LIFE AND VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS. Two Parts.
COMPANIONS OF COLUMBUS: Their Voyages and Discoveries.
ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE in the Rocky
Mountains and the Far West.
KNICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW YORK, from the
Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty.
TALES OF THE ALHAMBRA.
CONQUEST OF FLORIDA UNDER HERNANDO DE
SOTO.
ABBOTSFORD AND NEWSTEAD ABBEY.
SALMAGUNDI; or, The Whim-Whams and Opinions of
LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, Esq.
BRACEBRIDGE HALL; or, The Humourists.
ASTORIA; or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky
Mountains.
WOLFERT'S ROOST, and Other Tsles.
LAMB (CHARLES).ESSAYS OF ELIA. With a Portrait.
LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA.
ELIANA. With Biographical Sketch.
MARR YA T (CAPTAIN).
PIRATE AND THE THREE CUTTERS. With a Memoir of
the Author.  e




(    22
The only authorised Edition; no others published in England contain
the Derivations and Etymological Notes of D;r. Mahn, who
devoted severalyears to this jortion of the Work.
WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Thoroughly revised and improved by CHAUNCEY A. GOODRICH, D.D., LL.D.,
and NOAH PORTER, D.D., of Yale College.
THE GUINEA DICTIONARY.
New Edition [I880], with a Supplement of upwards of 4600 New Words and
Meanings.
1628 Pages. 3000 Illustrations.
The features of this volume, which render it perhaps the most useful
Dictionary for general reference extant, as it is undoubtedly one of the cheapest
books ever published, are as follows:1. COMPLETENESS.-It contains 114,000 words-more by Io,ooo than any
other Dictionary; and these are, for the most part, unusual or technical
terms, for the explanation of which a Dictionary is most wanted.
2, ACCURACY OF DEFINITION.-In the present edition all the definitions have
been carefully and methodically analysed by W. G. Webster, the Rev. C.
Goodrich. Prof. Lyman, Prof. Whitney, and Prof. Gilman, under the
superintendence of Prof. Goodrich.
3. SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL TERMS.-In order to secure the utmost
completeness and accuracy of definition, this department has been subdivided among eminent scholars and experts, including Prof. Dana, Prof.
Lyman, &c.
4. ETYMOLOGY.-The eminent philologist, Dr. C. F. Mahn, has devoted five
years to completing this department.
5. THE ORTHOGRAPHY is based, as far as possible, on Fixed Principles. In
all cases of doubt an alternative spelling is given.
6. PRONUNCIATION.-This has been entrusted to Mr. W. G. Webster and Mr.
Wheeler, assisted by other scholars. The pronunciation of each word is
indicated by typographical signs printed at the bottom of each page.
7. THE ILLUSTRATIVE CITATIONS.-No labour has been spared to embody
such quotations from standard authors as may throw light on the defini.
tions, or possess any special interest of thought or language.
8. THE SYNONYMS.-These are subjoined to the words to which they belong,
and are very complete.
9. THE ILLUSTRATIONS, which exceed 3000, are inserted, not for the sake of
ornament, but to elucidate the meaning of words.
Cloth, 2Is.; half-bound in calf, 30s.; calf or half russia, 3 s. 6d.; russia, 2.


To be obtained through all Booksellers.




( 23


WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY.
'SEVENTY years passed before Johnson was followed by Webster, an
American writer, who faced the task of the English Dictionary with a
full appreciation of its requirements, leading to better practical
results.'...
His laborious comparison of twenty languages, though never published, bore fruit in his own mind, and his training placed him both in
knowledge and judgment far in advance of Johnson as a philologist.
Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1828, and of course appeared at once in England, where
successive re-editing has yet kept it in the highest place as a ractical
Dictionary.'
'The acceptance of an American Dictionary in England has itself
had immense effect in keeping up the community of speech, to break
which would be a grievous harm, not to English-speaking nations
alone, but to mankind. The result of this has been that the common
Dictionary must suit both sides of the Atlantic.'.
'The good average business-like character of Webster's Dictionary,
both in style and matter, made it as distinctly suited as Johnson's was
distinctly unsuited to be expanded and re-edited by other hands.
Professor Goodrich's edition of I847 is not much more than enlarged
and amended; but other revisions since have so much novelty of plan
as to be described as distinct works.'...
The American revised Webster's Dictionary of 1864, published in
America and England, is of an altogether higher order than these last
[The London Imperial and Student's]. It bears on its title-page the
names of Drs. Goodrich and Porter, but inasmuch as its especial improvement is in the etymological department, the care of which was
committed to Dr. Mahn of Berlin, we prefer to describe it in short as
the Webster-Mahn Dictionary. Many other literary men, among them
Professors Whitney and Dana, aided in the task of compilation and
revision. On consideration it seems that the editors and contributors
have gone far toward improving Webster to the utmost that he will
bear improvement. The vocabulary has become almost comzplete as
regards usual words, while the definitions keep throughout to Webster's
simple careful style, and the derivations are assigned with the aid of
good modern authorities.'
'On the whole, the Webster-Mahn Dictionary as it stands is most
respectable, and certainly the best Practical English Dictionary extant.'-From the Quarterly Review, Oct. I873.


LONDON: G. BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.




(  24   )
New Edition, with a New Biographical Supplement of upwards of 9oo Names.
WEBSTER'S COMPLETE DICTIONARY
AND BOOK OF LITERARY REFERENCE.
1919 Pages. 3000 Illustrations.
Besides the matter comprised in the WEBSTER'S GUINEA DICTIONARY, this
volume contains the following Appendices, which will show that no pains have
been spared to make it a complete Literary Reference-book:A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. By Prof. James Hadley.
PRINCIPLES OF PRONUNCIATION. By Prof. Goodrich and W. A. Wheeler, M.A,
Including a Synopsis of Words differently pronounced by different authorities.
A SHORT TREATISE ON ORTHOGRAPHY. By A. W. Wright. Including a complete List of Words that are spelt in two or more ways.
VOCABULARY OF NOTED NAMES OF FICTION. By W. A. Wheeler, M.A. This
work includes Mythical Names; including also Pseudonyms, Nick-names of
eminent persons and parties, &c. &c.
This work may also be had separately, post 8zo. price 5s.
A PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF SCRIPTURE PROPER NAMES.        By WV. A.
Wheeler. M.A.
A PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF GREEK AND LATIN PROPER NAMES. By
Prof. Thacher.
AN ETYMOLOGICAL VOCABULARY OF MODERN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMIES. By the
Rev. C. H. Wheeler.
PRONOUNCING VOCABULARIES OF MODERN GEOGRAPIIICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL
NAMNIES. ByJ. Thomas, M.D.
A PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF COMMON ENGLISH CHRISTIAN NAMES, with
their derivations, signification, &c.
A DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS. Containing all Words, Phrases, Proverbs, and
Colloquial Expressions from the Greek, Latin, and Moder Languages met
with in literature.
A NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF UPWARDS OF 9700 NAMES OF NOTED
PERSONS, ANCIENT AND MODERN.
A LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, CONTRACTIONS, AND ARBITRARY SIGNS USED IN
WRITING AND PRINTING.
A CLASSIFIED SELECTION OF PICTORIAL ILLUSTRATIONS (70 pages). With
references to the text.
'The cheapest Dictionary ever published, as it is confessedly one of the best. The introduction of small woodcut illustrations of technical and scientific terms adds greatly to the
utility of the Dictionary.'-Charchman.
I. IIs. 6f.; half-calf, 2/.; calf or half-russia, 21. 2s.; russia, 2/. IOs.
LONDON:
Printed by STRANGEWAYS AND SONS, Tower Street, Upper St. Martin's Lane.




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