University of California. 
 
 FROM THK LIBRARY OF 
 
 DR. FRANCIS L I E B E R , 
 I nifcs.- or t-f History and Law in Columbia College, Now York. 
 
 TIIK GIFT OF 
 
 MICHAEL REESE 
 
 Of Stir i Francisco. 
 1BT3. 
 

 
 
CHARACTERS 
 
 CRITICISMS. 
 
 TV. ALFRED JONES, A. M 
 
 En Stoo Volumes. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 I. Y. VVESTERVELT, 371 BROADWAY. 
 
 1857. 
 
CLEMENT 0. MOORE, LL. D., 
 
 MY FATHER S FRIEND, 
 
 WHOSE REGARD FOR HIS MEMORY 
 
 HAS PROMPTED MANY KINDNES3ES To HI3 SON, 
 
 THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED, 
 WITH S1MTIMINTS OF GRATITUDE AND RESPECT, 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 r* 
 
 v. i 
 
 N A JA. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. 1. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 L New-Old Essays of AdJison and Steele 1 
 
 II. Tyrone Power 12 
 
 IIL A few Homeric Nods in Mr. Hallam 15 
 
 IV. Religious Novels 20 
 
 V. Literary Ambassadors 28 
 
 VL The Prose Style of Poets 34 
 
 VII The Morality of Poverty 42 
 
 VIII. Chapter on some Old and Later English Sonnets 50 
 
 IX. Jeremy Taylor, the Spenser of Divinity 68 
 
 X. Church Music 74 
 
 XL Mr. Braham 80 
 
 XII. The Life and Adventures of Philip Quarll 82 
 
 XIII. Walton s Lives 95 
 
 XIV. Elijah Fentoa 100 
 
 XV. Swedenborgianisin 108 
 
 XVL Religious Satire 118 
 
 XVII. Prose of Barrow 123 
 
 XVIIL The Poems of Bishop Corbet 127 
 
 XIX. The Ladies Library 135 
 
 XX. The Early Maturity of Genius 143 
 
 XXI. Notoriety 153 
 
 XXII. Letters 1GO 
 
 XXIII. Pope and his Friends 164 
 
 XXIV. Gray and Cowper 175 
 
 XXV. Amateur Authors and Small Critics 178 
 
 XXVL Female Novelists 186 
 
 XXVII. Single-Speech Poets 199 
 
VI. CONTENTS. 
 
 XXVIII. On Prefaces and Dedications 209 
 
 XXIX. Religious Biography 220 
 
 XXX. Titles 230 
 
 XXXI. Minshull s Essayes and Characteres of a Prison and 
 
 Prisoners 242 
 
 XXXIL On Preaching 248 
 
 XXXIII Memoir of Dr. J. W. Francis 266 
 
 XXXIV Wm. S. Mount 277 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The present final collection of his miscellaneous papers, 
 originally written for, and printed in the American Monthly 
 Magazine, Arcturus, the Church Record, the Democratic 
 and . Whig Reviews, Boston Miscellany, Union Magazine, 
 Literary World, and other periodicals, is intended to in 
 clude such of the writer s papers (chiefly of literary criticism) 
 as have appeared to him worthy of preservation. With the 
 exception of a few comparatively recent articles, they were 
 mostly written and printed 1838-1845, and comprise a little 
 more than one-half of his entire contributions to the press up 
 to the present date. 
 
 Most of the papers here collected (since the publication of 
 The Analyst, anonymously in 1839, and which was made 
 up of lucubrations written the year and a half previously) 
 have appeared already in the volumes of Literary Studies 
 and Essays upon Authors and Books. Holding the doc 
 trine of Hazlitt, however, to be sound, that a first edition is 
 as good as MSS., as the impressions of all these three mis 
 cellanies were limited, and have been long since out of print, 
 and as numerous typographical errors had crept in, as well as 
 mistakes of fact and opinion, it was thought a new and cor 
 rect edition might be favorably received by the present gen 
 eration of readers, young students in particular, in college, 
 the lovers of the choice old English literature, and those 
 cultivated general readers to whom these miscellanies are 
 unknown. 
 
Vlll. INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The papers selected from The Analyst embracing nearly 
 two-thirds of the original volume, are placed in the appendix. 
 In point of time, the earliest efforts of the writer and most 
 of them brief after the classical models of Essay and Charac 
 ter-writing, they form a series of papers distinct from his 
 later articles of a similar description. 
 
 The only two of his biographical sketches, which appeared 
 to harmonize with the literary matter of which these volumes 
 are composed, are included in the first volume and a few 
 miscellaneous lucubrations heretofore uncollected in the 
 second. 
 
 Dates are affixed to certain of the essays and criticisms to 
 explain allusions and suggestions otherwise unseasonable, or 
 to exhibit a chronological excuse for change of opinion. The 
 article on the Opera, if now written, would be much changed 
 and also the Thoughts on Bulwer would be greatly modified 
 despite the generous commendation of the North American 
 Review, April, 1840. 
 
 Neio York, March 2, 1857. 
 
CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 i. 
 
 NEW-OLD ESSAYS OF ADDTSON AND STEELE. 
 
 IT is not an infrequent occurrence in the case of volumin 
 ous writers, that a proportional moiety of their productions 
 become after a short period succeeding to their decease, lit 
 tle known : and in the progress of a century, or even a still 
 briefer space of time, almost obsolete. After the enthusi 
 asm of party feeling, or the excitement of novelty has gra 
 dually cooled down into a sober appreciation of real merit, 
 from a previous extravagant estimate of it wo begin to 
 learn the true secret of excellence, to discriminate the pe 
 culiar and characteristic traits of the author and award him 
 the palm which shall continue fresh and green in the eyes 
 of posterity. Of many copious authors, how little is now 
 generally read a few versitied translations, an ode, some 
 satires, and a prose essay or two, with one play of Dryden ; 
 only two or three, out of the score of volumes that complete 
 the edition of Swift. Of Voltaire s three score, a few satirical 
 tales and historical compends : some two or three dialogues 
 of Plato: the Essays and Advancement of Bacon: the Essay 
 of Locke : a play, here and there, of the Old Dramatists : an 
 occasional sonnet of a writer of a volume of sonnets. These 
 are illustrations at hand : a very long list might be made of 
 
2 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 the very fertile authors who have been popularly known as 
 the writers of but one work of pre-eminent ability. Bunyan, 
 Defoe and Butler are striking instances. For the gratifica 
 tion of personal amusement, or the curious eye of the diligent 
 antiquary, we might add a copious appendix of this sort, but 
 such might not be so generally acceptable, as these occasional 
 reflections illustrated by fewer examples. 
 
 The writers of the present century, this age of authors and 
 books, will in all probability experience a very great diminu 
 tion in the extent and character of their fame with the coming 
 age. Countless volumes of fiction will soon be laid on the 
 shelf for ever ; whilst a class of writers, read by few and 
 whose names have not yet gone abroad into general esteem, 
 will, we venture to predict, become classical, not only or so 
 much from the capacity of their genius, as from its direction 
 to the permanently classical forms of writing. Except Scott (a 
 rast deal of whose writing, it has been confessed by more than 
 one even cautious critic, cannot last) what novelist will gain 
 in fame, as the Critic and Essayist Hazlitt ? We have had, 
 for more than a century, no humorist like Lamb ; and Hunt 
 treads closely upon the heels of Steele. Many authors too 
 will become famous in spite of their elaborate attempts at 
 avoiding fame: the squib, the pamphlet, the newspaper edi 
 torial, will throw in the shade heavy Epics and dull histories ; 
 a picturesque sketch of manners, a fresh and spirited portrait 
 of character, true and genial criticism, speculations on life and 
 the principles and motives of human actions ; these form the 
 favorite reading of the best class of readers in all ages and 
 although the readers of Addison and Steele may, at the pre 
 sent day, comprise a small body, still they have admirers, 
 and there are also readers and lovers of them who have suc 
 ceeded them in the same form of composition. What style 
 
ADDISON AND STEELE. 3 
 
 or range of speculation does it not embrace? It is too di 
 dactic Tor the mass of readers, who, like children of ignorant 
 people, must be entertained at the same time they are taught : 
 but for the scholar and philosopher it is invaluable. 
 
 Myself a reader and writer of Essays, I must confess to a 
 special fondness for the very name ; and I have contracted a 
 feeling of affectionate interest for the essayist and critic. As 
 I run my eye over the shelves of my small collection, I find 
 few books it rests upon with such pleasure as upon the es 
 sayists, moral painters and historians of manners and fashions. 
 There are Bacon and Temple, and Cowley, with the admir 
 able writers whose names are placed at the head of this paper. 
 There too are Goldsmith and Shenstone and Mackenzie. Nor 
 may I omit that trio of masterly essayists, Lamb and Hazlitt 
 and Leigh Hunt. Of the French, I especially cherish Roche- 
 foucald and Labruyere writers with more thinking in their 
 maxims and sentences, than you find in whole pages of 
 weaker writers. Among quite recent instances, Carlyle and 
 Macaulay in England ; Guizot and Cousin (though more 
 scholastic than strictly belongs to general essayists) in France: 
 and at home, Channing, Emerson and Dewey. Indeed, the 
 bes twriting of the present day is to be found in periodical lit 
 erature ; though we have lost much in pure classicality and 
 in certain traits of the essay, that have become merged in 
 other forms of writing. Thus, owing to the necessity of ra 
 pid and copious productions, inaccuracies are not so rare as 
 they should be ; and evident marks of haste are to be found. 
 The humorous painting of the Addisonian school has become 
 the property of two or three capital novelists. We have now- 
 a-days no pictures of manners, merely in essays ; and since 
 Hazlitt, no prose satirist of decided ability has arisen. The 
 Lecturers and Reviewers occupy a large portion of the pro- 
 
4 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 vince formerly allotted to the Essay. Moral speculation and 
 criticism ; analysis of character, historical painting, satirical 
 description, the peculiar characteristics of the Essay, have, 
 for the most part, passed into other forms. Yet a taste for 
 this kind of writing is retained by a circle, which is rapidly 
 widening, and in consequence the demand has evidently in 
 creased for more of literature, of the pleasantest kind for 
 something brief, pointed and pithy with somewhat of a prac 
 tical bearing, and yet which is to be considered as valuable in 
 a purely literary estimate of the matter. 
 
 A kind of Literature is needed for the busy man and the 
 gentleman, as well as for the recluse scholar ; a tone of fresh 
 vigor, real knowledge of life, wide and original experience is 
 requisite. The authors of this must be men, scholars, and 
 gentlemen. It is not by any means the most ambitious de 
 partment of authorship, but, perhaps, next to fine poetry, it is 
 the most stable ; the staple is life and books : feeling and pas 
 sion ; without inclining to system or method, it is grave and 
 philosophical: without descending to farce or burlesque, it 
 admits of pleasantry and good-natured ridicule. It is not 
 exact or mechanical science, but the science of human nature 
 and the art of criticism (not of books and of authors only, 
 but) of principles, and theories, and fashions, and contem 
 porary manners. It is strictly historical, though it contains 
 little narrative, for it points out the sources of historical truth. 
 It is experimental philosophy, though without any settled 
 rules of art. In brief, it is the kind of writing most particu 
 larly addressed to all, who, while they read, think and feel ; 
 and not to those who read to accumulate and display know 
 ledge. 
 
 Addison and Steele have been more fortunate than most 
 writers of essays, not only as they are among the best but 
 
ADDISON AND STEELE. 5 
 
 as they were among the earliest. Priority is, in fact, as im 
 portant a thing in Literature, as precedence is thought to be 
 in life. The tirst writers are generally the best ; at all events 
 they are the freshest and most original. In point of delicate 
 humor, Addison is unsurpassed, though his serious writing, 
 which is sometimes almost tame, has been equalled. Steele 
 is more unique : such naturalness, so easy and uniform a 
 style, a vein of sentiment so fresh and manly, such 
 charming pleasantry, such elegance of compliment and 
 heartiness at the same time, we find in no one other essayist. 
 Not a few periodical writers might be mentioned, more bril 
 liant, more ingenious, with greater learning and capacity, 
 more profound, more exact, yet none who are so delightful as 
 Steele is invariably. Happy on any topic, he is perfectly de 
 licious where he is most at home, and writes from his heart. 
 The greater fame of Addison has arisen in part from higher 
 pretensions and as much from the serious nature of his moral 
 essays. Addison, too, aimed more at being the censor ; 
 Steele was content with the reputation of sociality, and to be 
 loved rather than be admired. Addison was perhaps a more 
 cultivated man, but Steele had wit and spirit, that needed 
 slight aids from scholarship yet he would, at the present 
 day, be called a scholar. Steele had less art and policy than 
 his associate, was more open and credulous, a generous 
 dupe, though deceived by no lack of sense, but of stratagem. 
 Addison was author all over ; Steele was more of the man 
 than of the writer. Both were admirable in their respective 
 manners. Addison s elegance and humor gave an additional 
 beauty to the subjects fullest of it, naturally ; while Steele s 
 fine sense and airy style played with easy grace upon the 
 most barren theme. 
 
 Besides the Spectator, Tattler and Guardian, Addison was 
 
6 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 concerned in other periodical publications. He was not only 
 the creator of Sir Roger de Coverly, the satirist of the beau 
 monde, the elegant sermonizer, the tasteful critic; but also, 
 the warm partizan and leading political writer. " The Free 
 holder" was a strong whig paper, edited and conducted by 
 Addison, who furnished all the papers, under that title, which 
 are collected into a single volume. It consists of fifty-five 
 essays, and was commenced in the year 15, celebrated for 
 the first rising in favor of the Pretender and is filled with 
 arguments in favor of the House of Hanover, the Protestant 
 succession, and a number of elegant artifices (compliments 
 garnished with eloquent flattery) to bring in the fair portion 
 of the inhabitants of Great Britain to the side of the exist 
 ing government. These papers are the best of the series. 
 As a specimen of the work we make the following extracts 
 from it, and which are in the Freeholder s happiest vein. 
 They are transcribed from the fourth number, entitled, " Rea 
 sons why the British Ladies should side with the Freehold 
 er :" " It is with great satisfaction I observe that the women 
 of our island, who are the most eminent for virtue and good 
 sense, are in the interest of the present government. As the 
 fair sex very much recommended the cause they are engaged 
 in, it would be no small misfortune to a sovereign, though 
 he had all the male part of a kingdom on his side, if he did 
 not find himself king of the most beautiful half of his sub 
 jects. Ladies are always of great use to the party they 
 espouse, and never fail to win over numbers to it. 
 
 " Lovers, according to Sir William Petty s computation, 
 make at best the third part of the sensible men of the Bri 
 tish nation ; and it has been an unontro verted maxim in all 
 ages, that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of 
 a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. 
 
ADDISON AND STEELE. 7 
 
 By this means it lies in the power of every fine woman to 
 secure at least half a dozen able-bodied men to his majesty s 
 service.Tho female world are likewise indispensably necessary 
 in the best cause, to managethe controversial part of them, in 
 which no man of tolerable breeding is ever able to refute them. 
 Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable. There 
 are many reasons why the women of Great Britain should 
 be on the side of the Freeholder, and enemies to the person 
 who would bring in arbitrary government and Popery. As 
 there are several of our ladies who amuse themselves in the 
 reading of travels, they cannot but take notice what uncom 
 fortable lives those of their own sex lead where passive obe 
 dience is professed and practised in its utmost perfection. In 
 those countries the men have no property but in their wives, 
 who are the slaves to slaves ; every married woman being 
 subject to a domestic tyrant who requires from her the same 
 vassalage that he pays to his sultan. If the ladies would 
 seriously consider the evil consequences of arbitrary power, 
 they would find that it spoils the shape of the foot in China, 
 where the barbarous politics of the men so diminish the 
 basis of the human figure, as to unqualify a woman for an 
 evening walk or a country dance. In the East Indies, a 
 widow who has any regard to her character, throws herself 
 into the flames of her husband s funeral pile, to show, for 
 sooth, that she is faithful and loyal to the memory of her 
 deceased lord. In Persia, the daughters of Eve, as they call 
 them, are reckoned in the inventory of their goods and chat 
 tels : and it is a usual thing when a man sells a bale of silk, 
 or a drove of camels, to toss half a dozen women into the 
 bargain. Through all the dominions of the great Turk, a 
 woman thinks herself happy if she can but get the twelfth 
 share of a husband, and is thought to be of no use in the 
 
CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 creation, but to keep up a proper number of slaves for the 
 Commander of the Faithful. I need not set forth the ill- 
 usage which the fair ones meet with in those despotic govern 
 ments that he nearer to us. Every one hath heard of the 
 several ways of locking up women in Spain and Italy ; where, 
 if there is any power lodged in any of the sex, it is not 
 among the young and the beautiful, whom nature seems to 
 have formed for it, but among the old and withered matrons, 
 known by the frightful names of Gouvernantes and Duennas. 
 If any should allege the freedoms indulged to the French 
 ladies, he must own that these are owing to the natural gal 
 lantry of the people, not to their form of government, which 
 excludes by its very constitution every female from power, as 
 naturally unfit to hold the sceptre of that kingdom. Women 
 ought in reason to be no less averse to Popery than to arbi. 
 trary power. Some merry authors have pretended to de 
 monstrate, that the Roman Catholic religion could never 
 spread in a nation where women would have more modesty 
 than to expose their inuocent liberties to a confessor. Others 
 of the same turn have assured us that the fine British com 
 plexion, which is so peculiar to our ladies, would suffer very 
 much from a fish diet ; and that a whole Lent would give 
 such a sallowness to the celebrated beauties of this island as 
 "would scarce make them distinguishable from those of France. 
 I shall only leave to the serious consideration of my fair 
 countrywomen, the danger any of them might have been in 
 (had Popery been our national religion) of being forced by 
 their relations to a state of perpetual virginity. The most 
 blooming toast in the island might have been a nun ; and 
 many a lady who is now a mother of fine children, condemn 
 ed to a condition of life disagreeable to herself, and unprofit 
 able to the world. To this I might add the melancholy ob- 
 
ADDISON AND STKELK. 9 
 
 jects they would be daily entertained with, of several sightly 
 men delivered over to an unavoidable celibacy. Let a young 
 lady imagine to herself the brisk embroidered officer, who 
 now makes love to her with so agreeable an air, converted 
 into a monk ; or the beau, who now addresses himself to her 
 in a full-bottomed wig, distinguished by a little leather black 
 scull-cap. I forbear to mention many other objections, which 
 the ladies, who are no strangers to the doctrines of Popery, 
 will easily recollect : though I do not in the least doubt but 
 those I have already suggested will be sufficient to persuade 
 my fair readers to be zealous in the Protestant cause." We 
 read no such political writing at the present day ; elegance of 
 style is considered as quite a subordinate matter, and plea 
 santry rarely passes from a paragraph into an article. 
 
 The Lover, of Steele, is concerned with the policy of Pas 
 sion, and the strategy of Love. It is a work of sentiment, 
 and peculiarly a lady s journal. The passion of Love in all 
 its multiplied forms ; the affections of the heart with all their 
 subtle windings; the various aspects of friendship are paint 
 ed with masterly skill. Tales of real life, and characters so 
 natural as to seem almost living, occupy a large space, with a 
 rich fund of sense and unpretending sincerity of feeling. The 
 purest sentiment, a facile wit, and polished gallantry, are its 
 marked features. The Lover is an avowed imitation of the 
 Tattler, which is a surety for the style of its author. Like 
 that delightful collection, it contains its club, and had letters 
 written to its author, Marmaduke Myrtle, gent. Thoroughly 
 acquainted with city life, and the ways of the town, the book 
 is full of good advice of the kind most needed in a great 
 city. It is, besides this, a chart of the shoals and quicksands 
 of the tender passion, that should be studied by all youthful 
 navigators. Beyond this, it has the additional attraction of 
 
10 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 delightful illustrative matter, incidental to the main design. 
 It contains many admirable suggestions of the highest prac 
 tical value, and delicate satire, with fine irony unequalled 
 but in the pages of his friend and associate. Of these vari 
 ous fine qualities we shall endeavor to present examples, 
 though necessarily brief and few. Here is the portrait of a 
 Lover Vagabond, as he calls the representation of a certain 
 class of speculative rakes. " He has the language, the air, 
 the tender glance ; he can hang upon a look, has most ex 
 actly the veneration of face when he is catched ogling one 
 whose pardon he would beg for gazing ; he has the exulta 
 tion at leading off a lady to her coach ; can let drop an indif 
 ferent thing, or call her servants with a loudness and a certain 
 gay insolence rare enough ; nay, he will hold her hand too 
 fast for a man that leads her, and is indifferent to her, and 
 yet come to that gripe with such slow degrees, that she can 
 not say he squeezed her hand, but for anything further he 
 had no inclination" We wish we could find room for certain 
 delicious papers, that would be mutilated by mere extracts. 
 Such are, the Battle of Eyes ; the tragical history of Penrud- 
 dock, with the affecting correspondence that passed between 
 the husband and his wife ; the story of the Venetian Count ; 
 the humorous family picture of the Crabtrees ; the refined 
 thoughts on making presents ; the account of the Ladies of 
 consideration ; and of the young student who was so artfully 
 taught to speak and act for himself ; and a number of elegant 
 episodes. Instead of these we can only copy a passage or so, 
 at random generally selecting such as Labruyere might 
 have written, from their nicety and refinement ; and maxims 
 with regard to good breeding, as judicious as anything in 
 Chesterfield, at the same time that they have ten-fold the 
 heart m them, 
 
ADDISON AND STEELE. 11 
 
 " Women dissemble their passions better than men, but 
 men subdue their passions better than women." 
 
 " There are no inclinations in women which more surprise 
 me than their passions for chalk and china. The first of these 
 maladies wears out in a little time ; but when a woman is 
 visited with the second, it generally takes possession of her 
 for life. China vessels are playthings for women of all ages. 
 An old lady of fourscore shall be as busy in cleaning an In 
 dian Mandarin as her great-grand-daughter is in dressing her 
 baby." 
 
 " A too great regard for doing what you are about with a 
 good grace, destroys your capacity for doing it at all." 
 
 " The best way to do a thing as you ought, is to do it only 
 because you ought." 
 
 "As for my own part, I always approve those who make 
 the most of a little understanding, and carry that as far as 
 they can, than those who will riot condescend to be perfect, 
 if I may so speak, in the under parts of their character." 
 
 " ugly is a woman s word for knavish." 
 
 " Some silly particle or other, as it were to tack the taking 
 leave with the rest of the discourse, is a common error of 
 young men of good education." 
 
 " A good judgment will not only supply, but go beyond 
 experience ; for the latter is only a knowledge that directs 
 us in the dispatch of matters future, from the consideration 
 of matters past of the same nature ; but the former is a per 
 petual and equal direction in everything that can happen, 
 arid does not follow, but makes the precedent that guides the 
 other." 
 
 The reader will do well to turn to the beautiful dedication 
 to the Lover, a masterpiece of composition, as well as a noblo 
 effusion of friendship : the whole work is of the same texture, 
 
12 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 and so uniformly attractive as to appear more to advantage 
 read continuously than cut up into shreds and patches ; a test 
 to be applied only to works of standard merit, since most 
 modern writers gain by transcribing their most elaborate 
 passages. 
 
 II. 
 
 TYRONE POWER* 
 
 Is certainly the prince of Irish actors. Indeed we never saw 
 the Irishman even decently personated before we saw this 
 admirable performer, nor do we conceive it possible for any 
 future rival to disturb our opinion of him. Irish Johnstone is 
 with the past : he may have equalled Power, but we doubt 
 it we are sure he could not have surpassed him. Power, 
 beyond any actor we ever saw, and we have seen the best 
 that have graced the boards of our old Drury, unites in him 
 self the- most literal fidelity with the richest humor this side 
 of burlesque. He is always natural ; he is the most pictur 
 esque of actors. The elder Mathews had far finer wit, know 
 ledge of character and invention ; his son a more sparkling 
 fancy, wonderful quickness, and a keener wit. Jack Reeve 
 was John Bull in grotesque, and Keeley is nature s self in 
 little. In quiet humor, the last mentioned actor beats them 
 all. Dowton, whom we saw in his decline, was a serious 
 old gentleman of the sentimental school. Charles Kemble 
 was the perfection of the genteel comedian. All of these 
 performers were gifted with a universality to which Power 
 * 1840. 
 
TYRONE POWER. 13 
 
 can lay no claim, and yet we reiterate, in his single walk of 
 Irishman, whether gentle or simple, the attorney or the tailor, 
 the country gentleman or the rustic, the ambassador or the 
 valet, ho is the finest, most natural, most attractive actor the 
 stage now possesses. 
 
 When we first sat down to sketch the character of Power s 
 acting, we thought to compare him with Keeley ; a close 
 analysis gives Power the palm. We say this with a genuine 
 relish of the delicious quaintness and grave humor of Peter 
 Spyk and Euclid Facile : both actors are men of excellent sense 
 but their humor and fancy are different. Powers is a Rubens 
 in his rich colors, and Keeley a Teniers in his scrupulous ex 
 actness. Keeley is a Flemish painter among actors ; cautious, 
 thorough, elaborate. The effect of his acting proves this, 
 though it may not be discovered while he is acting ; he leaves 
 a clear, fixed impression on the mind. This Power does not 
 aim to create, or cannot ; he is more the actor of impulse, not 
 without study. He has too much nicety and neatness for 
 that : what we mean is, there is more of a riant spirit, an 
 overflow of soul in his acting than in Keeley s, which might 
 almost tempt one to say he was a careless actor. Keeiey, on 
 the contrary, is the most careful of actors, and gradually un 
 folds a character ; Power displays it in the first scene. Both 
 are admirable characters, with quite opposite temperaments ; 
 and the most we can say is, that the breadth of Power s 
 humor is of a more sympathetic nature than the depth of 
 Keeley s. 
 
 An undoubted proof of the genius of Power, for such he 
 certainly possesses, is his constant freshness. Acting in a 
 single line, one might regard him as liable to monotony, and 
 that lino comprehending but two ranges of character, diversify 
 them as you will. Now incidents, a new story, new charac- 
 
14 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 ters may come in, but in every varying light, you can find 
 either the Irish gentleman, or the Irish peasant ; most deli 
 cately shaded, most nicely discriminated, yet only these two. 
 It has been disputed whether Power can act the Irish gentle 
 man ; there is no doubt he is one. It is said, he carries into 
 a genteel character the farcical conceits and low cunning that 
 distinguished his Rory O More, his Irish Lion, Teddy the 
 Tiler, Looney M Twoolter, and Dr. O Toole. We wish such 
 critics to go and see his Irish Attorney. If that be not a 
 portrait of the Irish gentleman of a past date, a harum-scarum 
 rattlepate, but a genuine, humane-hearted gentleman withal, 
 a man of sense to boot, then we know not what such a cha 
 racter should be. When Power chooses, he can assume the 
 port and bearing of a finished gentleman. In this last men 
 tioned character, he is the exact picture of a country gentle 
 man, who has lived much among his inferiors, and caught 
 something of their slang and style. His Irish Ambassador 
 is not so good. In O Callaghan again we see the gentleman 
 plainly, though clad in a rusty suit and worn beaver. His 
 Sir Lucius O Trigger we never saw ; but the Park company 
 could not sustain such a comedy as the Rivals. Where would 
 be the Acres, Sir Anthony, the Captain Absolute, the Lydia 
 Languish ? To be sure we would have the best of Mrs. Mal- 
 aprops, in Mrs. Wheatley. We would have a judicious actor 
 in Mr. Chippendale, whatever part he assumed ; and a toler 
 able one in Placide, whose powers have been overstated. 
 But we want Charles Kemble, Jack Reeve, Farren, and Mrs. 
 Jordan, or Miss Chester, or Miss Kelly, if the play were to 
 be cast as it deserved. 
 
 Excellent as is Mr. Power s Irish gentleman, his peasant 
 must be confessed beyond all praise : it is perfection. In the 
 White Horse of the Peppers, he leaves for a time his original 
 
A FEW HOMERIC NODS IN MR. HALLAM. 15 
 
 character, which is that of an Irish cavalier, and assumes that 
 of a bog-trotter. The vast difference is seen at once. If he 
 were good in the first, and such he certainly was, he was ex 
 cellent in the last. 
 
 Another proof of Mr. Power s merit is, that he is the piece. 
 In all the plays he performs, his character is not only the 
 main character, but the only character of importance ; and 
 yet he so fills up the stage and the play, that he makes poor 
 actors play well in his company. Other stars shine by them 
 selves alone ; Power shines in his own person, and through 
 the rest of the company by a reflected light. In a word, 
 Power is the herald of mirth and good humor wherever he 
 comes ; we greet his honest face with joy on the stage, or in 
 the street, and cannot help regarding him as a much greater 
 and better friend to humanity than a score of professed raoral- 
 izers who never touch the heart. 
 
 III. 
 
 A FEW HOMERIC NOUS IN MR. HALLAM. 
 
 HISTORIES of literature in general prove very unsatisfactory. 
 The ground they cover is too wide ; the topics discussed too 
 multifarious ; the space for each very limited. There is more 
 of the narrative talent employed in them generally thnn 
 critical acumen. A historical line of writers is deduced, and 
 the genealogy of the various schools of literature and the mu 
 tations of taste and fashion are presented; but the individual 
 traits of single writers, unless those of the first class, are too 
 often overlooked, and the rare merits of minor writings, which 
 
16 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 are in less regard because less known, cast almost entirely in 
 the shade, or else unfaithfully noticed. This general fault ap 
 plies to the three most prominent histories of literature with 
 which the modern scholar is acquainted the works of 
 Schlegel, Sismondi and Bouterwek. The late Introduction 
 to the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries, by Mr. Hallam, is open to the same 
 objections, and, if we are not greatly mistaken, to a wider 
 and more prejudicial extent. 
 
 The capacity and requisite attainments on the part of a 
 historian of European letters, would, if rigorously tested in 
 the person of Mr. Hallam, incline one to place his pretensions 
 and to rate his performance rather lower than the press and 
 the reading public generally have thought proper to ascribe 
 to him. The true position of this author in the literary re 
 public, has been well defined by Macaulay, as that of a liberal, 
 fair and accurate historian. But it will be readily seen that 
 the very qualities that best fit Hallam for this department 
 are the least appropriate to him in his new character. The 
 cool decisions and rigidly impartial statements of the narrator 
 of civil and military occurrences, and of the speculatist on the 
 political aspects of states and nations, diminish the influence 
 of a literary spirit cherished with enthusiasm and kept fresh 
 by a natural and healthy sympathy with men of genius. 
 Hence we find the statesman and political economist has here 
 got the better of the literary critic and the genuine man of 
 letters. Mr. Hallam is a man of varied acquirements, much 
 industry, and a correct judgment on points where he is well 
 versed ; but his work is, after all, little better than a cata 
 logue raisonne; and in that section of it most interesting to 
 the English reader the department of old English prose and 
 poetry lamentably deficient, not only in a just appreciation 
 
A FEW HOMERIC NODS IN MR. HALL AM. 17 
 
 of the glories of the reigns of Elizabeth, of James, and of 
 Charles I., but also in some of the common details with which 
 every gentleman of moderate reading is supposed to be ac 
 quainted. All questions of speculative theology and theo 
 retical politics, the antiquarian history of the first editions of 
 the classics, and the early translations of the Bible, the pro 
 gress of Oriental learning, and similar heads, are well and 
 learnedly handled. The great defect of the writer is seen 
 when he comes to speak of the minor prose literature of Eng 
 land in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and where 
 those recondite niceties and delicate traits that test the fine 
 critic, pass either without observation or are ignorantly and 
 almost insolently treated. A feeling of the beauties of an 
 obscure author of merit is as rare in the world of books, as 
 the honest appreciation of a worthy man, who lives out of the 
 world, and is, perhaps, underrated by the few to whom lie is 
 known, as in the circles of society. Not only candor but also 
 ingenuity is wanted, in a critic of this description. The critic 
 has candor, but is by no means an ingenious man in any of 
 his works, and, we apprehend, not so well informed on these 
 very topics as he ought to be. On this latter suggestion 
 alone can we account for several false reports and very inade~ 
 quate decisions. We have marked many instances, but shall 
 at present quote but a few. 
 
 Mr. Hallam writes thus of Jeremy Taylor: "His sen 
 tences are of endless length, and hence not only altogether 
 unmusical, but not always reducible to grammar." Of Donne 
 and Cowley, he gives the old Johnsonian criticism, which has 
 been amply refuted over and over again. He speaks oi 
 South as he is currently mentioned, merely a witty court 
 preacher, and says not a word of his vigorous eloquence. Of 
 Hammond s biblical annotations he treats at length, but adds 
 
18 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 not a syllable of the sermons of the English Fenelon. Of 
 Marvel, says Hallara, "His satires are gross and stupid ;" 
 (/) while the critic writes this sentence of Crashaw, " It is dif 
 ficult in general to find anything in Crashaw that bad taste 
 has not deformed" (!!) Among the Shaksperian commentators 
 he mentions Mrs. Montague, and others inferior even to her, 
 but omits altogether any reference to Hazlitt or Lamb. One 
 of the most flagrant instances of a want of proper reverence 
 for the finest writers of the finest period of English literature, 
 is to be seen in his notice of the Mermaid tavern : " the oldest 
 and not the worst of clubs." The circle in which Mr. Hallam 
 moves in perhaps more courtly and aristocratical. His idol, 
 Mr. Hookham Frere, possesses " admirable humor ;" but poor 
 Owen Feltham, forsooth, who wrote the first century of his 
 Resolves at the age of eighteen, and lived the life of a de 
 pendant, is a harsh and quaint writer, full of sententious com 
 monplaces. This young man offers a striking example of an 
 early maturity of judgment, and of the union of genuine 
 pathos and fanciful humor. His little volume will be read 
 with gratification a century hence, and by a larger class than 
 now peruse it, and we dare affirm with more pleasure than 
 the long and inaccurate volumes of Hallam. 
 
 Mr. Hallam s judgments, often assuredly caught from 
 second sources, are, when original, those of a critic with the 
 taste of Dr. Blair ; a strange union of French criticism and 
 reverence for classic models current in the early part and 
 until almost the close of the last century. He gives an 
 opinion of Addison, to which no reader of varied acquisition, 
 or of broad views of the present day, could by any possibility 
 assent. After Lamb and Hazlitt s admirable criticisms, we 
 cannot read with patience the labored cautiousness of Mr 
 Hallam, on the old English dramatists. Our author s notices 
 
A FEW HOMERIC NODS IN MR. II ALL AM. 19 
 
 of the old divines are too much a history of their polemical 
 works, and the views of their pulpit eloquence either borrowed 
 or else confused. 
 
 Lest the popular admiration for genius of the popular sort 
 should run wild, he sneeringly alludes to a certain class of 
 critics, who would erect the John Bunyans and Daniel De- 
 foes into the gods of their idolatry. The historian would 
 himself peradventure substitute Dr. Lingard and Sharon 
 Turner, his brother historians, or a pair of biblical critics, or 
 High Dutch commentators. There are critics who measure 
 an author s works by the company he keeps, or the clothes he 
 wears. We suspect Mr. Hallam to bo one of those who 
 would treat Sir Harris Nicholas or the head of a college with 
 unfeigned respect, but not allow himself to be ensnared into 
 the vulgar society at Lamb s Wednesday-evening parties, 
 where Coleridge, Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Godwin, Hunt, and a 
 host of the most brilliant men of the age, met to converse 
 freely, like men, and not like litterateurs or namby-pamby 
 followers of noble lords. 
 
 The history of English literature alone is much too com 
 prehensive a subject for any one man. Mr. D Israeli, who ad 
 vertised his intention of attempting it, has been wisely disap 
 pointed. The curiosities of literature he has a more real love 
 of, than for the simple beauties of prose or poetry. He might 
 have compiled merely a collection of rare facts and curious 
 fragments, valuable for their suggestive matter to the student, 
 but quite inadequate for a philosophical history of literature. 
 The best criticisms are contained in classic lives, in letters, and 
 the ablest review articles, in the lectures of Hazlitt, and the 
 essays of Lamb and Leigh Hunt. With these writers, Mr. 
 Ilallam may in nowise compete, and we trust he will follow 
 the bent of his natural inclinations, in turning over state 
 
20 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 papers and government documents, and display his peculiar 
 ability in sifting the measures of a party, and following up 
 the consequences of a bill or a statute. For literary criticism, 
 his cold temperament and negative taste are ill adapted. 
 They incline him to look on the frank relation of an author s 
 feelings as offensive egotism, and wholly obscure his per 
 ception of characteristic individuality or marked personal 
 traits. 
 
 IV. 
 
 RELIGIOUS NOVELS. 
 
 A CERTAIN class of prose fictions is included under the above 
 general term, which, from Bunyan to Brownson, is and ever 
 has been exceedingly popular. They are, for this reason, to 
 be closely scrutinized, as their scope and tendency may prove 
 productive either of great good or considerable injury, not 
 only to the cause or literature, but even to the cause of vital 
 religion and Christian morality. The phrase, " Religious 
 Novels," comprehends equally those works written professedly 
 to favor or satirize particular sects and creeds, and those 
 works which, with a more general and popular interest, still 
 aim to take a high stand on all questions of morality, and to 
 be, in effect, text-books of ethics and casuistry. 
 
 A general objection that strikes one at once, on the very 
 face of the matter, is with regard to the intention and spirit of 
 these and similar productions. Is a novel, we would ask, the 
 proper vehicle for religious sentiment and moral instruction ? 
 
RELIGIOUS NOVELS. 21 
 
 We would not be misunderstood. We sincerely believe that 
 every good book, even of the lightest character, should carry 
 jts moral with it, and that a good moral. What we doubt is> 
 whether the morality of the book should be made offensively 
 prominent, should stand foremost, casting all its other me 
 rits into the background , or whether it should not lie covert 
 and unpretendingly under a cheerful face of humble docility 
 Pope has wisely advised us that 
 
 " Men should be taught as if we taught them not ; 
 And things unkn9icn, as things forgot." 
 
 The skilful man of the world the Sir Politic Would-be of 
 this generation, always reminds and never informs directly. 
 " The agreeable man is he who agrees." So the judicious 
 moralist, if at the same time a writer of fiction, conceals his 
 moral under a veil of fancy s weaving, and impresses a so 
 lemn truth on our hearts, whilst he is delighting the imagin 
 ation or instructing the reason. This palpable error of over 
 doing the matter, being " too moral by half" (always smack 
 ing of hypocrisy), has been remarked by the ablest critical 
 and aethetical philosophers ; but it is a vulgar error of such 
 frequent occurrence as to call for as frequent animadversion. 
 It is not necessary that every book should contain a confession 
 of faith, nor comprehend a code of religious precepts. Every 
 biography is not of a good man ; some histories must relate 
 the successes of bad men and evil principles. Novels, of all 
 books, are permitted to be least didactic and hortatory (to em 
 ploy a Johnsonian phrase). We hate misnomers. A book 
 of devotion, a tract of conversial divinity, a sermon, a moral 
 essay, are all well in their proper place ; but a book professing 
 to be a novel, but which is, in fact, a sham novel, a mere 
 cover for the introduction of a work of another class, under its 
 
22 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 name, is a forgery, a falsehood, a contemptible piece of de 
 ception. The title may be assumed to gain a wider circle of 
 readers (it may be a fetch of the author s, or a trick of the 
 publisher s), but that affords no just excuse for falsifying its 
 character by giving it a name that means something directly 
 the reverse. Lord Peter, in the Tale of the Tub, endeavored 
 to make a loaf of bread to stand for " fish, flesh and fowl," 
 but such is now a stale cheat. It is for bread, giving a stone, 
 in the language of Scripture. It is virtually telling a false 
 hood. No honest man could countenance such an imposi 
 tion, evidently a piece of Jesuitical policy. The defender of 
 the practice would argue, probably, the purity of his inten 
 tion and the goodness of the end to be reached : for " a verse 
 may take him whom a sermon flies ;" shielding himself 
 under these batteries from the charge of employing unfair 
 means. 
 
 We have a word more to say on this head. We urge, a 
 novel is not, as a matter of course, to be a moral treatise or 
 ecclesiastical horn-book (all good works of fiction presuppose 
 the essentials of religion and the reality of virtue) ; but, 
 and here we join with the strictest religionists, if it pretend 
 directly to teach morals or religion at all, it must teach pure 
 doctrine and sound ethics. It is essential, primarily, that it 
 be consistent with itself and faithful to nature. Let an exact 
 picture of life, and manners, and character be presented, with 
 out any formal comment or prefatory analysis ; give charac 
 ter, and feeling, and principle fair play ; let opposites contend, 
 and then good will be apparent, evil be manifest. Allure 
 ments will be offered to virtue, and vice be her own corrector. 
 No danger need be apprehended from too close fidelity of 
 description, for in that case the evil will correct itself. Gross- 
 ness is repulsive enough ; it is the elegant voluptuousness of 
 
RELIGIOUS NOVELS. 23 
 
 polished vice that is so baleful and pernicious. By all means 
 to be avoided is the hateful paradox of painting good infidels, 
 or cold skeptics with all the virtues of humanity. And some 
 who pass for mere skeptics, have a natural religion and a 
 pious benevolence in their hearts, which they do not dream 
 of, and do not profess. Such was " the good David" (Hume), 
 the friend and almost the idol of Adam Smith, and Macin 
 tosh, and Mackenzie. 
 
 We have mentioned two classes of religious novels. Under 
 the first denomination would fall Bunyan s Pilgrim and Holy 
 War, Patrick s Imitation (taken by Gray as a standard of 
 dullness), the Spiritual Quixote, Walker s Vagabond, Ccelebs 
 in search of a Wife, and later fictions of a somewhat similar 
 character by De Wette and Brownson. These are but a few. 
 Of the second description are the novels of Defoe, Richardson, 
 Dr. Moore, Johnson s Rasselas, and a vast collection of moral 
 tales, by Marmontel, and Cottin, and De Genlis, and Chateau 
 briand, and St. Pierre, with a thousand others. 
 
 A striking defect is common to the above works, and the 
 religious biographies, the heroes are made perfect ; they are 
 morally and intellectually accomplished, and unite the piety 
 of the saint to the polish of the gentleman. They are liter 
 ally " just men, that need no repentance." Instead of being 
 represented as human and fallible, they are painted as so pure 
 and immaculate as to preclude us from sympathy with weak 
 ness or failure, and leave nothing for the mind but stupid ad 
 miration. We are called by the creators of these models of 
 superhuman excellence to fall down and do homage to the 
 idols of their fancy, the gods of their idolatry, as to our liege 
 exemplars. The characters themselves, by their monotony of 
 merit, into which no particle of folly is allowed to intrude, are 
 made tiresome and unnatural. They are flattered into the 
 
24 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 most disgusting form of vanity spiritual conceit. They are 
 moral and religious coxcombs. " It is the man, Sir Charles 
 Grandison," is the constant exclamation of praise. The 
 morality of these novels is moral pedantry. It is as different 
 from true moral wisdom as genuine learning is different from 
 the pedantry of books and colleges. The morality of ethical 
 novels is generally a conventional mannerism: the preten 
 sions to piety savor of Puritanical assumption. The religious 
 conversations are often blasphemous, from their absurd and 
 presumptuous familiarity. We read a sort of RELIGIOUS 
 SLANG, too often found even in the pulpit ; by which we in 
 tent to express, a stereotyped repetition of phrases, employed 
 without any definite meaning, and in an indifferent, careless 
 spirit. The most serious Christian cannot avoid allowing the 
 existence of cant, which is more injurious in religion than 
 anywhere else. In religious novels, any expression of this 
 kind exposes the work to the sneers of wicked men, as well 
 as to the intelligent censure of the critic, who is no scoffer. 
 
 One description of religious novels, that might be better 
 styled moral satires, if not carried out into burlesque or dis 
 figured by liberality, may be the vehicle of sound argument 
 and pointed rebuke. The Vagabond, by Walker, is a book of 
 this nature. Such, also, we conceive the Spiritual Quixote to 
 be ; a satire directed against the Methodists and their extra 
 vagances. 
 
 Bunyan, the first of religious writers, was an allegorical 
 painter with little of the satirist. He has nothing in com 
 mon, as a mere writer, with later writers of religious fiction, 
 Hannah More, for instance. Pilgrim s Progress is dramatic 
 and spiritual ; Coelebs is a tract on the art of selecting a 
 wife, transformed into the shape, the figure " extern," of a 
 novel. Bunyan gives us pictures ; Hannah More furnishes 
 
RELIGIOUS NOVELS. 25 
 
 us with sermons and moral dissertations. Bunyan is a poet ; 
 Mrs. More is a proser. Ilannah More s true field and there 
 she was admirable (for, in spite of many drawbacks, she had 
 great talent), was, prose fiction in the shape of moral tracts 
 (good Sunday reading) for the plainer class of people, and 
 which would impress many wholesome truths on readers of 
 all classes. She was also a good writer for children beyond 
 infancy and on the confines of boyhood or girlhood. She 
 wanted genius to open the minds and address the fancy of 
 very young children ; and she wanted breadth and originality 
 for maturer men and women of education and experience. 
 
 We come, finally, to this conclusion, with regard to the 
 morality of the novel as a work of art ; and we find our 
 idea so justly and distinctly enunciated by Hazlitt,* that we 
 borrow his language : " The most moral writers, after all, are 
 those who do not pretend to inculcate any moral. The pro 
 fessed moralist unavoidably degenerates into the partizan of a 
 system ; and the philosopher is too apt to warp the evidence 
 to his own purpose. But the painter of manners gives the 
 facts of human nature, and leaves us to draw the inference ; 
 if we are not able to do this, or do it ill, at least it is our own 
 fault." In the same way, a philosophic historian will prefer 
 the transcript from contemporary records to any fine-spun 
 dissertations of his own ; and an effective orator will allow a 
 clear and spirited statement of facts to do the work of a 
 labored declamation. 
 
 There have been warm discussions on this point, to wit, 
 whether every work of art should have a direct moral ? 
 Goethe and his disciples contended that it should not ; that, 
 questionless, a deep lesson was to be learnt, not appearing, 
 however, on the surface of the work, but to be educed and 
 
 * Lectures on the Comic Writers. 
 2 
 
26 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 evolved after study and earnest meditation. Coleridge boasted 
 that a principal beauty of his " Ancient Mariner" consisted in 
 its being without an avowed moral, at which good Mistress 
 Barbauld was mightily shocked. Not having a formal mora, 
 did not impair the essential morality of the poem. This 
 speech of the poet was analogous to his praise of Shakspeare s 
 women, that they were characterless ; recipients of virtue, 
 and reflectors of it, but not stiff, moral, heartless prudes. The 
 great poet detested pretence, and most of all moral pretences. 
 He saw a great and deep truth, which the mass can never 
 comprehend, or, if they did, could not appreciate, and which 
 must ever remain a dark problem to many well-meaning and 
 well- taught (in other respects), but pragmatical persons. For 
 a man can only see with what eyes he has, and with none 
 other. Optical aids furnish optical delusions ; and thus truth 
 is perverted, because the percipient wants a true vision. 
 
 The novel is a classic form of composition ; it has proved 
 the vehicle of consummate knowledge of life and character ; 
 it comprehends and includes exquisite descriptions of nature, 
 and beauty, and comic traits, and pathetic situations ; it paints 
 the manners, and developes the sentiments. It is familiar 
 history and popular philosophy ; but we apprehend it is not 
 the proper form of writing to be selected for the propagation 
 of religious opinions, or the instilling, in a didactic manner, 
 of moral sentiments. We would be very far from excluding 
 either ; but we maintain that they should be subsidiary rather 
 than glaring; incidental not prominent. Palpable display 
 only invites attack, and stimulates rude jests, 
 
 With all the love in the world for good literature, and 
 none the less for novels of the good old stamp, as a portion 
 of literature, we yet confess religion is too holy a thing to 
 be bandied about in lively dialogue, or defended with the 
 
RELIGIOUS NOVELS. 27 
 
 supercilious condescension of arrogant eloquence. Other 
 forms of composition are better adapted to impress moral 
 precepts, or warm by pure devotion, or excite by passionate 
 appeals, or enlighten by the inductions of reason. The divine 
 music of sacred poesy is reviving from the lethargy in which 
 she lay buried for the greater part of the eighteenth century. 
 The rich strains of the minor religious poets of the seven 
 teenth century are now reproduced, and rising from a new 
 choir of contemporary bards. The songs of Zion fascinate 
 the sense, while they purify the heart. The well of life re 
 quires no such filtering as the poisoned fountain of Helicon, 
 to drink only of the pure essence of poesy. The pulpit is 
 more especially the source whence should flow invigorating 
 streams of the water of the River of Life, to cneer and fortify 
 the soul. That these ends are not in all cases so answered, 
 is a crying evil. The history of good men, who have actually 
 lived and struggled with temptation and fortune, if truly and 
 dramatically related, should at least equal a fictitious narra 
 tive of the ideal good man. The history of the church is a 
 history of human nature, and full of rich instruction. For 
 direct precept or discussion, the moral essay, the review, the 
 religious periodical, are always open. And it is indeed mat 
 ter of especial wonder how, with the rich theological litera 
 ture of England, any poverty should be felt of religious read 
 ing for the most fastidious scholar ; or the necessity of resort 
 to novels for doctrinal or practical instruction. Perhaps the 
 best thing to be done, is, with all humility and respect for 
 the great names and greater minds of the elder English 
 writers, to point out the several excellences of each, and 
 thereby persuade to a study and contemplation of them. 
 This we have always honestly endeavored to do, however 
 feeble or imperfect may have been the execution of our pur 
 pose. 
 
v. 
 
 LITERARY AMBASSADORS.* 
 
 THE recent appointment of two of the most elegant-minded 
 men our country has yet produced, as foreign ministers to 
 two of the most powerful courts of the old world, has led us 
 to the consideration of the many great authors, sometimes 
 poets, who have heretofore graced the same honorable office, 
 and thence our subject has carried us into incidental reflec 
 tions on the connection subsisting between politics and litera 
 ture. Our country, we may remark in passing, is not only 
 safe, as certain cautious writers observe, in such hands as 
 those of the accomplished Everett and the tasteful Irving, but 
 it is even highly honored by such representations. Since her 
 earliest connection with us, England has never given us so 
 fair a specimen of her race as we now present her with ; 
 except perhaps when the amiable enthusiast, the eloquent 
 Bishop of Cloyne, visited our shores. And Spain, since the 
 days of Cervantes, has been unable to exchange with us the 
 equal of Washington Irving. Our two great countrymen 
 may compare in literary merit and social worth with the 
 lettered statesmen of an earlier age in England s literary his 
 tory, and are, with the Sidneys, the Wottons, the Herberts, 
 of a purer epoch. 
 
 From the earliest dawn of civilisation, the ruler has been, 
 in the noblest instances, always something more than a mere 
 ruler. He has been often a priest ; frequently, an orator ; 
 and sometimes a poet. Moses, and David, and Solomon, 
 among the Jews Pericles was an orator and a critic : De 
 mosthenes, a great orator : Cicero, a moralist and rhetorician : 
 * 1842. 
 
LITERARY AMBASSADORS. 29 
 
 Ccesar, a general, an author, an orator, and indeed an uni 
 versal genius. But to confine ourselves to great Englishmen 
 alone, and to those of that nation employed in embassies, 
 Dan Chaucer, the morning star of English poetry, was sent 
 abroad on a political errand, and passed the greater part of 
 his life at the courts of Edward III. and Richard II. In the 
 time of Henry VIII. we meet the names of the courtly Surrey, 
 the poet and lover, as well as the knight and courtier, and 
 the all-accomplished Lord Herbert (elder brother to George 
 Herbert). Spenser was, if we are not mistaken, entrusted 
 with a commission of statistical survey, or something of the 
 sort, which led to his work on Ireland. All the great prose 
 writers and poets of Elizabeth s time took a deep interest in 
 policy, except the dramatists. At home, Bacon, and Bur- 
 leigh, and Selden, and Hooker, and Coke : " abroad, in 
 arras," Sidney and Raleigh (twin brothers in genius and 
 glory), aad those gay rivals for the favor of the maiden 
 queen, Essex and Leicester. The great dramatists seem to 
 have been too deeply and too delightfully engrossed in 
 creating fair visions of their own, to trouble their heads much 
 with the concerns of this sublunary planet. 
 
 The reigns of the first two Stuarts were highly favorable 
 to letters, both in church and state. Then were the high 
 loyalist divines well rewarded for their learned devotion and 
 eloquent zeal. Then arose that galaxy of brilliant names, 
 Taylor, and South, and Barrow, and Donne ; and that rare 
 class who combined the elegant scholar, the high church 
 man, the accurate man of business, the high-toned royalist, 
 and the fine gentleman, in a proportion and degree we have 
 seldom seen since. Of this class was Sir Henry Wotton, who 
 was sent abroad on three several missions of an important na 
 ture, and finally ended his days as provost of Eton college. 
 
30 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 His name is embalmed for ever in the epitaph of Cowley, 
 and his fame perpetuated in the artless gossip of Izaac Walton. 
 Howell, the letter-writer, was employed in the same way. 
 So, too, was Dr. Donne, who went to France as secretary to 
 his noble patron ; Cowley filled a similar station ; and 
 Quarles, who at one period was cup-bearer to the famous 
 and beautiful queen of Bohemia. The list of great names 
 might be much lengthened by reference to books ; but we 
 are quoting from memory. 
 
 During the commonwealth the claims of literature were 
 by no means overlooked. The parliamentary leaders were 
 men of education, as well as of great natural abilities ; Pym, 
 Hampden, and Sir Harry Vane. The sagacious Protector 
 himself selected the best men for his own service. The great 
 est poet of all time was the private secretary of Cromwell, 
 and his assistant Marvell was a true patriot and man of fine 
 genius. Howe and Owen, the two greatest divines of that 
 day, were the Protector s chaplains. The former of these 
 Robert Hall pronounced to be superior to all the divines he 
 had ever read, and to have given him more just ideas on 
 theological subjects. The latter was the champion of the 
 Independents, and is still regarded by his sect as a Hercules 
 in controversial theology. 
 
 On the restoration of Charles II., those divines, and law 
 yers and scholars, who had given their support to his cause 
 by their passive sufferings, as well as by their active exer 
 tions with tongue or pen, were in general amply rewarded. 
 The noble historian of the great rebellion was created Lord 
 Chancellor. The imprisoned divines were restored to their 
 pulpits. Defenders of the faith and adherents of the king 
 suddenly rose from the condition of country curates to the 
 offices of bishop and archbishop : court poets were ennobled, 
 and wits were in the ascendant. 
 
LITERARY AMBASSADORS. 31 
 
 But at the revolution arose another change ; the whigs 
 then came into power, and whig writers were favored ac 
 cordingly. Addison and Steele were favorites with their 
 party from their political tracts, as they were with the pub 
 lic from their wit, and humor, and style, and knowledge of 
 life. Garth, the favorite whig physician, was also a popular 
 poet. The same claim gave reputation even to the prosy 
 blockhead, Blackmore ; and both were knighted for their 
 loyalty. The English La Fontaine (with greater licentious 
 ness), Prior, was sent to France. Newton was made master 
 of the mint, and the rest were well provided for. The great 
 tory writers were continually depressed, and gained no favor 
 from the public save that which their brilliant poems extorted. 
 Among these were Pope ; Swift, who never got beyond his 
 deanship, because he could not stoop for a bishopric; the 
 amiable humorist, Arbuthnot; the charming Gay; the pen 
 sive Parnell. Two tory leaders, Bolingbroke and Atterbury, 
 were even driven into exile, from which the latter never 
 returned. 
 
 Coming down to our own time, we may observe the close 
 alliance between politics and law, and politics and literature. 
 The great public characters of the state, of this century, have 
 been for the most part originally lawyers : the Cannings, and 
 Peels, and Broughams of England, and the Adamses, the 
 Pinckneys, and the Websters of America. Of letters, the 
 chiefs too, the Scotts, and Words worths, the Coleridges, and 
 Carlyles, the Hazlitts, and the Macauleys, have taken a deep 
 interest in the issue of certain political questions, too often 
 mere party questions. In many cases, the leaders in litera 
 ture have held prominent offices in some one of the depart 
 ments of government. The connection of poetry with 
 politics is not hard to make out. The ardor of devotion, 
 
CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 whether to a king or to a great abstract principle of right, in 
 either case exerts a most important effect upon the imagina 
 tion. Where power is embodied and personified, as in a 
 kingly government, more outward pomp is exhibited, but less 
 by far of a high moral elevation of sentiment, than is seen in 
 the severe beauty and stern dignity of republicanism. Cato 
 is a nobler character for the mind to dwell upon than Charles 
 of England ; and George Washington is a greater name 
 than Frederick or Catherine. 
 
 A natural alliance is also easily formed between high 
 churehmanship and royalty, and that poetry which is capti 
 vated by the splendor of both ; and yet the finest description 
 of cathedral music has come from the pen of a puritan poet 
 (vide II Penseroso) : and the most eloquent passage on the 
 French revolution from the tory poet Wordsworth. 
 
 The common objection, that literary pursuits incapacitate a 
 man for business, has been long since refuted by Bacon and 
 a host of writers down to the time of Addison. The accuracy 
 and nicety that certain studies impart fit one admirably for 
 the employments of legislation and diplomacy. The in 
 variably good effects of meditation and study on mental 
 discipline, and the growth of the intellectual powers, 
 are also discernible in every human employment, and can 
 unfit a man for nothing. Poets alone, it may be conceded, if 
 not originally gifted with a robust moral constitution, may 
 easily allow an effeminate sense of beauty to obscure their 
 sense of rugged truths. The greatest poets, however, Dante 
 and Milton, have been the firmest political philosophers and 
 patriots. The Moores and Cornwalls of the time, might 
 easily sink and faint beneath the heat and burden of the day. 
 In our own country, Bryant and Dana would fight to the last 
 for the principles of justice and liberty : our butterfly versi- 
 
LITERARY AMBASSADORS. 33 
 
 fiers only would become intimidated by the frown, and quail 
 beneath the glances of power. American authors of the first r 
 rank are, without exception, warm advocates of the principles 
 of a pure democracy, untainted by any mixture of radicalism. 
 There are Bancroft, the first historian ; Channing, the finest 
 moral essayist, and Hawthorne, the most original prose-poet, 
 not only of our day, and of American literature, but of our age, 
 and of English literature. These are all devoted to the cause 
 of truth, liberty, justice, and public, as well as private, honor. 
 
 Generally the selection of an ambassador at a foreign 
 court is a matter left to mere hireling politicians, or deter 
 mined on insufficient or impartial grounds. But the repre 
 sentative of a great nation should be a great man. Ingenuity 
 is not so much wanted as innate tact directing solid wisdom. 
 A gentleman is to be preferred before what is commonly 
 called a genius. Where there are many ceremonials, less 
 talent is wanted. Occasions arise, nevertheless, where pro 
 found sagacity is needed, and where the weight of character 
 is invaluable. Still, where elegance of mind and of manners 
 may both be found united ; where a talent for negotiation 
 and public business is farther set off by a brilliant elocution, 
 with a fund of intellectual resources and personal accom 
 plishments, there, we have finished public character, and 
 such we conceive to be no more than a just sketch of our 
 minister to England. Mr. Irving, we suspect, is less of a man 
 of business, but he has other claims to prefer. He is the 
 historian of Columbus : he has charmed thousands by his 
 romantic tales and picturesque descriptions of Spain. His 
 state duties will be in all probability much less arduous than 
 those of his. illustrious compeer, and consequently demand 
 less of the diplomatic talent. 
 
 We conclude then, as we began, by congratulating our 
 2* 
 
34 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 countrymen on the possession of such representations abroad : 
 men to be honored and reverenced now, and to be known as 
 classical writers and elegant gentlemen, to all future ages. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE PROSE STYLE OF POETS. 
 
 HAZLITT S view is, that poets write bad prose for a variety of 
 reasons, which we will consider in order. In the course of 
 his essay, (on the same subject, and bearing the same title,) 
 he lays down certain positions that we cannot regard as ten 
 able, and shall consequently attempt to show their unsound- 
 ness. The paper was probably written to attract attention 
 rather than to decide the dogma; it is brilliant and half 
 true, but only half true. It contains some very fine special 
 pleading, and certainly many valuable hints ; but it is written 
 to suit a theory, in defiance of facts, and from too narrow a 
 generalization. We shall try to avoid doing injustice (even 
 while advocating the opposite side) to the real merits of the 
 essay ; to dwell upon the beauty, acuteness and eloquence of 
 which, might alone occupy the space of a separate criticism. 
 The principal arguments our critic employs to confirm 
 his decision are these : Poets, in writing prose (strange as 
 it seems), display a want of cadence, have no principle of 
 modulation in the musical construction of their periods ; but 
 missing rhyme or blank verse, the regular accompaniment to 
 which their words are to be said or sung, fall into a slovenly 
 manner, devoid of art or melody. The prose works of 
 
THE PR08E STYLE OF POETS. 35 
 
 Sydney, Milton, Cowley, Dryden, Goldsmith and Dana, 
 afford instances sufficient to disprove this assertion. At the 
 same time it must be confessed, that rhyme has helped out 
 many a bold thought and expanded (by rhetorical skill) 
 many a half formed idea. It is no less true that certain 
 eminent poets have as assuredly failed in attaining a first 
 rate prose style, as certain capital prose writers have failed in 
 writing even tolerable verse. We agree with Hazlitt, that 
 Byron s prose is bad, inasmuch as he aims to make it too 
 effective ; trying to knock down and stun an antagonist with 
 the latter end of a sentence, as with the butt-end of a coach 
 whip. Coleridge s prose, too, is not inaptly compared to the 
 cast-off finery of a lady s wardrobe. The poet s prose muso 
 being a sort of hand-maiden to his poetical (and true) mis 
 tress, and tricked out in the worn out trappings of the latter, 
 and ornaments at second hand. The Ancient Mariner, Love, 
 the sonnets, tragedies, and occasional poetry of this author, 
 are master-pieces : but his Watchman and Conciones ad 
 Populum have been honestly censured as mere trash. 
 
 Hazlitt is very caustic in his remarks on poetical prose, 
 and with great justice. It is the weakest of all sorts of 
 prose; we prefer to it the very baldest expression, so it is 
 only precise and clear. And so far from manifesting rich 
 ness of fancy or imagination, it is proof only of a good 
 memory and" a liberally stocked wardrobe of metaphorical 
 commonplaces. It is the style of most sentimental writers, 
 of the majority of orators, of fashionable preachers, and 
 mystical philosophers. It is not the style of a manly 
 thinker, of a man who has anything to say, or of a man of 
 genius. No great orator or logician employs it ; we find it 
 in no popular manuals of philosophy or politics. It is never 
 used by a sood historian or a great novelist, nor indeed by 
 any one who can write anything else. 
 
36 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 The critic gives a further reason for the bad prose style of 
 the poets. He says, the same liberty of inversion is not to 
 be allowed in prose that prevails in poetry : that there is 
 more restraint and severity in prose composition. Yet what 
 can be more rigorous than the laws of verse ; what style so 
 compressed and close, yet so pithy and "matter-full," as the 
 style of the finest poets? Truth, adds the author of Table- 
 Talk, is the essential object of the prose-man (we suspect he 
 meant the philosopher, from the authorities that follow) : but 
 beauty is the supreme intent of the poet. At the present 
 day, have we not learnt a better lesson than this, after the 
 teaching of centuries ? Is not the poet the moralist and 
 " right popular philosopher 2" Do we not learn the truest 
 and deepest metaphysics (so far as we can learn that internal 
 and individual science from books) from the best poets: do 
 we not obtain our highest ethical maxims and our truest 
 sesthetical views from the same sources ? Doth not the poet 
 impress our hearts and arouse our inmost sympathies, with 
 a skill far superior to that of the priest or seraphic doctor ? 
 But we need not dilate upon that head, nor repeat in plain 
 terms, the comprehensive and philosophical picture of the 
 true poet, drawn by one (Sidney) of the greatest and most 
 eloquent of the craft, in the rich and glowing colors of fancy. 
 Hazlitt has very strangely fallen into the obsolete doctrines 
 of Johnson and the Anglo-Gallic school of criticism (the 
 English pupils of Dubos, Bossu and Bouhours) ; that plea 
 sure is the highest aim of the poet : that his noblest powers 
 tend only to amuse or recreate. This is true of the minor 
 and lighter poets, but not of poets of the first class. It 
 holds with regard to Swift and Prior, not to Milton or 
 Wordsworth. It refers more correctly to purely fanciful 
 poets, than grandly imaginative writers. To restrict our- 
 
THE PROSE STYLE OF POETS. 37 
 
 selves to a single nation the Hebrews. Is David, or Job, 
 or Solomon, a "pretty" poet: do their writings furnish 
 merely entertainment ? Are they not rather profoundly 
 instructive* as well as sublime and impassioned ? Is Homer, 
 or Dante, a trifler : or are we to estimate Shakspeare and 
 JEschylus as ordinary playwrights ? Every critical tyro 
 knows better. But our critic reduces the question to one of 
 metaphysical morality. He says, in part truly, as others 
 have written before him, that fortitude is not the character- 
 istical virtue of poets. This, too, is a hasty assertion : it is 
 not the virtue of the majority of the poets, nor of the mass 
 of mankind, but it is a distinguishing trait of the largest 
 souls. If Milton and Dante, Johnson and Scott, possessed 
 not this noble virtue, there were none ever did. And look at 
 the manly resolution of Burns, of Elliott, of Bryant, of Dana, 
 of Cowper, and of Wordsworth. If these are not teachers 
 of long suffering and patient endurance, we know not where 
 such are to be found. 
 
 From the want of sufficient self command, reasons Hazlitt 
 the poets have been unable to conquer a sense of beauty, by 
 which they were fascinated and had become enslaved. Nor 
 need they to conquer it, save when opposed to truth, a higher 
 and rarer form of intellectual beauty. Truth is more beauti 
 ful than what we ordinarily style beauty, or rather the 
 highest truth is beauty itself in the abstract. Sensual beauty 
 is truth materialized, and derives its charms from the union 
 of proportion, fitness, utility, and an innate harmony what 
 Ilazlitt meant is, that poets too much regard ornament, and 
 fall in love with their own figurative fancies, worshipping the 
 idols they have set up in their own imaginations, of their own 
 creation, like the heathen of old. They seem to mistake 
 fiction for fact, and rather dally with fancy than are filled 
 
38 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 with faith. They accumulate beautiful metaphors without 
 regard to their connection or logical sequence. This, again, 
 we conceive to be palpably a misrepresentation. Where 
 are the reasoning Pope and Dryden ; that master of the 
 argumentum ad absurdum, Butler; those logicians of the 
 parlor, Swift and Prior, and Wolcot and Moore ? Where is 
 the whole race of metaphysical poets placed ? Then, too, the 
 large class of professedly didactic or speculative poets from 
 Hesiod to Wordsworth, what becomes of them? Where 
 is the critical Churchill, the moral Johnson, the religious 
 Cowper ? In fact, the poets are the greatest reasoners, the 
 most accurate, brief and pointed, conveying an argument in 
 a couplet, and a syllogism in a line. The Germans and 
 Coleridge have settled the doctrine of the logical method of 
 imagination, in her (apparently) wildest career, and that she 
 has a law and sequence of her own, not to be measured by 
 mechanical reasons. It must be conceded, besides, that poeti 
 cal teaching is more beautiful than the lessons of the prose- 
 man ; that fancy s illustrative coloring affords a grateful relief 
 to the over-worked reason. In effect, too, the most captivat 
 ing pictures afford the strongest arguments ; an illustration 
 is always an argument by analogy, a descriptive syllogism, 
 or reasoning by picture. 
 
 We have thus concisely and categorically responded to the 
 different points of objection, but we lay very little stress on 
 any remarks of our own, except they be confirmed by a bul 
 wark of testimony. Fortunately, we have a strong defence 
 of this kind, behind which to entrench ourselves from sudden 
 assaults, and we shall not hesitate to avail ourselves of the 
 forces we have been able to collect. Sydney, our earliest 
 prose writer, of classic rank, who was also a poet, was almost 
 equally successful in both departments, and in his Defence of 
 
THE PROSE STYLE OF POETS. 39 
 
 Poesy, at least, a writer of pure, clear, sweet Virgilian prose. 
 Hall s contemplations rival his versified satires, and are equally 
 excellent; the magnificent declamation of Milton and the 
 natural eloquence of Cowley are celebrated, yet the sermons 
 of Donne, and the prose characters of Samuel Butler, are not 
 to be forgotten. Quarles was no less close and pointed in his 
 Enchiridion than in his Emblems. There are the letter- 
 writers, Pope, Gray and Cowper, with Burns, Charles Lamb, 
 and our own Willis. Even Hazlitt allows the perfect prose 
 style of Dryden ; yet the name of Goldsmith has been singu 
 larly overlooked. 
 
 Respectability in poetry is intolerable ; yet we allow many 
 degrees of excellence in prose. Third-rate poets sometimes 
 have been converted into prose writers of the second class. 
 Swift and Addison are known chiefly by their prose : they 
 wrote clever verse also ; no one would call either a great poet, 
 yet they were great writers. Johnson s Rasselas, and the 
 Lives of the Poets, place the prose writer where neither Irene 
 nor London could by any possibility have placed him. Shen- 
 stone s maxims and essays more than counterbalance all his 
 poetical works, with the exception of the Schoolmistress. 
 
 Where poets fail in prose, it is from a want of the more 
 prosaic elements of composition. Coleridge, for instance 
 had little practical shrewdness, though an imagination second 
 only to Milton s, and much as Campbell s prose is at present 
 censured (the causes of the weakness of which and of his ill- 
 success in book making, latterly, are evident), let any one 
 turn to his early essay on English Poetry, if he would find a 
 model of beauty supported by strength and judgment, refined 
 by art. 
 
 The poets are not, moreover, the best prose writers, but in 
 comparably the best critics, especially of each other. The 
 
40 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 vulgar error of the envy existing among men of genius, is as 
 baseless as is the opinion that a fine poet is necessarily a weak 
 critic, or the supposition that his imagination is too strong 
 for his judgment. The greatest poets are not ignorant oracles 
 of wisdom, but elaborate artists, who can give a reason for 
 most of their works, though the very rarest melodies of their 
 lyre are struck by a divine impulse above and beyond their 
 command. There existed a crude and narrow notion of the 
 critic formerly: that he was a spiteful, malicious libeller, 
 rather than an honest judge and admiring advocate. The 
 Queen Anne wits appeared to consider a good critic to be the 
 reverse side of a bad poet, as the best vinegar was made out 
 of the vilest cider. To pick flaws in reputations and writiags 
 once made a man s fame. Now, we know a little better. We 
 can believe genuine criticism to be a labor of love, and the 
 fruit of enthusiastic reverence. 
 
 Philosophical poetry is the deepest criticism, in the hands 
 of the master-bards, Horace, Pope, Wordsworth and Dana. 
 We entirely believe with Owen Felltham, that " a grave poem 
 is the deepest kind of writing." Dramatic composition is, of 
 all others, the most artificial form of writing and we find 
 the first tragic and comic writers profoundly conversant with 
 the principles of their art, learned Ben, the judicious Beau 
 mont, witty Congreve. So, too, the early classical translators 
 into English, were philologists and critics of necessity, Fairfax 
 and Chapman. The musing Drummond has left his judg 
 ment of books behind him Dryden has written the best 
 characters of Beaumont, and Fletcher, and rare Ben, that any 
 critic has yet done ; and he has left nothing for later writers 
 to impair or add to his portrait of Shakespeare. "Glorious 
 John s" prefaces are models of their kind, and the earliest 
 specimens of good criticism in England. Shakspeare and 
 
THE PROSE STYLE OF POETS. 41 
 
 Milton, from the perfection of their works, we naturally infer 
 to have been exquisite critics. 
 
 Butler, by his satire on the abuse of learning, and ridicule 
 of the French, has disclosed a vein of caustic criticism. Cow- 
 ley was a critic and philosopher, even more than a poet ; he 
 thoroughly appreciated the most opposite styles of poetry, 
 the Pindaric and Anacreontic. " The Phenix Pindar," he 
 has truly written, " is a vast species alone," and consequently, 
 he is himself little more than an able follower, a capital imi 
 tator ; but the spirit of Anacreon he has caught with won 
 derful felicity, and paraphrased him in a style immeasurably 
 beyond Tom Moore. In truth, the Anacreontics of Cowley 
 surpass even the gay flashes of Anacreon, in spirit and effect. 
 Charles Second s wits were shrewd, sharp men of the world, 
 satirists, and critics, not to be imposed upon by pretension. 
 Of this assertion, the Duke of Buckingham s Rehearsal is a 
 proof, and an inimitable satire Rochester, Waller, St. Evre- 
 mond, Roscomraon, were all clear and discriminating critics ; 
 but their judgment did not reach very far. 
 
 Pope s finest philosophical poem is his Essay on Criticism ; 
 and the best imitators of Pope Johnson and Rogers are 
 essentially critics with widely different tastes : Johnson rudely 
 masculine, and Rogers delicate and fastidious to effeminacy. 
 
 To come to the present century ; where do we read finer 
 critical fragments than in Coleridge s Table Talk, and the 
 notes to Lamb s Dramatic Specimens ? Shelley was a meta 
 physical critic. Hunt and Lamb are perhaps the most deli 
 cate. The papers on Lear and on Shakspeare s tragedies are 
 the very finest criticisms ever penned on that most fertile 
 theme of eulogy the Shakspearian Drama. Leigh Hunt 
 has written a body of the most agreeable, if not the protbun- 
 dest, criticism of his time. Mr. Dana has produced articles 
 
42 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 on Kean s acting and Shakspeare that entitle him to rank 
 with Lamb and Hunt. 
 
 As a general rule, the best prose writers are the safest 
 critics for ordinary reading, if only from the absence of any 
 possible competition. Where they rank with the greatest 
 critics, it is from the large share they possess of the poetical 
 temperament, and of fancy. The critic should be half poet, 
 half philosopher ; with acute powers of analysis, a lively fancy, 
 deep sensibility, and close reasoning faculties. This is a very 
 rare combination ; yet Hazlitt, Rousseau, and Emerson, might 
 be placed in this category, with a scare or two of names be 
 sides, taken from the vast array of miscellaneous authors. 
 The poet ranks first, the critic immediately below him ; and 
 the two united, each first of his class, combine to form the 
 highest instance of imagination and intellectual power. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE MORALITY OF POVERTY. 
 
 POVERTY is a comparative term. Between the extremities of 
 pauperism and that moderate competence, which the wealthy 
 speak of with contempt, as a poor pittance, and which is cer 
 tainly trifling in comparison with their " unsunn d heaps," the 
 interval is very wide. The condition of the verv^poor we do 
 not take into consideration, at present, as the main topic of 
 our inquiry, though we shall by no means omit to speak of 
 them in turn ; but we shall endeavor to present a picture of 
 
THE MORALITY OF POVERTY. 43 
 
 simplicity and moderation in living, and the advantages of a 
 sufficient competence (paradoxical as it may be thought) over 
 an overgrown and superfluous income. 
 
 Poverty has many significations, with a wide range, em 
 bracing tho pauper and the poor gentleman, aye, and the 
 poor noble, in some countries. Kings even have been 
 beggars, and have subsisted on casual bounty. The mil 
 lionaire thinks all men poor, who are not possessed of equal 
 wealth with himself; while the day laborer regards the small 
 trader and master mechanic as rich men. In towns, one 
 standard of wealth prevails ; in the country it is much lower. 
 Thus we find an ever varying measure of the goods of for 
 tune. Of a nobler species of wealth, it is not so difficult to 
 ascertain the true value- An excellent book is yet to be 
 written for the rich, which should inform them of their 
 duties towards their poorer neighbors ; which should resolve 
 the claims the poor have upon them, from the claims of 
 nature, as well as from conventional position ; which should 
 confirm them in habits of benevolence and in the practice of 
 "assisting the brethren." By assistance, we refer not merely 
 to alms-giving, that being regarded as a fundamental part of 
 charity. But we also include under that phrase, the giving 
 of wise and disinterested counsel : defending from oppression 
 and slander : persuading to the practice of right and justice : 
 warning from evil, by instilling good principles and generous 
 sentiments : and in the comprehensive language of Scripture, 
 loving our neighbor as ourself, and consequently acting for 
 him as if for ourself. Higher charity than this, is none : a 
 charity the richest may be too poor to bestow ; a charity the 
 poorest may prove rich in dispensing. If love abounded, 
 what a rich world would not this planet become ! If man 
 was to man a brother and a friend (at the same time 
 
44 
 
 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 increasing the world s gear not a copper, and neither intro 
 ducing any fantastical schemes of agrarian equality), in all 
 the relations of life and family, as master and servant, father 
 and son, brother and companion, artist and artisan, in sick 
 ness and in health, at home or abroad, there could be no 
 poverty, no disappointment, and none but natural sorrows. 
 For though many sources of grief would still continue fresh 
 and open, as sickness, death, loss of friends and family, and 
 failure in favorite plans of life and action, yet they would be 
 so mitigated by an universal tenderness, and so suffered by a 
 general sympathy, as to lose half their sharpness in losing all 
 their repulsive features. No disappointments could then 
 occur, because sincerity and plain dealing would take the 
 place of falseness and deceit. None but a self-tormenter 
 could then be unhappy, where all would become companions 
 in good and evil seasons, and through every changing round 
 of fortune s wheel. But this is an ideal not soon to be 
 recognized. 
 
 A man without a penny has yet what all the wealth in the 
 world cannot purchase the human form and the human 
 nature. With these, if he has health and resolution, he may 
 become anything, except what can be reached only by innate 
 genius or a higher order of mental gifts than his own. Give 
 him education, you make him a scholar ; breeding, you train 
 him a gentleman; religion and morality, and you fill him 
 with the sentiments of a Christian. Let no one say, the 
 poor scholar or the poor gentleman is hurt by his education 
 and manners. Pride often distorts those characters, but they 
 ought to be above pride. A cultivated mind, so far from 
 being trammelled by a narrow income, flies beyond it, and 
 taste, the quality of the fine intellect, is a faculty of selection. 
 The wisest economy is the nicest taste. Profusion is tasteless. 
 
THE MORALITY OF POVERTY. 45 
 
 A man of fine judgment and small income will actually live 
 in a more genteel style, than a rich, coarse-minded nabob. 
 He may have fewer articles of expense, but they will be 
 choice and delicate. His style of living will be frugal, yet 
 elegant ; which is more pleasing than extravagance without 
 judgment. A genteel taste in living eschews extravagance, 
 pomp, and all superfluity, as essentially vulgar. There is not 
 a more pitiful sight than a mean-spirited man in a splendid 
 house. His soul is too small for it. On the other hand, the 
 great heart cannot be contained within the most magnificent 
 palace, and yet may content itself in the most humble man 
 sion. The great and good poor man, in his modest and 
 retired parlor, affords a nobler spectacle than a king or a 
 pyramid. 
 
 Riches too often excite absurdity of conduct: the giver of 
 the gorgeous feast gets only a rich harvest of ridicule for his 
 pains and anxiety. The master of an immense establishment 
 is little better than the landlord of a great hotel. Guests 
 enter and depart : he is pushed aside as a stranger and in 
 the way. All this whilo his personal gratifications are 
 limited. The poor soul ! he lives for others, his wealth is for 
 others. He is nobody himself but go to the house where 
 the man is greater than the mansion, and you forget the bare 
 walls unhung with admirable paintings, for his face and the 
 countenances of a loving circle are the finest portraits in the 
 world; you tread on a carpet without reflecting it is no 
 Brussels pattern, and you sit easily on a chair that has no 
 satin cushions for the indolent parvenus of fashions. If a 
 man is not rich, how much he avoids : from how many petty 
 distractions is he not free ? Plutus is even a severer master 
 than Necessity. 
 
 In point of respectability the difference is great. Hardly 
 
46 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 without an exception, the ancient families of this country, the 
 descendants of the statesmen, and lawyers, and heroes of the 
 revolution (our only real aristocracy), are poor. The rich 
 class are, in the great majority of cases, sprung originally 
 from the lowest class, who have acquired wealth by cunning 
 and pernicious habits ; without education, without sentiment ; 
 governed by no laws of courtesy, subservient to no dictates 
 of the Spiritual Philosophy; coarse-minded and coarse- 
 mannered, but clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring 
 sumptuously every day. With such as these, poverty of 
 spirit and want of pelf are synonymous terms. The poor 
 rich man and the rich poor man are the most perplexing 
 problems. 
 
 Authors and professed scholars, excluded as in great 
 measure they are from amassing a fortune, and ill paid for 
 their elaborate labors, are among the objects of especial pity, 
 not to say contempt (pitiable truly, and returning upon the 
 contemner) of these bloated minions of Dives. They would 
 patronize merit, and condescend to take genius by the hand. 
 Contemptible arrogance ! ye meanest of the mean, ignoble 
 souls, whose highest privilege it is to be immortalized to pos 
 terity by the classic scorn of the indignant human creature 
 you would protect ; the true joys of the scholar, the calm life 
 of the thinker, the grateful occupations of the author are un 
 known to you. Thriftless men, who in any other occupation 
 would have succeeded as ill, and incapables, who should as 
 soon have attempted shoemaking as authorship, have man 
 aged to reflect a most undeserved odium on those pursuits, 
 which adorn wealth and elevate poverty, which beautify 
 science and invigorate business. Worthily and in sincerity 
 pursued, what occupation is so full of utility, as well as of 
 delight, as literature. A mode of life that leads to reflection 
 
THE MORALITY OF POVERTY. 47 
 
 and self-denial ; that fosters humanity and begets an enlarged 
 curiosity ; that inclines equally to serious, resolved action, and 
 to a gay, cheerful temper ; which teaches to confine our 
 wants and limit our desires, but at the same time to expand 
 the affections, and to fortify the will ; a mode of life that con 
 secrates its followers as a select body of liberal spirits ; that 
 unites the cultivation of the highest faculties with the per 
 formance of the commonest duties ; that inspires a sense of 
 reverence in the dullest souls, and fascinates the roving eye of 
 pleasure ; employments, in fine, which form alone the worthi 
 est labors of the wisest and best these constitute the occu 
 pations and fill the hours of the scholar. 
 
 The literary life is never so happily spent as in a condition 
 of moderate competence and in the enjoyment of social hap 
 piness. The wealthiest scholar, even if a man of genius, is 
 obliged, from the nature of his position, and to avoid the 
 scandal of meanness, or the odium of an unsociable dispo 
 sition, to live in a manner abhorrent to his tastes and literary 
 habits. He must live splendidly, when he would prefer 
 elegance and quiet ; he must entertain the indifferent and the 
 inquisitive, where he had rather be surrounded by the chosen 
 friends of his youth. In a word, the rich scholar must live 
 like a mere rich man, and is in danger of sinking the first 
 character in the second. Wealth has obscured genius which 
 would have been drawn out by exertion ; at least as often 
 as talent has been obscured by misfortune. 
 
 A great error, though a very frequent one, is, that utter 
 solitude and celibacy are suited to the man of letters. That 
 the greatest works require long meditation and perfect repose 
 is true. No less true is it that the periodical critic and es 
 sayist must pursue his labors in a state of serenity and partial 
 retirement. The true literary life is a quiet existence. No 
 
CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 genuine scholar ever yet loved a crowd. Yet he loves so 
 ciety for conversation, and masses for observation of manners. 
 He loves chiefly domestic pleasures ; the good wife has often 
 assisted, and never yet impeded, the occupations of her hus 
 band. The inmates of his dwelling learn to respect his hours 
 of solitude and study. A judicious disposal of his time will 
 leave the master his own master, and the experiences of do 
 mesticity will prove more rich and abundant than the know 
 ledge of the hackney courtier or politician. 
 
 Privacy may boast of its heroes and heroism that a public 
 scene cannot display. We look in the wrong place for truly 
 great characters ; we seek them in high stations, but seldom 
 find them there. Magnanimity, like eloquence, is often found 
 where we least expect it. There are more heroical actions 
 occurring every day in the retirement of private life than are 
 to be seen on the great public stage of the world. There is 
 more of fortitude exhibited, more of patience in suffering, 
 more true benevolence, a nobler charity, a wider and wiser 
 generosity, deeper affection, and higher aims than the mind 
 of a mere worldling can conceive. The reason is plain. The 
 greatest intellects seek repose from vain struggles of ambition 
 and inefficient plans of improvement. The gravest business 
 of life, rightly viewed, is a mere farce, and those pleasing 
 labors and endearing adversities, that make up a private life 
 of contented trial and consequent happiness, are in fact higher 
 and of more real importance. Domestic life is the only field 
 for a certain class of virtues, by no means the least in value. 
 These are of the softer and milder kind, amiable and attrac 
 tive. Home is the school of the affections, as the world af 
 fords the test of the will and intellect. In that embowered 
 valley bloom the sweet flowers of heart s-ease and contented 
 
THE MORALITY OF POVERTY. 49 
 
 The life of Wordsworth might be proposed as a model to 
 the author who loves letters rather than a literary reputation, 
 who prefers fame to fashion not only to the poet but to the 
 humblest prose writer, do we propose it. His fine maxim 
 should be engraven on the heart of every true student 
 "Plain living, and high thinking." De Quincy, who pub 
 lished his recollections of the lake poets some years since, in 
 Tait s Magazine, has described the life of the Miltonic Bard, 
 as simple to frugality. He resided in a small cottage with 
 his wife and sister ; his guest was conducted into the largest 
 room in the house, smaller than an ordinary bed-room, and 
 which had another occupant, Wordsworth s eldest boy. The 
 common sitting-room was half parlor and half kitchen. The 
 great poet, like a good man, a lover of simple pleasures, de 
 lighted in his kettle s " faint undersong." His library was 
 very small within doors, but without, what immense folios 
 were his daily reading the grand mountain scenery of his 
 neighborhood. Nature is Wordsworth s library, or at least 
 wisest commentator. Were he never so rich he could pos 
 sess no pictures like the landscape around him. Even his 
 friend, the fine painter, Sir George Beaumont, might only 
 copy this original. And for company, what more needed he, 
 to whom grand thoughts in rich abundance came flocking at 
 his call ; who possessed such an admirable sister and so ex 
 cellent a wife. Southey was but a few hours journey dis 
 tant. Coleridge was sometimes his guest. There too came 
 Hazlitt and Charles Lamb, and there ever abided guardian 
 angels of the poet, the spirits of humanity and philosophy, in 
 strict alliance with the Genius of Poesy ! 
 
 None but a poor-spirited fool ever esteemed a man the less 
 for his poverty, and pity, in such cases, is insult. The com 
 passion is a glozing apology for the indulgence of purse pride, 
 
50 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 the meanest form of Satan s favorite sin, and which he must 
 heartily despise. He who devotes a life to letters cannot ex 
 pect wealth : competency is the most he can look for, a 
 thorough education, in it widest sense, for his children, and a 
 comfortable, though confined maintenance for those dearest 
 to him and least fitted to struggle with misfortune. A fail- 
 example and an honorable fame is a richer legacy than a 
 large fortune without either. Most fortunate he who can 
 unite all. But the spirit of study is adverse to the spirit of 
 accumulation. A man with one idea, and that of money- 
 making, can hardly fail, from one dollar, of realizing a million. 
 But a man of many ideas, of a comprehensive spirit, and of 
 aspiring views, can never contract his manly mind to the cir 
 cumference of a store or factory. In his fixed and awful gaze 
 at the wonders of creation, or in his rapt ecstasy at the celes 
 tial harmony of poesy, opportunities of profit will slip by, 
 the golden moments of barter escape. His purse is lighter, 
 it must be confessed ; but he has gained a richer accession of 
 fancies and feelings than the world can give or take away. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 CHAPTER ON SOME OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 
 
 THE sonnet is of Italian origin, and was imported into 
 England from that country by the Earl of Surrey, 
 
 " that renowned lord, 
 
 Th old English glory bravely that restor d, 
 That prince and poet (a name more divine)," 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 51 
 
 as Drayton enthusiastically writes. Originally a pupil of 
 Petrarch, he left the metaphysical style of his master for a 
 more gallant and courtly manner. He was "the bright par 
 ticular star" of the court of Henry VIII., as Sidney was of 
 that of Elizabeth, and resembled his famous successor in 
 that dangerous post of favorite in more than one trait of his 
 character. Like him, he was an accomplished gentleman, a 
 graceful poet, an elegant scholar, and a gallant knight. Like 
 him, he chanted soft, amorous lays to his chosen fair, and has 
 immortalized the source of his inspiration in strains of melt 
 ing beauty. Surrey is the first classic English poet (we place 
 Chaucer at the head of the romantic school, before the era 
 of Spenser and Shakspeare) ; and he was the first writer of 
 English sonnets. He is said to have been the introducer of 
 blank verso into our poetry. For these two gifts to our 
 literature, if for none others, we should hold his reputation 
 in honorable remembrance. We recollect no one sonnet of 
 surpassing beauty (Mrs. Jameson, in her Loves of the Poets, 
 has culled the finest lines) : they will bear no comparison 
 with succeeding pieces in the same department. And as we 
 wish to secure space for certain fine specimens of Sidney, 
 Shakspeare, Drummond, and Milton, we must not encumber 
 our page with any but the choicest productions of the Muse. 
 We pass, then, to the all accomplished Sidney. His son 
 nets are chiefly " vain and amatorious," yet full of " wit and 
 worth." We agree heartily in Lamb s admiration for them, 
 as well as for their admirable author, deprecating entirely the 
 carping and illiberal spirit in which Ilazlitt criticised them. 
 The acutest and most eloquent English critic of this century 
 was sometimes prejudiced and occasionally partial. \Ve find 
 him so here. For delicacy, fancy, and purity of feeling, 
 Sidney is the finest of English writers of the sonnet. He is 
 
52 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 certainly less weighty and grand than Milton, less pathetic 
 than Drummond, far less copious and rich than Wordsworth, 
 yet in the graceful union of the Poet and Lover surpassing 
 all. He is here, as in his life -and actions, the Knight "sans 
 peur et sans reproche." Stella, the goddess of his idolatry, 
 was at once his mistress and his muse ; anciently, a very 
 frequent combination of characters. We know not, but 
 believe the sonnets of Sidney are little known. This, and 
 the intrinsic beauty of the poem, must serve to excuse us for 
 the following extract : 
 
 Because I oft in dark abstracted guise 
 Seem most alone in greatest company, 
 With dearth of words, or answer quite awry 
 To them that would make speech of speech arise, 
 They deem, and of their doom the rumor flies, 
 That poison foul of bubbling Pride doth lie 
 So in my swelling breast, that only I 
 Fawn on myself, and others do despise. 
 For Pride 1 think doth not my soul possess, 
 Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass ; 
 But one worse fault, Ambition, I confess, 
 That makes me oft my best friends overpass, 
 Unseen, unheard, while thought to highest place, 
 Bends all his powers, even unto Stella s grace. 
 
 In a further beautiful sonnet occurs this fanciful apostrophe 
 to Sleep : 
 
 Come, Sleep, Sleep, the certain knot of peace, 
 The baiting- place of wit, the balm of woe, 
 The poor man s wealth, the prisoner s release, 
 The indifferent judge between the high and low. 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 53 
 
 This reminds us strongly of Shakspeare s famous exclama 
 tion of Macbeth, bent on his murderous errand : 
 
 the innocent sleep ; 
 
 Sleep, that knits up the ravell d sleeve of care, 
 The death of each day s life, sore labor s bath, 
 Balm of hurt minds, great Nature s second course, 
 Chief Xourisher in life s feast. 
 
 The sonnets of Sidney are highly characteristic. They 
 combine contemplation and knightly grace. They were 
 written in the heyday of his blood (he died at the age of 
 thirty-four) : and cannot be fairly compared with the later 
 productions of a greater and more mature genius. Sidney, it 
 must not be forgotten, was a courtier and chivalrous soldier, 
 no less than the admired poet of his time, and we should 
 allow accordingly in our estimate of his poetry. lie filled a 
 brief career with monuments of literary glory and military 
 honor : he endeared himself to a nation by his graces and 
 worth, and drew friends and followers to his heart, by its 
 sincerity and virtues. He died "with his martial cloak about 
 him," and full of fame. It was reckoned an honor to have 
 been his friend. History records not his enemy. 
 
 The little we know of Shakspeare is to be learnt from a 
 perusal of his sonnets, which afford a glimpse of poetical au 
 tobiography. The main particulars are his devoted gratitude 
 to his noble patron, the generous Earl of Southampton, and 
 his romantic attachment to a " fair peraonne," who is supposed 
 to have been a beautiful specimen of an unfortunate class of 
 females. Our " myriad-minded" bard, far above the general 
 order of humanity, as he was, from his vast intellectual su 
 periority, was yet a very man (and for that we love him all 
 the better) in his affections and passions, like to one of us. 
 
54 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 The most profound of philosophers, the noblest of humorists, 
 the grandest painter of the passions, was a lover and gallant 
 gentleman. Perhaps his constancy was unable to stand the 
 test of temptation upon all occasions (but that we may allow 
 to a roving and excited youth) : though after middle life we 
 hear of his quiet life as a landholder and paterfamilias. 
 Doubtless " the reaming swaats that drank divinely" at the 
 Mermaid, and his lively associates at the Globe Theatre, were 
 sometimes too much for any prudential plan of life. But in 
 those scenes the great teacher learnt many an instructive les 
 son, which he has taught us ; nor shall we dare to arraign 
 the venial follies of the selectest spirit of our race. We find 
 numerous single lines and couplets in some of these sonnets 
 that develope the character of their author more fully than 
 any labored biographical or critical commentary. He gives 
 us pictures of his own feelings, his desiring " this man s art 
 and that man s scope :" he apologizes for his profession as an 
 actor, insinuating that it degrades him not (as it never should 
 degrade any, but as it too often tends to degradation). He 
 fairly speaks out a lofty self-estimate, none the less true for 
 its candour : 
 
 K"ot marble, nor the gilded monuments 
 Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme ; 
 But you shall shine more bright in these contents 
 Than unwept stone, besmear d with sluttish time. 
 When wasteful war shall statues overturn, 
 And broils root out the work of masonry, 
 Nor Mars s sword, nor war s quick fire shall burn 
 The living record of your memory. 
 
 The vulgar error of Shakspeare s reserve must have arisen 
 with those who never saw his miscellaneous poems. It is 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 55 
 
 true amid the varied characters that stud his dramatic page, 
 it is impossible to fasten any upon him, who painted them 
 all. But we find self-confession enough in the sonnets, and 
 we are much surprised at the nature of it, so much of melan 
 choly and repining, utterly unlike our idea of the robust ge 
 nius and vigorous heart of the creator of Falstaffand of 
 Lear. 
 
 Shakspeare s best sonnets, and indeed nearly all of them, 
 are devoted to the expression of an apparently hopeless pas 
 sion. They form a love history, mysterious and obscure, 
 which we shall not attempt to penetrate. It is enough to 
 add, that (which might be premised as impossible) they do 
 not raise Shakspeare to a higher rank than he before at 
 tained : that perhaps we idolize his fame less where we were 
 admitted (too freely) into certain secrets of his personal his 
 tory, and it must also be confessed that he has dallied with 
 the muse in these offerings at her shrine, rather than put forth 
 his Samson strength in lofty triumph. 
 
 On no one occasion does he attempt to reach a higher pitch 
 than was attained by the general attempts in the same form 
 of poetry. It is true even the lightest trifles are impressed 
 with a nameless spirit from his exuberant genius and subtle 
 individuality. It is true his phrases, his expressive language, 
 are eminently Shakesperean. Yet are they comparatively 
 wasted on trivial themes, or levelled to a moderate key-note 
 of passion. They contain none of the deep contemplativencss 
 of Wordsworth, or the spirited yet condensed power of Milton. 
 We speak thus of these productions in comparison with simi 
 lar attempts of other great poets ; and more especially in 
 comparison with the other works of Shakspeare his dramas, 
 the richest legacy ever bequeathed to mankind by a single 
 individual. For any other bard, it, would be praise enough 
 
56 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 to have equalled the least valuable works of Shakspeare. and 
 these sonnets would have made the reputation of almost any 
 one else. The two finest occur in one of his plays ;* that on 
 Study, beginning, " Study is like heaven s glorious sun," and 
 that more tender passage of self-expostulation and apology, 
 for which we must make room : 
 
 Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, 
 Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, 
 Persuade my heart to tbis false perjury ? 
 Vows for thee broke, deserve not punishment. 
 A woman I forswore ; but I -will prove, 
 Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee : 
 My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love ; 
 Thy grace being gain d, cures all disgrace in me. 
 My vow was breath, and breath a vapor is ; 
 Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, 
 Exhal st this vapor vow ; in thee it is : 
 If broken, then it is no fault of mine. 
 If by me broke, what fool is not so wise 
 To break an oath, to win a Paradise ? 
 
 His picture of his mistress forms a fair pendant to the 
 above, and shonld not therefore be omitted : 
 
 Fair is my love, but not as fair as fickle ; 
 Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty ; 
 Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle ; 
 Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty ; 
 A little pale, with damask dye to grace her ; 
 None fairer, nor one falser to deface her. 
 Her lips to mine how often hath she joined, 
 Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing I 
 How many tales to please me hath she coin d. 
 
 * Love s Labor Lost. 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 57 
 
 Dreading my love, the loss whereof still fearing ! 
 
 Yet in the midst of till her pure pretestings, 
 
 Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all, were jestings. 
 
 She burnt with love, as straw with flre flameth, 
 
 She burnt with love, as soon as straw outburneth ; 
 
 She fram d the love, and yet she foil d the framing. 
 
 She bade love last, and yet she fell a turning. 
 
 Was this a lover, or a lecher whether 1 
 
 Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.* 
 
 Passing over the slight effusions of forgotten versifiers, our 
 list brings us next to Drummond of Hawthornden, the best 
 representative of the Scottish inuse before Allan Ramsay s 
 time, and the friend of Ben Jonson. The record of their 
 famous conversations has been made public of late years 
 through the researches of one of the Antiquarian Societies. 
 Like all of the early sonneteers, who copied their master Pe 
 trarch in this, as in other respects, Drummond had his tni.s- 
 tress for a rnuse but the specimen we shall present of his 
 sonnets is one of a more general description. It is addressed 
 to Sleep, and discovers a close resemblance to the verses of 
 Sidney and Shakspeare, before quoted : 
 
 Sleep, silence child, sweet father of soft rest, 
 Prince whose approach peace to all mortals brings, 
 Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings, 
 Sole comforter of minds which are opprest ; 
 Lo by thy charming rod all breathing things 
 Lie slumb ring with forgetfulness possest, 
 And yet oe r me to spread thy drowsy wings 
 Thou sparest (alas !) who cannot be thy guest. 
 Since I am thine, O come, but with that face 
 To inward light which thou were wont to show, 
 
 * A somewhat similar history is to be read in the " Modern Pvg- 
 malion" of a late brilliant oritic and metaphysician. 
 3* 
 
58 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 With fancied solace ease a true-felt woe ; 
 Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace, 
 
 Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath : 
 
 I long to kiss the image of my death.} 
 
 This poet is distinguished for a sweet and elegant pathetic 
 vein ; his line is " most musical, most melancholy." He 
 writes thus of his prevalent manner, in a sonnet on his 
 Lute : 
 
 What art thou but a harbinger of woe ? 
 
 Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more, 
 
 But orphan s wailings to the fainting ear, 
 
 Each stroke a sigh, eacli sound draws forth a tear, 
 
 For which be silent as in words before: 
 Or if that any hand to touch thee deign, 
 Like widow d turtle still her loss complain. 
 
 For this lugubrious coloring he accounts by the absence 
 of " that dear voice," which did thy sounds approve : 
 
 W hich wont in such harmonious strains to flow, 
 Is reft from earth to tune those spheres above. 
 
 Milton is the last great name of the elder bards we shall 
 presume to invoke. He is the second sonnet writer in Eng 
 lish ; we place Wordsworth at the head. Some half dozen 
 of Milton s [he wrote altogether only fourteen, we believe] 
 are unequalled. But though our great living poet rarely 
 rises as high as Milton, yet his copiousness and unmatched 
 volubility of expression combine to give him the precedence. 
 Shakspeare we place out of comparison, since he attempted 
 no sonnets of the reflective kind. Few of Wordsworth s 
 bear any mention of love, and where they do speak of it, it is 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 59 
 
 a holy thing, not the libertine passion of courtly versifiers. 
 Milton s grandest sonnets, each of them a small epic in itself, 
 have been sufficiently noticed ; but there is one less referred 
 to, that we think deserves the more regard, from its personal 
 nature, referring to himself with a certain sublime self- 
 consideration and Grecian enthusiasm, that bespeak the 
 builder of the loftiest of epics. 
 
 When the assault was intended on the city 
 
 Captain, or colonel, or knight in arms, 
 
 "Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, 
 
 If deed of honor did thee ever please, 
 
 Guard them, and him within protect from harms. 
 
 He can requite thee; for he knows the charms 
 
 That eall fame on such gentle acts as these, 
 
 And he can spread thy name o er lands and seas, 
 
 Whatever clime the sun s bright circle wanna. 
 
 Lift not thy spear against the Muse s bower ; 
 
 The great Emathian conqueror bid spare 
 
 The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower 
 
 Went to the ground; and the repeated air 
 
 Of sad Electra s Poet ha 1 the power 
 
 To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare. 
 
 The sonnet is, perhaps, the most aitificial form of poetry, 
 and, in consequence, the most difficult to execute with spirit- 
 The chief difficulty appears to lie in preserving the unity and 
 integrity of the single thought or sentiment which it is in 
 tended to express and convey. It is essential that the idea 
 be not departed from, though various shades of meaning may 
 be introduced with effect. It is no less important that the 
 idea be completely filled out; a meagre ketch being equally 
 faulty with a superfluous abundance of thoughts. The re 
 striction to just fourteen lines is an obstacle of itself to the 
 
60 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 prosecution of a genial poetic design. Rapt in his visions of 
 beauty, the poet must still not stray beyond this fixed limit, 
 which appears arbitrary enough. Yet these very restrictions 
 tend to compactness and symmetrical beauty. To a culti 
 vated ear, the music of a fine sonnet is not the least pleasing 
 adjunct to this form of verse ; nor should we overlook the 
 advantage gained to the thought itself by such an harmonious . 
 yet concise utterance of it. 
 
 Like those minor forms of prose writing, the letter and 
 the essay, the sonnet is happy in an unlimited range of sub 
 ject and variety of style, of martial or sentimental, amorous, 
 philosophic, familiar and pathetic. It is a miniature ode, 
 with less of variety and more formal design ; but it enjoys in 
 common with the ode, the characteristic of a susceptibility of 
 conveying strong personal traits, and of rendering itself in 
 stinct with the most individual subtleties of personal charac 
 ter. But why do we enlarge upon this therne, when we have 
 the noble sonnet of Wordsworth at hand, at once the highest 
 defence and purest eulogiuni upon sonnets and the writers of 
 them? 
 
 Scorn not the Sonnet ; Critic, you have frowned, 
 
 Mindless of its just honors; with this key 
 
 Shakspeare unlocked his heart; the melody 
 
 Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch s wound; 
 
 A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ; 
 
 Camoens soothed with it an exile s grief; 
 
 The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf 
 
 Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned 
 
 His visionary brow ; a glow-worm lamp. 
 
 It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land 
 
 To struggle through dark ways ; and when a damp 
 
 Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand 
 
 The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew 
 
 Soul animating strains alas, too few ! 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 61 
 
 Since the time of Milton, sonnet-writing has been little in 
 vogue, until the commencement of the present century. The 
 wits of Charles s days were too much occupied with libertine 
 songs or political epigrams, to pen thoughtful and elaborate 
 poetry. The wits of Queen Anne were too courtly and arti 
 ficial to relish musings on nature, or philosophical meditations, 
 or amorous conceits, after the old fashion. And though it 
 may seem paradoxical to remark it, the sonnet was too artifi 
 cial a form of writing even for the most artificial of English 
 Poets, Dry den and Pope. But its art evinced higher prin 
 ciples of harmony than the polished couplet required. We 
 do not recollect a single sonnet of the first, or even second 
 class of excellence, from Milton to Thomas Warton. Butler, 
 Rochester, Denham, Waller, Roscommon, wrote none : neither 
 did any of the religious poets of that ngc, Quarles, Herbert, 
 Donne, or Crashaw. Cowley, in his fine-spun reveries, comes 
 nearest to the matter of the best sonnet writers, but his man 
 ner is different. If we come to the next epoch of English 
 verse, we find not a single sonnet in the writings of Dryden, 
 Pope, Swift, Gay, Addison, Steele, &c. It is only in a 
 thoughtful and tasteful character, by a lover of meditative 
 leisure, an admirer oi nature, that the sonnet is ever likely to 
 be cultivated. It presents no brilliant points for the man of 
 wit ; it is tedious and diffuse for the gay man of lively talent. 
 It is a form of poetry that would never strike the lovers of 
 satire or pictures of artificial manners agreeably ; unless, as 
 the pastoral struck the Queen Anne poets, as a subject tor 
 burlesque. A true reader of the sonnet loves not the glare 
 of what passes for strong lines, brilliant passages. This may 
 be readily seen in the difference of taste, and in conception of 
 the poetical character, that distinguishes the followers of 
 Wordsworth and of Byron. 
 
62 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 Before the time of the Lake Poets and their followers, both 
 together, including the finest poets this century has produced, 
 Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Lamb, and Leigh Hunt, we 
 can point but to one true poet who wrote good sonnets, al 
 most worthy of Drummond Thomas Warton. Warton was 
 a man of elegant fancy and fine sensibility, but without any 
 vigorous imagination or peculiar individuality. Yet Hazlitt, 
 much to the surprise of his readers, says, that he cannot help 
 preferring his sonnets to any in the language. Now, paralleled 
 by Milton or Wordsworth, Warton is feeble ; though he is 
 forcible in comparison with Bowles. We annex his very best 
 sonnet, as it reads to us ; so much superior to the remainder, 
 that it appears to have been the work of another hand. 
 
 Written in a blank-leaf of Dug dale s Monasticon. 
 
 Deem not devoid of elegance, the sage, 
 
 By fancy s genuine feelings unbeguil d 
 
 Of painful pedantry the poring child, 
 
 Who turns, of these proud domes, th historic page, 
 
 Now sunk by time and Henry s fiercer rage. 
 
 Think st thou the warbling muses never smil d 
 
 On his lone hours ? Ingenuous views engage 
 
 His thoughts, on themes, unclassic falsely sty I d, 
 
 Intent. While cloister d piety displays 
 
 Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores 
 
 New manners, and the pomp of elder days, 
 
 Whence culls the pensive bard his picturd stores. 
 
 Nor rough, nor barren are the winding ways 
 
 Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers. 
 
 During what may be called the Hayley rage, when the 
 author of the Triumphs of Temper was esteemed a great poet 
 (so barren was the vineyard of genial laborers), a band of 
 sonneteers arose, who have deservedly been forgotten. For 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 63 
 
 of all imbecilities, to use a Carlyleism, that of writing weak 
 poetry is at once the most pitiable and the most reprehensi 
 ble. The poetic offspring, worthily begotten, thrives even 
 amidst the bleak freezings of Neglect : but a puny poem, like 
 a puny child, rarely lives long, and only usurps the place of 
 something better. We may speak thus, at the present time, 
 of the attempts of Miss Seward and Charlotte Smith, since 
 we have been treated to more delicate cates and fed on heav 
 enly food. Later still and nearer to our own time, we have 
 instances of men of poetic taste, though utterly devoid of all 
 poetic genius, who have failed signally in the sonnet, and 
 who are only known from their general connection with liter 
 ature. The Rev. W. Lisle Bowles is better known from Cole 
 ridge s early admiration of his sonnets, and from his stake in 
 the Pope controversy, than from any one other reason. In 
 the latter he failed to gain his cause, though on the right 
 side. Coleridge is said to have transcribed his sonnets forty 
 times in the course of eighteen months in order to make 
 presents of them to his school-fellows ; we can only account 
 for it by the fact, that many inferior authors have sometimes 
 been more suggestive than their masters, and it may have 
 been a mere vagary of a boy of genius. Coleridge s own 
 sonnet, addressed to Bowles, is richly worth the whole of 
 Bowles s sonnets put together. George Dyer, the friend of 
 Lamb the antiquary (whose character Lamb has so admirably 
 depicted,) the historian of Cambridge, the scholar and gentle 
 companion, will be known to posterity solely through the 
 medium of his friend s original humor and delicious irony, 
 which he so widely mistook. Leigli Hunt, though a grace 
 ful narrator, a charming essayist, and a lively critic; a friend 
 of poets, and in other walks, a pleasing poet himself, has yet 
 been unable to do justice to his tine genius in the sonnet. 
 
04 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 His friend, Charles Lamb, too, has done his best things in 
 prose. But among the few sonnets left by the inimitable 
 Elia, occur three perfect specimens that on Cambridge, and 
 those on Work, and Leisure. 
 
 Lamb s latest publisher, Moxon, has written some very 
 tolerable sonnets for a bookseller ; though they are tainted 
 with the general defect of feebleness. The Hon. R. Monck- 
 ton Milnes, the parliamentary poet, may be ranked in the 
 same category. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats, are the 
 writers of the genuine sonnet, in this nineteenth century, and 
 by far the best poets. The majestic tone and deep feeling 
 of the first, the learned invention and universality of talent of 
 the second, and the exuberant fancy of the third, can fitly be 
 measured by none but the same standards that we apply to 
 the old Elizabethan poets and to Milton. 
 
 Wordsworth is now confessedly the finest sonnet writer in 
 the world, equalling in many sonnets, even the majesty, the 
 tenderness and Attic grace of Milton in a few. Wordsworth s 
 copiousness is remarkable, and at the same time his richness 
 of thought and expression. A mechanical writer might turn 
 out sonnets by the dozen, but of what value, we would in 
 quire. Wordsworth s are admirable, perfectly appropriate, 
 and harmonious as the breathings of Apollo s flute. Occa 
 sionally, he blows a noble blast, as from a silver trumpet of 
 surpassing power ; but his favorite style may be likened to 
 the music of a chamber-organ, though he can also make the 
 massive pealing organ of the cathedral blow. His range is 
 universal ; moral, patriotic, tender, domestic. He is medita 
 tive, playful, familiar. We should be ashamed to quote 
 specimens of Wordsworth, were he not really still a poet un 
 known to the mass, even of educated readers. There are ten 
 copies of Byron, Moore, or Scott, sold (at least) to one of 
 Wordsworth, who is worth all three. 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. C5 
 
 Of the different series, we prefer the Miscellaneous Sonnets, 
 and next to them, the sonnet dedicated to Liberty ; the 
 Ecclesiastical sonnets are less interesting to the general reader, 
 and written with less power, but they add a new and pecu 
 liar grace to the history of the British Church, and ought to 
 be enshrined in the hearts of its members. 
 
 The following should form the guiding maxims of the 
 patriot, and evince a noble sympathy with political liberty 
 and individual greatness : 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Milton ! thou should st be living at tin s hour ; 
 
 England hath need of thee ; she is a ten 
 
 Of stngnant waters; altar, sword and pen, 
 
 Fireside, the heroic wreath of hall and bower, 
 
 Have forfeited their ancient English dower, 
 
 Of inward happiness. "We are selfish men ; 
 
 Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; 
 
 And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 
 
 T/iy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart : 
 
 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea, 
 
 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free. 
 
 So didst thou travel on life s common way, 
 
 In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
 
 The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 
 
 xv. 
 
 Great men have been among us : hands that penned 
 And tongues that uttered wisdom better none : 
 The later Sidney, Marvel, Harrington, 
 Young Vane, and others who called Milton friend. 
 These moralists could act and comprehend : 
 They knew how genuine glory was put on ; 
 Taught us how rightfully a nation shone 
 In splend< r; what strength was, that would not bend 
 
66 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS, 
 
 But in magnanimous meekness. France, tis strange 
 Has brought forth no such souls as we had then. 
 Perpetual emptiness ! unceasing change ! 
 No single volume paramount, no code, 
 No master spirit, no determined road ; 
 But equally a want of books and men ! 
 
 Of the Miscellaneous Sonnets, two-thirds of which are pure 
 gold, we quote only the beautiful bonnet on the departure of 
 Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford, for Naples : 
 
 A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain, 
 
 Nor of the setting Sun s pathetic light 
 
 Engender d, hangs o er Eildon s triple height. 
 
 Spirits of power, assembled there, complain 
 
 For kindred power departing from their sight ; 
 
 "While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain, 
 
 Saddens his voice again, and yet again. 
 
 Lift up your hearts, ye mourners ! for the might 
 
 Of the whole world s good wishes with him goes : 
 
 Blessings and prayers in nobler retinue 
 
 Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, 
 
 Follow this wondrous potentate. Be true, 
 
 Ye winds of ocean and the midland sea, 
 
 Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope! 
 
 Coleridge wrote but few sonnets, but they are among the 
 most admirable of the fragments of his poetic genius. Most 
 of them are political, celebrating some one of his favorite 
 heroes, Burke, Priestley, Erskine, Sheridan, Kosciusko, Lafay 
 ette. The remainder are of a wholly personal nature, full 
 either of early aspiration, or maturer despondency ; cheerful 
 and ardent, or instinct with a mild yet manly melancholy. 
 The two we extract, are typical of the different traits we have 
 mentioned. 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 67 
 
 Here is that noble address, 
 
 TO THE AUTHOE OF THE ROBBERS. 
 
 Schiller ! that hour I would have wished to die, 
 If through the shuddering midnight I had sent 
 From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent, 
 That fearful voice, a famished father s cry 
 Lest in some after moment, aught more mean 
 Might stamp me mortal ! A triumphant shout 
 Black horror screamed, and all her goblin rout 
 Diminished shrunk from the more withering scene ! 
 Ah, bard ! tremendous in simplicity ! 
 Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood 
 Wandering 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. 
 
 This in a different vein. It is in reply " to a friend who 
 asked how I felt when the nurse first presented my infant to 
 me." 
 
 Charles ! my slow heart was only sad, when first 
 I scanned that face of ffeble infancy : 
 For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst 
 All I had been, and all my child might be ! 
 But when I saw it on its mother s arm, 
 And hanging at her bosom (she the while 
 Bent o er its features with a tearful smile), 
 Then I was thrilled, and melted, and most warm 
 Impressed a father s kiss ; and all beguiled 
 Of dark remembrance and presageful fear, 
 I seemed to see an angel form appear 
 Twas even thine, beloved woman mild ! 
 So for the mother s sake the child was dear, 
 And dearer was the mother for the child. 
 
68 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 With Keats we close our very slight sketch of writers of 
 the sonnet. A late article in Arcturus Magazine (Dec., 1841\ 
 has done him true poetic justice. To this delicate apprecia 
 tion of the young English Poet, as Hunt affectionately calls 
 him, we can add nothing, but only contribute a hearty assent. 
 The hour has come at last for Keats, that always comes to 
 the true poet. A brother bard (J. R. Lowell) whose first 
 volume contains passages and poems Keats would have been 
 willing to acknowledge, and whose own delicate genius en 
 ables him to appreciate a cognate talent, has done honor to 
 the English bard in stanzas, that put to the blush all prose 
 criticisms. Poets should criticise each other, or rather be the 
 most intelligent admirers of their respective talents. A critic 
 is " of understanding all compact," and wants imagination to 
 relish the finest touches. " The words of Mercury are harsh 
 after the songs of Apollo." 
 
 IX. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR, THE SPENSER OF DIVINITY. 
 
 A POET should be the critic of Jeremy Taylor, for he was 
 one himself, and hence needs a poetic mind for his interpreter 
 and eulogist. Bald criticism becomes still more barren (by 
 contrast) when exercised on the -flowery genius of the prince 
 of pulpit orators. Taylor thought in pictures, and his ideas 
 were shadowed out in lively images of beauty. His fancy 
 colored his understanding, which rather painted elaborate 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR. 69 
 
 metaphors, " long drawn out," than analyzed the complexity 
 of a problem, or conducted the discussion of a topic, by 
 logical processes. The material world furnished his stock of 
 similes. He drew on it for illustrations, rather than seek them 
 in the workings of his own mind. His descriptions are almost 
 palpable. They have an air of reality. His landscape is 
 enveloped in a warm and glowing atmosphere ; his light is 
 " from heaven." His style is rich and luxuriant. He is all 
 grace, beauty, melody. He does not appear so anxious to 
 get at the result of an argument, to fix the certainty of a 
 proposition, as to give the finest coloring to a received senti 
 ment. He is more descriptive and less speculative. He re 
 poses on the lap of beauty. lie revels in hor creations. The 
 thirst of his soul was for the beautiful. This was with him 
 almost synonymous with the good " the first good and the 
 first fair." Is it not so ? Is not the highest truth the highest 
 form of beauty? Our common idea of beauty is more sen 
 sual and tinged with earthliness. But the platonic and 
 spiritual conception is nobler and truer. 
 
 There was a period when the volumes of Taylor lay com 
 paratively neglected: when the Blair taste was dominant. 
 This sensible but cold critic does not even refer to Taylor in 
 his lecture on pulpit eloquence. The present race of critics 
 unlike Blair, are for elevating Taylor as the very first of 
 orators. Of pulpit orators, he is, indeed, the Chrysostom ; 
 but Burke holds the first, the highest place of all oratory. 
 With the poet s imagination, he had also the logician s art and 
 the deep reflection of the philosopher. Burke had less mul 
 tifarious acquisition, and his intellect worked all the better. 
 Taylor had a vast quantity of useless learning, which had the 
 ill-effect of inducing a certain laxity of belief. I mean laxity 
 in a good sense. He was too credulous. His faith as well as 
 
70 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 his memory was equally tenacious of all statements, whether 
 well or ill-founded. Bishop Heber notices this individual 
 character of Taylor in his life. 
 
 Undoubtedly, Taylor is a first-rate genius of the descriptive 
 kind. His strength lay in that ; and his range, too, was 
 universal. He painted every scene and every varying phase 
 of any one. He is Claude, Rubens, Rembrandt and Raphael 
 combined. He unites softness, richness, depth of shadow, and 
 pure beauty, 
 
 Taylor has been called the " Shakspeare of Divinity" a 
 parallel that requires some limitation. If, by this, it be 
 meant that, compared with other preachers, he had a richer 
 fancy, greater copiousness of poetic sentiment, and an un 
 equalled profusion of beautiful metaphor, the praise is just ; 
 but if it be intended to express that, like Shakspeare, he was 
 gifted with an union of wonderful and various powers, almost 
 superhuman, the criticism is extravagant, if not absurd. For, 
 in his printed works, we can find not a gleam of wit or humor 
 scarcely any talent for portrait-painting no profound depth 
 of reflection no nice observation of real life. We say this 
 with no intention of undervaluing Taylor ; but only to show 
 the folly of any close comparison between him and Shakspeare. 
 We would rather say, Taylor was the Spenser of Divinity. 
 With Spenser, Taylor is eminently a descriptive writer. His 
 imagination is pictorial; and, although without the allegory 
 of Spenser, he has the same bland amenity of sentiment 
 the same untiring particularity of description the same an 
 gelic purity of thought the same harmonious structure of 
 composition. 
 
 Taylor is the painter : inferior to Barrow in point of reason, 
 and to Clark in reasoning ; without a tithe of South s wit or 
 epigrammatic smartness : less ingenious than Donne : he has 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR. 71 
 
 a fancy and style far more beautiful than any prose writer 
 before his time, and perhaps since. It has been called " un 
 measured poetry." The Edinburgh Review and Coleridge 
 (critics wide apart) have joined in pronouncing his writings 
 more truly poetic than most of the odes and epics that have 
 been produced in Europe since his day. And Hazlitt (surest 
 critic of all) quotes a fine passage from Beaumont, which is 
 apparently a translation of Taylor s prose into verse, and 
 made, too, merely by occasional transposition of the words 
 from the order in which they originally stood. Taylor is, 
 therefore, confessedly a master of poetical prose. This term 
 is sometimes used by way of dubious praise, since most writ 
 ing of the kind is a wretched farrago of such tinsel and faded 
 ornament as would disgrace Rag Fair. Taylor s composition 
 is of quite a different grain. His style is naturally poetic, 
 from the character of his mind ; he had that poetic sensibility 
 of feeling that saw beauty and deep meaning in everything. 
 His imagination colored the commonest object on which it 
 lighted, as the bow of promise throws its tints over all crea 
 tion ; through this, as a veil, every object appeared bright and 
 blooming, like the flowers of spring, or dark and terrible, like 
 the thunder-cloud of summer. Its general hue was mild and 
 gentle ; he had a more genial feeling for beauty than for gran 
 deur, though his awful description of the Last Judgment is 
 stamped with the sublime force of Michael Angelo, or rather, 
 like Rembrandt s shadows, terrible with excess of gloom. In 
 this grand picture are collected all the images of terror and 
 dismay, fused into a powerful whole by his so potent art. It 
 is first a solemn anthem a version of the monkish canticle : 
 then you hear (in imagination) the deep bass note of the last 
 thunder that shall ever peal through the sky. You are al 
 most blinded by the lightenings that gleam in his style. 
 
CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 Presently, a horrid shriek of despair (the accumulated wail 
 ing of millions of evil spirits) rises on the affrighted ear. And 
 anon, the trumpet with a silver sound is blown several times, 
 and all is still. With what a subtle power this master plays 
 on the conscience of his readers ! He makes the boldest 
 tremble : he magnifies, he reiterates, until the best of men 
 shall think himself a fellow of the vilest ! 
 
 Such, however, is not a scene congenial to Taylor s tem 
 per. In his description he most affects the tender and pa 
 thetic notes of humanity. He plays admirably on every 
 chord of passion, but on some much oftener and more artful 
 ly than on others. He is both " a son of thunder and a son 
 of consolation." With all his powers of terrifying the soul, 
 he most loves to entreat its gratitude to God and the prac 
 tice of religion. He takes delight in painting the innocence 
 of childhood, the purity of virgins, the sacred mystery of 
 marriage, the gentle voice of pity, the mercy of our Father, 
 the love of his Son. 
 
 His landscape is oftener quiet and in repose, than savage 
 or deserted. His favorite breezes are rather zephyrs, than 
 
 The wind Euroclydon 
 The storm wind. 
 
 His florid genius, like his sweet disposition, delighted in 
 heavenly lays, and doubtless his piety was not a little the 
 offspring of his temperament and genius. 
 
 Taylor, in his pictures, further resembled Spenser in the 
 prolixity of his style dwelling on minute points and care 
 fully finishing every trait. He had none of Milton s concise 
 force, that painted a picture by an epithet or a line. If Tay 
 lor had the building of Pandemonium, he would have occu 
 pied six times the space Milton took for its construction. 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR. 73 
 
 Milton made it to "rise like an exhalation;" Taylor would 
 have expanded the line into a page, where each member of 
 the sentence would have formed a series of steps leading 
 from the foundation to the dome of the Infernal Hall. 
 
 It may be proper here to notice ti peculiarity of Taylor s 
 illustrations they are almost always for ornament ; he does 
 not employ a simile to clench his argument ; he does not 
 make his fancy logical; but describes and paints for the 
 pleasure of the picture. His similes, so delightful in the 
 reading, must have been intolerably long for delivery. Pub 
 lic speaking requires greater compactness of mind than Tay 
 lor possessed, and yet we hear of his wonderful success, 
 which was not slightly heightened by a beautiful person, a 
 face " like an angel," and an elocution that ravished all hear 
 ers with its swelling cadences and sweet intonations. 
 
 Tavlor, in his frequent and curious quotations, is almost a 
 Burton. A reason for this deference to foreign testimony 
 may be gathered from the fact of the respect for authority 
 cherished by the early divines. Just loosed from the Church 
 of Rome, it was but natural they should cling to the first 
 vouchers of the truth, the primitive defenders of the faith. 
 Modern free-thinking and the fashionable doctrine of inde 
 pendency of opinion had not yet made those morning stars 
 of the church to rely too completely on their own internal 
 light they rather reflected and gave back the light from 
 above. 
 
 4 
 
X. 
 
 CHURCH MUSIC. 
 
 " I think he hath not a mind well-tempered, whose zeal is not inflamed by a 
 keavenly anthem." Owen Feliham. 
 
 THERE is no music like church music, nor any songs of equal 
 excellence with the songs of Zion. Light, airy strains de 
 light the ear and enervate the sense, but reach not the soul ; 
 dull, mournful tones induce melancholy and sadness ; but the 
 songs of praise and thanksgiving, of exultant hope and reli 
 gious joy, of repentance and gratitude, touch the heart more 
 nearly, affect the soul in her inmost recesses, and descend 
 into the very depths of a troubled and contrite spirit. The 
 hopeful Christian, too, is cheered by devout music, breathing 
 peace and rest. And he must be a most indifferent auditor 
 who can listen, unmoved, to any species of church music, of 
 whatever sect, or to whatever degree of refinement it attains. 
 For my own part, I love all, from the simplest Methodist 
 hymn to the richest cathedral vespers of the Roman Catholic 
 Church : and I believe there is a species of pure, devotional 
 feeling that cannot fitly be told in language, nor manifested 
 in any other way, that is exhibited in music. Prayer and 
 preaching have their fit place, and are of essential importance 
 in divine worship ; but praise must not be absent. Psalmody 
 is prayer set to music ; and the majestic anthem is no less 
 than, a more elevated form of address to the Almighty 
 Father. External harmony is but the exponent of a finer 
 internal sense of order and design ; and that, we are taught, 
 is "Heaven s first law." Without organ music, and the 
 vocal accompaniment of a choir, the services of the church 
 appear shorn of a large portion of their dignity and beauty, 
 
CHURCH MUSIC. 75 
 
 and wanting in an important feature. This feeling we are 
 happy to share with the master spirits of our church, the tes 
 timonials of some of whom, to the efficacy and fascination of 
 this Christian Art, we shall presently enumerate. 
 
 We call this a Christian Art, and such it certainly is. In 
 the middle age, and just before the revival of learning, when 
 the modern arts first took their rise and origin, all of the arts 
 at present styled the fine arts, were consecrated wholly to 
 the service of the Church. The architecture of that period 
 was the Gothic, especially adapted to churches, though after 
 wards employed in other buildings, the castellated mansion 
 of the noble, and the palace of the king. The first modern 
 paintings were of our Saviour, and the Virgin Mary, and the 
 Apostles, and the scenes and incidents of the Old and New 
 Testaments. The music was choral and religious ; the 
 orisons of the monk, the matins of the friar, the mass and 
 vespers of the chapel. The eloquence was purely and almost 
 restrictedly Episcopal, or Missionary. Even the Drama had 
 its first beginning in the representation of Mysteries and Mo 
 ralities. And to bring down the illustrations to our own day, 
 we find Christianity the prominent symbol of the Arts ; or 
 rather the Arts, the peculiar ministers of Religion. Thus 
 we still see no nobler edifices than those consecrated to the 
 worship of the true God ; St. Peter s, St. Paul s, Notre 
 Dame, the Madelaine, York Minster, and the noble churches 
 of Germany. The finest paintings of Raphael, of Guido, of 
 Corregio, of Titian, of Murillo, of Rubens, of Rembrandt, 
 and of Leonardo di Vinci, are from Scripture subjects, and 
 themes sacred to the Christian. Sacred music, in the hands 
 of Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven, is beyond all other mu 
 sic; and it should be our peculiar pride, that much of our 
 noble church music came fresh from the glowing hand and 
 
76 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 seraphic ear of the immortal Handel. Tn point of eloquence, 
 no oratory yet lias equalled that of the pulpit. We speak 
 advisedly (with Taylor, and Massillon, and Whitfield, and, 
 greatest of all orators, St. Paul, in our eye). We say, as 
 we know, nothing, of the fathers and Roman Catholic doc 
 tors ; but unless a general conspiracy has arisen to pervert 
 the truth, their writings must contain a mine of rich thoughts, 
 elaborate reasonings, and brilliant fancies. But of the En 
 glish divines we can speak from some acquaintance ; and we 
 feel amply warranted in declaring, that they have (as a body) 
 never been equalled, in kind or degree, in point of natural or 
 acquired gifts ; embracing the wide circle of eloquence, argu 
 ment, wit, fancy, erudition, and research. The noblest poetry 
 of not only modern times, but of all times, is deeply devout. 
 The greatest epic the world has produced, is founded on sa 
 cred story ; and the writings of all true poets have ever been 
 instinct with a spirit of awful reverence, of charity, and com 
 prehensive love, and of sympathy with the good, the beauti 
 ful, and the true ; and this is Christianity. We have digres 
 sed from the main point, and yet not wandered into any very 
 irrelevant train of thought. For the whole subject is closely 
 connected, in all its parts ; and what is true of music as a 
 Christian art, is equally true of the other arts ; of architecture, 
 painting, eloquence, and poetry. 
 
 The elegant Home has left a sermon on Church Music, 
 which we have not been able to procure ; but which we re 
 commend to our readers. The finest thing, however, we 
 have met with on this subject, is that magnificent passage of 
 Hooker,* which may be readily turned to, but is too long for 
 transcription. 
 
 Feltham and Sir William Temple have both hit upon the 
 * Book v., 38. 
 
CHURCH MUSIC. 77 
 
 same quotation, a notion of the Fathers, that God loves not 
 him who loves not music ; and they taught, that a love of 
 music was a species of predestinated assurance of a man s ac 
 ceptance with heaven. Of music, and hymns, and lyres, and 
 the trumpet, and golden harps, we read in Scripture ; and 
 that there are hallelujahs in heaven ; and though some blas 
 pheming wit sneeringly asked if heaven were a singing- 
 school, we may affirm that, amidst the choicest incense offered 
 to the adorable Trinity, may very reasonably be included a 
 celestial harmony of voice and instrument, such as mortal 
 ears have never heard, and such as human imaginations may 
 not dare to conceive. But let us see what others, and great 
 names too, have to say on this topic. We shall adduce only 
 those instances occurring to us readily, and omit many fine 
 passages from authors whose books we do not happen to have 
 at hand. 
 
 Of Church Music, thus spoke that fine poet and true 
 Christian, Dr. Donne : " And oh, the power of church mu 
 sic ! that harmony, added to this hymn, that raised the affec 
 tions of my heart, and quickened my graces of zeal and gra 
 titude ; and 1 observe that I always return from paying 
 this public duty of prayer and praise to God, with an inex 
 pressible tranquillity of mind, and a willingness to leave the 
 world." Herbert truly loved church music. We are told by 
 Izaak Walton, that " llis chiefest recreation was music; in 
 which heavenly Art he was a most excellent master; and did 
 himself compose many divine hymns and anthems, which he 
 set and sung to his lute or viol. And though he was a lover 
 of retiredness, yet his love to music was such, that he went 
 usually twice every week, on certain appointed days, to the 
 cathedral church in Salisbury ; and at his return would say, 
 That his time spent in prayer and cathedral music, elevated 
 
 
78 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 his soul, and was his heaven upon earth? " Nor was he con 
 tent with a mere conversational declaration of this feeling ; 
 but has given a permanent form to the feeling in a strain of 
 pure, devotional harmony : 
 
 CHURCH MUSIC. 
 
 Sweetest of sweets, I thank you. When displeasure 
 
 Did through my body wound my mind, 
 You took me thence : and in your house of pleasure 
 
 A dainty lodging me assign d. 
 
 Now I in you, without a body move, 
 
 Rising and falling with your wings. 
 W both together sweetly live and love, 
 
 Yet say sometimes, " God help poor kings." 
 
 Comfort, I ll die ; for if you part from me, 
 
 Sure I shall do so, and much more ; 
 But if I travel in your company, 
 
 You know the way to heaven s door. 
 
 The author of Paradise Lost, of Comus, and the Areo- 
 pagitica, has left on record his admiration of church music. 
 He was a master of the art of music, and played daily on the 
 organ ; and one of the chief traits of his glorious epic is the 
 admirable adaptation of sound to sense, an exquisite sense of 
 harmony and rhyme. Who can forget that rich passage 
 in II Penseroso, rising like " a steam of rich distilled per 
 fumes." 
 
 But let my due feet never fail, 
 To walk the studious cloister s pale, 
 And love the high embowered roof, 
 With antic pillars massy proof, 
 
CHURCH MUSIC. 79 
 
 And storied windows richly dight, 
 
 Casting a dim religious light. 
 
 There let the pealing organ blow 
 
 To the full voicd quire btlow, 
 
 In service high and anthems clear, 
 
 As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 
 
 Dissolve me into ecstasies, 
 
 And bring all heavn before mine eyes. 
 
 Truly Milton, though in his creed a Puritan, or rather an 
 Independent (of his own sort), and in his politics a Repub 
 lican, was still, in his poetry, captivated by the romance and 
 splendor of the Roman Catholic Church. Macaulay has, 
 with great nicety hit off the distinction. " The illusions," 
 says that brilliant declaimer, " which captivated his imagina 
 tion, never impaired his reasoning powers. The statesman 
 was proof against the splendor, the solemnity, and the ro 
 mance, which enchanted the poet. Any person who will con 
 trast the sentiments expressed in his Treatises on Prelacy, 
 with the exquisite lines (above quoted) on Ecclesiastical Ar 
 chitecture and Music, in the Penseroso, which was published 
 about the same time, will understand our meaning. This is 
 an inconsistency which, more than anything else, raises his 
 character in our estimation, because it shows how many pri 
 vate tastes and feelings he sacrificed in order to do what he 
 considered his duty to mankind. It is the very struggle of 
 the noble Othello. His heart relents ; but his hand is firm. 
 He does naught in hate, but all in honor. He kisses the 
 beautiful deceiver before he destroys her." Four excellent 
 witnesses, admirable as Poets and Christians, are enough to 
 confirm the integrity of our proposition ; and we have ad 
 duced the testimony of Hooker, of Donne, of Herbert, and 
 of Milton. 
 
80 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, there is a nobler music than what is 
 commonly recognised as such ; we mean " the music of 
 speech," the music of a rich, varied, and expressive elocution. 
 Man has not been able to contrive any instrument of equal 
 power and versatility with that natural organ bestowed upon 
 him by his Maker. The human voice is more complicated 
 and exquisite than the great Harlasm organ, or the finest 
 Cremona violin. It is the mastery of art to approach nature ; 
 but here we have nature above the imitation of art. We are 
 old-fashioned enough to love good reading, which is much rarer 
 than good singing. We have now-a-days few Duchets (the 
 name of the clergyman of whom Writ wrote with such en 
 thusiasm) ; and it must be confessed that, to the generality of 
 clergymen, however learned or eloquent, or amiable for private 
 virtues, the censure of Addison still applies, which was levelled 
 at the slovenly, careless, and irreverent performance of the 
 most sacred duty of the priest Prayer. 
 
 XI. 
 
 MR. BRAHAM.* 
 
 WHEN we first heard Mr. Braham in his opening Sacred 
 Concert at the Tabernacle, we were sadly disappointed. We 
 thought then, as we do now, that he overlaid the majestic 
 simplicity of sacred music with a profusion of useless and un- 
 meaaing nourishes, mere tricks of voice and execution, ca 
 dences, trills, and absurd repetitions. Wonderful power, the 
 
 1841. 
 
MR. BRAHAM. 81 
 
 more astonishing at his advanced age, and equally wonderful 
 science we could not help acknowledging, but his pathos ap 
 peared labored and his enthusiasm mechanical. We did re 
 cognise a portion of the fine scorn Lamb spoke of in that 
 magnificent piece, "Thou shalt dash them to pieces," wherein 
 his contemptuous tones were jerked out with the same force 
 that the fretted waves break and storm upon a rock in the 
 raging sea. Afterwards at the theatre, on each occasion of 
 our visits there, we were equally dissatisfied. The very in 
 different acting was not relieved by any very extraordinary 
 singing. It was the extravagance and (paradoxical, yet true) 
 the constraint of the Italian opera. But a few evenings ago, 
 at the Stuy vesant Institute, we at last discovered the secret of 
 Braham s powers, It is not only the amazing extent, or 
 clearness, or melody of his voice, nor the rapid execution, nor 
 the brilliant expression merely, but (as in all men of true 
 genius) it lies in the harmonious sympathy between the spirit 
 of the man and the talent of the singer. He sang admirably, 
 the noble heroic songs from Scott and Burns, not only be 
 cause he sang with power, but also with love. lie then and 
 there sang out himself, to speak after the manner of the Ger 
 mans. The honest, hearty, manly old strains, heroic or naval, 
 or even moral, of England and Scotland, are the true songs 
 for Braham to sing. Before we heard Braham, we fancied to 
 our eye a sort of poetical High Priest in Israel, a majestic 
 figure of a man uttering tones of unearthly depth and beauty, 
 in a style austere, grand, and solemn. But Old Hundred 
 was the only specimen of the kind Mr. Braham gave of him 
 self to any advantage. To hear Braham in " Scots wha hae 
 wi Wallace bled," or " The Blue Bonnets are over the Bor 
 der," in which his frequent animated calls sound like the 
 acute reports of a rifle ; or "The Last Words of Marmion," 
 
CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 where he displays the greater variety, from great force to fine 
 tenderness, slowness and vivacity, spirit and sentiment, we 
 say, to hear these is to hear the finest singing that is to be 
 heard at the present day. The rich philosophy and fine 
 poetry of " A Man s a Man for a that," was delivered in a 
 proud strain, evincing the generous spirit of the singer. The 
 hearty naval songs of old England are great favorites with 
 Braham, He sings them with all the joyaunce of a jolly Jack 
 Tar, that creature of impulse and heart, and with a spirit of 
 defiance at fortune, and a manly cordiality of feeling, that 
 smack of the children of the sea. Mere sentimental songs 
 Mr.Braham sings badly. He has a taste and a faculty above 
 them ; he should " chaunt the old heroic ditty o er," and 
 leave Moore and Haynes Bay ley to the lesser lights of the 
 hour. He has force and elevation, but little of mere ele 
 gance or softness he is the Jupiter Tonans, and not the 
 graceful Mercurius. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUABLL. 
 
 THIS delightful story, the favorite of the child s library about 
 a century ago, has now fallen into almost entire obscurity, 
 from which we trust a late London republication of the 
 book may revive it. It is a designed and palpable imitation 
 of Robinson Crusoe, tjie popularity of which led to a swarm 
 of imitations, amongst which the above and the Adventures 
 of P&er Wilkins are by far the most ingenious, and so full 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUA11LL. 88 
 
 of freshness and invention as to deserve to pass for originals. 
 "The Adventures of the English Hermit" were first pub 
 lished, in chapters, in a weekly newspaper, called the Public 
 Intelligencer, shortly after the appearance of Robinson Crusoe, 
 which, in like manner, had been printed in a paper with which 
 Defoe was connectt-d. So we see our supposed modern fashion 
 of continuing a work of fiction through successive numbers of 
 a periodical is by no means so original a plan as we had sup 
 posed in the hands of Hook, Dickens, Marryatt, and a host 
 of their copyists. Our own impression had led us to believe 
 that Launcelot Greaves, Smollett s least admirable work, was 
 the first English novel that had appeared in the pages of a 
 periodical, but here we have a precedent a hundred years 
 previous. Like Peter Wilkins, and Gaudentio di Lucca, the 
 author of Philip Quarll is unknown. One who signs him 
 self Edward Dorringtun, a iivm uii plume, we suppose, is the 
 apparent compiler of the; book ; but we have, now-a-days, 
 seen revealed all the arts of publication, and know very well 
 that editor often means an author who palms oft his own 
 writings as the lucubrations of other people. These scanty 
 facts we glean from the preface to the late edition, and they 
 afford all the actual information we have been able to collect 
 on the subject. Dunlop is entirely silent, in his history of 
 Fiction, as to the very existence of Philip Quarll, though he 
 mentions Peter Wilkins with praise ; in which said history 
 he has finished the department of English fiction with com 
 parative indifference and in the briefest manner. 
 
 To confess the truth, we have ourselves only a short time 
 since met with the Adventures, and feel that we have, by so 
 lato a reading, been deprived of the pleasant retrospections 
 to which the perusal of a book of this sort always gives rise. 
 There are classic works which, if not read in early childhood, 
 
84 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 lose their principal charm, which consists of a pleasure con 
 nected with early associations, such as are peculiar in them 
 selves, and which no other period of our life may afford us. 
 In this class of books we place all the fairy tales and voyages 
 imaginaires, as Gulliver s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Peter 
 Wilkins, and Philip Quarll (Gaudentio di Lucca is the single 
 book of the kind above a mere childish imagination, but 
 worth a text-book on ethics for the boyish youth). Pure 
 allegory is best relished then. We read Pilgrim s Progress 
 with constant delight before the age of ten years, but have 
 never been able to get through five pages since ; and the 
 Holy War we give up in despair, being quite past relishing 
 the glories of that mortal combat between the Flesh and the 
 Devil. Oriental tales, as the Arabian Nights and Persian 
 Tales, are very captivating to a fancy delighted with gaudy 
 pictures, and a taste adulterated by the crudities of igno 
 rance ; so, too, for a different reason, are startling matter-of- 
 fact relations as the adventures of Munchausen or Baron 
 Trenck. All of these are really beneficial to young minds ; 
 but the class of books we consider most useful for children 
 are combinations of books of adventures and matter-of-fact 
 relations, as Quarll s adventure, where a child is not only 
 impressed with generous sentiments, and taught to follow a 
 manly model of character, but also learns, and in the 
 pleasantest manner, something of geography and of natural 
 history. A book like this is better than a sermon or a moral 
 lecture, for with delight it instills truth, and gives an impulse 
 to the affections, while it stimulates the perceptions of the 
 understanding. 
 
 To instruct children to advantage, we must charm their 
 imaginations and touch their hearts ; through these avenues 
 we excite the natural piety instinct in the most fallible of 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUARLL. 85 
 
 human creatures, and awaken the dormant love of virtue, 
 which (and not that accursed doctrine of natural depravity), 
 is the true birthright of man. By these means, too, we 
 invigoratje and enlighten the reason, the master faculty, and 
 thus in effect gain far more, and in a more pleasing manner, 
 than if we had gone directly to work, and frightened or 
 stupified our little pupils into the practice of a decorous 
 behavior and the acquisition of the mere signs of knowledge. 
 We are sorry to see the present race of writers of books for 
 children adopting the unwise course of pragmatically insist 
 ing upon a didactic manner in works of fiction. In the 
 midst of all the cants of the day, we are in danger of being 
 surfeited with the cant of useful knowledge, and the cant of 
 human perfectibility. Certainly all knowledge (even of the 
 worst sort) has its uses ; but for the love of variety, my 
 masters, let us have a little (so called) useless knowledge. It 
 will at least serve as a relief to the mind ; and of goodness, 
 though we cannot have too much, we beg there may be less 
 talking and more performance. We did not wonder that 
 Harriet Martineau could bore children with tirades upon 
 frugality and the circle of domestic virtues, but we are sorry 
 to see even Miss Sedgwick and charming Mary Ilowitt 
 getting to be too moral by half; and, to crown our surprise, 
 Captain Marryatt is overriding the useful knowledge hobby 
 at such a pace, that we fear he will soon be found flounder 
 ing in the dirt. In the midst of all this, we are gratified to 
 bring into notice an old work with a new interest, to present 
 our juvenile acquaintance with a new treasure to their former 
 literary store, an accession they will not readily renounce. 
 
 Our first acquaintance with Philip Quarll arose out of the 
 encomiums we met upon it in two or three passages of Leigh 
 Hunt s writings, and the favor with which it was received by 
 
86 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 that glorious circle which, met at Lamb s Wednesday evening 
 parties. What fascinated three generations of children might, 
 we logically inferred, attract a fourth ; and so we took up the 
 work with the intention of saying something about it, if we 
 were so fortunate as to catch the spirit of it. This intention 
 was confirmed and excused (for we foolishly enough imagined 
 the readers of the Boston Miscellany might consider a notice 
 of an old child s book too trifling for their regard), by the 
 article of Hunt* on Peter Wilkins, a work of similar charac 
 ter, and of which we have something to say before we stop. 
 Of Philip Quarll, beyond a couple of sentences or so, we 
 have seen a criticism nowhere, and have the ground, a virgin 
 soil, entirely to ourselves. 
 
 Let us premise that in our critical capacity we write to 
 the parents ; genius alone can write up to the purity of the 
 innocent child. We may have our say, and talk learnedly 
 enough, but it is Mr. Hawthorne who can present his 
 Fancy s Show-box, and fix the roving eye of childhood as 
 by a magic spell. As we love children, however, we shall be 
 glad to act even as subordinate to their best teachers, the 
 father and mother, they to whom they owe life and the fos 
 tering care of it, gratitude inferior only to that we all owe 
 to the Father of our fathers, and the merciful protector of 
 their offspring. 
 
 To make an end of what seems to be getting interminable, 
 we come at once to our new acquaintance. The Adventures 
 of Philip Quarll are prefaced by a long and very agreeable 
 account of the discovery of the same Philip Quarll, by the 
 aforesaid Mr. Dorrington. Our present notice might be en 
 titled a discovery of the discovery of Philip Quarll, to which 
 is added the adventures, <fec. Mr. Dorrington, we are told, 
 * The Seer, xxxi., Part First. 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PJIILIP QUARLL. 87 
 
 was a British merchant, who on his return to England from 
 a voyage of mercantile adventure, by accident made the dis 
 covery of an island in the South Sea, which had been sup 
 posed uninhabited, and even unapproachable for landing, on 
 account of the difficulties of access to it; but on which was 
 found an English hermit, who had lived there solitary and 
 alone (as Mr. Benton might add), not only conveniently, and 
 with comfort, but perfectly resigned and happy, for the space 
 of fifty years. The account of the discovery includes a 
 description of the dress, habitation and utensils of Quarll, and 
 a long report of the conversation held with him. Of the 
 dress, manner of life, <tc., we will only remark a close simi 
 larity to the minuteness and particularity of the descriptions 
 and narrative of Robinson Crusoe. This, and the internal 
 evidence of the story, and its conduct, induces us to suspect 
 Defoe himself of the authorship of the book; a supposition 
 highly probable, when we consider the demand fur that class 
 of writings, excited by the Crusoe of the same author, his 
 wonderful copiousness, and his natural desire to enhance the 
 value of the first book, by an imitation of it. This is a mure 
 supposition of our own ; yet analogous circumstances, a repe 
 tition of incidents even, lead us to su>pect that by chance we 
 may have hit upon the real author. The very concealment 
 of the author s name might be employed as an argument on 
 our side of the question. Do foe had nothing to gain after 
 writing Robinson Crusoe, by copying himself; and then the 
 similarity is so strong in all points, down to the very home 
 liness, and yet expressiveness of the style, that we cannot 
 think it a mere copy, since, at the same time, it discovers .->o 
 much internal force and naturalness, which a mere copyist 
 would not be likely to possess. Be that as it may, Quarll is 
 Crusoe slightly altered. He is older, naturally more devout, 
 
88 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 and a greater lover of solitude ; but equally a lover of animals 
 and of nature, equally expert as a mechanic and planter ; like 
 Robinson Crusoe, cast by a shipwreck on a desert island, like 
 him recovering the most necessary articles from the wreck. 
 There are a few points of dissimilarity. Crusoe is trans 
 ported at the thought of returning home, while Quarll will 
 not leave his beloved retreat. The former hermit is con 
 tinually in dread of the Anthropophagi, while the latter is 
 only once visited by two thievish Indians, who fly at his 
 approach. Quarll has no man Friday, but a favorite mon 
 key, Beaufidelle. The coincidences are much more numerous ; 
 Quarll finds a turtle, like Crusoe, turns it on its back to keep 
 it, uses the shell for a dish and a kettle combined, preserves 
 his fresh fish, flesh, and fowl, in the salt water. His building, 
 and furnishing, are of a piece with Robinson Crusoe s ; so 
 too his daily rounds, his devotional exercises. These last 
 were somewhat particular; Quarll was a man of a religious 
 turn, never forgot to ask a blessing, return thanks at his 
 meals, nor his daily devotions. His evening exercises are 
 picturesquely described; he regularly resorted to a place 
 where echoes were wonderfully multiplied and prolonged, 
 and being gifted with a noble voice, which had been highly 
 cultivated, he filled the valley or cavern with a thousand 
 melodious airs, In this book, as in its prototype, we find the 
 same ceaseless requisitions and provisions for the appetite. 
 Quarll is always getting in his fish and chestnuts, and pick 
 ling his mushrooms, and entrapping a hare or a duck. We 
 get a little tired of this, when reading on a full stomach, 
 or in a large town ; but on a deserted island the three meals 
 must be the chief objects of worldly thoughts. Quarll s mon 
 keys play an important part in the narrative, and fill a large 
 place in his benevolent affections. His long beard is as 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUARLL. 89 
 
 characteristic as Robinson s fur cap, which made us regard 
 him as a grenadier, in our childish days : the old man, 
 though eighty-eight when discovered, could sneeze like a 
 man of thirty : had a powerful voice, and an uncommonly 
 vigorous frame. He was almost a giant in his muscular 
 power, yet mild as an humble Christian. The only defects 
 about Quarll are those of clothing: from his waist up he is 
 naked ; he has no sort of covering for his head, and his feet 
 are bare of shoes and stockings. We think the author ought 
 to have furnished him, at least, with an umbrella, and a pair 
 of buckskin slippers ; he might have sent them ashore on a 
 wave from the wreck, or have prevailed on the voyagers to 
 leave them for future use. As it is, our venerable friend 
 looks as if a severe winter would give him a bad cold, from 
 wet feet, and in summer there was imminent danger of a sun 
 stroke. To leave this trifling, and add to the force of our 
 former argument, we annex a short passage from an account 
 of Mr. Dorrington s .voyage home, which is as like Defoe s 
 style as Moll Flanders is like the History of the Plague, in 
 point of manner, or as any one work of the same author is 
 like any other : 
 
 " Having refreshed ourselves very well on this island (Juan 
 Fernandez), we resolved to steer for Cape Verde in Chili. On 
 the 12th we made the island of St. Jago, where we anchored, 
 and sent our boat ashore. Here we bought some hogs and 
 black cattle for our voyage round Cape Horn to the Brazils 
 as also some corn and maize. 
 
 " We weighed anchor on the 20th, and sailed from hence 
 round Cape Horn. Round the Cape the weather favored us 
 extremely; and nothing happened that was material, only 
 that we were chased by a pirate ship, for about twelve hours 
 on the 29th ; but the night coming on, it favored us, so that 
 
90 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 we lost her. On the 4th of September we made Falkland s 
 Islands, and Cape St. Antonio, near the mouth of the River 
 de la Plata, in Paraguay, on the 25th ; when we stood out 
 to sea, and made the island of Grande, on the coast of Bra 
 zil, on the 29th, We have received a letter from our owners, 
 commanding us home, and not to sail for New England, as 
 designed. Here we got beef, mutton, hogs, fowls, sugar, 
 rum, oranges, and lemons, so that now we did not want for 
 good punch." 
 
 Does not this read like a page out of a veritable log-book 
 from the hand of Daniel Defoe ? 
 
 The account of Quarll is written in the third person, in 
 stead of being an autobiography. For this reason we con 
 ceive that it loses a portion of its spirit. It is a work no less 
 curious than interesting, and contains much valuable matter 
 of a miscellaneous character. It is interspersed with judi 
 cious reflection, and enlivened by agreeable pictures. It re 
 lates singular facts. It is withal highly* characteristic of the 
 subject of it, and full of a personal interest. To confirm this 
 criticism, we must not delay giving the reader specimens 
 under each head. Previously to doing this we will extract a 
 longer passage than the preceding, to give the reader a better 
 taste of our author s general manner. It is all over Defoe. 
 It relates a passage in the solitary existence of Quarll : 
 
 " About forty paces farther he found a chest in a cleft of 
 the rock, which had been washed up there by the violence 
 of the storm. After thanking heaven for its mercy in send 
 ing this gift, he tried to lift it, but could not ; he was there 
 fore obliged to fetch his hatchet to break it open, that he 
 might take away what was in it by degrees. Having taken 
 as much of the sail cloth as he could conveniently carry, with 
 the few oysters he had got, he went home and fetched the 
 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUARLL 91 
 
 tool, wrenched open the chest, from which he took a suit of 
 clothes and some fine linen. These, said he, neither the 
 owner nor I want ; so laid them down. The next thing he 
 took out was a roll of parchment, being blank indentures and 
 leases ; there, said he, are instruments of law, and are of 
 ten applied to injustice ; but I ll alter their mischievous pro 
 perties, and make them records of Heaven s mercies, and 
 Providence s wonderful liberality to me ; instead of being the 
 ruin of some, they may chance to be the reclaiming of others. 
 At the bottom of the chest lay a runlet of brandy, a Cheshire 
 cheese, a leather bottle full of ink, with a parcel of pens, ink, 
 and a penknife ; as for these, said he, they are of use ; the 
 pens, ink, and parchment, have equipped me to keep a jour 
 nal, which will divert and pass away a few anxious hours. 
 By degrees he took home the chest and its contents ; and 
 now having materials to begin his journal, he immediately 
 fell to work ; that for want of other books, he might at his 
 leisure peruse his past transactions, and the many mercies he 
 had received from heaven ; and that after his decease who 
 ever might be directed hither by Providence, upon reading 
 his wonderful escapes in the greatest of dangers, his mira 
 culous living when remote from human assistance, in the like 
 extremity he should not despair. Thus he began from his 
 being eight years old, to the day of his being cast away, 
 being then twenty-eight years of age, resolving to continue it 
 to his death." 
 
 It can hardly be expected that we should attempt the 
 barest outline of incidents in a magazine article. We can 
 only touch a few points in a very cursory manner. 
 
 The hero of the adventures is a philosopher by nature and 
 from circumstances : he has got a habit of reflection, and is 
 perpetually moralizing on the most familiar aspects of nature, 
 
92 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 and the most ordinary occurrences of life. Thus, walking 
 along the sea shore, he perceives at the foot of a rock, " an 
 extraordinary large whale, which, cast there by the late high 
 wind, had died for want of water. There were shoals of 
 small fishes swimming about it in the shallow water wherein 
 it lay as rejoicing at its death." Upon this he remarks, 
 " Thus the oppressed rejoice at a tyrant s fall. Well, happy 
 are they who, like me, are under heaven s government only." 
 He then with his knife cut several slices of the whale and 
 threw them to the small fishes, saying, " It is just ye should, 
 at last, feed on that which so long fed on you ;" a homily 
 which admits of a political construction. Here recurs an 
 other instance of his philosophic turn. " One day, having 
 walked the island over and over, he proceeded to view the 
 sea, whose fluid element being ever in motion, affords new ob 
 jects of admiration. The day being very fair, and the weather 
 as calm, he sat down upon the rock, taking pleasure in seeing 
 the waves roll, and, as it were, chase one another ; the se 
 cond pursuing the first, and being itself overtaken by a suc 
 ceeding, until they sunk altogether. This, said he, is a 
 true emblem of ambition ; men striving to outdo one another 
 are often undone. " 
 
 As he was making reflections on the emptiness of vanity 
 and pride, and returning thanks to heaven that he was sepa 
 rated from the world, which abounds in nothing so much, a 
 ship appeared at a great distance, a sight he had not seen 
 since his shipwreck. " Most unlucky invention, said he, " that 
 ever came into a man s thoughts. The ark, which gave the 
 first notion of a floating habitation, was ordered for the pre 
 servation of man ; but its fatal copies daily expose him to des 
 truction." Notwithstanding his philosophy, Quarll is thrown 
 into deep distress by the failure of an attempt to reach the is- 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHII-IP QUARLL. 93 
 
 land, on the part of the sailors. This was, however, brief. 
 
 Again, he misses an opportunity of escape. On a third 
 occasion, an endeavor is made to carry him oft* by force, for 
 exhibition. This was unsuccessful. A fourth chance of re 
 lease is repulsed by him, having determined to spend the 
 remnant of his life in his (now) beloved retreat. 
 
 Our hermit has a lively talent for coloring, an agreeable, 
 descriptive fancy. r lhe following present a few examples : 
 
 Antelopes. "Having a majestic presence, body and limbs 
 representing a stag, and the noble march of a horse." 
 
 A beautiful unknown bird. " He contemplated with de 
 light on the inexpressible beauty of the feathers, which on the 
 back were after the nature of a drake s, every one distinguish 
 ed from the other by a rim round the edge, about the breadth 
 of a large thread, and being of a changeable color, from red 
 to aurora and green ; the ribs were of a delightful blue, and 
 the feathers pearl-color, speckled with a bright yellow ; the 
 breast and belly, if they might be said to be of any particular 
 color, were that of dove s feathers, rimmed like the back, di 
 versely changing ; the head, which was like that of a swan 
 for make, was purple, changing as if moved ; the bill like 
 burnished gold ; the eyes like a ruby, with a rim of gold 
 around them ; the feet the same as the bill ; the size of the 
 bird was between that of a middling Oose and a duck, and 
 
 O o 
 
 in shape it somewhat resembled a swan." 
 
 Can this be a veritable picture or a fanciful extravagance ? 
 A little farther on is the description of a bird somewhat si 
 milar, but still more gorgeous in its plumage. 
 
 The sea monster he paints a horrible creature, and with the 
 Gorgon terrors of Behemoth himself. It is evidently an im 
 aginary phantasm. " A form without likeness, and yet com 
 parable to the most terrible part of every frightful creature ; a 
 
94 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 large head, resembling that of a lion, bearing three pair of 
 horns ; one pair upright, like that of an antelope, another 
 pair like wild goats , two more bending backwards ; its face 
 armed all round with darts, like a porcupine ; with great eyes 
 sparkling like a flint struck with a steel ; its nose like a wild 
 horse, always snarling ; the mouth of a lion and teeth of a 
 panther, the jaws of an elephant, and the tusks of a wild 
 boar, shouldered like a giant, with claws like an eagle, bodied 
 and covered with shells like a rhinoceros, and the color of a 
 crocodile." In this fertile region, Quarll meets with number 
 less instances of the prodigality of nature ; the rarest fruits, 
 fowls, and fishes ; forests of beautiful trees, sometimes of mi 
 raculous size, one covered with its branches a whole acre ; 
 while another grew for the same extent, so closely interwoven 
 in its branches, which seemed almost to spring from the roots, 
 as to form an impenetrable barrier, a sort of natural picket or 
 palisade. Monkeys were the hermit s pets, and he would 
 sometimes excite a quarrel between two varieties, the green 
 and grey species, to induce reflections on the folly of brawl 
 ing and fighting. For invariably a third party came in and 
 stole away the spoils for which they were contending. 
 
 A pleasant instance of our hermit s loyalty is mentioned in 
 the introduction to the adventures by the compilers of them, 
 in whose hands Quarll left his MSS.; which, at the same time, 
 fixes the general date of the work. At the repast given by 
 the old man to Dorrington, the health of George III. was 
 drunk ; and an eulogium passed upon his character, to which 
 some dissenting criticism might be offered. 
 
 We have now endeavored to give the reader a general 
 idea of Philip QuarlPs adventures, but trust he will speedily 
 consult that history itself to verify our conjectures in part, 
 but more particularly for the amusement and profit of an en 
 tire perusal. 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUAHLL. 95 
 
 Peter "Wilkins we can hardly pretend to write upon after 
 Hunt. But we may retain a remembrance, and hazard a 
 conjecture. It was our first play (the story dramatized) and 
 hence can by no possibility be forgotten, as such an occasion 
 forms an epoch in the life of every individual. We cannot 
 think the author of Philip Quarll and Peter Wilkins are one 
 and the same person, for with a great similarity, an element 
 entirely original is introduced into the latter, the author of 
 which displays a more copious invention and a more spiritual 
 fancy than the author of the first work. Both are admirable 
 of their kind, a class now quite extinct, and to the re-produc 
 tion of which, our present race of story-tellers appear quite 
 inadequate from a want of faith, a want of invention, a want 
 of simplicity, and a want of exact truth and fidelity of imagi 
 nation. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 1 There are no colors in the fairest sky 
 So fair as these. The feather whence the pen 
 Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men, 
 Dropped from an Angel s wing. With moistened eye 
 We read of faith and purest Charity 
 In Statesman, Priest, and huniLle citizen ; 
 could \ve copy their mild virtue?, then 
 What joy to live, what blessedness to die ! 
 Methinks their very names shine still and bright ; 
 Apart, like glow-worms on a s Bummer ni^ht, 
 
96 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 Or lonely tapers when from far they fling 
 A guiding ray ; or seen, like stars on high, 
 Satellites burning in a lucid ring 
 Around meek Walton s heavenly memory." 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 IN the whole circle of English literature, a volume more 
 unique and attractive to the best class of readers cannot 
 easily be found, than the Lives of Walton. The most en 
 thusiastic praises of the acutest critics have conferred an 
 enviable immortality on their admirable author, which, added 
 to the sweet and manly character of Honest Izaak, have 
 united to give his book a place on the shelf above that of 
 many writers of greater reputation and more brilliant genius. 
 On a work of such excellence and so well known, we shall not 
 now dwell with more particularity. 
 
 Our object at present will be, to consider the principal 
 features common to the Lives, arid the personal as well as 
 literary character of Walton himself. A certain family like 
 ness exists between all the different heroes of Walton, and a 
 similar mode of handling the relation of their lives. Thus 
 all of them Donne, Wotton, Herbert, Hooker, Sanderson 
 were remarkable for their early studies as well as precocity 
 of genius : each was a liberal scholar and devoted to his call 
 ing : each was a firm and zealous churchman : all of them, 
 but Wotton were divines, and he was a sort of lay preacher : 
 they were all most fortune in their deaths, regular and happy 
 in their lives, even Hooker, notwithstanding his domestic 
 trials. In their tempers and dispositions, they were men of 
 great mildness and moderation : of a charitable turn, given 
 to hospitality and the company of their friends, liberal think 
 ers, inclined to innocent pleasantry, utterly devoid of cunning 
 or deceit, sincere Christians arid unpretending philanthropists. 
 
WALTON S LIVES. 97 
 
 Yet with all these points in common, each was possessed of 
 a marked individuality of character and genius. Though 
 both of them poets, and fine poets, the sentiment of Herbert 
 is quite different from the fancy of Donne, and that again 
 from the reflection of Wotton. Hooker and Sanderson, able 
 on the same topics, displayed talents quite diverse ; the one 
 being more of a general philosophical inquirer, the other more 
 of a theoretical casuist. There can be no stronger argument 
 for the purity and innocence of Walton s life, than the fact 
 that these were his personal friends companions of his choice, 
 who thought it no want of dignity in them to associate with 
 the simple-hearted author of the Complete Angler. Tho. 
 Lives are written with considerable minuteness, and are yet 
 very general, minute in particular instances, but general in 
 the main outlines. They uniformly commence with an apo 
 logy for his unfitness for the task of historical narrative, and 
 excuses for the defects of style and manner. This was not, 
 in all probability, an affectation, but real diffidence. 
 
 The youth and prime of Walton having been passed in 
 the pursuit of trade and commerce, his education had been 
 of a very miscellaneous character, picked up from desultory 
 reading and the conversation of tho divines with whom he 
 was a great favorite, and of whom he was a decided admirer. 
 Commencing authorship, too, late in life, he felt the clogs of 
 business and tho want of freedom in his ideas and composi 
 tion. This he soon attained, and if his style never became 
 perfect, yet it was original of its kind, and such as no art of 
 rhetoric could teach. 
 
 Prefixed to the Lives is a biography of Walton, by Dr. 
 
 Zoueh, the same who wrote the life of Sir Philip Sidney. 
 
 He has made a better preface of the first, than his stupid 
 
 volume on the latter personage, though his passing criticisms 
 
 5 
 
98 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 on Donne and Fuller smack of the trained critic of the formal 
 French school of criticism of the eighteenth century. 
 
 The profession of Walton is known to have been that of a 
 wholesale linen-draper or Hamburgh merchant. His first 
 initiation into trade is thought to have been in one of the 
 shops where, in company with other industrious young men, 
 he was placed by the munificence of Sir Thomas Gresham 
 (tle English Medici, and founder of the Royal Exchange), 
 who had erected sereral in the upper part of his celebrated 
 building. After a course of prudent management, of frugality 
 and assiduous labor, Walton, at the age of fifty years, retired 
 from business, resolving to spend the rest of his years in the 
 practice of his social and religious duties, and to cultivate his 
 powers by reading, conversation and reflection. A moderate 
 independency satisfied the simple desires of this contented 
 Christian philosopher, and he was too wise a man not to 
 leave the turmoil of business as soon as his circumstances 
 warranted the removal. Unlike our modern money-seekers, 
 he preferred ease and a quiet conscience to extravagance and 
 display, and the laborious tasks requisite to meet large de 
 mands. Immediately on leaving trade, he turned author, and 
 he affords one example more of the good writers who have 
 arisen, not from the peasantry alone (which class boasts a 
 Burns, a Hogg, and a Bloomfield), but from the middling 
 classes of society, as Richardson the novelist, who was a prin 
 ter ; Defoe, a hosier ; and even lower, Ben Jonson, a brick 
 layer, and Dodsley, a footman, who became a writer and 
 publisher. We think we can perceive the effects of his busi 
 ness habits in the writings of Walton, in his method and ac 
 curacy, which it is becoming the fashion to impeach, his spe 
 ciality, and honest dealing. 
 
 The literary character of Walton is distinguished by the 
 
WALTON S LIVES. 99 
 
 same sincerity and pure feeling that mark his personal dispo 
 sition. Good sense, a reverence for the wise and good, a 
 natural piety, and unfeigned simplicity, are the principal cha 
 racteristics of the author as well as of the man. His garrulity 
 (in some cases the effect of age, he wrote the life of Sanderson 
 in his eighty-fifth year,) is the innocent, free talk of a familiar 
 friend ; yet it must be confessed this inclination to gossip and 
 to accept reports and traditions as true history, has led him, 
 in some cases, to statements that have been charged with 
 being one-sided and partial. 
 
 Beside those features of his personal character already 
 mentioned, one occurs, and exceedingly prominent, his loyalty. 
 This feeling grew out of his natural reverence for authority 
 and superiors. lie was also a zealous churchman for the 
 same reason, and warmly opposed the covenant and for this 
 he suffered considerably in his temporal affairs, as well as in 
 the trials to which his mild temper was subjected. A fast 
 friend to royalty and the church, circumstances, as well as his 
 natural bent, led him to embrace that particular side. His 
 mother was the niece of Archbishop Cranmer, and his wife 
 the sister of Bishop Ken, who has written some fine hymns, 
 and whom James II. reckoned the first among the Protestant 
 preachers of his time. 
 
 The divines of that day, with whom Walton was intimately 
 associated, greatly influenced his mind and character, and 
 may .be said, by their works and conversation, to have formed 
 his mind and leading opinions Donne, Herbert, Sanderson, 
 Fuller, Ken, King, Usher, Chillingworth, and three poets, at 
 that period the natural defenders of monarchy and nobility, 
 Drayton, Shirley, the dramatist, and Clialkhill. 
 
 From the multitude of eulogiums and affectionate allusions 
 to Walton, living, and his memory after death, we have se- 
 
100 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 lected the following nervous lines of Flatman, a forgotten 
 poet, who has shown genius in two or three short pieces. 
 
 Happy old man ! whose worth all mankind knows, 
 Except himself ; who charitably shows 
 The ready road to virtue and to praise, 
 The road to many long and happy days, 
 The noble acts of generous piety, 
 
 And how to compass true felicity. 
 Hence did he learn the art of living well ; 
 The bright Thealma was his oracle : 
 Inspired by her he knows no anxious cares, 
 Through near a century of pleasant years ; 
 Easy he lives and cheerful shall he die, 
 "Well spoken of by late posterity. 
 
 How correctly the poet has prophesied, the readers and ad 
 mirers of Walton at the present day may answer. The name 
 occurs but once beside in our own literature, and then in a 
 work of fiction, the enchanting volume of Mackenzie ; and 
 apart from the melancholy sentiment and pathetic sweetness 
 of that character, it is a magic name, consecrated to the re 
 spect of all scholars, and the love of all good men throughout 
 the world. 
 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 ELIJAH FENTON. 
 
 IN a former article, on Religious Biography, the very im 
 perfect list of English biographies that rank as classic pro 
 ductions in that department of writing there inserted, includes 
 
ELIJAH FENTON. 101 
 
 the lives of Milton and Waller, by Fenton, an author so es 
 timable as a man, and affording so agreeable an instance of 
 one class of writers, that, although little known himself, and 
 author of no very important efforts, we are inclined to pause 
 at his name, and sketch his personal and literary character. 
 Fenton was emphatically a man of letters, a title of dubious 
 meaning, and that ought to have a settled character. In its 
 most enlarged sense, it may convey the idea of a general 
 scholar and miscellaneous author, as the term lawyer, in this 
 country, includes every department in the profession, uniting 
 the contrary pursuits of barrister, special pleader, conveyancer, 
 and equity draughtsman, which in England are separately 
 followed as distinct professions. Or it may be taken in the 
 the sense of Disraeli, as that body of readers and students 
 standing between the great body of authors and the larger 
 body of mere readers ; aiding the first as critics, or by counsel 
 and research, or else acting the part of interpreters or com 
 mentators for the last. The very highest order of genius are 
 above this class, and also the first class, of men of talent. A 
 poet almost inspired, yet comparatively unlettered, as Burns 
 or Elliott, is not called a man of letters, since not a book-man 
 or scholar. Yet he may be much superior to the mere 
 scholar. Neither is the true man of letters purely a student, 
 but also an author. He is not often a voluminous author, 
 unless he is poor, for the delicacy of his taste will curb the 
 facility of production, and give the last finish to his style. 
 If obliged to live by his pen, he will write much, but miscel 
 laneously, as Hazlitt and Hunt. It is not likely he will ever 
 attempt a long work, for, if blessed with a competence, ho 
 will be too indolent, and, if pressed to write often, he cannot 
 write at length. There are, then, two distinct divisions of 
 the class. Gray and Warton, and, we may add, Fenton, 
 
102 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 were representatives of the first, and the miscellaneous authors, 
 by profession, of the present and past age, of the last, as 
 Goldsmith, Johnson, Cumberland, Southey, the regular re 
 viewers and critics, and the ablest modern lecturers, Guizot, 
 Cousin, Carlyle, etc. Fenton, though poor, was almost always 
 attached to some great man or wealthy patron, who was glad 
 to exchange a moderate pension for the pleasure of his society 
 and conversation, and, at least, for the latter part of his life, 
 though his circumstances were narrow, yet he was placed 
 above want and the importunate calls of necessity. He could 
 write or read, as he pleased, and he cared to do little else. 
 " He is," says Pope,* " a right honest man and a good 
 scholar : he sits within and does nothing but read and com 
 pose." This is the true picture. Mere amateurs of authorship, 
 petty (occasional) scribblers, or deliverers of an annual ad 
 dress or a quarterly lecture ; collectors of rare rhymes, they 
 have not the taste to read or capacity to comprehend ; gen 
 tlemanly, fashionable smatterers of learning; rich patrons, 
 may call themselves " literary characters," or " men of letters," 
 but it is not their proper designation ; they are more worthily 
 styled pretenders, shallow coxcombs, arrogant fools. We 
 have met with more than one character of this sort. They 
 are generally on lecture committees, or appointed as corres 
 ponding secretaries to literary societies. They haunt public 
 libraries and reading-rooms. Their names are in all the 
 newspapers. These are pretenders, with full pockets. A 
 more unfortunate pretender, is a poor author one destitute 
 in a pecuniary view, who takes up the trade of authorship 
 without the means or abilities to carry it on. Such a person 
 might as well profess alchemy as literature, We are willing 
 to take the experience of the best judges, when we conclude 
 * Spence. 
 
ELIJAH FENTON. 103 
 
 that a good scholar and able writer, if not unfortunate in other 
 respects, must eventually succeed in obtaining a respectable 
 livelihood, as well as the lawyer or physician, above whom 
 he unquestionably ranks. For he works with the finest tools* 
 on the most exalted and purifying materials. Never let him 
 forget the sentence of a master of authorship.* " Such a 
 superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every 
 other occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity 
 in them, merits the pre-eminence above those that excel the 
 most in the common and vulgar j^ro/essicws." Of the gen 
 tility of literature, as a pursuit (not to say of its noble aris 
 tocracy), a paper might be written, demonstrating conclusively 
 its generous scope and noble elevation ; but we believe we 
 have pursued the subject sufficiently for the present. 
 
 Of the works of Fenton, a brief criticism may serve. His 
 prose is sweet and elegant : his poetry pleasing, but rerging 
 towards feebleness. . In the high sense, he was no poet, but 
 only an agreeable versifier. His lives are agreeable abridg 
 ments of what a common writer would have swelled into 
 books of twelve times the size ; but as a miscellaneous 
 scholar, and chiefly a classical scholar, was he reputed to rank 
 high. He translated for Pope the first, fourth, nineteenth^ 
 and twentieth books of the Odyssey ; and so smoothly, that 
 they are not generally distinguished from those of Pope s 
 translation. He was often engaged as private tutor for a 
 time he was secretary to the Earl of Orrery, in Flanders, and 
 tutor to his son, who ever afterwards mentioned him with 
 esteem and tenderness. He was at one time assistant in a 
 school, and afterwards kept a school for himself. Bolingbroke 
 persuaded him to give this up, for more honorable employ 
 ment (as it was thought), and court favor. Pope stood by 
 * Hume. 
 
104 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 him under all circumstances, and procured him an enviable 
 situation as instructor and companion to Secretary Craggs, 
 who died too soon for the successful prosecution of the 
 scheme. With Southerne, the dramatic poet, Fenton pre 
 served a close intimacy. At his house he wrote his tragedy 
 of Mariamne, which brought its author one thousand pounds. 
 The widow of Sir William Trumbull, at Pope s recommenda 
 tion (who loved to make his friends happy), invited Fenton 
 to educate her son, whom he accompanied to Cambridge. 
 Fenton died at the seat of this excellent woman, in the ca 
 pacity of auditor of her accounts a species of gentleman- 
 steward and agent. Pope wrote his epitaph, a monument of 
 his taste and affection. 
 
 The personal character of Fenton was delightful a temper 
 sweet, yet not insipid ; a judgment manly and liberal ; a taste 
 refined, but not fastidious ; a talent for conversation, lively, 
 entertaining and instructive ; integrity of the purest dye ; the 
 gentlest consideration ; these were the peculiar character 
 istics of one of the noblest of human creatures. " None knew 
 him but to praise." His merits have softened the severity of 
 Johnson, and disarmed the satire of Pope. For the brevity 
 of his life, Johnson apologizes ; he says, " it is not the effect 
 of indifference or negligence." Fenton was a non-jurer, and 
 hence " a commoner of Nature ;"* but, though friendless and 
 poor (in his early career), his biographer adds, " he kept his 
 name unsullied, and never suffered himself to be reduced, 
 like too many of the same sect, to mean arts and dishonor 
 able shifts. Whoever mentioned Fenton, mentioned him 
 with honor." In the lives of Milton and Waller, Johnson re 
 fers with respect and eulogy to our author ; and in the life of 
 Pope he repeats his former praises " The character of Fenton 
 * Johnson. 
 
ELIJAH FENTON. 105 
 
 was so amiable, that I cannot forbear to wish for some poet 
 or biographer to display it more fully for the advantage of 
 posterity. If he did not stand in the first rank of genius, he 
 may claim a place in the second; and, whatever criticism 
 may object to his writings, censure could find very little to 
 blame in his life." No man may, with truth, assail Johnson 
 for want of heart ; he had, in fact, a truly humane disposi 
 tion. Eulogy of a man from whom he could expect nothing 
 if living, and to whom, dead, he owed no debt of gratitude, 
 bespeaks a generous nature. The only defect in Fenton (a 
 most venial fault in him, though not in others) was a physi 
 cal indolence, the effect of constitutional debility. He was 
 tall and corpulent, sluggish, a late riser, and took little exer 
 cise. An attendant, where he once lodged, used to say he 
 would " lie a-bed and be fed with a spoon." Pope said he 
 died of indolence ; but his distemper was the fruit of physical 
 indolence the gout. A story is told much to his credit, 
 that we ought not to omit repeating: "At an entertain 
 ment, made for the family by his elder brother, he observed 
 that one of his sisters, who had married unfortunately, was 
 absent ; and found, upon inquiry, that distress had made her 
 thought unworthy of invitation. As she was at no great dis 
 tance, he refused to sit at the table till she was called, and 
 when she had taken her place was careful to show her parti 
 cular attention." 
 
 Such was Elijah Fenton, a man who exhibited, in a private 
 scene, and on a limited stage, the virtues of the philosopher 
 and of the Christian hero; evincing, in his patient forbear 
 ance, his firm integrity and honorable poverty, a resolution 
 and high tone of principle, that more ennobles human nature 
 than the dazzling victories and gaudy triumphs of the con 
 queror. This excellent man had the tastes, the habits, the 
 
106 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 acquisitions, the pure aspirations of the genuine scholar, 
 united to the calmness, the sagacity and moderation of the 
 philosopher. A better tribute to his memory than a polished 
 and epigrammatic epitaph, may be read in the following 
 letter of Pope to the Rev. Mr. Brootne, the mutual friend of 
 Pope and Fenton, and their associate in the translation of the 
 Odyssey. We annex it entire, with the complete details : 
 
 " To the Rev. Mr. Broome, 
 
 " At Pulham, near Harlestone, Nor., 
 " [By Beccles, Bag.] Suffolke. 
 
 " Dear Sir, I intended to write to you on this melancholy 
 subject, the death of Mr. Fenton, before yrs came ; but stay d 
 to have informed myself and you of ye circumstances of it. 
 All I hear is, that he felt a gradual decay, tho so early in 
 life, & was declining for 5 or 6 months. It was not as I ap 
 prehended, the gout iu his stomach, but I believe rather a 
 complication first of gross humors, as he was naturally cor 
 pulent, not discharging themselves, as he used no sort of 
 exercise. No man better bore ye approaches of his dissolution 
 (as I am told) or with less ostentation yielded up his Being. 
 The great modesty which you know was natural to him, and 
 ye great contempt he had for all sorts of vanity and Parade^ 
 never appeared more than in his last moments ; he had a 
 conscious satisfaction (no doubt) in acting right, and feeling 
 himself honest, true, and unpretending to more than was his 
 own. So he dyed, as he lived, with that secret, yet sufficient, 
 contentment. 
 
 " As to any papers left behind him, I dare say they can 
 be but few ; for this reason, he never wrote out of vanity, or 
 thought much of the applause of men. I know one instance 
 where he did his utmost to conceal his own merit that way ; 
 
ELIJAH FENTON. 107 
 
 and if we join to this his natural love of ease, I fancy we 
 must expect little of this sort ; at least I hear of none except 
 some few further remarks on Waller (which his cautious in 
 tegrity made him leave an order to be given to Mr. Tonson), 
 and perhaps, though tis many years since I saw it, a Transla 
 tion of ye first Book of Oppian. He had begun a tragedy of 
 Dion, but made small progress in it. 
 
 " As to his other affairs, he dyed poor, but honest, leaving 
 no debts or legacies ; except of a few pounds to Mr. Trurn- 
 bull and my Lady, in token of respect, gratefulness, and mu 
 tual esteem. 
 
 "I shall, with pleasure, take upon me to draw this amia 
 ble, quiet, deserving, unpretending Christian and philoso 
 phical character, in his epitaph. There truth may be spoken 
 in a few words: as for Flourish, and Oratory, and Poetry, I 
 leave them to younger and more lively writers, such as love 
 writing for writing sake", and wd rather shew their own Fine 
 Parts, yn report the valuable ones of any other man. So the 
 Elegy I renounce. 
 
 " I condole with you from mv heart on the loss of so 
 worthy a man, and a Friend to us both. Now lie is gone, I 
 must tell you he has done you many a good office, and set 
 your character in ye fairest light to some who either mistook 
 you, or know you not. I doubt not he has done the same 
 for me. 
 
 " Adieu : Let us love his memory, and profit by his ex 
 ample I am, very sincerely, 
 
 " Dr Sir, 
 " Your affectionate & real servant, 
 
 "A. POPE. 
 
 "Aug. 29, 1730." 
 
108 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 Thus wrote, not the just censor, the keen satirist, the brilliant 
 moral painter, the gay, elegant, courtly letter-writer, the arch 
 critic of the artificial school of poetry and of criticism ; but the 
 humane, the affectionate, the friendly Pope, out of his very 
 heart of hearts, with earnestness and undoubted zeal. To 
 question the truth of this were to insult humanity. 
 
 XV. 
 
 SWEDENBORGIANISM.* 
 
 WE have here two accredited expositions of the character and 
 tenets of the Swedenborgian sect, by respectable clergymen 
 of that denomination; and, in order to satisfy the minds of 
 those inquiring into the truth and genuineness of these doc 
 trines, in ever so slight a degree, we shall present a brief ab 
 stract of them ; but first, it may be necessary to lay before 
 the reader some account of that extraordinary man, Emmanuel 
 Swedenborg ; for such, all who study his life and system must 
 allow him to have been, however they may refuse to admit 
 his apostolical or prophetic character. 
 
 Swedenborg was the son of a Lutheran bishop, and edu 
 cated with, perhaps, something of sectarian rigor. We con 
 ceive we see, in this fact, an explanation of those visionary 
 theories, and that " largest liberty," which occupied the 
 
 * " A Course of five Lectures on the fundamental Doctrines of 
 the New Jerusalem Church," by Richard De Charms. 92 pp., 12mo., 
 Philadelphia. " Barrett s Lectures," 12mo. John Allen. 
 
SWEDENBORGIANI8M. 109 
 
 thoughts of his latter years. From a restricted bigotry to 
 unbounded freedom of belief, the transition is neither uncom 
 mon nor unnatural. Yet, true to his early education, Sweden- 
 borg never left the communion of the Lutheran Church, but 
 remained a member to the day of his death. Many of his 
 sentiments, of a nobler morality, and much of the spiritual 
 interpretation, which he vulgarized by its too frequent use, 
 might safely be introduced into every sect, and into the bosom 
 even of the true Church ; but then, purely in an episodical 
 manner, and not as the only saving truth. Though writing 
 and teaching as " a man sent down from the Lord," yet it 
 is not until after his death that his followers united together 
 to form, what they assumed to style (with sufficient humility 
 to be sure) The New Church. Sectarian arrogance and spi 
 ritual conceit have rarely transcended this. 
 
 Swedenborg was early distinguished for quickness, industry, 
 memory and enthusiasm. He had a rich, luxuriant fancy, and 
 some poetical talent. He was a chemist, linguist, and ma 
 thematician : understood metallurgy and anatomy, and pos 
 sessed an inventive spirit, and an original vein, in all of these. 
 He was more than this, a clear, exact, methodical man of 
 business ; drew up the best financial reports, succeeded in 
 embassies, and made himself a useful statesman. Altogether, 
 he was a man of rare natural abilities, with much and various 
 culture. He rilled numerous offices of high trust, was enno 
 bled and honored with distioguished attentions ; at one time 
 the favorite of Charles XII.; and, if we are not in error, he 
 converted a later sovereign to his peculiar views. Sweden 
 borg, from all accounts, must have been an honest man, a 
 pure man, a sincere Christian, but a religious enthusiast ; and, 
 as we cannot help thinking, possessed with a monomania, not 
 fierce and turbulent, but gentle and spiritual. It has been 
 
110 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 said, that the study of the Book of Revelations would turn 
 any man s head who attempts to translate that mystical alle 
 gory into plain prose. Newton (says a great authority) wrote 
 nonsense on the Revelations. Wise Dan Chaucer, long since, 
 told his readers that 
 
 The greatest clerks are not the wisest men. 
 
 And Swedenborg adds another illustrious name to the list 
 of those who attempt impossible things; ranking, with the 
 inquirers after the longitude, those who seek to square the 
 circle, or discover perpetual motion. It were as wise to hunt 
 after the art of transmuting the baser metals into gold, as to 
 aim at a new (and true, at the same time) commentary on 
 the Christian scheme and the Holy Scriptures. From one of 
 the best accounts of the life of Swedenborg, in the Encyclo 
 paedia Americana, to which our attention has been directed 
 by a Swedenborgian, we adopt a conclusion of the critic, that 
 Swedenborg was rather a religious poet than a scientific 
 theologian : that, though a man of a truly devotional spirit, 
 he had more of fancy in his piety and his so-called visions, 
 than he himself imagined. His country, his temperament, 
 his very name smacks of mysticism. His followers deny 
 this : but we want no other proof of it, than some of his own 
 pretentious, and the titles of some of his works.* What man 
 but he, save Quevedo in satire, and Virgil, with Dante and 
 Milton, in epic poesy, ever pretended a picture of Hell ? 
 Swedenborg gives, also, a minute description of Heaven and 
 the Angelic Spirits. We have heard the Swedish Apostle 
 compared to Jacob Boehmen, and we suspect a close parallel: 
 it is said that the former was obliged to the earlier mystic, 
 for many ideas and images. Even Emerson, very lately, 
 * Arcana Celestia, the Apocalypse, and Angelic Wisdom. 
 
SWEDENBORO IANISM. 1 1 1 
 
 spoke of Swedenborg as the greatest poet since Dante, thereby 
 greatly alloying his prophetic character. For the introduction 
 of fancy into religion leaves too much room for the exercise 
 of human invention. A poetical religionist is likely to be an 
 unsafe biblical critic. We see this exemplified in the strange 
 mixture of ancient Christianity and Xeo-Platouism, where 
 the distinctive doctrines of each were so confused as to impair 
 the verisimilitude of the former, and give too high authority 
 to the visions of the latter. This grew to so great an evil, 
 that after the separation of the two diverse elements, the doc 
 trine of the Trinity itself, the very corner-stone of Christianity, 
 came to be considered, by some, a relic of Platonism. The 
 prophets of old spake from a celestial inspiration ; the impos 
 tors of modern days (wo do not rank Swedenborg among con 
 scious impostors), the Mother Ann Lees, of the Shakers ; the 
 Joe Smiths, of the Mormons, etc, seek the light of their own 
 unenlightened reason, and the vain boastings of a copious, 
 but ill-regulated fancy. The Apostles of old were, most of 
 them, plain, unlettered men. Modern pseudo-apostles are 
 men of some acquirements, and a ready invention. To make 
 a genuine Christian disciple, Faith and Love only are wanting 
 (both, how rare !) ; but, to make a fashionable and popular 
 vulgar saint, some vigour of character and physical constitu 
 tion is necessary ; but more of a dazzling showy species of 
 talent, with a vast fund of impudence and imperturbable self- 
 reliance. We believe Swedenborg to have been a good man, 
 iu most respects ; and in some particulars, a great man ; but 
 like many men, both great and good, he was vain, or worse ; 
 and enthusiastic (in the sense of weakness, not a manly, 
 vigorous enthusiasm) to an extraordinary degree. Neither 
 of these qualities is incompatible with great sincerity, and 
 even elevation of mind ; and for these traits we reverence his 
 
112 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 character. Swedenborg is represented as a man of uncom 
 monly clear judgment, which we must either wholly deny, or 
 else impugn his character for veracity, for humility, and for 
 philosophical consistency. Regarding him in the light of a 
 herald of a new day, the forerunner of a purer age, we can 
 only speak of Swedenborg as the dupe of his own fancies, and 
 without a particle of respect for his spiritual and characteristic 
 pretentions. In those passages where he exhorts to spiritual 
 love, and purity of life and thought, he displays a noble spirit. 
 Mr. De Charms has a section (pp. 47, 8], that unfolds this 
 divine principle. But, in doctrinal points, he is sometimes far 
 wrong; often perfectly at variance with well ascertained 
 Christian Doctrine ; sometimes crude, sometimes almost blas 
 phemous. 
 
 Of this doctrine we shall attempt a brief sketch. The 
 Swedenborgian believes his to be the (New Jerusalem) 
 Church ; and that the final judgment took place somewhere 
 in the middle of the last century ; that a new, and truer, and 
 purer dispensation, commenced with Swedenborg; and al 
 though they speak of him as merely a herald of a new era, 
 arid interpreter of the Scriptures, as a servant of the Lord ; 
 still they assume for his interpretation and teaching (as it 
 seems to us) equal weight and value with that attached to 
 the precepts and parables of our Saviour, or (at the least) 
 to that commonly conceded to his disciples and immediate 
 followers. We add some of their peculiar views. Their no 
 tion of the Trinity differs from that of the only true Church 1 : 
 They imagine it to include a trinity of principles, and not of 
 persons ; the principles of Love and Wisdom, with the opera 
 tion of both ; or, as they define it, an intimate, or middle, 
 and an ultimate principle. They assert the non-existence of 
 a Trinity before the Incarnation of the Word ; that then it 
 
BWEDENBORGIANISM. 113 
 
 arose out of the union of the Divine and human Natures, 
 with the operation of both ; just as in Man, there is the Soul, 
 and Body, and Life. 
 
 Carrying out a spirit of independent inquiry, they also 
 choose to differ from the received acceptation of the Atone 
 ment, or, as they quaintly term it, at-one-ment. They deny 
 that God the Father was propitiated by the VICARIOUS suffer 
 ing of God the Son ; since, on the ground of their different 
 notion of the Divine Trinity, they cannot reconcile the idea 
 to their minds. (Vide Barrett s IX. Lecture.) Both of these 
 most important heads require a fuller discussion than \ve are 
 theologians enough to give, or than, if we were, we have 
 space, in this rapid outline, to include. 
 
 In this desultory notice, we do not pretend to preserve any 
 formality of method, much less thoroughness of analysis, but 
 only to touch on the most striking points. One of these is, 
 the presumption of speaking of a peculiar sect (much as they 
 avoid the name, they yet form a sect), as the A 7 ew Church, or 
 the NEW JERUSALEM ; applying the phraseology of the Ke- 
 velations, and implying a degree of holiness and immaculate 
 purity in its members. "Whatever is new, we might remind 
 these sectaries, is not, therefore, true ; and we may qu -te the 
 remark of Sheridan, of a popular speaker, that of what lie 
 said, " the new was not true, and the true not new." There 
 is much elevated sentiment and acute metaphysical reason 
 ing in the Swedenborgian writers ; but the morality is the 
 best morality of the New Testament. Better there is none. 
 Human genius cannot improve the precepts or spiritual teach 
 ing of pure Christianity ; and human invention alters only 
 for the worse. The new interpretation, the new vouchers, we 
 hesitate to accept ; nay, more, we reject them altogether, 
 whenever they contradict the old. Mr. Barrett supposes, like 
 
114 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 many others, most unphilosophically (as it appears to us), 
 and most illogically, by an entirely false analogy, that the 
 ology must advance with the physical sciences. We find the 
 earliest commentators most regarded, and for many dark say 
 ings we may find no adequate version. Mystery must ever 
 hang over portions of the Holy page. What is essential 
 to be known, is plain. But there are many things we see 
 " through a glass darkly," and which, we are reminded, are 
 to be seen in no clearer light, while an earthly film over 
 spreads the vision. No improved theological optics can make 
 us see all things clearly, until our eyes (the eyes of the mind) 
 are touched by that Divine Hand that opened the eyes of the 
 blind Bartimeus. Spiritual truths can be discerned only in a 
 spiritual manner ; and we cannot now, save where a miracle 
 is granted, see with a pure spiritual vision. All the aids of 
 critical opticians, when conducted in a wrong spirit, afford 
 rather optical delusions than any real benefit. We are truly 
 told, that sensuality, self-love, worldliness, and pride, so be 
 cloud our spiritual perceptions, as to prevent our recognising 
 the truth as it is, or loving it as we should ; and, undoubted 
 ly, the spirits of most men are too much immersed in sense ; 
 but then, no refinement of spirituality will make a prophet 
 out of every ordinary individual. This is as absurd as the 
 notion of another sect, with regard to speaking the Unknown 
 Tongue, which is equally ridiculous and blasphemous ; and 
 means a dialect that none can controvert to be what it pro 
 fesses, since no one can recognise it. The followers of Swe- 
 denborg deny this mysticism ; but it is palpably evident in his 
 life and habits of mind, as well as in his version of Scripture. 
 He taught a science of correspondencies (we see no good rea 
 son for prefixing the definite article, since we are not pre 
 pared to receive it) : he has published visions of the word of 
 
8WEDENBORGIANISM. 115 
 
 spirits. He attempts to expound the mysteries of the Book 
 of Revelations. He expressed himself by symbol and alle 
 gory. His style is an imitation of the Scriptures, and, like 
 the Book of Jasher, reads like a close imitation. This style 
 of composition, we conceive, by an uninspired writer (whose 
 credentials were not most clear), to be taking a most repre 
 hensible and audacious liberty with the Word of God. 
 
 His science of correspondencies, which it is pretended was 
 lost by Job, and only revived by Svvedenborg himself, is a 
 species of figurative allegory. It shows acuteness and fancy ; 
 but we can find in it no innate force compelling the convic 
 tion of the understanding. It is also singular in this respect, 
 that it translates figurative allegories into the most literal 
 phraseology, whilst it gives a symbolic translation to the sim 
 ple records of history. Mr. Barrett speaks thus of it : u The 
 Science of Correspondencies, as revealed in the writings of 
 Swedenborg, furnishes us with a rule, and the only rule, as 
 we have before said, for interpreting aright the word of 
 God" Yet this species of comment and translation is lull 
 of the most startling assumptions. It denies the historical 
 accuracy of Genesis, defining the limits of true history, which 
 is declared to have commenced at the calling of Abraham. 
 The first eleven chapters are taken as one continued allego 
 ry. Adam is thought to typify the first Church : the Flood, 
 to mean a flood of ignorance and sin over the moral world. 
 The Waters are understood as truths or fables, as they relate 
 to good or evil. By Noah, and the creatures preserved in 
 the Ark, are rendered the preservation of good principles and 
 sound doctrine, by the Divine Providence. All this is very 
 ingenious and plausible ; we can hardly assign it a worthier 
 title. Speculation and fancy may run on, in this manner, ad 
 libitum. Purde allegory, on the other hand, is construed 
 
116 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 into an exact and liberal narrative of futurity a prophetic 
 relation, in part accomplished. The New Jerusalem is local 
 ized ; the Judgment Day is identified with a past epoch. 
 Parat4e is considered synonymous with matter of fact his 
 tory. A wise man often discovers the most wisdom in letting 
 some things alone ; in leaving moot points at rest. Sweden- 
 borg could not abstain from a rash curiosity of gazing upon 
 the Holy of Holies ; he must needs intrude into the awful 
 precincts of the Apocalypse. And here in his daring rash 
 ness, he evinced equal folly. 
 
 His visions, and publications of an intercourse with the 
 spiritual world, are of a piece with the rest. It is painful to 
 see the state into which that man s mind must have fallen, 
 who could write out such accounts as we find in Lecture xii. 
 (pages 415,41 G-4 1 8, in particular.) We are almost tempted 
 to exclaim, 
 
 Lo ! what a noble mind was here o erthrown ! 
 
 Had Swedenborg lived a century earlier, he would have 
 been cited as a memorable instance in old Burton s chapter 
 on Religious melancholy. A few sentences will comprise all 
 the criticism on the Lectures wo have to offer. Mr. De 
 Charms is the clearest writer : Mr. Barrett is more ambitious 
 and flowery. Both are sensible thinkers, yet fall into gross 
 blunders whenever they attempt to exalt their Hero and 
 Master. A rather presumptuous parallel is here drawn. 
 " We would therefore beg all who are disposed to ridicule 
 and reject the writings of Swedenborg, on account of the 
 alleged visions which they contain, to pause and consider, 
 whether they do not, in their hearts, if not with their lips, 
 mock at the views of the Apostles and Prophets, and reject 
 
SWEDENBORGIANISM. 11 7 
 
 the Scriptures as a revelation from God" We can, by no 
 supposition, conceive how a rejection of Swedenborg s mis 
 sion, invalidates the genuineness of the Scriptures, or can pre 
 suppose such invalidation. 
 
 The followers of this fanciful theorist (for as such, in the 
 History of Religion, the character of Swedenborg, we sus 
 pect, will finally rest) are, in the majority of cases, pure- 
 minded and honest men ; in some cases guided by a poetical 
 temperament in the choice of a religion ; in others, governed 
 by the specious "rationality" of the Swedenborgian scheme. 
 Very few eminent men are numbered in its ranks. Dr. 
 Hartley, the metaphysician, we believe, was one ; Kant ap 
 pears to have been, and Coleridge was for a while attracted 
 by Swedenborgianism, as indeed he was by every current 
 fashionable novelty, and curious ancient heresy. American 
 would-be Coleridges assume the doctrines, as a fair text for 
 imposing rhetoric. It must be allowed, as we have admitted 
 more than once, that parts of the teachings of the Swedish 
 Apostle are imbued with the loftiest Christian morality; that 
 his spirit bathed in an atmosphere of the purest refinement; 
 that he saw keenly into much of the spiritual part of our 
 nature. Here we stop in our eulogium. As a moralist, 
 Swedenborg is above our praise ; as a religious teacher, a 
 biblical critic, an expounder of mysteries, we regard him as 
 unsafe, dangerous, and rash. IJis sect is still very small, and 
 its polity being nearer to the Congregational form of Church 
 government than to any other, tends continually to inde 
 pendency, and disunion among its members. It is without 
 an abiding principle of unity; and its excessive spirit of 
 liberty is liable to run into licentiousness of doctrine. In 
 Sweden there are very few of this belief; more in England 
 and on the continent. In this country they have several 
 
118 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 congregations : but we apprehend no stability in Sweden- 
 borgianism as a Church. ; but that it will gradually die out 
 like the Quakers and the Unitarians. Still, the Church may 
 derive excellent hints from some of the strictures of Sweden- 
 borg ; and, indeed, from more than one of the spiritual 
 Christian philosophers of modern Europe. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 RELIGIOUS SATIRE. 
 
 MANY well-intentioned, but not very deep-thinking people, 
 are mightily frightened by anything approaching to the ar- 
 gumentum ad absurdum, in matters of religion or morality. 
 They fancy a disrespect, at least, if not a secret contempt of 
 Christianity from satirical assaults on those who profess, only 
 to disgrace it. They apprehend evil from the air of levity 
 with which such subjects are treated ; an apprehension rarely 
 verified, except in the case of the very weak, who are sure to 
 go wrong in almost every possible event. No man but a fool 
 or a radically bad character, ever could conceive of universal 
 hollowness, because there were many demure and sly hypo 
 crites in the world. A total want of faith is the unerring 
 sign of a temper not to be trusted ; of a fickle heart and a 
 false tongue. But satire of the pretenders to true religion 
 is, in effect, an eulogy of the sincerely good ; indiscriminate 
 praise and universal censure being alike in this respect, that 
 finally they tend to nothing, as they nullify each other by 
 
RELIGIOUS SATIRE. 119 
 
 opposite extravagances. It is true, that satirists have some 
 times transcended the proper limits of truth and discretion ; 
 have calumniated where they should have calmly censured ; 
 and have written a libel instead of a criticism. The most 
 piquant satire is, necessarily, one-sided, and carried to the 
 extreme verge of truth ; at times overpassing it. Epigrams 
 lose in point where they approach the truth. A moderate 
 thinker is rarely to be found among professed wits. For, 
 when a man comes to ponder and weigh opposite qualities 
 and conflicting statements, to admit this excuse and allow 
 that apology, when circumstance and occasion are considered ; 
 and, in a word, when he endeavors to strike a just balance of 
 the actions and characters of men, he rarely can escape a trite 
 conclusion or a mediocrity of argument. In a knowledge of 
 most elementary truths and general propositions, the philoso 
 pher and the peasant are on a par; the difference between 
 them consists in a knowledge of the intermediate chain of 
 thought and reasoning on the part of the first, and ignorance 
 in the case of the last. It is only when a point is driven 
 home, when to paint one trait vividly, the rest of the features 
 are thrown in the shade, that brilliancy is attained at the 
 expense of fidelity and a liberal construction. To a reader 
 of sense, however, a defect of this nature makes itself appa 
 rent at once, and he sifts out the false from the fair : to all 
 other readers it matters little, for they might misconstrue the 
 most irreproachable writer. We have frequent proof that 
 the best book in the world has fared the worst in this respect. 
 Religious satire has generally been directed either against 
 the extravagances or the hypocrisy of reformers ; and when 
 just and intelligent, it has certainly been of essential service. 
 It may not benefit the immediate objects of it. It may 
 harden or dishearten proselytes and late converts, re-changing 
 
120 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 the self-styled elect into viler sinners than they were before ; 
 but it is productive of benefit to those who are not intimately 
 connected with either any specific reformation itself or those 
 conducting it. 
 
 The very idea of undertaking to convert the world, at the 
 present time of day, discovers, in him who cherishes it, a 
 palpable defect of judgment and common precaution, and 
 will induce compassion where it does not provoke ridicule. 
 Such innovators appear to forget how much benefit may be 
 accomplished by the thorough performance of individual 
 duties, to say nothing of every man s natural and (as it were) 
 hereditary influence in his own walk and circle of society, 
 which may be turned to the best account possible. They 
 leave the obvious and natural claims of their Maker, their 
 own souls, and their fellow-creatures, for the vain prosecution 
 of fantastic projects. Like the alchemist, they think they 
 possess a talisman, unknown to all others, for converting sin 
 ners ; a talisman, that too often fails in its pretended effects 
 when employed upon themselves. 
 
 To say that no good has accrued to society from zealous 
 yet prudential reformation, is to assert what is palpably false ; 
 yet to conceal the great evils incurred by rash innovation and 
 ignorant fanaticism, would be avoiding a fair statement of the 
 case. The greatest of Reformers, Tune, as we are wisely 
 taught by Bacon, innovates silently, but is more powerful 
 than any other. We see in the life of man, how age reveals 
 the errors of youth, and manhood suppresses the follies of 
 immaturity. So in the age of the world, civilization and 
 custom must unite to eradicate (by degrees) the defects, the 
 vices, the crimes of former ages. If the above is true of 
 matters relating to the civil polity, to legislation and govern 
 ment, how much truer is it with regard to the growth and 
 
RELIGIOUS SATIRE. 121 
 
 very existence of Christianity. We are to look for no new 
 lights here ; and a modern Apostle may be suspected on 
 prima facie evidence, of being an imposter. The assumption 
 of the character of Founder of a sect, implies a degree of 
 pride and corresponding want of humility, hardly consistent 
 with true piety. At the same time, it evinces rashness and 
 ignorance. Modern religious reformers generally begin by 
 discrediting the labors and talent of previous teachers, in 
 order to raise the value of their own. In an attempt to go 
 back to the standard of primitive Christianity, they discredit 
 the succession of wise and good men, who have filled the 
 interval with their pure thoughts and holy lives. 
 
 In effect, too, they hurt their own cause, where they treat 
 the ministers of religion with contumely ; for they destroy a 
 respect for those external decorums, which are not only be 
 coming in the best Christians, but considered no less than 
 essential in the department of a polished gentleman. 
 
 Enthusiasm is, at once, the strong and the weak point of 
 the religious reformer, enthusiasm, real or assumed; the most 
 vulnerable point of attack. 
 
 The control of a multitude by the sympathetic feeling of 
 enthusiasm may be spoken of as a species of animal or spirit 
 ual magnetism. We see the effect of it in such hands as 
 those of Mahomet, Cromwell, Whitfield, Napoleon. But 
 this is a vulgar passion, not the enthusiasm of noble natures 
 for objects of equal worth. Ordinary religious enthusiasm is 
 both degrading and impious ; degrading as it is irrational, 
 nud impious from presumption and familiarity. As to tho 
 vulnerability of enthusiasm, we only need to read Iludibras. 
 Yet are we no believers in the sophism of u ridicule being the 
 test of truth." It may furnish a searching test of artificial 
 manners. It is a touchstone for absurdities in conduct. But 
 
122 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 religion is above it ; its principles are too sacred for such a 
 connection. The practices of fanatic religionists are, however, 
 more absurd than any ridicule that can be heaped upon them, 
 and they are fair game for the pen of the satirist. 
 
 The truest Christians have been, in general, moderate in 
 their views, no advocates of human perfectibility, no Fifth 
 Monarchy men. Pious persons, with a vein of mysticism in 
 their characters, as Norris, Fenelon, Herbert, or Farrar, may 
 indulge themselves in raptures and ecstasies ; but these have 
 a certain real beauty, and at least disturb not the peace of 
 their neighbors. Modern ranters split the ears, while they 
 would invade the souls of the groundlings, and seem to think 
 the kingdom of Satan can be carried by the same means 
 which toppled down the walls of Jericho. 
 
 It is a little singular, that, with a single exception, the 
 author of Hudibras, the keenest satires on religious extrava 
 gances, and the severest censure (however humorously alle 
 gorized) that has been passed on the defects most visible in 
 the clerical character, should have come from the pens of 
 churchmen. Yet such has been the case from the time of 
 Erasmus to the day of the Rev. Sidney Smith, the most cele 
 brated of living clerical wits, including, among other names 
 in the interval, those of South, Eachard, and Swift, a trio, 
 that for wit, sense, and honesty, cannot be paralleled. 
 
 Those who are most in the habit of railing at the clergy 
 and at religious persons in general, show great ignorance 
 and narrowness. They confound the worthy with the worth 
 less, under a common denomination of hypocrites. It is a 
 usual saying with such people, that they consider themselves 
 as good Christians as any. Having seen villany and world- 
 liness masked under the appearance of religion, they conclude 
 all Christianity to be a deception. This is as much as if one 
 
 
PROSE OF BARROW. 123 
 
 should pretend an accurate knowledge of human nature, from 
 having filled the station of a jailer all his life, and seen much 
 crime. The Newgate Calendar is but a chapter in the great 
 Book of Life. Religious satire is not for such readers, as it 
 gives them ideas on one side, and that the worst side, which 
 they possess neither inclination nor ability to rebut. Their 
 situation has precluded the possibility of an acquisition of 
 true views on this subject, and of seeing how much more 
 good than eyil there is in the world after all (wicked as it 
 is), despite the sneers of the profligate and the scorn of the 
 misanthrope. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 PROSE OF BARROW. 
 
 THERE is an eloquence of the reason as well as of the ima 
 gination and of the affections. Perhaps it is more firmly 
 based than either, and produces in the end the surest effects. 
 It is less captivating than the descriptive eloquence of Taylor ; 
 it has less hold on the taste than the sentimental passages of 
 Rousseau or Ilazlitt, less touching than the pathos of Sterne 
 or Mackenzie, less brilliant than the declamation of Burke or 
 Macaulay : but it is anchored in truth ; it is founded in real 
 ity ; it convinces the understanding. Finally, all eloquence 
 must come to this. We may be captivated by the glittering 
 flashes of a copious fancy, and charmed, for an hour, by the 
 attractive graces of manner ; but the only true eloquence is 
 that which is always such, which equally interests a future 
 age and a foreign nation, and which is the pure essence of 
 
124 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 the noblest reason, couched in the clearest, the most forcible, 
 and the richest expression. Those brilliant contemporary 
 speakers, of whom we have only a traditionary knowledge, 
 such as Dean Kirwan, Patrick Henry, and Emmett, are 
 rather to be regarded as consummate actors than solid 
 orators. 
 
 To give the praise of finished oratory to the sermons of 
 Barrow would be an extravagance of eulogy ; and yet his 
 fame is great, and his sermons most able. He possesses the 
 utmost fulness (this side of extravagance) in point of thought 
 and expression ; yet we can hardly say as much of his style 
 and manner. The characteristic trait of Barrow is his power 
 of exhaustive analysis. He is a perfect mental chemist, ana 
 lyzing every topic into as many parts as it is composed of, 
 and precipitating (so to speak) all the falsehood in it, leaving 
 a clear solution of truth. Our divine is one of the most 
 liberal-minded of men. He has a wide range of thought, 
 and mines, as it were, into the very depth of his argument. 
 He gives you every side of every subject he handles. He 
 knows all the false appearances sophistry may be made to 
 wear, as disguises of the truth. He is thoroughly informed 
 of all the bearings of his subject, and leaves no part of it un 
 touched. Though without imagination, Barrow had such a 
 fertility of intellect (so well cultivated was the soil), as to ap 
 pear almost possessing invention in the way of topics and 
 illustration. The secret of his , invention lay in long and 
 severe study, aided by a capacious and powerful and ready 
 memory. 
 
 Reason was the master faculty of Barrow s mind. He 
 seems to have had but little fancy no imagination; not 
 much of an eye for nature no humor hardly anything 
 like delicacy of sentiment. His understanding was a robust, 
 
PROSE OF BARROYF. 125 
 
 hard-working faculty. His analysis was very acute and 
 thorough his logic exceeding close, searching, and patient. 
 He had much and varied erudition, and a memory that was 
 not crushed by the weight of it. This is an argument for the 
 original force of Barrow, as well as for most of the great old 
 prose-writers, that their learning was not too much for them. 
 No foreign acquisitions could obscure the clear light of their 
 own reason : learning served them for evidence, for illustra 
 tion. But they never confounded knowledge and wisdom, 
 and knew as well as the old dramatists, their grand compeers 
 that 
 
 " The heart 
 May give a useful lesson to the head." 
 
 Hence, without vanity, they relied more on themselves than 
 most scholars, who are too often mere pedants. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that most of Barrow s sermons are 
 rather moral dissertations, than what we would call, at the 
 present day, evangelical discourses. Barrow comes nearer to 
 a teacher of moral philosophy, than the ordinary standard of 
 modern preaching will allow. It was his practice to write a 
 series of sermons on certain topics of practical ethics (none the 
 less Christian, though some would have us think so) ; thus, 
 he has four sermons on industry, eight on the tongue, &c., &c. 
 He seldom wrote less than two, and frequently three, on a 
 single text. These are complete moral treatises. Though, 
 in one sense, this may bo considered a defect, yet, in our 
 view (perhaps mistaken), it is a merit. Preaching too often 
 departs from the themes of daily importance the offices 
 of familiar duty. Most congregations require to bo taught 
 their moral as well as their religious duties (both parts of 
 the same great scheme, and essentially one). We have 
 
126 
 
 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 never heard the orthodoxy of Barrow questioned, and yet it 
 is certain he is more of a moral teacher than an Evangelical 
 Divine. 
 
 There is a palpable defect in Barrow. He is uniformly 
 copious. He is often tedious. He is too apt to discuss a 
 trite theme, with all the exuberance of power he employs on 
 one less familiar. Moreover, he is interminable. Many 
 laughable anecdotes are related of his power of continuance. 
 Once, at a charity sermon, he detained the audience by a 
 discourse of three hours and a half in length. In coming 
 down from the pulpit, and being asked if he felt tired, he 
 replied that " he began to be weary with standing so long." 
 It must have been as wearisome for the audience (we should 
 imagine) to sit still that space of time, unless the church were 
 a dark one, the cushions soft, and the pews high. On another 
 occasion, being reminded that the congregation at the Ab 
 bey liked short sermons, he was prevailed on (with much 
 ado) to preach but one-half of his original sermon, and that 
 occupied an hour and a half. 
 
 With these defects, however, that must have rendered him, 
 to light hearers of the Word, a rather tiresome preacher, he 
 is still a right sturdy, manly intellect of the true English 
 breed. 
 
 This intellectual robustness was joined to great strength 
 of moral purpose and determined physical courage. Of this 
 last quality, two remarkable instances occur to us. Being 
 attacked at night by a powerful mastiff, he grappled with 
 the animal, and almost choked him, before any assistance 
 came. At sea, in the Mediterranean, the vessel in which he 
 happened to be embarked was attacked by an Algerine cor 
 sair. Barrow could not be prevailed on to go below, but 
 fought bravely with the crew. 
 
THE POEMS OF BISHOP CORBET. 127 
 
 These traits of character cannot fail to impress us with the 
 feeling of high respect for Barrow s force and energy. 
 
 Though no wit, to bo sure in his sermons, unless a strong 
 sense of propriety and the absence of it can be termed 
 wit, yet he gave Rochester one day a notable reproof, and 
 foiled that courtly wit with his own weapons. And Barrow 
 penned a definition of wit, amounting to an essay, which 
 is a miracle of ingenuity of distinction and richness of ex 
 pression. 
 
 Charles II. used to call Barrow " an unfair preacher," for 
 he left nothing for future preachers to glean unless, he 
 might have added, to make pretty free use of the labors of 
 their predecessors. 
 
 Lord Chatham enjoined on his son the constant study 
 of Barrow, and Pitt declared he had his sermons almost by 
 heart. 
 
 To show the common injudiciousness of parents in esti 
 mating the talents of their children, the father of Barrow is 
 said to have exclaimed, " If it pleased God to take away any 
 of his children, he hoped it would be Isaak," regarding him 
 as a miracle of stupidity, who afterwards proved the glory of 
 his family. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE POEMS OF BISHOP CORBET. 
 
 IN the list of clerical wits, comprehending some of the best 
 writers of England, and the finest satirical humorists in the 
 world, (Fuller, Earle, South, Eachard, Swift, Sterne, and Sid- 
 
128 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 ney Smith,) the name of Corbet should always find a place; 
 yet his jeux d* esprit and bon-mots are known only to the an 
 tiquary and retrospective critic. His poems are scattered up 
 and down a variety of political collections, and have only been 
 brought together in the present century. His modesty would 
 not allow the public acknowledgment of them during his life, 
 neither would he suffer any of his sermons to be printed, 
 though they are spoken of as rarely ingenious, and if at all 
 answerable to his conversation and verses, they must have 
 been delicate. The best account we can gather of this ec 
 centric wit, we find in Aubrey ; and it is one of the most 
 lively sketches in his collection. We transcribe it entire. 
 "Richard Corbet, D.D., was the son of Vincent Corbet, (bet 
 ter known by Poynters name than by his own ), who was a 
 gardener at Twickenham, as I have heard my old cousen 
 Whitney say. He was a Westminster scholar ; old Parson 
 Bussey of Allscott, in Warwickshire, went to school with 
 him ; he would say he was a very handsome man, but some 
 thing apt to abuse, and a coward. He was a student of 
 Christ Church, in Oxford. He was very facetious, and a 
 good fellow. One time he and some of his acquaintances be 
 ing merry at Frayer Bacon s study (where was good beer 
 sold), they were drinking on the leads of the house, and one 
 of the scholars was asleep, and had a pair of good silk stock 
 ings on: Dr. Corbet, (then M.A., if not B.D.,) got a pair of 
 scissors and cut them full of little holes ; but when the other 
 awakened, and perceived how and by whom he had been 
 abused, he did chastise him, and made him pay for them. 
 
 " After he was Doctor of Divinity, he sang ballads at the 
 Crosse at Abington, on a market day. He and some of his 
 camerades were at the taverne by the Crosse, (which, by the 
 way, was then the finest in England : I remember it when I 
 
POEMS OF BISHOP CORBET. 129 
 
 was a freshman : it was admirable curious gothique architec 
 ture, and fine figures in the niches : twas one of those built 
 
 by King for his queen). The ballad singer complained 
 
 he had no custom, he could not put off his ballads. The 
 jolly Doctor put off his gown, and puts on the ballad singer s 
 leathern jockey; and being a handsome man, and had a rare 
 full voice, he presently vended a great many, and had a full 
 audience. After the death of Dr. Goodwin, he was made dean 
 of Christ Church. He had a good interest with great men, 
 as you may find in his poems, and with the then great favo 
 rite, the D. of Bucks ; his excellent wit was letter of recom 
 mendation to him. I have forgot the story, but at the same 
 time that Dr. Fell thought to have carried it, Dr. Corbet put a 
 pretty trick upon him to let him take a journey on purpose to 
 London, when he had already the grant of it. 
 
 " He preach t a sermon before the King at Woodstock (I 
 suppose King James), but it happened that he was out ; on 
 which occasion there were made these verses : 
 
 A reverend deane, 
 
 With his band starch* d cleane, 
 
 Did preach before the King ; 
 In his band string was spied 
 A ring that was tied, 
 
 Was not that a pretty thing? 
 
 The ring, without doubt, 
 Was the thing put him out, 
 
 And made him forget what was next ; 
 For every one there 
 Will say, I dare swear, 
 
 That he handled it more than his text. 
 
130 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 " His conversation was extreme pleasant. Dr. Stubbins was 
 one of his cronies ; he was a jolly fat Dr., and a very good 
 house-keeper. As Dr. Corbet and he were riding in Lob- 
 lane, in wet weather ( tis an ordinary deep, dirty lane), the 
 coach fell, and Dr. Corbet said that Dr. Stubbins was up to 
 the elbows in mire, and he was up to the elbows in Stubbins. 
 Anno Domini 1628, he was made Bishop of Oxford, and I 
 have heard that he had an admirable, grave, and venerable 
 aspect. One time as he was confirming, the country people 
 pressing in to see the ceremony, said he, Beare off there, or 
 Pll confirme ye with my staff." 1 Another time, being to lay 
 his hand on the head of a man very bald, he turned to his 
 chaplain, and said, * Some dust, Lushingtorf (to keep his 
 hand from slipping). There was a man with a great venera 
 ble beard : said the Bishop, You, behind the beard: His 
 chaplain, Dr. Lushington, was a very learned and ingenious 
 man, and they loved one another. The Bishop sometimes 
 would take the key of the wine cellar, and he and his chap 
 lain would go and lock themselves in, and be merry. Then 
 first he lays down his episcopal hat There lies the Dr. 1 
 Then he puts off his gown There lies the Bishop? Then 
 twas Here s to thee, Corbet] and Here s to thee, Lushing- 
 
 ion ? He was made Bishop of Norwich, 
 
 A.D. 1632. His last words were, Good night, Lushing- 
 
 ton > His poems are pure natural wit, delightful 
 
 and easie." 
 
 In order to verify this criticism, we must produce some spe 
 cimens of his talent and humorous satire. 
 
 Corbet s poems are very few, and half of those indifferent ; 
 but the rest is pure gold. His forte is ironical eulogy, or hu 
 morous ridicule. Yet he has natural feeling, as shown in his 
 Epitaphs. A certain turn for Rabelaisian jests and tricks, 
 
POEMS OF BISHOP CORBET. 131 
 
 with an occasional palpable hit at the sectaries, must have 
 made him an episcopal bugbear to the Puritans of his day. 
 And certainly his deportment, at times, little suited the dig 
 nity of his order. But he flouted at dignities, knowing his 
 manhood to be much superior to any Bishopric. He was 
 something between Archdeacon Paley and the Clerk of Cop- 
 manhurst, while he also added a romantic fancy peculiar to 
 himself. He was a sincere Christian, a reasonable theologian, 
 a moderator, a wit, a good fellow. We need not apprehend 
 but that at proper times he bore himself like a brave old 
 bishop, and always stood erect in the integrity of a man. 
 His journey to France is the most finished of his sportive 
 effusions. 
 
 DR. CORBET S JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 
 
 I went from England into France, 
 Nor yet to learn to cringe or dance, 
 
 Nor yet to ride or fence ; 
 Nor did I go like one of those 
 That do return with half a nose 
 
 They carried from hence. 
 
 But I to Paris rode along, 
 Much like John Dory in the song, 
 
 Upon a holy tide. 
 I on an ambling nag did get, 
 I trust he is not paid for yet, 
 
 And spurr J him on each side. 
 
 And to St. Dennis fast we came, 
 To see the sights of Notre-Dame, 
 
 The man that shows them snaffles ; 
 Where who is apt for to believe, 
 May see our Ladies right arm sleeve, 
 
 And eke her old panto/les ; 
 
132 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 Her breast, her milk, her very gown 
 That she did wear in Bethlehem town, 
 
 When in the inn she lay. 
 Yet all the world knows that s a fable, 
 For so good clothes ne er lay in stable 
 
 Upon a lock of hay. 
 
 No carpenter could by his trade, 
 Gain so much coin as to have made 
 
 A gown of so rich stuff. 
 Yet they, poor fools, think for their credit, 
 They may believe old Joseph did it, 
 
 Cause he deserved enough. 
 
 There ie one of the crosses nails, 
 "Which whoso sees his bonnet vails, 
 
 And if he will may kneel. 
 Some say twas false, twas never so, 
 Yetj feeling it, thus much I know, 
 
 It is as true as steel. 
 
 There is a lanthorn which the Jews, 
 When Judas led them forth did use, 
 
 It weighs my weight downright. 
 But to believe it you must think 
 The Jews did put a candle in t, 
 
 And then twas very light. 
 
 There s one Saint there hath lost his nose 
 Another s head, but not his toes, 
 
 His elbow and his thumb. 
 But when that we had seen the rags, 
 We went to th inn and took our nags, 
 
 And so away did come. 
 
POEMS OF BISHOP CORBET. 133 
 
 Thus wrote our merry episcopal satirist, of superstitious 
 relics, and all the trumpery of the Romish Church. The 
 rest of the poem is occupied with certain exquisite strokes of 
 local satire, and a fine historical portrait of Louis XIIL, truer 
 than most historians would have painted it and in far finer 
 style. 
 
 Corbet wrote a number of elegies, though his vein flowed 
 more after the manner of Sir John Suckling, than in the 
 style of the tender Tibullus. The elegy upon his father s 
 death is respectful and affectionate : that upon Dr. Donne, 
 ingenius and well turned : 
 
 AN EPITAPH ON DR. DONNE, DEAN OF ST. PAUI/S. 
 
 He that would write an Epitaph for thee, 
 And do it well, must first begin to be 
 Such as thou wert ; for none can truly know 
 Thy worth, thy life, but he that hath liv d so. 
 He must have wit to spare, and to hurl down 
 Enough to help the gallants of the town ; 
 He must have learning plenty, best the laws, 
 Civil and Common, to judge any cause ; 
 Divinity, great store above the rest, 
 Not of the last edition, but the best ; 
 He must have language, travel, all thy arts, 
 Judgment to use, or else he wants thy parts : 
 He must have friends, the highest, able to do, 
 Such as Maecenas, and Augustus, too. 
 He must have such a sickness, such a death, 
 Or else his vain descriptions come beneath. 
 Who then shall write an Epitaph for thee, 
 He must be dead first ; let t alone for me. 
 
 Here follow two lively pieces, having the form of Epi- 
 
134 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 taph, but with more of a satirical than of an elegiac spirit in 
 them: 
 
 TO THE GHOST OF ROBERT WISDOME. 
 
 Thou, once a body, but now aire, 
 Arch botcher of a psalme or prayer, 
 
 From Carfax come ; 
 And patch me up a zealous lay, 
 With an old ever and ay, 
 
 Or, alt and some. 
 
 Or such a spirit lend mee, 
 
 As may a hymne down send mee, 
 
 To purge my braine : 
 So Robert look behind thee, 
 Lest Turk or Pope doe find thee, 
 And goe to bed againe. 
 
 ON THOMAS JONCE. 
 
 Here for the nonce, 
 Came Thomas Jonce, 
 
 In St. Giles Church to lie. 
 None Welsh before, 
 None Welshman more, 
 
 Till Shon Clerk die. 
 
 I ll toll the bell, 
 I ll ring his knell, 
 He died well, 
 He s sav d from hell ; 
 And so farewell, 
 Tom Jonce. 
 
 Our last extract shall been in a different strain from any 
 
THE LADIES LIBRARY. 135 
 
 of the foregoing. It is a poem addressed to his son Vincent 
 Corbet on his birthday, at the age of three years. 
 
 "What I shall leave thce, none can tell, 
 
 But all shall say I wish thee well ; 
 
 I wish thee, Vin, before all Wealth, 
 
 Both bodily and Ghostly health : 
 
 Nor too much wit, nor wealth, come to thee, 
 
 So much of either may undo thee. 
 
 I wish thee learning, not for show, 
 
 Enough for to instruct and know ; 
 
 Not such as gentlemen require, 
 
 To prate actable or at fire. 
 
 I wish thee all thy mother s graces, 
 
 Thy father s fortunes, and his places. 
 
 I wish thee friends, and one at court, 
 
 Not to build on, but support ; 
 
 To keep .thee, not in doing many 
 
 Oppressions, but from suffering any. 
 
 I wisli thee peace in all thy ways, 
 
 Nor lazy nor contentious days ; 
 
 And when thy soul and body part, 
 
 As innocent as now thou art. 
 
 Thus much from merry, wise, and kind-hearted Bishop 
 Corbet. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE LADIES LIBRARY. 
 
 THAT admirable manual of " les petitcs morales, 1 " and even of 
 higher matters occasionally, the Spectator, contains a paper 
 which we hesitate not to accept as a just specimen of contem- 
 
136 
 
 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 porarj satire on female education ; we refer to the catalogue 
 of a Ladies Library. This heterogeneous collection embraces 
 heroical romances and romancing histories, the ranting tra 
 gedies of the day, with the libertine comedies of the same 
 period. In a word, it leads us to infer pretty plainly the in 
 significant pretensions the gentlewoman of Queen Anne s day 
 could lay to anything like refinement of education, or even a 
 correct propriety in dress and demeanor. Tell me your com 
 pany, and I will disclose your own character ; speak that I 
 may know you, are trite maxims ; but give me a list of your 
 favorite authors is by no means so common, though at least 
 as true a test. The literary and indirectly the moral depra 
 vity of taste exhibited by the women of that age, is easily ac 
 counted for, when we once learn the fashionable authors and 
 the indifferent countenance given to any authors but those of 
 the most frivolous description. The queen herself was an il 
 literate woman, and we are told never once had the curiosity 
 to look into the classic productions of Pope. King William, 
 the preceding sovereign, was so ignorant of books and the li 
 terary character, as to offer Swift, with whom he had been 
 agreeably prepossessed, the place of a captain of a regiment 
 of horse. 
 
 Indulging ourselves in a rapid transition, we pass from this 
 era to the epoch of Johnson and Burke, and Goldsmith and 
 Sheridan ; we come to the reign of George III. Here we 
 find the scene altered. From the gay saloon we are dropped 
 as if by magic, into the library or conversation room. We 
 read not of balls, but of literary dinners and assthetic teas, 
 and we meet for company, not thoughtless, dressy dames of 
 fashion and minions of the goddess of pleasure, but grave, 
 precise professors in petticoats, women who had exchanged a 
 world of anxiety for the turn of a head-dress, or the shape of 
 
THE LADIES LIBRARY. 137 
 
 a flounce for an equally wise anxiety about the philosophy of 
 education, the success of their sonnets and tragedies, and 
 moral tales for the young. The pedantry of authorship and 
 dogmatic conversation superseded the more harmless pe 
 dantry of dress. Then we read of the stupidest company in 
 the world, which arrogated to itself the claim of being the 
 best. A race of learned ladies arose ; bas-bleus, the Mon 
 tagues, the Mores, the Sewards, the Chapones, patronised by 
 such prosing old formalists as Doctors Gregory and Aiken, 
 and even by one man of vigorous talent, Johnson, and one 
 man of real genius, Richardson. The last two endured much, 
 because they were flattered much. 
 
 When we speak thus contemptuously of learned ladies, we 
 intend to express a disgust at the pretensions of that name. 
 Genuine learning can never be despised, whoever may be its 
 possessor; but of genuine learning it is not harsh to suspect 
 a considerable deficiency where there is so much of display and 
 anxious rivalry. Where the learning is exact and solid, it is 
 to bo remembered that many departments are utterly un- 
 suited to the female mind ; where, at best, little can be ac 
 complished, and that of a harsh repulsive nature. We want 
 no Daciers, no Somervilles, no Marcets, but give us an you 
 will as many Inchbalds, Burneys, Edgeworths, Miss Barretts, 
 as can he had for love or money. 
 
 We believe the question as to the relative sexual distinc 
 tions of intellectual character, is now generally considered as 
 settled. There is allowed to be a species of genius essentially 
 feminine. Equality is no more arrogated than superiority of 
 ability, and it would bo as wisely arrogated. The most li 
 mited observation of life and the most superficial acquaintance 
 with books, must effectually demonstrate the superior capa 
 city of man for the great works of life and speculation. It is 
 
138 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 true, great geniuses are rare and seldom needed, and the 
 generality of women rank on a par with the generality of 
 men. In many cases, women of talent surpass men of an 
 equal calibre of mere talent, through other and constitutional 
 causes a greater facility of receiving and transmitting im 
 pressions, greater instinctive subtlety of apprehension, and a 
 livelier sympathy. We cordially admit that female intellect, 
 in the ordinary concerns of life and the current passages of 
 society, has often the advantage of the masculine understand 
 ing. Cleverness outshines solid ability, and a smart woman 
 is much more showy than a profound man. In certain walks 
 of authorship, too, women are preeminently successful : in 
 easy narrative of real or fictitious events (in the last implying 
 a strain of ready invention), in lively descriptions of natural 
 beauty or artificial manners ; in the development of the 
 milder sentiment of love ; in airy, comic ridicule. On the 
 other hand, the highest attempts of women in poetry have 
 uniformly failed. We have read of no female epic of even a 
 respectable rank ; those who have written tragedies, have 
 written moral lectures (of an inferior sort) like Hannah More ; 
 or anatomies of the passions, direct and formal, like Joanna 
 Baillie ; or an historical sketch, as Kienzi. We are apt to 
 suspect that the personal charms of Sappho prove too much 
 for the admirers of her poetic rhapsodies, otherwise Longinus 
 has done her foul injustice ; for the fragment he quotes is to 
 be praised and censured chiefly for its obscurity. This would 
 have been a great merit in Lycophron. 
 
 In the volume of British Poetesses, edited by Mr. Dyce, 
 it is astonishing to find how little real poetry he has been 
 able to collect out of the writings of near a century of authors 
 scattered over the surface of five or six centuries. It must be 
 allowed that some of the finest short pieces by female writers 
 
THE LADIES LIBRARY. 139 
 
 have appeared since the publication of that selection. In the 
 volume referred to, much sensible verse and some sprightly 
 copies of verse occur ; a fair share of pure reflective sentiment, 
 delivered in pleasing language rarely rising above correct 
 ness ; of high genius there is not a particle, no pretensions 
 to sublimity or fervor. The best piece and the finest poem 
 we think, is the charming poem of Auld Robin Gray. That 
 is a genuine bit of true poesy, and perfect in the highest de 
 partment of the female imagination, in the pathos of domestic 
 tragedy. In the present century we have Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. 
 Howitt and Mrs. Southey, but chief of all, Miss Barrett. The 
 finest attempts of the most pleasing writers of this class, 
 always excepting the noble productions of the last named 
 poetess, do not rise so high as the delightful ballad above 
 named. They are sweet, plaintive, moral strains, the melo 
 dious notes of a lute, tuned by taper fingers in a romantic 
 bower, not the deep, majestic, awful tones of the great organ, 
 or the spirited and stirring blasts of the trumpet. The ancient 
 bard struck wild and mournful, or hearty and vigorous notes 
 from his harp perchance placed " on a rock whose frowning 
 brow," &c., and striving with the rough symphonies of the 
 tempest : but the sybil of modern days plays elegant and 
 pretty, or soft and tender airs upon the flageolet or accordion, 
 in the boudoir or saloon. 
 
 A poet is, from the laws both of physiology and philology 
 masculine. Ilis vocation is manly, or rather divine. And 
 we have never heard any traits of feminine character attri 
 buted to the great poet (in the Greek sense), the Creator of 
 the universe. The muses are represented as females, but then 
 they are the inspirers, never the composers, of verse. Women 
 should be the poet s muse, as she is often the poet s theme. 
 Let female beauty then sit for her portrait instead of being 
 
140 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 the painter. Let poets chaunt her charms, but let her not 
 spoil a fair ideal image by writing bad verses. If all were 
 rightly viewed, a happy home would seem preferable to a 
 seat on Parnassus, and the Fountain of Content would fur 
 nish more palatable draughts than the Font of Helicon. The 
 quiet home is not always the muses bower ; though we trust 
 the muses bower is placed in no turbulent society. 
 
 Women write for women. They may entertain, but can 
 not, from the nature of the case, become instructors of men. 
 They know far less of life ; their circle of experience is con 
 fined. They are unfitted for many paths of active exertion, 
 and consequently are rendered incapable of forming just 
 opinions on many matters. We do not include a natural in 
 capacity for many studies, and as natural a dislike for many 
 more. Many kinds of learning, and many actual necessary 
 pursuits and practices, it is deemed improper for a refined 
 woman to know. How, then, can a female author become a 
 teacher of man ? 
 
 Literature would miss many pleasant associations if the 
 names of the best female writers were expunged from a list 
 of classic authors, and the world would lose many delightful 
 works the novel of sentiment and the novel of manners, 
 letter-writers, moral tales for children, books of travels, gos- 
 sipping memoirs Mrs. Inchbald, Madame D Arblay, Miss 
 Edgeworth, Lady M. W. Montague, Miss Martineau, and 
 Miss Sedgwick, with a host besides. Women have sprightli- 
 ness, cleverness, smartness, though but little wit. There is 
 a body and substance in true wit, with a reflectiveness rarely 
 found apart from a masculine intellect. In all English 
 comedy, we recollect but two female writers of sterling value 
 Mrs. Centlivre and Mrs. Cowley, and their plays are formed 
 on the Spanish model, and made up of incident and intrigue, 
 
THE LADIES LIBRARY. 141 
 
 much more than of fine repartees or brilliant dialogue. We 
 know of no one writer of the other sex, that has a high 
 character for humor no Rabelais, no Sterne, no Swift, no 
 Goldsmith, no Dickens, no Irving. The female character 
 does not admit it. 
 
 Women cannot write history. It requires too great soli 
 dity, and too minute research for their quick intellects. 
 They write, instead, delightful memoirs. Who, but an an 
 tiquary or historical commentator, would not rather read 
 Lucy Hutchinson s Life of her Ilusband, than any of the pro 
 fessed histories of the Commonwealth and exchange Lady 
 Fanshawe for the other royalist biographers ? 
 
 Neither are women to turn politicians or orators. We 
 hope never to hear of a female Burko ; she would be an 
 overbearing termagant. A species of a talent for scolding, 
 is the highest form of eloquence we can conscientiously allow 
 the ladies. 
 
 Women feel more than they think, and (sometimes) say 
 more than they do/ They are consequently better adapted 
 to describe sentiments, than to speculate on causes and effects. 
 They are more at home in writing letters, than tracts on 
 political economy. 
 
 The proper faculties in women to cultivate most assidu 
 ously are, the taste and the religious sentiment ; the first, as 
 the leading trait of the intellectual ; and the last, as the 
 governing power of the moral constitution. Give a woman a 
 pure taste and high principles, and she is safe from the arts 
 of the wiliest libertine. Let her have all other gifts but 
 these, and she is comparatively defenceless. Taste purifies 
 the heart as well as the head, and religion strengthens both. 
 The strongest propensities to pleasure are not so often the 
 means of disgrace and ruin as the carelessness of ignorant 
 
142 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 virtue, and an unenlightened moral sense. This makes all 
 the difference in the world, between the daughter of a poor 
 countryman, and the child of an educated gentleman. Both 
 have the same desires, but how differently directed and con 
 trolled. Yet we find many lapses from virtue in the one 
 case, where we find one in the other. 
 
 Believing that what does not interest, does not benefit the 
 mind, we would avoid all pedantic lectures to women, on all 
 subjects to which they discover any aversion. Study should 
 be made a pleasure, and reading pure recreation. In a 
 general sense, we would say the best works for female readers 
 are those that tend to form the highest domestic character. 
 Works of the highest imagination, as being above that con 
 dition, and scientific authors, who address a different class of 
 faculties, are both unsuitable. An admirable wife may not 
 relish the sublimity of Milton or Hamlet ; and a charming 
 companion be ignorant of the existence of such a science as 
 Algebra. A superficial acquaintance with the elements of 
 the physical sciences is worse than total unacquaintance with 
 them. 
 
 Religion should be taught as a sentiment, not as an abstract 
 principle, or in doctrinal positions, a sentiment of love and 
 grateful obedience ; morality impressed as the practical exer 
 cise of self-denial and active benevolence. In courses of 
 reading, too much is laid down of a dry nature. Girls are 
 disgusted with tedious accounts of battles and negotiations, 
 dates and names. The moral should be educed best fitted 
 for the female heart, and from the romantic periods, and the 
 reigns of female sovereigns, or epochs when women held a 
 very prominent place in the state, or in public regard. We 
 would have women affectionate wives, obedient daughters, 
 agreeable companions, skilful economists, judicious friends ; 
 
IARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS. 143 
 
 but we must confess it does not fall within our scheme to 
 make them legislators or lawyers, diplomatists or politicians. 
 We therefore think nine-tenths of all history is absolutely 
 useless for all women. Too many really good biographies of 
 great and good men and women can hardly be read, and 
 will be read to much greater advantage than histories, 
 as they leave a definite and individual impression. The 
 reading good books of travels is, next to going over the 
 ground in person, the best method of studying geography, 
 grammar and rhetoric (the benefit flowing from these studies 
 is chiefly of a negative character), after a clear state 
 ment of the elementary rules) are best learnt in the perusal 
 of classic authors, the essayists, &c ; and, in the same way, 
 the theory of taste and the arts. The most important 
 of accomplishments is not systematically treated in any sys 
 tem conversation. But a father and mother, of education, 
 can teach this better than any professor. Expensive schools 
 turn out half-trained pupils. Eight years at home, well em 
 ployed, and two at a good but not fashionable school, are 
 better than ten years spent in the most popular female 
 seminary, conducted in the ordinary style. 
 
 XX. 
 
 THE EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS. * 
 
 Mn of quick imaginations, ceteria pnribus are more prudent than those whose 
 imaginations are slow, for .they observe more in less time. Holbev Treatise of 
 Human Nature. 
 
 It is perhaps worth remarking that the Principles of Human Knotdedfje were 
 published in 1710, at a time when the author was only Uve-and-twenty, as was 
 
 * 1844. 
 
144 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 The Essay on Vision^ the greatest by far of all his works, and the most complete 
 example of elaborate analytical reasoning and particular induction joined together, 
 that perhaps ever existed. * * * * I mention this the more because I 
 believe that the greatest efforts of intellect have almost always been made while 
 the passions are in their greatest vigor and before hope loses its hold on the heart, 
 and is the elastic spring which animates all our thoughts. Hazlitt Literary Re 
 mains Lecture on Locke s Essay*. 
 
 WE design the present article rather as a sketch of literary 
 statistics, a table of instances, to illustrate the general prin 
 ciple we aim to establish, than as anything like a complete 
 survey or accurate digest of the subject which it would re 
 quire a volume to contain. We consider the fact as having 
 an historical basis, as founded in the history of letters, that 
 true genius comes to maturity much sooner than is generally 
 supposed. In a word, we have merely collected a number of 
 witnesses to confirm the maxim stated by Steele, though in 
 a rather restricted form. It occurs in a paper of the Lover, 
 number twenty-two : " I am apt to think that before thirty, 
 a man s natural and acquired parts are at that strength, with 
 a little experience, to enable him (if he can be enabled) to 
 acquit himself well in any business or conversation he shall 
 be admitted to." 
 
 The vulgar error is to rate the growth of the individual 
 intellect of the original with the ordinary progress of " the 
 common mind ;" to measure the giant by the common stand 
 ard of human stature. This is evidently absurd. Yet no 
 error is so common as to attempt to depress cleverness by 
 sneers at the youthful age of the aspirant, like the taunts of 
 Walpole directed against Pitt, and like those of every dull 
 man, of middle age, who has a fixed position (beyond which 
 he is not likely to rise), at those who are evidently fast rising 
 above him. No young man of talent, but has had enemies 
 such as these to encounter ; men who seem to take a fiendish 
 
EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS. 145 
 
 and cherish a malicious pleasure in seeking to depress 
 everything like genuine enthusiasm and the buoyant am 
 bition of the bright boy or the brilliant young man. This 
 arises half the time from sheer malice, and as often from pure 
 ignorance of the nature and temperament of genius. When the 
 " climber upward" has gained his place among his peers, then 
 these miserable flatterers cringe and fawn as basely as they 
 formerly maligned and ridiculed him ; and would fain crowd 
 out of sight his old friends and staunch adherents. In his 
 green age and budding season the youth of genius craves 
 and requires sympathy. It is with him, especially (and, in a 
 measure, with all men,) an intellectual want, as evident as 
 the coarsest necessary elements of existence. 
 
 By early maturity of genius, we mean no prodigies of 
 childish or boyish talent such we always distrust, as un 
 healthy prematureness, generally resulting in a, feeble man 
 hood. Wonderful boys are almost always dull men. No 
 particular point of time can be fixed, but manly intellects are 
 at their maturity somewhere between twenty-five and thirty ; 
 and in good constitutions, this vigor and freshness remain 
 sometimes to a great age. Youth is a heavy charge to lay 
 against any writer, yet one becoming daily of less weight. 
 Surely it is a season which furnishes qualities and feelings 
 not to be expected in later life, and at least to be cherished 
 for that reason. To the contemners of youthful genius, we 
 would reply, in the words of the admirable Cowley, himself 
 an example of precocity of talent : " It is a ridiculous folly to 
 laugh at the stars because the moon and the sun shine 
 brighter." Let every captious critic, also, read Bacon s ex 
 quisite essay on " Youth and Age," in which he will find 
 the truest justice allotted to each period of this our mortal 
 life. 
 
 7 
 
146 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 The majority of true poets have, as a general rule, pro 
 duced their best works at a very early age, comparatively. 
 A very few distinguished instances, on the other side of the 
 question, cannot affect the principle we aim to establish, but 
 rather by especial inference, as they furnish the exception, 
 so far they go to establish the general maxim. Youth is 
 naturally the season of enjoyment, and genial enjoyment as 
 naturally gives birth to the sweetest, the most cordial, the 
 delicatest strains of the muse. Yet we do not mean by youth 
 the season of childhood, or boyhood, but the period of mature 
 adolescence, from twenty-four to thirty. Very many fine 
 poets have actually done their best before even this epoch ; 
 and all who have ever become eminent for the exercise of 
 the imaginative faculty, have discovered some signs at least 
 of its existence while in their teens : a very small number of 
 great names being excluded. In a list of the classic English 
 poets, we find but rare examples of late poetical genius ; 
 Chaucer, Dryden, Young, Johnson, Cowper, Milton, who 
 composed Paradise Lost, about middle life, yet wrote Comus 
 at the age of twenty-six, when it was first performed as a 
 Masque, at Ludlow castle, in Wales. In the drama, where 
 one might justly admit a late development of poetical power, 
 inasmuch as that department of poetry demands more and 
 more cultivated faculties than any other : even in comedy, 
 requiring a close observation of manners, and a keen insight 
 into character, we still find the capital writers producing their 
 master-pieces, while other men are hardly fitted by reading 
 and a knowledge of life even to criticise them. Thus, Shaks- 
 peare s first play was printed in his twenty-seventh year : 
 Jonson s Every Man in his Humor, with those admirable 
 portraits of the braggadocio in Bobadil, and of the jealous 
 husband, in Kitely, was written in his twenty-second year. 
 
EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS. 147 
 
 The last play of Farquhar, the Recruiting Officer, appeared a 
 few weeks before his death, which occurred when he was 
 only twenty-seven, and his other delightful comedies were 
 produced some years earlier. Congreve s Old Bachelor was 
 the fruit of his college years, and appeared in his twenty- 
 first year. The masterpiece of English comedy, Love for 
 Love, only two years afterwards. Sheridan s Rivals, inferior 
 only to the School for Scandal, was performed in his twenty- 
 fourth year. The first fruits of Goethe and Schiller s dramatic 
 genius (unlike those of the other writers we have quoted, in 
 not being by any means their best, yet as evincing power 
 and future dramatic skill), Goetz of Berlinchen, and the 
 Robbers, at the respective ages of twenty-two and twenty- 
 one. Sheridan Knowles, the earliest of living English Dra 
 matists, is the last instance we remember of early dramatic 
 genius. 
 
 In prose fiction, requiring at least equal knowledge of 
 character and manners, with comedy we have Roderick 
 Random, perhaps Smollett s best work, at twenty-seven, and 
 the Man of Feeling, at twenty-six. Fielding, Sterne, and 
 Richardson were later. But in the present century, Hood, 
 Hook, and Dickens, unquestionably wrote their best works 
 earliest. 
 
 Among the miscellaneous poets, Hall s first and last vol 
 ume of poetry, full of vigor and mature knowledge of life, 
 was published in his twenty-third year. Warton admits 
 that Donne s best poetry was written before the age of 
 twenty-five. Sir John Suckling died at twenty-eight. Cow- 
 ley is generally considered precocious : his first volume ap 
 peared when he was a boy of thirteen. But his best poetry 
 was the growth of his later years. Pope s Ode to Solitude 
 is often referred to. He was twelve years old when he 
 
148 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 wrote it : a greater miracle was his producing such a body 
 of acute criticism, as his famous Essay on Criticism displays, 
 when he was but twenty-one. Akenside s chief work, the 
 Pleasures of the Imagination, at twenty-three. Collins s 
 noble odes were written at twenty-six. Burns s first volume 
 was first printed when the poet was twenty-eight ; under 
 favorable influences, his genius had undoubtedly blossomed 
 much sooner. Classic English poetry in this nineteenth cen 
 tury has been written by young poets, and even the master 
 of them all, still living, wrote his characteristic pieces quite 
 early. Wordsworth s first volume came out at the age of 
 twenty-three ; the Pleasures of Hope at twent-one : the won 
 derful Ancient Mariner, in which some critics can see nothing 
 was written at twenty-four ; Byron s second canto of Childe 
 Harold, at twenty-four. Of contemporary English poets, we 
 believe all of them without exception produced their finest 
 things at a very early age Proctor, Moore, Hunt, Tennyson, 
 Miss Barrett, Hood, and a brilliant galaxy of smaller stars. 
 Two, perhaps, in their separate walks, the finest poets of this 
 century (Goethe, Schiller, and Wordsworth excepted), died 
 very early ; Shelley at thirty, and Keats at twenty -four. 
 We reserve a page for American Bards, in conclusion, when 
 we come to speak of American Literature, and of this very 
 striking feature in it of the early age at which our finest 
 writers have done their best things, and of an equally singu 
 lar trait, discernible in the fact, that after a comparatively 
 early period, they either ceased to produce or fell off very 
 considerably. Meantime, we notice a fact as remarkable as 
 the early maturity of genius, i. e., of the creative power, in 
 imaginative productions, in the history of those eminent for 
 critical and speculative ability. The first and greatest critics, 
 moralists, and prose writers performed, what we are apt to 
 
EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS. 149 
 
 conceive a still greater wonder, in exhibiting at so youthful a 
 period, uncommon abilities, in departments generally con 
 signed to the man of tried experience and mature years ; 
 some of the greatest monarchs and generals the world has 
 ever seen performed feats the most brilliant, while quite 
 young men. It is only necessary to refer to Alexander the 
 Great, Crcsar, the first Prince of Orange, his son Maurice, 
 William III. of England, Gustavus Adolphns, Eugene, Marl- 
 borough, Peter the Great, Charles of Sweden, Washington, 
 Napoleon, and Clive. 
 
 There is a genius for criticism, for metaphysical investiga 
 tion and politics, as well as for poetry or any of the arts. We 
 will select our illustrations of this at random. Bacon, at thir 
 teen, entered Cambridge : at sixteen wrote against the Aris 
 totelian logic at nineteen put forth a pamphlet on the exist 
 ing state of Europe: at twenty-six (some say at fifteen) 
 planned the Novum Organon. Burke wrote his Essay on 
 the Sublime and Beautiful, at the age of twenty-six. Mac- 
 aulay has remarked a wonderful coincidence (certainly in 
 itself unaccountable, yet not confined to those two admirable 
 writers) ; that the judgment was the faculty first developed 
 in them, but that fancy came much later ; that at middle 
 age, they were most just and logical and comprehensive in 
 their sober speculations, yet then also just in the dawn of 
 that gorgeous eloquence, which was richest in their latest 
 works. Hazlitt furnishes a similar instance. His first work, 
 on the Principles of Human Action, was published in his 
 twenty-fifth year. He says he was engaged upon it for eight 
 years ; and we should suspect the same thing from internal 
 evidence. It is hard, dry and jejune : yet close and rigidly 
 logical, with, as Macintosh thinks, much power of metaphy 
 sical speculation, flow different is this from his Table-Talk 
 
150 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 and Plain Speakers and Lectures : abounding not only in 
 subtle and deep thought, but picturesque, rich, eloquent and 
 glancing. Brown s Religio Medici was the work of his twen 
 ty-seventh or eighth year. Brown, the Scotch metaphysi 
 cian, whose later style was flowery to excess, and even effem 
 inate in a high degree, composed a Tract on Causation, 
 which at once gave him high rank as a metaphysician, when 
 he had not reached his eighteenth year. The elegant 
 Hume s first philosophical essays, written or at least planned 
 at College, were published at twenty-six, and are so much 
 less readable than his easy historical narration, that Hazlitt 
 himself designates the Treatise on Nature, as " a metaphysi 
 cal chokepear." Among the Poets, we omitted one, who was 
 almost as much of a critic, Beaumont, who died at twenty- 
 nine : having written the Maid s Tragedy, (a delicate as well 
 as judicious work) at twenty-one. Pope comes in, for critical 
 skill, in his capital versified Essay on Criticism at twenty- 
 one, and in his choice letters, those to Wycherly, at seven 
 teen. A few of the great old English Divines, we have 
 looked into, for this particular purpose. We gather these 
 results : Fuller, the wit and church historian s first work, 
 came out when he was twenty-three. Taylor was Laud s, 
 and South Clarendon s chaplain ; and known universally for 
 their eloquence, at twenty-seven. Butler corresponded with 
 Dr. Clarke while a boy at school. 
 
 A few miscellaneous instances. Feltham s Resolves was 
 written at eighteen, a remarkable instance of youthful judg 
 ment. 
 
 The sagacious, brave Burleigh, first held office at court 
 when just twenty-two. Sir Thomas More, before him, had 
 been elected to parliament at the same age. Pitt was pre 
 mier at twenty-five. Hallam, while a collegian, planned his 
 
EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS. 151 
 
 history of the Middle Ages. The founders of the Edinburgh 
 Review, and the ablest writers for it, were all of them young 
 men Jeffrey, Macintosh, Brougham, Smith. 
 
 Certain persons cannot see, that judgment, where it is the 
 nicest, most tolerant, and comprehensive, and exact, is not 
 always the fruit of study nor the growth of experience. It 
 often precedes both ; and is an instinctive faculty an ori 
 ginal talent applying this truth to the instances of a low 
 judgment in matters (not of literature or philosophy, as we 
 have considered it) relating to ordinary business. Steele has 
 a paper of excellent sense and liberal tendency in the Lover, 
 written with his accustomed facility and grace. The writer 
 of the thoughts on the subject is supposed to be a corres 
 pondent, a young man, who complains bitterly of " a general 
 calamity that obstructs or suspends the advancement of the 
 younger men in the pursuit of their fortune" (a complaint 
 not to be rashly made in this country). " The utmost incon 
 veniences are owing to the difficulty we meet with in being 
 admitted into the society of men in years, and adding thereby 
 the early knowledge of men and business to that of books, 
 for the reciprocal improvement of each other. One of fifty 
 as naturally imagines the same insufficiency in one of thirty, 
 as he of thirty does of one of fifteen, and each age is thus left 
 to instruct itself by the natural course of its own reflection 
 and experience." Further on, he remarks thus : " Of the 
 common divisions of business, which everybody knows are 
 directed by form, and require rather diligence and honesty than 
 grave ability in the execution." Truly enough, most business 
 is purely mechanical ; and the so-styled learned professions 
 are as mechanical in their pedantic adherence to forms, as 
 any branch of mechanics. The true conclusion Steele aims 
 at, is couched in the following passage, which appears to us 
 
152 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 to hit the truth with accuracy and justice : " A good judg 
 ment will not only supply, but go beyond experience ; for the 
 latter is only a knowledge that directs us in the dispatch of 
 matters future, from the consideration of matters past of the 
 same nature ; but the former is a perpetual and equal direc 
 tion in everything that can happen, and does not follow, but 
 makes the precedent that guides the other. 7 
 
 If we come nearer home, and take our examples from 
 American literature, we shall be taught to look with gene 
 rosity on young writers, and take heed lest we merit the wise 
 censure of Cowley, who has written, "it is an envious frost 
 that which nips the blossoms, because they appear quickly." 
 Hardly an instance in American literature of a late writer of 
 the first class, can be referred to. Our poets have been won 
 derfully precocious. Bryant can be paralleled only by Cole 
 ridge. Thanatopsis was written at eighteen ; we recollect no 
 poem of equal excellence produced so early by any poet, save 
 the author of the Ancient Manner. Yet Bryant has done 
 nothing finer. The only wonder is, that he alone has pre 
 served his poetical faculty, pure and fresh, still. Dana, his 
 contemporary, has long been silent ; so, too, we may say, of 
 Halleck and their compeers, Pierpoint, Sprague, and Perci- 
 val. Four of our most promising bards died young Drake 
 and Eastburn, and Sands and Brainard. The true succes 
 sors, in some cases their equals, or their superiors, are still 
 young Holmes, Willis, Longfellow, Mathews, and Lowell. 
 Our best fiction was written by young men, Cooper and 
 Brown, who produced " Wieland" at twenty seven. Irving 
 and Paulding have long since concluded their career as mas 
 terly comic satirists. Webster s later speeches are not equal 
 to his first orations. Wirt neglected literature as soon as he 
 began to rise in his profession. But, of former cases in point, 
 
NOTORIETY. 153 
 
 we suspect it is not generally known that our great men, of 
 the Revolutionary age, were uncommonly premature. Fisher 
 Ames made a great speech at the age of twenty-three. 
 Hamilton, a youth, wrote essays ascribed to Jay. Jay, still 
 a young man, wrote the address to the people of Great Bri 
 tain, just previous to the Revolution. Washington, at twenty- 
 three, was commander of the Virginia forces. Patrick Henry 
 and Jefferson were both of them greatly distinguished before 
 thirty. At present, our leading periodical writers, active 
 politicians, clergymen, and men of letters generally, are, in 
 nine cases out of ten, as might readily be shown, if it were 
 proper to mention names, men under thirty years of age. It 
 is, therefore, dangerous to advise a young man, or any man 
 of ability, to refrain from composition, or any walk of active 
 life, unless the critic be well assured that he is of at least 
 equal rank in respect to abilities and acquisitions, that no 
 tendency of jealousy or feeling of envy can be possibly as 
 cribed to him, and that he possess an assemblage of qualities, 
 mental and moral, that rarely falls to the lot of a single indi 
 vidual. Let it be remembered, too, that to be worthily re 
 ceived, and have its due weight, advice must be sought ; else 
 it will be justly regarded in the light of an impertinent intru 
 sion and voluntary censure. 
 
 xxr. 
 
 NOTORIETY. 
 
 A WRITER who could unite the philosophy of Bacon and the 
 satire of Churchill, would be the author to undertake an essay 
 on Notoriety. In the absence of any such extraordinary com- 
 
154 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 bination of talent, we venture to address ourselves to the sub 
 ject ; to revive certain moral sentiments of equal worth and 
 antiquity, an abundant apology for which, if any were neces 
 sary, would be found in the very fact of the great excellence 
 of the sentiments themselves. 
 
 Ancient fame has given place to modern notoriety. Solid 
 repute is, now-a-days, lost in fashionable applause, and the 
 hero and bard, whose praise has furnished the theme of 
 centuries, is cast into the shade by the idol of the hour. Of 
 the different varieties of notoriety attainable by the arts of 
 intrigue, the quackeries of impudence, or the settled fraud 
 of a lifetime, we shall, after running over the titles of a few, 
 confine ourselves at present, chiefly to notoriety in literature, 
 to the means of making a reputation by cant, imposture, and 
 the influence of fashion. 
 
 Notoriety is spurious fame ; a desire of obtaining it, false 
 ambition. One intoxicated with the love of public fame 
 (in the lower view of fame), had rather be ill-known than 
 unknown. At any sacrifice, he would make a name. He 
 would be talked of, if not cared for ; had rather be in men s 
 mouths than in their hearts. He would be well spoken of 
 rather than trivially thought of. It is not that he would be 
 always praised nay, sometimes he would prefer abuse, as 
 an object of attack, and to give him an opportunity of reply 
 ing to it. It is the weak man s diseased ambition ; the fool s 
 fame; the knave s bane; the courtier s life; the fopling s 
 breath ; the wise man s detestation ; the honest man s disgust. 
 
 Notoriety is attached to every calling and profession, art, 
 science, trade or mystery. There is nothing in life which it 
 may not affect ; no face it cannot assume. 
 
 It haunts the pulpit, the university, the bar, the surgeon s 
 hall ; it is found in political assemblies and literary meetings ; 
 
NOTORIETY. 155 
 
 it rules supreme in the drawing-room, the theatre, the street, 
 the watering-place, the tavern. 
 
 What ways and means are employed to accomplish the 
 great end ! what struggles and anxieties to appear what one 
 is not ! what endeavors to hide these very attempts ! A 
 private scandal, or a newspaper paragraph ; an abusive letter 
 written by the party in question to himself ; a self-inflicted 
 libel ; a domestic quarrel ; a course of libertinism made 
 public ; these are a few of the thousand baits to catch the 
 public ear. A public official relieves a poor woman, the act 
 is at once translated into the newspapers ; a wealthy citizen 
 has fallen ill, it is immediately chronicled ; a valuable shawl 
 is worn by the wife of a celebrated statesman, it is universally 
 made known. It is the whole business of the entire lives of 
 most of the butterflies of fashion, to plot how they shall 
 make themselves conspicuous from day to day. Absurdities 
 in dress or equipage are getting to be stale devices ; what 
 we shall have next, we are wanting in imagination to con 
 ceive. 
 
 How to make a reputation in letters, is a nice problem for 
 him to solve who has neither learning, genius, talents, nor 
 enthusiasm. It is generally persons devoid of these funda 
 mental requisites that most affect the fame of author and 
 scholar; though it must be confesesd, their purposes are 
 ulterior, and do not rest in the bare enjoyment of a name. 
 They catch at the chance of reputation for the sake of an 
 introduction into what is called (one would think from irony) 
 good society, or even for the mere gratification of seeing 
 their names in print. 
 
 Cant in literature is, next to cant in religion, the most 
 despicable thing in the world ; the cant of the pretenders to 
 literature is always so thorough-going as quite to obscure a 
 
156 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 really worthy but modest scholar. The quack will carry off 
 by far the plurality of votes by the mere force of external 
 display. 
 
 Fashion is never more absurd than in her patronage of 
 letters. She inevitably mistakes pretence for performance, 
 and fails to distinguish between merit and presumption. A 
 fashionable author is, generally, a writer whose books are 
 read only by people of fashion, and that only for a season or 
 two. The fashionable author is made such, more by his 
 manner and address than by any quality in his writings 
 worthy of notice. He dresses well, therefore takes rank as 
 an elegant poet : he can carve neatly, hence is granted 
 station as a critic or philosopher. The true poet, the genuine 
 philosopher, is never fashionable except as an incident to 
 his reputation it being a peculiar quality of the servile 
 crowd to join in wherever they hear a shout. The great 
 author writes for the whole world ; the writer of fashion for 
 a very circumscribed sphere or clique of readers. What is 
 in cant phrase styled the " great world " of fashion, is, in fact 
 the most insignificant field of authorship. Fashionable people 
 take more pleasure in creating reputation out of nothing, than 
 in worshipping established idols, inasmuch as it gratifies their 
 self-love. Of an inferior scribbler they make a genius for a 
 season, and then cast him off, as they do their tailor or their 
 hounds whence the poor victim readily concludes, or should 
 that notoriety, like all matters of fashion, is merely a reign 
 ing folly, a current prejudice. 
 
 Somewhat connected with the subject of fashionable repu 
 tation, is the question of the public taste, more influenced by 
 mere notoriety, than, perhaps, most readers imagine. 
 
 As a general rule, the public taste is vicious to a great de 
 gree. This is abundantly proved by the innumerable in- 
 
NOTORIETY. 157 
 
 stances of ephemeral popularity, and consequent neglect of 
 many of the best writers. Their works happen to hit a par 
 ticular taste, or favor a prevailing fashion ; they chime in 
 with the prejudices, and foster the passions of the day, and 
 are rewarded by a short lived reputation. In judging of 
 poetry, in particular, one can hardly be too fastidious, who 
 recollects that at one time Jonson lorded it over Shakspeare : 
 at another, Cato was esteemed the first of English tragedies : 
 and still later, Darwin and Hayley were thought great poets. 
 How many schools are extinct, how many great men have 
 proved in the eyes of posterity (that seyere judge), very small 
 persons indeed ! How many philosophical systems have 
 been consigned to oblivion, with their inventors and promul- 
 gators ! What shoals of tragedies, epics, novels of every 
 description, lives, travels, sermons, speeches, and periodicals, 
 choke up the river of Lethe across that stream who can 
 venture unless first drugged to sleep by the pages of a writer 
 
 Sleepless himself, to give his readers sleep ? 
 
 Taste is a natural sensibility to excellence, heightened by 
 the nicest observation, and perfected by close study. If we 
 allow this, how dare the great multitude of readers to set up 
 their critical claims ? Every man now is a reader, and a 
 critic of course. What a monstrous absurdity is this ? In 
 other things we see its ridiculousness, but we seem blind 
 here. 
 
 The purest poetry and the noblest philosophy are so much 
 above the comprehension of vulgar minds, that they never 
 can be popular so with the most delicate wit and humor, 
 and the finest works of fancy. Pure language and an elegant 
 simplicity, are also out of the reach of common intellects. 
 
158 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 Sure fame is a very different thing from notoriety. Cowley 
 has placed the idea of fame in the proper light. He says, 
 " I love and commend a true good fame, because it is the 
 shadow of virtue : not that it doth any good to the body 
 which it accompanies, but it is an efficacious shadow, and, 
 like that of St. Peter, cures the diseases of others."* The 
 true fame is, "that which follows, not that which is run 
 after;" the companion of goodness, not the lacquey of fashion. 
 
 We have treated notoriety as a fraud of men ; it is some 
 times the dream of youth an honest dream. When we are 
 young, we are goaded by a false impulse, and would be 
 famous without any regard to the conditions of obtaining 
 fame ; but when years have brought a certain equable 
 gravity of temper, and calmness of judgment, we begin to 
 see things in their true colors, and to value a life of virtue 
 above a life of honors. We at last discover the pitiful shifts 
 of those who would obtain notoriety, and the incredible 
 meannesses to which they subject themselves, by their igno 
 rant zeal in the pursuit of worldly glory. Titles, wealth, 
 applause, what chimeras ye are ! what bubbles ye make of 
 us your greedy followers ! The highest powers of intellect, 
 the most brilliant gems of poesy, are incomparably inferior to 
 the possession of a peaceful conscience, and a heart filled 
 with none but good intentions. 
 
 The fame of the popular poet, or the great general, has an 
 almost overpowering charm for the young man ; but a later 
 age, which cools his blood, clears his mind also, and he only 
 wonders how he ever happened to entertain such images of 
 greatness, as the gods of his idolatry. The flashes of the 
 skilful rhetorician captivate the youthful student ; but the 
 
 * Essay on Obscurity. 
 
NOTORIETY. 159 
 
 powers of the philosophic reasoner attract his maturer judg 
 ment. Light, airy poetry is fit food for the raw critic ; but 
 experience and reflection give the palm to a deeper and 
 more majestic vein. Amusement gains us then, but instruc 
 tion holds us now. Then, we imagine we have learnt all 
 that is to be known ; now, we feel our real ignorance of the 
 highest mysteries, and would die learning. Thus we see the 
 love of applause (in its place, and in its integrity, a noble in 
 centive to generous action) is still an insufficient motive. 
 Milton, in that well known passage, which summons all the 
 powers of the soul as with the sound of a trumpet, has writ 
 ten nobly of fame as 
 
 The spur which the clear spirit doth raise. 
 Though he feels obliged to add 
 
 (That last infirmity of noble minds), 
 
 To scorn delights and live laborious days. 
 
 Yet as fame is not altogether of a disinterested nature 
 (though the interested ness is of the highest character), it can 
 not furnish the only sure foundation for a life of virtue. The 
 sense of duty is our only resource ; and on that, as on an 
 eternal and immutable foundation, we may erect a super 
 structure as high as our genius may serve to raise it, snored 
 to both genius and virtue. 
 
XXII. 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 NEXT to the essay, the letter is the most agreeable form of 
 the minor literature. It is the most familiar species of writ 
 ing, and approaches the nearest to ordinary convention. 
 Letters are the opuscula of great authors, but they form the 
 opera of lesser writers. We weekly critics and magazinists 
 may be proud of a volume of clever epistles, fearful of essay 
 ing a higher flight. Authors of the first class, and with the 
 highest pretensions, affect to look down upon letters as the 
 mere entertainment of a scholar; and hence, from want of 
 sympathy, no less than from want of nicety of apprehension 
 and subtle delicacy of taste, have almost uniformly failed in 
 this department of composition. A professed orator, a great 
 divine, poet or philosopher, cannot easily descend from the 
 heights of speculation and eloquence and imagination, to the 
 plain ground of commonplace reality. Raillery is the most 
 delightful talent in epistolary composition (a delicate talent) ; 
 and next to that, refined sentiment. These are minute ex 
 cellences, however agreeable, in the great character, and 
 the incidental ornaments of a strong intellect. Women 
 uniformly write the best letters, both of the narrative kind 
 and lively description. Lady Montague and Madame D Ar- 
 blay are yet unsurpassed. The female intellect is allowed to 
 possess a finer tact and a minuter (instinctive) observation of 
 things and characters, than the manly understanding. It is 
 better pleased with the details of a subject, and paints the 
 manners with a lighter hand. Boarding school girls, and 
 young ladies, who have just " come out," are readier with 
 their pens in recounting family history, and current fashion- 
 
LETTERS. 161 
 
 able news ; in giving a relation of the incidents at a ball or 
 dinner-party, at sketching portraits of the beaux and their 
 admirers; and, in a word, at all the arts of gossiping and 
 scandal, than boys or young men, much older. Richardson 
 has shown this very conclusively in his novels. His letters 
 are the very counterparts of those of young ladies in the same 
 situation, and such as they would naturally write. 
 
 Letters are valuable for many reasons. As a test of cha 
 racter, and affording an unconscious autobiography as ma 
 terials for literary and political history as pictures of the 
 times as the repositories of individual opinions and peculiar 
 sentiments. As a test of character, letters are worth much 
 more than the more ordinary (supposed) keys to that sort of 
 knowledge. A man s autograph may be very far from cha 
 racteristic. I know a generous man, who writes a mean, 
 cramped scrawl, and an undecided one, whose chirography is 
 firm and regular. Physiognomy may belie the brightness of 
 the head and the goodness of the heart. Phrenology may 
 regard as an indifferent specimen the casket that contains a 
 golden brain. But a number of confidential letters addressed 
 to familiar friends, and written in all the warmth of con 
 fidence, afford the fairest moans of getting at the real cha 
 racter of the writer. Yet insincerity may occur here. Letters 
 are often written for the public eye, though on the most 
 confidential subjects. Pope and Walpole wrote for posterity. 
 They wrote at, rather than to, their correspondents. So, also, 
 of the French wits. We confine ourselves entirely to English 
 authors, however, in the present paper. Some authors have 
 told their history in letters, as llowell, Gray, Oowper, Burns, 
 and Lamb, dwelling on petty occurrences and comparatively 
 slight traits, with an unction and gusto that would not bo 
 allowed in a formal biography. Of the historical value of 
 
162 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 letters, no complete student can doubt, and none but he can 
 appreciate it adequately. 
 
 English literature is rich in letters from Howell to Lamb. 
 Intermediately, we have Pope and his friends, Cowper, Burns, 
 Gray, Walpole, Lady Montague ; a sufficient variety, surely, 
 both of talent and character. We had intended to have 
 drawn up a classification of, and criticism upon, the different 
 sorts of letters, but find the whole matter so handsomely 
 handled in the very first letter of Howell, (Epistolse-Ho- 
 eliange.) that we insert it instead : " It was a quaint dif 
 ference the ancients did put betwixt a letter and an oration ; 
 that the one should be attired like a woman, the other like 
 a man. The latter of the two is allowed large siderobes, as 
 long periods, parentheses, similes, examples, and other parts 
 of rhetorical flourishes : but a letter or epistle should be short- 
 coated and closely couched ; a hungerskin becomes a letter 
 more handsomely than a gown. Indeed we should write as 
 we speak, and that is a true and familiar letter which ex- 
 presseth one s mind, as if he were discoursing with the party 
 to whom he writes in succinct and short terms. The tongue 
 and the pen are both of them interpreters of the mind ; but 
 I hold the pen to be the more faithful of the two. The 
 tongue in udo posita, being seated in a most slippery place, 
 may fail and falter in her sudden extemporal expressions, but 
 the pen, having a greater advantage of premeditation, is not 
 so subject to error, and leaves things behind it upon firm and 
 authentic record. Now letters (here comes the division), 
 though they be capable of any subject, yet commonly they 
 are either narratory, objurgatory, consolatory, monitory, or 
 congratulatory. The first consists of relations, the second 
 of reprehensions, the third of comfort, the two last of counsel 
 and joy." Then follows some very just and severe criticism : 
 
LETTERS. 163 
 
 * There are some who, in lieu of letters, write homilies ; 
 they preaoh when they should epistolize (and it is easier to 
 do the former than the latter) ; there are others that turn 
 them to tedious tractates." Howell, himself, the earliest of 
 our letter writers, is a capital fellow in his way ; but he has 
 not mentioned all the varieties of letters. There are the pre 
 cise letters of business, and the ardent love letters ; to a third 
 and disinterested person, both of these are not only indif 
 ferent, but even tiresome. The purely literary letter is not 
 mentioned, i. e., that in which topics of literature and the 
 characters of authors are discussed ; mere letters of compli- 
 ment, or formal civility, are not recognised, nor lively, gay 
 epistles, that turn upon nothing. 
 
 Some persons keep no letters by them. Hazlitt destroyed 
 all he received : a very poor compliment, we think, to a clever 
 correspondent, to say nothing of the letters of a valued friend. 
 Others hoard up every scrap of a note ; this is as wrong in a 
 different way. Many indifferent communications are re 
 ceived, but the choice correspondence is of another character. 
 Shenstone speaks somewhere of the melancholy pleasure he 
 took of a rainy day when his spirits were low, in reading over 
 the old letters of a dear friend. 
 
 This retrospective pleasure is truly a melancholy one. 
 Turning over the precious file, we encounter the affectionate 
 protestations of one who has cruelly deceived us, of the gen 
 erous praises of a now bitter enemy. We read the prophecies 
 of those who early loved and appreciated us, and who can 
 now confirm their past predictions. Time returns anew ; the 
 present is merged in the past, and scenes long gone by re 
 vive to memory s view ! Ah ! could we but recall those 
 feelings to which we received such a sympathetic reponse, 
 those " hopes and fears, an undistinguishable throng ;" could 
 
164 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 but the veil of years be removed, and youth and hope and 
 innocence be revealed, then indeed might an Arcadian age 
 commence, and the whole world look green and happy. It 
 is well and profitable to the observer of human nature, and 
 the self-student, to re-peruse his collection of letters, and if he 
 can procure them, to study his own. Viewed in connection 
 with passing events, they form an unbroken narrative, and 
 manifest the progress of tastes and sympathies, improvement 
 in virtue, and accessions of knowledge. The didactic letters, 
 the letters of business, of contention, of mere scandal, may be 
 safely burned ; but the memorials of affection, the evidences 
 of friendship, are not to be lightly treated, but, dear as the 
 apple of the eye, to be held among the richest treasures of 
 the author, the thinker, and the man. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 THE character and habits of mind of the poet, par excellence 
 " of Anna s reign," are vividly depicted in his correspondence. 
 Writing to his nearest friends, and on the most solemn 
 themes, Pope never forgot his authorship. His fame was too 
 much in his eye, and the opinion of the public, in his mind. 
 His characteristic refinement, delicacy of judgment, his nicety 
 of expression and neat turns of style, appear on every page. 
 The virtues of the man, too, admirable and as real as the 
 merits of the wit, satirist, and moral-painter, in spite of his 
 
POPE AND HI3 FRIENDS. 1G5 
 
 affectation and passion for intrigue and stratagem, are equally 
 evident. His affections and regard for his parents ; his de 
 votion to his friends ; his sincere humanity ; his generous 
 sensibility. The personal character of Pope, owing to his 
 brilliant literary success, and to his success chiefly in satire, 
 is not so well or so favorably known as it should bo. lie is 
 thought by many to have been what he was humorously 
 styled, and as falsely as humorously, "the little wasp of 
 Twickenham." So far from indulging mean spite and malice, 
 the heart of Pope was of the noblest texture, and its impulses 
 governed by the most exalted sentiments. If ever there was 
 a true-hearted and magnanimous nature, in default of his 
 crooked ways and unwise circumlocutions, it was Pope s. To 
 Pope was addressed not only the hollow, courtly speeches of 
 the titled and great, but the sincerest praises of England s 
 finest wits and most delicate geniuses were accorded to Pope, 
 and Pope was loved and honored, as well as admired and 
 praised. He secured the personal atfection of men, not only 
 of talents equally fine and attic with his own, but in some 
 walks superior, and whose own natures and tempers were 
 above all praise. Only survey the list of Pope s intimate as 
 sociates : Addison, Swift, Gay, Berkeley, Bolingbroke, Steele, 
 Arbuthnot, Parnell, Wycherly, Congreve, Garth, Jervas, 
 Fenton, Hugh Bethel, Ralph Allen, Rowe, and Sir William 
 Trumbull, Secretary Craggs, Earls Halifax and Burlington, 
 Bishop Atterbury, the Blounts, the Digbys, Cromwell, and 
 the fine ladies of the day. It may be safely hazarded as a 
 general remark, that not a single distinguished man of letters 
 or public character in the kingdom was unknown to Pope. 
 He was regarded, and justly, as the Horace and Voiture of 
 England united, and for exact justness of thought and pro 
 priety of language, for wit (the like of which we have not 
 
166 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 since seen), for comic fancy, and for exquisite compliment, he 
 was unrivalled but chiefly as a moral satirist and judge, 
 equally of books and artificial life, was he considered admir 
 able, and in these walks he is decidedly a master. 
 
 Pope was as precocious in his prose compositions as in his 
 poetical attempts. His early correspondence was almost all 
 of it written before the age of twenty. At sixteen, he com 
 menced his correspondence with Wycherly, then near seventy, 
 and, it must be confessed, Pope has the best of the bargain. 
 Shortly after, he wrote to Walsh and Henry Cromwell, his 
 early friends and flatterers. With Wycherly Pope maintained 
 a perfect war of compliments, and yet, after all, they quarrelled 
 from Pope s plain speaking, when he was forced to it. Walsh, 
 whom Dryden called the best critic in England, early favored 
 Pope, and augured the most brilliant success for him. Pope 
 has not forgotten to number him among the catalogue of his 
 early associates. We cannot resist quoting the fine lines, 
 often as they are referred to : 
 
 " But why then publish ? Granville, the polite, 
 And knowing Walsh would tell me I could write ; 
 Well-natured Garth, inflamed with early praise, 
 And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays ; 
 The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read, 
 E en mitred Eochester would nod the head, 
 And St. John s self (great Dryden s friend before), 
 With open arms received one Poet more. 
 Happy my studies, when by these approved ! 
 Happier their author when by these beloved ! 
 From these the world will judge of men and books, 
 Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks." 
 
 What might not the richest fool give for an epithet of 
 
POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 167 
 
 praise from such a pen ! what higher honor for the author, 
 but to see his name on the same page with that of Pope, 
 though his be at the bottom and the Horace of England very 
 near the top ! 
 
 Henry Cromwell affected to bo a critic (we should judge 
 he was a man-of-the- world sort of scholar from his letters,) 
 and Pope discusses with him questions of taste and criticism, 
 the Latin poets, versification, etc. He devotes a letter to 
 Crash aw, in this part of his correspondence, which abundantly 
 proves how little Pope really comprehended the genius of 
 that noble poet. 
 
 Pope early courted the great, much as he afterwards 
 affected to despise them, and we find him writing to Sir 
 William Trurabull, and Craggs, Secretary of State, as well 
 as to several court ladies, the style of whom he has admirably 
 parodied in his letter in the style of a lady of quality. Our 
 anthor s correspondence with ladies, when he was young, he 
 afterwards used to contemn as puerile efforts; and yet, trifling 
 as they are, many a modern gallant of middle age might be 
 happy to hit the frivolous style so well, which was current at 
 that time. The prose letters of Pope to women certainly 
 convey a very mean opinion of their understanding, though 
 couched in elegant phrase, and hidden under the folds of 
 his " polite, insinuating style." But some of his poetic 
 epistles to ladies are beyond all praise, as that masterpiece 
 of refinement and delicacy, the epistle to Miss Blount, with a 
 copy of Voiture s epistles. Each couplet contains the rarest 
 essence of grace and wit, and elegant sentiment, at times 
 rising into brilliant rhetoric, and the whole poem is compacted 
 and moulded with all the art, and in the most ingenious 
 form of the master of poetic form, and all the technicalities 
 of his vocation. There were among the throng of courtiers, 
 
168 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 however, patrons worthy of the name, and nobles deserving 
 the title. Oxford and Halifax, Craggs and Atterbury, sank 
 the minister in the friend, in their intercourse with Pope, 
 and delighted to relieve themselves from the cares of state in 
 a genial intimacy with the poet at his rural villa. But the 
 true friends of Pope, as indeed the truest friends of every 
 author, were his fellow-scholars and brother authors. Let 
 envy and malevolence declaim as they may, true men of sense 
 and genius, the world over, recognise a brother in each other, 
 and band together for the preservation of social harmony and 
 intellectual freedom. We care little for the lords and ladies 
 of Pope s acquaintance ; but who does not delight in his let 
 ters to Gay, and Jervas, and Fenton, and (to leave the society 
 of authors, but not of good men) to those noble specimens 
 of human nature, Hugh Bethel and Ralph Allen ? Pope 
 mistook his own nature when he turned courtier. He had 
 too much heart for the character. How different are his cold, 
 cautious compliments to the great, whom he loved not, from 
 the delicious flatteries, the fruit of rich affections and high 
 appreciation, he was accustomed to lavish on his nearest 
 friends ! To dwell but lightly on his faults, there was a tinge 
 of insincerity in Pope ; we imagine, however, rather a vaccil- 
 ation of opinion than any settled duplicity of intention. We 
 think we see signs of this in his correspondence with Addison, 
 who, it must be confessed, was himself too suspicious, and in 
 one instance treated Pope in an unwarrantably deceitful 
 manner. Pope appears to have had less connection with 
 Steelo, a m an of much greater frankness and candor than his 
 associate. Jervas, the painter, was a life-long friend of Pope, 
 who studied the art of portraiture under him, but never carried 
 it to any perfection. His poetical portraits were certainly 
 fine enough for any reasonable ambition. In his epistle to 
 
POPE AXD HIS FRIENDS. 100 
 
 Jcrvas, a meet companion for his fine letter to Miss Blouut, 
 Pope exclaims: 
 
 " Alas! how little fr.-.m the grave we claim ! 
 Thou but preserv st a face, and I a name." 
 
 Posterity has preserved the names embalmed in Pope s 
 immortal strain, but has thrown by, in her lumber-room of 
 obscurity, the portraits of Jervas. Swift and Gay, Boling- 
 broke and Peterborough, are the chief names that remain 
 among the correspondents of Pope. With these most oppo- 
 eite characters, the one pair composed of a man, harsh, 
 austere, and sour, yet manly, friendly and firm ; the other, in 
 wit, a man, simplicity, a child; wise and innocent, penetrat 
 ing, yet volatile, a poet, philosopher, courtier, and dupe : the 
 other couple, a fashionable sceptic and a military wit, but 
 wise and keen observers, accomplished gentlemen, men of 
 wit, men of the world, men of action, Pope lived not only 
 on terms of perfect amity, but in the unreservedness of 
 brotherhood ; nay more, for brothers are not always the 
 nearest friends. The Vicar of Laracor, the keenest of 
 atirist, the manliest of misanthropes, appears in his letters 
 to Pope in his most attractive phase. He writes even with 
 an honest sensibility, without a particle of mawkishness. 
 To Gay he writes like a loving, but prudent father, beseech 
 ing that imprudent man of genius to lay aside his hundred 
 and one schemes, and nurse his little fortune. Gay died in 
 middle age, and therefore never knew what it was to want 
 the comforts of life in an old age of poverty and friendless- 
 ness. Arbuthnot was the idol of Swift.. He thus writes of 
 him, with mingled admiration and humor: "Oh, if the 
 world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my 
 travels! But, however, he is not without a fault. There is 
 8 
 
170 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 a passage in Bede, highly commending the piety and learn 
 ing of the Irish in that age, where, after abundance of praises, 
 he overthrows them all by lamenting that, alas, they kept 
 Easter at the wrong time of the year. So our doctor has 
 every quality and virtue that can make a man amiable or 
 useful ; but, alas, he has a sort of slouch in his walk ! I 
 pray God protect him, for he is an excellent Christian, though 
 not a Catholic." 
 
 Lamb valued Pope most for his refined compliments. His 
 prose flattery is not so fine as his poetic eulogy ; but it is 
 very elegant. In a letter to Cromwell, he says : " You are 
 so good a critic, that it is the greatest happiness of the mo 
 dern poets that you do not hear their works" (alluding to his 
 deafness). To Jervas he concludes a letter thus : " Come 
 thou, and having peopled Ireland with a world of beautiful 
 shadows, come to us and see with that eye, which, like the 
 eye of the world, creates beauties by looking on them." To 
 the same painter he writes : " I hope the spring will re 
 store you to us, and with you, all the beauties and colors of 
 nature. 
 
 Pope s affectionate disposition shines through all his works, 
 but we do not recollect a more striking instance than the 
 following in a letter to a correspondent whose name is with 
 held. " I cannot express how 1 long to renew our old inter 
 course and conversation ; our morning conferences in bed in 
 the same room, our evening walks in the Park, our amusing 
 voyages on the water, our philosophical suppers, our lectures, 
 our dissertations, our gravities, our reveries, our fooleries, our 
 what not ! 
 
 " This awakens the memory of some who made a part in 
 all these. Poor Parnell, Garth, Rowe ! You justly reprove 
 me for not speaking of the death of the last ; Parnell was 
 
POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 too much in my mind, to whose memory I am erecting the 
 best monument I can. What he gave me to publish was 
 but a small part of what he left behind him ; but it was the 
 best, and I will not make it worse by enlarging it ; I would 
 fain know if he be buried at Chester or Dublin ; and what 
 care has been or is to be taken for his monument, etc. Yet 
 I have not neglected my devoirs to Mr. Rowe : I am writing 
 this very day his epitaph for Westminster Abbey. After 
 these, the best-natured of men, Sir Samuel Garth, has left 
 me in the truest concern for his loss. His death was very 
 heroical, and yet unaffected enough to have made a saint or 
 a philosopher famous. But ill tongues and worse hearts 
 have branded even his last moments as wrongfully as they 
 did his life, with irreligion. You must have heard many 
 tales on this subject ; but if ever there was a good Christian 
 without knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth." Thus 
 nobly did Pope vindicate his friends, absent or dead. Unlike 
 our modern Damons, he did not from a warm friend become 
 a bitter enemy, but preserved through life his ancient regard 
 with all the steadfastness of a true man. A regulating 
 Providence will preserve the fame of Pope fair and unsullied 
 by the breath of malice or the tongue of slander ; the just 
 recompense of a pure heart and a trusting spirit. 
 
 Contemporary with Pope, "the cynosure of neighboring 
 eyes," the centre of an admiring circle, " the glass of fashion 
 and the mould of form," a wit, an authoress and a fine 
 woman, lived the celebrated Miss Pierrepont, more generally 
 known under the name and title of Lady Mary Wortley 
 Montague, one of the idols of Pope s idolatry, and indisput 
 ably the cleverest woman of her age. The reign of Queen 
 Anne, and the period circling about that epoch, of about 
 thirty-eight years, from the commencement of the reign of 
 
172 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 King William III. to the end of the reign of George L, was, 
 we are inclined to suspect, the transition period (to employ a 
 fashionable phrase) in the estimation of female character. 
 Before that day women had not attained their just position 
 in the social state, and since that time they have met with a 
 truer regard and a more intelligent homage than even in the 
 days of knighthood and chivalry, when a lady meant rather 
 a fanciful abstraction of virtue and beauty, made only for 
 worship and extravagant adulation (insincere and therefore 
 heartless, and consequently insulting), than " a perfect woman 
 nobly planned," " a phantom of delight," a genial, loving, 
 household companion and help-mate, in trial and adversity. 
 Pope himself and most of his brother wits appear to have 
 held the female mind and the female heart in rather a low 
 estimation, but the characters of women were improving in 
 many particulars. They lost many petty foibles as they 
 shifted the various fashions in dress and manners. The 
 benevolent ridicule of Addison was pointed not only at their 
 patches and their hair-dresses, and rouging, but also at their 
 absurd political partisanship, at their .preference of " pretty 
 fellows" to men of sense, at their vacant minds, simpering 
 manners, ill-regulated affections. Swift s pungent satires on 
 fashionable conversation did much ; Pope s characters of 
 women effected a greater reform, as if to falsify the satire ; 
 but to Addison, and perhaps still more to the gallant Steele, 
 were the ladies mainly indebted. No writers equalled this 
 last pair in administering judicious counsel in a cheerful, gay, 
 graceful manner, by which they charmed those who charmed 
 all the world beside. Public opinion and a better system of 
 education tended greatly to setting the just rights of woman 
 in a proper point of view. The goddess, from a toy and a 
 plaything, the alluring charmer of an idle hour, became a 
 
POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 173 
 
 pleasing, modest, domestic, happy woman, enlightened, en 
 nobled, and refined. Such (to take the most favorable 
 instances) we now find her. From a general digression on 
 the state of female society in the reign of Queen Anne to 
 the brilliant representative of the intellectual women of that 
 society, the transition is natural. Lady Montague is not, 
 perhaps, after all, the very best specimen, for she was more 
 the woman of clear, acute intellect, and of fashion, than the 
 quiet wife of pure sentiment and propriety of behavior. 
 She was rather the Aspasia (without her vices, though with 
 her attractions) than the Cornelia of English women the 
 fine lady, rather than the polished gentlewoman the am 
 bitious wit, rather than the natural talker. But taking her 
 as she was, she must have been as fascinating in her con 
 versation as agreeable in her letters, and altogether a delight 
 ful creature, one disgusting foible, or rather positive defect 
 excepted, which the fastidious reader may comprehend by a 
 reference to the Walpoliana. Lady Montague was almost 
 the first, in point of date, among English female writers, 
 although not recognised as such in her lifetime, none of her 
 compositions having been published until after her decease. 
 Lady Russell, Mrs. Hutchinson, Mrs. Centlivre, Mrs. Behn, 
 Mrs. Manly, and a few obscure writers, had preceded her, but 
 none in her own department had approached her. She is 
 the English Sevigne, unequalled in a gay, sprightly vein, and 
 in easy natural narrative and description. The bulk of her 
 correspondence, letters from Turkey, presents entertaining 
 views of that country, as a book of travels. She had the 
 most favorable opportunities of obtaining information (her 
 husband being the English ambassador at the Sublime 
 Porte), and made diligent use of them. From that country 
 also she derived the practice of inoculating children for the 
 
CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 small-pox, by which humane intervention she has entitled 
 herself to the praise of patriotic humanity. With all her 
 wit, and she had a large share; in the very face of her 
 beauty, which was extreme ; excluding her authorship ; ap 
 plauding her charitable exertions; we are repelled by a 
 strong tinge of the masculine in her character. A vigorous 
 mind left its imprint upon her disposition and manners. 
 The strong understanding admitted coarseness of allusion 
 and freedom of style. Her descriptions are luxuriant to 
 voluptuousness; the atmosphere of the harem is painted 
 couleur de rose. Vividness of fancy is perhaps inconsistent 
 with delicacy of taste, and strong conceptions with unim- 
 passioned beauty of painting. The woman loses what the 
 wit gains, and we feel that we had rather admire the beauty 
 and applaud the wit, than take the woman to our heart for 
 the journey of life. A brilliant evening in a splendid crowd 
 can never make amends for mornings of lassitude and ennui, 
 and years of dull, cheerless, uncompanionable repinings and 
 moodiness. Age steals the roses from the cheek of beauty, 
 and bereaves the woman of the world of all her charms. 
 Wit is clouded and grows blunt in the passage of years, 
 while the heart of the worldling is approaching more and 
 more closely to a state of moral ossification, by which the 
 soul in time becomes wholly hardened, and the human 
 creature is converted into a petrifaction. We are far from 
 applying the whole of this homily to Lady Mary ; but, we 
 believe, we repeat a standard criticism in objecting to a por 
 tion of her writings, and to some of her habits and constitu 
 tional features. 
 
XXIV. 
 
 GRAY AND COW PER. 
 
 THE two best male writers of letters, between Pope and Lamb, 
 were both poets like them, which was almost the sole point 
 of resemblance the four possessed in common. They all had 
 wit, and something of humor, but each differed from his 
 brother bard. Pope s wit was courtly and refined ; Gray s, 
 like his taste, fastidious ; Cowper s measured and moral, like 
 himself in public, timid and restrained; and Lamb s full of 
 the whimsical crotchets which formed a portion of his indi 
 viduality and temper. 
 
 Johnson has underrated Gray s Pindaric Poems as un 
 justly as Hazlitt has overrated his letters. There are noble 
 and grand thoughts filled out, and expressed in language 
 ardent and picturesque, in the poems of Gray, and there is a 
 majestic sweep in the pinions of his muse, which he has finely 
 described in his own line of the eagle, " Sailing wide in 
 supreme dominion, through the azure depths of air." He is 
 often cold, but when he warms, he glows. His fire is the 
 genuine afflatus, and no pasteboard imitation or balloon in 
 flation. At times he comes nearer to Milton than any poet 
 since the author of Paradise Lost. But in his letters, ele 
 gantly as they are written (the English is remarkably choice 
 for a stickler for the classics), he appears by no means in his 
 fairest guise. His criticisms in many cases are inadequate 
 and careless. He speaks slightingly of Thompson s charm 
 ing poems, just then out. He relishes Gresset, however, and 
 speaks with respect of Southern. Shaftesbury he anatomises 
 keenly, but with justice. The Greeks and Romans always 
 fare well at his hands, but his contemporaries he has little 
 
176 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 sympathy for. His humor (his nearest friends thought there 
 lay his forte) would be more readily appreciated if it were 
 less elaborate a fine humorist and good fellow was spoiled 
 in the pedantic student. For, it must be confessed, Gray 
 was scholastic to pedantry with his characteristic nicety and 
 daintiness. We tire of few things so soon as fastidiousness, 
 for it is impossible to love those whom we cannot satisfy or 
 please. Yet we sympathise with the independence of the 
 man who refused to retain a friendship for Walpole after 
 he had discovered his hollowness and fickle nature ; and 
 we cannot but reverence the moroseness and admire the 
 secluded life of one who despised the purse-pride of the 
 wealthy, and from the lofty elevation of his genius looked 
 down upon the arrogance of the great and noble. His spirit 
 had all the vigor, something of the roughness, and an ap 
 pearance (only an appearance) of the sterility of the hardy 
 plants of the cold North ; but like them it bore equally well 
 the heats of July and the snows of December, and in itself con 
 taining a source of perennial fruitfulness, outbraved the mocks 
 of jealousy and lived down the scorn of calumny. It still 
 continues in all its original freshness. 
 
 The style of Cowper s letters is less elaborately elegant, is 
 simpler and more agreeable than Gray s. He has more of 
 nature. Gray s genius was high, but also ambitious ; it lacked 
 naivete and unforced ease. His art, too, was rich and com 
 posite, but not so refined as to be concealed. Cowper s 
 domestic habits, continual living with and among women 
 (while Gray lived only by himself, or with a few friends), his 
 moral bias, his physical indolence and timidity, his religious 
 melancholy, gave a distinct coloring to all his productions. 
 These appeared much more in his poetry than in his prose. 
 In his letters he is cheerful, sometimes gay. His vein of 
 
GRAY AND COWPKE. 177 
 
 humor is quite unconscious, and the more delightful for that 
 reason. lie had, when unbiassed, a fund of most excellent 
 sense, with a clear judgment. His natural feelings were pure 
 as a child s. He seems to have been a man without guile : 
 affectionate, confiding and constant. Yet he had a keen eye 
 for folly, and a talent for moral satire next to Pope, and we 
 are apt to think sincerer. He occasionally sketches a charac 
 ter with brevity and point. He discovers no very rich stores 
 of acquired learning, but much wise reflection. 
 
 His quiet life was not without its experience and hours of 
 contemplation. He loved nature, he loved innocent animals, 
 he loved the society of virtuous women, and good men ; and 
 he worshipped in truth and with awful gratitude the Being 
 he adored and loved. Cowper was a Christian poet, a rare 
 title of honor. He might have filled a high political station 
 and been soon forgotten. Who now-a-days knows any 
 thing of the great lawyer, Lord Cowper? Who is not 
 acquainted with the greater poet, William Cowper? Yet 
 we are far from styling Cowper a great poet: compared 
 with Milton, and Shakspeare, and Wordsworth, he ranks 
 in the second or third class of poets. But he is first in 
 that. He is the poet of domestic life; a moral satirist 
 with generous indignation, but without gall; a Christian 
 psalmist (no hymns are finer than some of his), and a 
 judicious, pure-minded, sweet-tempered, warm-hearted friend, 
 counsellor, and companion. Cowper s English is select and 
 idiomatic. It is as racy as that of many writers more noticed 
 for vigor, and yet it is quite free from the least taint of vul 
 garity. If he seldom soared very high, he never fell into 
 coarseness ; and his style is as free from moral and literary 
 corruption, as his wit is free from acerbity, and his senti 
 ment from affectation. With Cowper we shall conclude, 
 8* 
 
1*78 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS, 
 
 since Lamb has been made the subject of so much delicate 
 criticism and fine writing since his death, that we cannot aim 
 at novelty without disparaging better writers and better quali 
 fied judges, because personal friends, than any American 
 writers can pretend to be. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS. 
 
 AMONG the various divisions and subdivisions into which the 
 trade of authorship is divided we recognise two classes; 
 authors by profession, and amateur writers : those who re 
 gard study and composition as the business of their lives, 
 and those who look upon them merely as incidental occupa 
 tions. Now, we all know very well how absurd a thing it 
 would be for a client to ask the services of an amateur lawyer, 
 with an air of confidence in the request, and in the expecta 
 tion of his faithful attention to business ; so, too, with regard 
 to the advice of an amateur physician; and, indeed, the 
 analogy holds in every walk of life. Few do that well " for 
 love " which can be better done for money. If it be true in 
 the common concerns of life, that the laborer is worthy of his 
 hire, it is much more to be so considered when we ascend 
 in the scale of labor, and come finally to that which most 
 tasks the intellect and requires the greatest number of choice 
 thoughts. Purely imaginative employmnnt, invention in fic 
 tion, the highest class (and indeed all but the most inferior 
 department of poetry, the musa pedestris), must afford more 
 of delight self-centered, and in a good degree independent of 
 
AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS. 179 
 
 pecuniary reward or the glory of a noble fame. Yet even 
 poets cannot live without bread and broadcloth ; and so far 
 as their imperishable and spiritual commodities can be paid 
 for, should be remunerated in a princely manner. But in 
 speaking of authors and men of letters in general, we shall 
 except the few grand poets from our remarks, and include 
 rather the mass of good, than the minority of great, writers. 
 We do not intend to comprehend in our list either the 
 barely respectable scribes, who abound now-a-day as thickly 
 as Dogberry s whortleberries; although among amateur 
 authors we must not forget that for one really clever man (not 
 to say man of genius) there are at the least estimate ninety 
 and nine stupid fellows, who assume the cloak of gravity 
 wherewithal to hide the defects of dullness. 
 
 A merchant is respected for shrewdness in turning a penny, 
 for the accumulation of a fortune, and yet we hear of the 
 mercenary rewards of authorship, and the base equivalent for 
 the productions of genius : as if the more a man gave the 
 less he should ask ; build a palace at less cost than a cottage. 
 At this rate a sign-painter would be entitled to higher pay 
 than Raphael himself; and we might take our strongest 
 arguments that men of genius should be nobly rewarded for 
 their magnificent conceptions and labors, from the simple 
 class of painters. The great old masters lived like princes, 
 and were paid as the great lawyer and surgeon of our own 
 time are paid. Yet they did not become lazy or careless ; 
 nor did wealth stifle the fine images of their brains, or palsy 
 the masterly skill of their hands. 
 
 Thoughts form the merchandise of the writer, as stuffs 
 and wares of the trader. If the one can convert his stock 
 into current coin as readily as the other, on the mere ground 
 of husbandry he deserves no little credit for his skill. Fame 
 
180 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 is a noble thing it cannot be too highly eulogized ; but fame 
 alone cannot supply the necessities of physical existence, how 
 ever it may conduce to the generous expansion of sentiment, 
 the growth of the soul. Neither is the charm of letters as a 
 pursuit, and as a labor that brings its own reward, all-suffi 
 cient to sustain the scholar. If his intellectual and sensitive 
 nature are excited and elevated by the trump of fame, or 
 soothed into delight by study and meditation, yet he has 
 another nature to take care of, to neglect which wilfully is to 
 commit a scarcely justifiable suicide. 
 
 An amateur in almost every walk is regarded as much 
 inferior to a working member of the craft. A man rarely 
 puts his heart or invests the whole stock of his faculties in 
 a pursuit which he takes up casually to while away an hour 
 or two of an idle day. Such writers do not seem properly 
 ever to become amenable to criticism. You are never sure 
 whether they are doing their best or not ; as a member of 
 the fancy might say, they do not appear to come up to the 
 scratch. They fence with foils blunted at the end, and dread 
 the naked weapon ; or they are like shots who practise with 
 powder only. " These paper pellets of the brain " are too 
 much for them. 
 
 In our literary world in this country, there is no lack in 
 point of numbers of amateur authors. They are generally 
 either quiet young men, sons of wealthy men, " who pen 
 a stanza while they should engross;" or else men in the 
 meridian of life, who affect the notoriety of fashionable 
 authorship. They are young poets or middle-aged novel 
 ists; writers of essays in reviews, and of sketches for the 
 magazines. Sometimes they translate tales or travels for 
 the weekly extras. They deliver an occasional lecture, and 
 contribute articles for the newspapers. Their names are 
 
AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS. 181 
 
 often better known than their productions; they live in 
 cliques, herd in clubs and coteries, and puff each other inor 
 dinately. Their reputation is formed by an echo reverbe 
 rating their self-praise. When rich, they are the most 
 desperate of critics, as above dependence, and out of the 
 reach of appeal and censure. 
 
 There are certain marks by which you may infallibly 
 know the amateur author. He is always declaiming against 
 the pecuniary profits of literature, though we doubt whether 
 he would venture to carry out the same doctrine in matters 
 of business, or in his luxurious recreations of a less spiritual 
 description. He lives on his own estate or income, but on 
 other people s ideas. He gives for love what he pilfers 
 through mean ambition. He is the less conscientious on this 
 point, as his labors bring him in no returns. Yet we have 
 known those who pretend to write only for amusement, to 
 come to that pass as to be not a little solicitous to procure 
 remuneration. Such boasters we have known refused any 
 assistance 4n their literary schemes ; and, not to be harsh, we 
 think they deserve the humiliation, at least, of temporary 
 neglect. 
 
 Amateur writers rarely undertake works of length or re 
 search ; and yet they are very apt to take a writer to task 
 who devotes himself to literary occupation in the minor 
 classic forms of writing. Unable themselves to write good 
 magazine papers, and reading (as they must) many inferior 
 ones, they confuse good and bad together. They endeavor 
 to catch the high tone of criticism, and while mispraising 
 daubs of historical pieces, pass by with ignorant scorn the 
 most delicate miniature sketches of manners, or vivid por 
 traits of character. 
 
 They injure the true author, who unites a love for his pro- 
 
182 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 fession, deep interest in his subject, and an honest independ 
 ence, with the aim of procuring a sufficient livelihood. If 
 writings are to be procured for nothing, nothing will be paid. 
 Cheapness, not merit, will become the object of publishers, 
 and the deterioration of literature must infallibly ensue. The 
 value of a thing has been stated (somewhat sophistically) to 
 be what it will bring. This has by no means been an uni 
 versal or a just test in literary productions, for the flimsiest 
 of which the highest prices are paid. What could Bacon 
 get now-a-days if he sent his essays to the magazines ? His 
 late (and successful) imitator, doubtless, would realize little 
 more. 
 
 Few amateur authors feel any real sympathy for literary 
 men. There is no fellow-feeling existing between the indus 
 trious and ardent scholar, and the lively voluptuary and gen 
 teel wit. Independence of literary profits causes indifference, 
 and sometimes an ill-concealed contempt. Are the hard 
 toil, the misappreciated aims, the uncertain gains of a writer 
 mentioned, they are heard with coolness, and ansvflered by a 
 shrug. Want of money appears want of moral principle or 
 of respectability. They dread duns, poor authors, unpopular 
 poets. Fame and a garret are the topics of their heartless 
 ridicule. An amateur author is, in a word, an amphibioua 
 sort of creature out of the pale of true writers, and yet 
 classed by all with the mob of scribblers. They decry their 
 own writings, with more of truth than they are aware of ; 
 and ironically pronounce their own eulogy in the censure of 
 another. They are bitter bad judges of others ; and the 
 most ingenious of egotists. They turn self-tormentors to be 
 idolized by the public : they offer themselves up, on the 
 shrine of their egregious self-love, a willing sacrifice, and in 
 order to propitiate popular regard. To the above sweeping 
 
AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS. 183 
 
 charges, certain exceptions are to be made. Most of the 
 better description of amateur authors would translate better 
 into friendly critics, liberal patrons, and unpretending lovers 
 of literature. In modern times, an amateur author of genius 
 is next to an anomaly. The labors of such a man cannot be 
 repaid by mere popularity. Even the great poets of this 
 century have obtained large sums for their MSS. Scott is a 
 notable instance ; but it were well for letters that few amass 
 the fortune of the great novelist. Yet, from Shakspeare to 
 Wordsworth, the poets have been at least comfortably pro 
 vided for, being gifted with a reasonable share of prudence 
 an eye to the main chance. 
 
 From amateur authors we pass to small critics, a natural 
 transition, as these form a division of the same general class. 
 Like the first, they are rarely writers by profession, though 
 we have Dennises and Giffords in the craft. Generally, the 
 small critic is an unblushing pretender, without the slightest 
 claims to respect. He is to the great critic, the original 
 judge, what the minute philosopher is to Plato or Bacon. 
 He is great in little things, and conversely little in great 
 things. His genius is bent on investigating trifles. He is an 
 ingenious perverter of sense, from blindness at not seeing the 
 printer s blunders, or a rapid writer s slips in orthography. 
 He is strongest in punctuation and prosody. If an editor, 
 he is in moral dread of lively contributors, mistaking a satire 
 on vice for a condemnation of virtue, and a homily on hypo 
 crisy for a burlesque on religion. Of poetry he is the verbal 
 critic, and from his literalness, spoils the beauty of a fine 
 passage because he cannot see the fitness of a choice epithet. 
 Correctness is the height of his ambition. He remarks how 
 many lines in a poem end with a monosyllable, or with a 
 similar termination. He pretends to be skilful in metres and 
 
184 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 the art of poetry. By this he intends the rules of Aristotle, 
 and Bossu, and Blair, and not the divine instincts of the 
 glorious Afflatus. But he does by no means invariably 
 enunciate his judgment in print : he oftener talks than writes 
 criticism. In a private circle he affects the dictatorship of 
 letters. If he has a relation, a man of talent, he patronizes 
 him as a respectable writer. Trash is his favorite term for 
 all he cannot understand, and especially for all keen satire 
 that he suspects may have a bearing upon himself. He 
 makes the most egregious blunders, saying, this will not last, 
 of an immortal work ! or, he will soon break down, of a man 
 whose noble enthusiasm appears to his contracted soul little 
 better than midsummer madness. 
 
 The small critic is delighted with petty beauties and the 
 minutest details. He loves still more to carp on petty faults 
 in a great man, and thinks he makes a fine discovery when 
 he meets a trivial flaw. He looks, as it were, through an in 
 verted telescope, and to his eye great objects diminish, He 
 makes great things appear small, and the little less. His 
 ideas are on the descending scale ; his eyes contract to a 
 mere point of littleness ; he is the critic of Lilliput. 
 
 Originality puts him out ; boldness he styles extrava 
 gance, and acknowledges none but imitative excellence. All 
 inventors he looks upon as arrogant interlopers. He is dis 
 trustful of novelty, and apprehends failure in every new 
 scheme. He cannot distinguish between freshness of feeling 
 and affectation. He has a horror of individuality, and will 
 not allow the weight of personal impressions. Strong passion 
 he accounts a weak prejudice, and the sincere convictions of a 
 pure spirit " idols of the cave." Indignation at meanness 
 and a scorn of rascality, he terms " whimwhams and pre 
 judice." 
 
I AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS. 185 
 
 As he is a trite critic and a stale theorist, so is he also a 
 false logician. He is, indeed, a mere special pleader. He 
 cavils at literal mistakes, and disputes terms rather than ab 
 stract truths. He is a newspaper Thomas Aquinas, or the 
 Duns Scotus of a monthly. Magazines he is apt to hold in 
 supreme contempt, though for his life he cannot write a 
 decent article for one. Voluminous works awe him into 
 silence. Erudition is to him the greatest of bugbears. Lest 
 he should be discovered as an ignoramus, he never pretends 
 to discredit the pretences of pedantry. He swells the train 
 of such by his pomp and boasting. Since he has no genuine 
 acquirements, he cannot distinguish the false wares, and 
 consequently equally applauds the jewel and the mock paste 
 
 Small critics may be found among two classes of people, 
 in greater abundance than anywhere else ; among so-called 
 sensible people, who have no real pretensions to letters, though 
 they affect to speak critically on all points, and mere biblio 
 graphers, makers of catalogues, collectors, booksellers and 
 auctioneers. People of sense in ordinary matters, and men 
 intelligent in their own walk of life, but who have never 
 received any tincture of literature, make the most opinionated 
 of all critics. A carpenter expects to graduate the powers of 
 the human mind, and a stone mnson to overthrow one of 
 Ariosto s castles. Thinking to bring everything to a common 
 standard, the illiterate imagine themselves to be as good 
 judges of right and wrong in morals, as of the beautiful and 
 odious in aesthetics. Thej are keen at a bargain, and confide 
 without doubt in their own decisions on works of genius 
 The same people who talk pertly of Milton and Wordsworth 
 would think it absurd for a blacksmith to attempt to take a 
 watch to pieces. Yet the difference of difficulty, between the 
 two operations, is by no means great. And, after all, the 
 
186 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 immediate popularity of most writers rests chiefly upon such 
 readers as these ; the worthy, fit audience, though few, finally 
 give reputation. Meanwhile, however, the mob of readers 
 follow established names and reigning fashions ; they follow 
 their chosen leaders with implicit credulity. 
 
 Bibliographic critics are learned in title pages, indexes, 
 editions. Their judgments are traditional; their opinions 
 hereditary. They think by proxy, and talk by rote. One of 
 this sort reads everything and feels nothing ; he is a walking 
 catalogue ; a peripatetic companion to the library ; he knows 
 the names of all the authors that have lived. " In books, not 
 authors, studious is my lord." Yet such is a useful character ; 
 a guide to the literary voyager ; a conductor of the literary 
 diligence. He is well in his place if he will only remain 
 quietly in it ; but the difficulty is to keep him there. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 FEMALE NOVELISTS. * 
 
 THE real genius of the female mind, in two classes of prose 
 fiction, appears to be universally confessed, in the deline 
 ation of the artificial in manners, and the natural in sentiment : 
 in the novel of manners, as Evelina ; and in the novel of 
 sentiment, as the Simple Story. Ridicule and pathos, these 
 furnish the appropriate weapons, and occupy the legitimate 
 provinces of the female novelist. In these departments they 
 reign supreme. Manly writers may have at their command 
 a wider vocabulary of indignant sarcasm or exhibit profounder 
 
 * 1844. 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS. 187 
 
 views of character : may paint an absurdity in more glowing 
 colors, and more grotesque forms, or display a superior ex 
 uberance of comic fancy ; but they cannot trifle with such 
 abandon and ease as a female wit : their wit may carry more 
 weight, but it is less bright and cutting than a woman s. 
 Men reason better, but they cannot rally so well , and raillery, 
 in ordinary talk, bears the palm from ratiocination. Mas 
 culine satire is best adapted for dissection of character and 
 real things, and not so well fitted for depicting mannerisms. 
 Women observe and note all the varieties of the genus 
 odity, more readily than men ; and with a certain instinctive 
 nicety of taste and discrimination, they describe the varying 
 and almost imperceptible shades of manners. From an 
 educated sense of propriety in behavior, and the restraints of 
 decorum and etiquette, they are rendered more critical 
 judges of the nice observances of polite breeding, and the 
 opposite gaucheries of an impolite or rustic bearing. Mere 
 external minutiae engage their attention so much as to beget 
 an almost pedantic regard for certain forms of society, and a 
 horror of all solecisms, which they almost rank with criminal 
 offences. They are, for this reason, perfectly at home either 
 in criticising or describing the persons or events of a ball-room, 
 the boudoir, theatre, concert, or saloon. With a quick eye 
 they note each and every deviation from the existing code of 
 fashion, whether it be in dress, manners or conversation. So 
 much for the satirical powers of the sex. 
 
 A similar analogy holds in respect to the talent for sen 
 timental description. Great poets, like Shakspeare, and 
 painters of man, as Fielding, for instance, deal more with the 
 passions than the sentiments, which require finer handling, 
 to borrow a phrase from the artist. A middle range, between 
 high passion and indifference, the pathos of domestic tragedy, 
 
188 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 the prose imagination of the poet, depicting scenes of ordinary 
 or even of humble life, appear to fall within the sphere of 
 female genius. Few masculine writers (even among poets) 
 have (^one full justice to the noblest spescimen of the female 
 character, whilst, at the same time, it must be confessed that 
 no female painter has ever been able to grasp very many traits 
 of the characters of men, or to realize the immense discre 
 pancies between the different ranks. The best women are 
 ignorant, practically, of the lowest forms of humanity (still 
 noble in the most utter degradation) ; and those who are such 
 cannot throw any light upon the subject from their own pens. 
 Whole classes of society are thus excluded from the vision 
 of the fair author, and the motley manners of many men. 
 We have had no female Ulysses or Homer. At the same 
 time there is, nevertheless, a wide field to be explored, of 
 private history and domestic life. There are the manifold 
 windings of the female heart to be threaded (an Arachne s 
 web) ; there is the beautiful nature of childhood to unfold, 
 the growing beauty of the womanly maiden ; and the proper 
 audience (of readers) is composed of characters of the same 
 stamp, sweet children, innocent girlhood, fair virginity, 
 womanly beauty, inspiring love. From the bud to the full 
 blown flower, from her offspring (with its opening mind and 
 inquisitive tongue), to the lovely creature that bore it, a pre 
 cious burden ; from these come the lessons of life, to these 
 they are properly addressed, and by one of themselves. Yes ! 
 women write for women, and so they should : let men ex 
 plore the baser parts of human nature ; let it be their business 
 (a hateful task) to torture the guilty soul into penitence, re 
 ligion, and virtue. It is for women to weave garlands of 
 immortal beauty for the brow of goodness and happy duty; 
 and to wreathe chaplets for the crowning graces of the con- 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS. 189 
 
 fiding, the affectionate, and the pure. By way of illustrating 
 the above remarks, we shall, in particular, proceed to notice 
 the fictions of Madame d Arblay and Mrs. Inchbald, who 
 stand foremost in the two classes wo have undertaken to 
 describe. We shall reserve a page or two for Mrs. Sheridan 
 and Miss Bremer, not forgetting an incidental notice of other 
 female writers of eminence in the same department. 
 
 First, however; of the two classical painters we mentioned, 
 the latter of whom we place at the head of all female novel 
 ists and prose writers, for qualities both of head and heart, 
 which rarely meet in union. Many of our fair readers may 
 have* to be told that these capital writers were the peculiar 
 favorites of their day ; though we dare to say that by the 
 class for whom their works were written and appropriately 
 addressed, they are almost entirely unknown. This is more 
 particularly the case with regard to the present generation of 
 readers. Old ladies and ladies of a certain age, have thumb 
 ed Camilla and the Simple Story, aye, and well. Yet, while 
 the modern lady has every new novel on her table, we seldom 
 see the Simple Story ; never Nature and Art, more frequent 
 ly Evelina, and Cecilia hardly at all. We trust these sug 
 gestions may not be wholly profitless, but induce a return to 
 those standard productions, not only unsurpassed but un 
 equalled by any attempts of the kind at present. None of 
 the fashionable novelists of our present era can hit off a city 
 fop like Miss Burney, or melt the heart with no unfeigned 
 emotion like the creator of Miss Milner, and Dorriforth, and 
 Sandford. There is a smartness, a shrewdness of observation 
 in the authoress of Evelina, to which neither Lady Blessing- 
 ton, nor Mrs. Gore, nor any writer of her school, can lay any 
 pretensions. Neither do we possess in English, at the pre 
 sent moment, a writer who can excite our indignation of 
 
190 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 time-serving in the bishop, and hypocritical severity in the 
 unjust judge ; who can quicken our admiration of fortitude, 
 patience, and noble generosity, or smite the heart with a 
 weight of melancholy anguish at the untimely fate of the 
 poor victim of sin in power and " the pride of place," as the 
 admirable writer of Nature and Art. The more popular ma 
 terial of which Miss Burney s works are composed may have 
 preserved them from oblivion, but the matter is of an inferior 
 cast. 
 
 She is perfectly successful where only smartness and 
 shrewd perception are requisite. In the philosophy of the 
 heart, she is quite deficient. Affectation, conventional pro 
 priety, and mawkish sensibility, usurp the place of real mo 
 desty and genuine feeling. Her forte lies in ridicule of igno 
 rant assumption, and especially of cockney pretensions. She 
 is the satirist of Cockayne, and dwells so much in this re 
 gion, that we are apt to suspect it to be her favorite locality. 
 A writer or talker rarely rises above an absurdity which he 
 or she is continually harping upon ; and affected disgust not 
 unfrequently conceals a genuine sympathy. The painter of 
 the Branghtons had something of the same narrowness of 
 views and petty ambition that distinguished her fictitious 
 characters. And what we always inferred, from the internal 
 evidence of her works, we find abundantly confirmed in the 
 memoirs of this clever woman, lately published, in which it 
 is almost inconceivable to discover what a compound of small 
 sins represented the social nature of Miss Burney. A moral 
 coxcomb, a pedantic courtier, an affected wit, an insipid com 
 panion, her autobiographical notes, can leave no other im 
 pression than that of inspiring an honest contempt for this 
 frivolous, flattered, yet^ enslaved, minion of fortune. If this 
 criticism appear harsh, we appeal directly to the volumes 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS. 191 
 
 in question, where the data for a correct judgment are 
 abundant. 
 
 We would speak and write in quite a different tone of 
 that peerless woman, Mrs. Inchbald admirable not only for 
 her writings, but also for her personal character and the 
 beauty of her daily life ; an actress of fascinating beauty and 
 attractive grace, yet 
 
 " Chaste as the icicle, 
 
 That s cruded by the frost from purest enow, 
 And Jiangs on Dian s temple :" 
 
 amid the splendid temptations and pleasures offered by the 
 admirers of the stage to its heroines ; a noble-hearted woman 
 struggling with poverty to accumulate a comfortable inde 
 pendence for her poor relations ; sitting without a fire, the 
 cold winter through, to procure fuel for a sister an act of 
 Christian charity worthy of a saint; and, in her entire con 
 duct, exhibiting a spirit of love and self-denial that cannot 
 be too highly lauded. Neither should we forget her greatest 
 fault, most pardonable and innocent in her, the early coquetry 
 with which she has been charged, and some of the romantic 
 freaks of her girlish days, recorded by the dullest of biogra 
 phers, the dull and voluminous Boaden. Her later romance 
 was of a deep and melancholy cast ; her love for a married 
 man, Dr. Warren, in its whole history, pure and unsullied, 
 and her grief at his death. Leigh Hunt has done noble jus 
 tice to her life and memory, in a paper of the Seer. Her 
 writings were fresh draughts of vivid experience of life. We 
 apprehend a portion of early biography, in parts of the career 
 of Miss Milner and the inflexible, yet benevolent, Sanford, is 
 a portrait instinct with truth. Mrs. Inchbald has, in our 
 judgment, surpassed all females writers in delineating the 
 
192 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 passion of love, as it is frequently seen ; and though more 
 elevated or more profound masters of the human heart 
 could, unquestionably, surpass any attempt of hers to display 
 the whole resources of the passion in men, yet no masculine 
 writer could, by any possibility, excel in fidelity, naturalness 
 and exquisite discernment, the finished portrait of Miss Mil- 
 ner, the capricious, affectionate, coquettish, yot obedient, 
 ward ; the half-spoiled child of fortune, at last humbled to 
 the dust and breathing out the last sighs of penitence, at 
 tended by the friend and censor of her youth. All the 
 characters in the Simple Story are admirably drawn ; the 
 haughty and austere Dorriforth ; that noble, rough, true 
 Christian, Sandford, a severe censor while he thought cen- 
 eure called for, but melting with benevolence at the sick bed 
 of the repentant worldling. Miss Woodley is one of the 
 most sensible and truly feminine of our author s characters. 
 " Nature and Art" should be read by every young man and 
 woman, impressing, as it does, an indignant scorn of the cur 
 rent hypocrisies, the legalized villany, the conventional mo 
 rality of men of the world, and of the customs of society. 
 The style and execution of these novels is classic ; graceful 
 and fluent, a study and a model. The supreme power of 
 the author lies in pathetic situation and nobleness of senti 
 ment, alternately. Few scenes in any work of fiction can 
 compare, for deep interest, with the trial scene in the second 
 novel. As a beacon to those captivated by the fame of a 
 fashionable coquette, we recommend the sad history of the 
 ill-fated Miss Milner. To encourage the love of virtue, we 
 would point to the characters of the elder and younger Hen 
 ry (father and son). In a word, the moral value of these ad 
 mirable works is, at least, equal to the breathless interest 
 they excite as works of fiction. 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS. 193 
 
 Several female writers maintain a respectable rank in the 
 same department with the two writers whose merits have been 
 above discussed ; whilst there are others excellent in an in 
 ferior grade. Amongst forgotten writers and books, we may 
 mention the History of David Simple, by a relation of Field 
 ing (if we are not mistaken), and a woman of fine sense and 
 feeling, the mistress of a refined and simple style ; the pleas 
 ing fictions of the authoress of Emily Montague, and Sidney 
 Biddulph, a novel by Mrs. Sheridan, the wife of Dr. John 
 son s old rival, the niece-in-law of Swift s friend, and the mo 
 ther of Richard Brinsley. Dr. Johnson is reported to have 
 said of this lady, that she had hardly a right to make her 
 readers suffer so much : that he thought she exercised her 
 power of raising the feelings of compassion and sympathy for 
 the distresses of others to too high a pitch. 
 
 The great number of female novelists, during the present 
 century, is a feature in the literary character of the age to be 
 noted. To run over the mere names would prove a tedious 
 and profitless labor ; but we may advert to a few the strong, 
 practical sense of Edgeworth, adapted to moral tales for the 
 young of Opie and Moore to impress religious principle as 
 well. The pleasant village histories of Mitford ; the shrewd 
 speculations (best in her early sketches) of Martineau ; the 
 wild and brilliant imagination of Mrs. Shelley, and the more 
 quiet and agreeable attempts of Mary Ilowitt (the English 
 Sedgwick). From a large number of elegant-minded female 
 writers of our own country, we may select two women of pure 
 genius, as the best examples of American female talent, Miss 
 Sedgwick and Mrs. Kirkland, women of whom any country 
 might be proud. 
 
 Since writing the above, we have fallen upon, by the 
 merest chance, a copy of Sidney Biddulph, to which we must 
 9 
 
194 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 devote a page or two, worthy as it is of a much more extended 
 notice. This is an admirable novel of the serious kind, a true 
 picture of domestic life, and fraught with a certain classic 
 grace, by a remarkably sweet and elegant woman, who de 
 serves to be much better known. As a mere specimen of 
 style and artful narrative, it is worthy of preservation, to say 
 nothing of the deeply interesting incidents of the story and 
 the varied characters themselves. Yet, for our own part, we 
 read the book less for the story and plot than for the senti 
 ment and reflections it contains ; and, in general, we care 
 little for the very portion of a prose fiction that most interests 
 the majority of readers. It is for this reason, among others, 
 we are such admirers of Miss Bremer s novels, which are voted 
 tame by lovers of the stimulating and highly-wrought tales of 
 blood and terror. A sensible old sea captain of our acquaint 
 ance thinks some portions of the Swedish novels are even 
 " puerile ;" and an acute, most discerning legal gentleman 
 can see nothing at all in them. Ah ! better to read a chap- 
 tar of simple domestic history than records of crime and vio 
 lence. By morbid sympathy, a weak mind readily becomes 
 a convert to admiration of desperadoes aud captivating vil 
 lains ; while, by a natural and healthy process, the virtuous 
 mind receives new vigor from pure thought and the unambi 
 tious details of contented domesticity. An intellect that has 
 become enfeebled by the extravagant demands upon it of 
 Spagnialetto painters of vice and wretchedness, is nourished 
 and strenghtened by scenes of rational happiness and exam 
 ples of retiring and private nobleness. The moral of Sidney 
 Biddulph is one by no means agreeable to the mere novel- 
 reader, or to one ignorant of life, who invariably expects to 
 see virtue rewarded and vice punished, either at the end of a 
 play or a novel, or at the conclusion of this human existence ; 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS. 195 
 
 but a very mortifying yet most just conclusion, so neatly ex- 
 pressed by the authoress herself, that we borrow her language, 
 " that neither prudence, forethought, nor even the best dispo 
 sition that the human heart is capable of, are, of themselves, 
 sufficient to defend us against the inevitable ills that some 
 times are allotted even to the best ;" or, as Shirley despon 
 dently sings, " there is no armour against fate !" more wisely, 
 perhaps, we should say Providence, that " bringeth good out 
 of evil." 
 
 We have alluded to Miss Bremer : it were an act of injus 
 tice to do no more, and we feel it a matter of duty to add 
 our slight tribute to the incense wafted across the wide ocean 
 to that northern land of the Sagas, ot Vasa and Adolphus 
 of Oxensteirn and Christina, of Charles XII. and Bishop 
 Tegner. This we gladly pay. Miss Bremer is the most pro 
 minent writer of the day, in her peculiar department of fiction 
 in pictures of home-life and domestic manners, lively and gen. 
 uine. Her admirable Swedish novels are not only national 
 works, but fitted for all lands. This admirable writer has 
 been compared to Miss Edge worth, whom she surpasses in 
 sentimental description and delicate fancy. The Swedish 
 novelist is a livelier and more dramatic painter than the Irish 
 wit, who is a woman of sound, rather than of fine, sense. 
 Miss Bremer is much the deeper writer, sees further into hu 
 man nature, has more versatility ; sometimes startling and 
 philosophic, yet, in general, cheerful and piquant ; a moral 
 poet of the fireside, with some resemblance to Cowper and the 
 homelier pathos of Wordsworth. Her " musa pedestris" is 
 heightened, not unfrequently, by an infusion of German fancy, 
 and deepened by the serious and noble thoughtl ulness of that 
 melancholy Northland. Though the scenery, the landscape, 
 the background of the Swedish novels is comparatively new 
 
196 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 to us, known only before in the pages of the magnificent 
 Tegner and the tasteful Longfellow, yet the characters are as 
 familiar as those we meet every day. 
 
 Who has not known personages of age, distinction, and fa 
 mily, like th-e President, the Colonel, the Judge, conservatives 
 of the best class, sticklers for dogmas and usages ? yet men 
 of clear heads, obscured by few prejudices of education or so 
 ciety respectable characters, worthy citizens ; all little fitted 
 for our country, in a political point of view, since they form 
 timid statesmen and with habits of narrow diplomacy. Then, 
 again, we have often seen headstrong cornets, pining students, 
 romantic schoolmasters, like the heroes of the second rank in 
 the same works. The old ladies are equally well made out 
 whether stately widows of condition, the relicts of distinguish 
 ed officials ; old maids, chatty and active ; or matronly dames, 
 most worthy and excellent. The young women generally 
 partake of the species Sylphide, and have a certain aerial 
 grace and softness. In each novel, wo have to remark the re 
 currence of these different types of character. The writer 
 herself generally figures as the relator : in the Neighbors, she 
 js the doctor s wife ; in the President s Daughters, she is the 
 Governess ; in all, she is a friend of the family, and ranks 
 as one of the useful and agreeable among the poorer rela 
 tions. 
 
 A wide range of character and variety of situation and in 
 cident, mark the Swedish novels, which, besides the higher 
 qualities we have claimed for them, are extremely agreeable 
 for the essay-matter, the speculation and thought they con 
 tain, no less than for the playful humor and genial Flemish 
 distinctness which characterize the same scenes. The beauty 
 of naturalness we further notice, and of characters for the 
 most part, one cannot avoid liking or sympathizing with. In 
 
FEMAMK NOVELISTS. 197 
 
 the last, Strife and Peace, we do not recollect a harsh (not 
 to say worthless) character.* This, for many readers, is an 
 advantage. The student of human nature must see all men ; 
 but many should learn only the best characters, as they want 
 strength and penetration to see the good in the evil. The 
 end, the tone, the moral of these works is pure and healthy ; 
 with no vitiating influences, no corrupting suggestions. But 
 most excellent, if only read to cherish right and noble feelings, 
 and confirm good and high principles. 
 
 Mrs. Emily Flygare (is not this -possibly a nom de 
 plume, or synonyme of Bremer ?) is a writer of precisely the 
 same quality and grade. The Professor s Favorites is a fair 
 match for the President s Daughters ; though perhaps not 
 equal to the Neighbors or Home. Miss Austen is another 
 British authoress with whom Miss Bremer has been com 
 pared. They resemble each other certainly in the fact, that 
 they are both writers of the domestic novel, as it may be 
 called ; yet Miss Austen is quite deficient in the strikingly 
 poetical qualities which relieve even the homliest details of 
 the Swedish novels. She is quite prosaic, and if possible a 
 little exclusive ; perhaps too much taken up with titled per 
 sonages. Though decorous, proper, sensible and judicious, 
 where do you find in her novels, the vivacity, the humor of 
 the Neighbors or Home ? The depth of feeling in these works, 
 as well as in the Strife and Peace, can nowhere be paralleled 
 in Prejudice or Mansfield Park. 
 
 To the two prominent names in American female author 
 ship, we should have added that of Mrs. Childs, a pure, 
 sweet, amiable writer, whose philanthropy is unbounded and 
 carried out in deeds of practical benevolence. The produc- 
 
 * The Colonel can hardly be called one of the characters, as he 
 plays no part, soon leaves the scene, and is altogether only passive. 
 
198 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 tions of this lady are conceived in the most genial spirit, and 
 executed with equal beauty and facility. 
 
 We have said, women write for women ; we should fur 
 ther remark that there is a race of masculine writers, with 
 feminine delicacy of mind, who ought to be added to the list 
 of novelists for a lady s reading. Such are the exquisite sen 
 timental painters, Richardson, Marivaux, Mackenzie, Jean 
 Paul and Goldsmith. These are peculiarly authors for wo 
 men. Rousseau, Sterne and Goethe, equal masters of the 
 female heart, and whose works contain the purest essence of 
 ethereal sentiment, are dangerous writers, inasmuch as their 
 works are fraught with deleterious influences, which require a 
 strong intellect and a vigorous moral sense to withstand. 
 American literature can point to three names of the first 
 rank of excellence in this way of writing, Dana, Hawthorne, 
 and Washington Irving. We reverse the usual order of 
 merit, as we conceive Mr. Irving to be much inferior, in this 
 respect (abundantly made up by his humor, power of descrip 
 tion, narrative, and researches), to the first and second writ 
 ers, who are so much less known. Dana has a vein of fresh, 
 original, deep feeling at times most powerful in its expres 
 sion, and always strong and simple while Irving s best sen 
 timent is borrowed from Mackenzie and Goldsmith. Paul 
 Felton, Edward and Mary, the Son, are much superior to 
 anything of the same kind in Irving. Dana has a deeper as 
 well as a more original genius : yet the exquisite comic pic 
 tures of Irving are quite out of the reach of the more serious 
 writer. Hawthorne is a true poet and admirable writer 
 what fancy, what deep melancholy, what invention, what 
 pure, cheerful gladness, what pictures, in his delightful tales ! 
 He can excite almost terror, and almost mirth : hovering 
 ever between the two. And his style ! a mountain-spring is 
 
SINGLE-SPEECH POETS, 199 
 
 not more limpid and transparent : his genuine Faith, his 
 manly Love, his true Religion, are not to be forgotten. Why 
 does not this choicest of our writers give us more twice-told 
 tales, or a new series of charming historical sketches for 
 children, which all ages may read with pleasure ? Who but 
 he can give us the true history of Salem witchcraft, half 
 legend, half sad reality ? What stores of romance yet un- 
 worked, lie hidden in the early history of New England \ 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 SINGLE-SPEECH POETS. 
 
 A REMARK of Horace Walpole (that most acute judge of the 
 niceties of literature) is set down in the Walpoliana, on this 
 very topic, and which, indeed, had suggested the following 
 illustrations of his criticism, lie speaks of writers, who, like 
 certain plants, flower but once whose poetic genius bloomed 
 early, for a single time, and never again put forth a bud. 
 These writers, in poetry, resemble single- speech Ilamilton in 
 oratory (the coincidence furnishes the excuse of the caption), 
 and ever remain a source of literary curiosity a problem not 
 to be readily solved on ordinary premises. It is one of the 
 most curious of all literary curiosities, and yet we do not re 
 member that D Israeli has devoted a paper to the subject, 
 nor even made any reference to it an omission quite un 
 accountable in him, as it falls naturally within his province. 
 * 1615. 
 
200 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 A beautiful Anthology might be collected from the writ 
 ings of poets, who have exhausted themselves, as it were, in 
 a single effort ; caught but a single glance of the divinity ; 
 but once felt " the god." In a supplement to this exquisite 
 bouquet, richer than that of Ellis or Longfellow, though they 
 come very near to the ideal we speak of, might be included 
 the few fine short poems, of those who have written long 
 works of mediocre or perhaps even doubtful standing. A few 
 delicate morfeaux of Southey will be preserved by an affec 
 tionate race of readers, whose benevolence even cannot pre 
 vent the utter oblivion of his unwieldy epical attempts. 
 Even Gay, who wrote well always, has been immortalized by 
 his Ballads and Fables, rather than by his Trivia. 
 
 Another class, still, beside the writers of one or more 
 choice short poems, and the writers of long and dull insipid 
 productions, is that of the great writers who have written 
 much, and of whose works, even when equally fine, the short 
 est are the best known, merely because they are brief. Thus, 
 Dryden s Alexander s Feast is known to many, from being 
 met with in all the ordinary selections and elegant extracts, 
 while his no less admirable romantic tales from Boccaccio 
 and Chaucer, his delightful Fables, Epistles to Oldham, and 
 Congreve, and Kneller (on which Pope could only refine), 
 Secular Masque, and his vigorous political satires, are com 
 paratively unknown. Thousands have read, or sung, or 
 heard sung, Young Lochinvar, for the hundreds who have 
 read Marmion. And Moore is the poet of the parlor, for the 
 Melodies he has written, while his Lalla Rookh is read as a 
 critical duty, and by way of task. 
 
 According to the above classification, many pleasing versi 
 fiers would rank very high among the minor Poets, whose 
 standing is low among the master Bards. 
 
SINGLE-SPEECH POKTfc*. 201 
 
 As to the philosophy of the matter, we confess it inex 
 plicable. Why one who has once succeeded should not do 
 equally well again, many causes may be assigned ; yet not 
 one of them carries sufficient weight to settle the question 
 determinately. The various reasons are sufficiently plausible, 
 yet may be easily set aside on further reflection Sheer in 
 dolence ! cries one ; timidity, exclaims another : want of 
 leisure, reasons a third; rather, want of power, adds a fourth ; 
 perhaps, all together, judiciously concludes a fifth. 
 
 Some persons seem to regard these writers as some old 
 dogmatist called Goldsmith inspired idiots, who hare, by 
 chance, hit upon a new thought or view, which they want 
 skill and training to follow up as delicious harmonies may 
 float on the mind of one who is ignorant of the science of 
 sweet sounds. 
 
 In truth, the fact is as wonderful as that would be (of 
 which we are ignorant, if it has ever happened) of a painter 
 who had finished but one good picture in the course of his 
 life who had caught for a single time the cordial and 
 kindly aspect of nature who, once only, had gained power 
 to interpret the soul, speaking in the face. Who ever heard, 
 or read of, or saw, the single celebrated production of a 
 sculptor, or musical composer, or architect, who had any 
 thing of a desirable reputation ? We do not speak of the 
 clever things done by ingei .ious amateurs, but of single 
 works (not plays, as Ben Jonson used to distinguish), ex 
 ecuted by professional artists. 
 
 Yet as matters of literary and personal history, that was 
 really the case of the authors of the Burial of Sir John Moore 
 and the Ode to the Cuckoo. W T olfe wrote two or throe other 
 fine things in verse and prose, yet nothing comparable to this 
 master piece. Logan is known only by the ode we rotor to. 
 9* 
 
202 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 The Braes of Yarrow enshrine the memory of Hamilton o f 
 Bangour, and have led greater bards to the scene, to offer 
 up their tributes, still inferior to the first. Why is this all 
 we have of these delicate poets ? With such fancy, such 
 feeling, a taste so refined, a versification so graceful, how 
 happens it we hear no more strains from these nightingales 
 of a night? Not wholly so besotted as to be careless of 
 fame ; rather, so far from that, as, in the case of Wolfe, to 
 be sensitively alive to generous praise and to noble action ; 
 and, as to Logan, we believe he, too, was a clergyman, a re 
 tired scholar, and man of pure taste. Both were (if we re 
 collect aright) invalids, constitutionally feeble, and hence 
 incapable of long flights of fancy or close study. They had 
 leisure poetic impulses could not have been wanting, for 
 subjects and occasions never wholly fail the Muse ; the ad 
 miration of friends, we may conclude, was theirs. A single 
 obstacle only remains, and that furnishes, probably, the oc 
 casion or reason of their silence a fastidious taste, like 
 Campbell s, who was said to be frightened by the shadow of 
 his fame, that could not be satisfied with anything short of 
 perfection, which it failed to realize. Genuine modesty, and 
 a sensitive temperament, were leading traits (we presume, of 
 course) of the writers. These held their hand, and restrain 
 ed the otherwise willing pen. The same reasons will not 
 seem to excuse the short poems of Raleigh and Wotton, who 
 feared no critical tribunals ; whose minds were braced by 
 manly action ; who united all characters and talents and ac 
 complishments ; who, with learning and (at some period) 
 leisure, and fancy, and power, have left a very few and very 
 brief copies of verse, worthy of being printed in letters of 
 gold. They were not men, like their later brother bards, to 
 entertain a feeling of despair at ever again equalling the fine 
 

 SINGLE-SPEECH POETS. 208 
 
 things they had accomplished early in life. In them, there 
 fore, it is but fair to suppose, that the poetic bore a slight 
 proportion to the political and scholastic and business-cha 
 racters, which rendered them famous. 
 
 The minds of men change ; their aims vary at different 
 epochs. They entertain different views of life, of action, of 
 ambition. Many youthful tastes (the accompaniment of ani 
 mal spirits, rather than the fruit of settled inclination) vanish 
 as men grow older. How many young poets have settled 
 down into middle-aged prose men ; how many airy ro 
 mancers become converted into matter-of-fact critics. Reli 
 gion, in some instances, teaches (falsely, we conceive) the sin 
 of all but devotional strains : unquestionably, when pure and 
 noble, the highest kind of verse, but not the only allowable 
 form. In this case, too, where piety is perverted, the praises 
 of men appear so worthless and unsatisfactory, that the bard 
 relinquishes the exercise of his divine gift (in a wrong spirit) 
 before men, that he may offer up his praises, pure and unal 
 loyed, with angels and the blessed, to the Almighty Giver 
 of the glorious faculty itself (among innumerable blessings). 
 
 Various pursuits, too, warp the imagination from poetical 
 flights, and confine the studies that arise from fancy and taste 
 to a narrow circle, if not consign them over to " dumb for- 
 getfulness a prey." Three great lawyers have been made 
 out of tolerable poets, who might have ranked among the 
 first of the third rank, the Dii Minores of our idolatry 
 Blackstone, Sir William Jones, and Lord Thurlow ; judge- 
 ships and bishoprics oblige the holders and occupants of 
 these stations to hide, sometimes, a rare and peculiar talent. 
 Yet some bishops have been wits, as Earle and Corbet : 
 though too frequently the office stultifies the head, while it 
 hardens the heart. 
 
204 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 Without any further attempt at unravelling the causey of 
 this literary phenomenon, we will at once bring together the 
 following notices of writers of the kind we have undertaken 
 to describe, without pretending (from the nature of the case 
 an almost impossible thing) to produce all who deserve men 
 tion. On the contrary, we can promise to quote only a few, 
 as we write from memory, and without the means of extend 
 ing our list. 
 
 To commence with two court poets of the age of Charles 
 II., when " the mob of gentlemen who write with ease," first 
 appeared. Denham, the fashionable poet of his day, now 
 ranks as such in the select collections, mainly on the strength 
 of the Cooper s Hill. Dorset, one of the most delightful and 
 accomplished characters of that court of wits and gallants, is 
 best known in political history by his ballad, said to have 
 been written at sea during the first Dutch war, 1665, the 
 night before the engagement. He has penned a couple of 
 delightful songs or so, but his poetical claims rest chiefly on 
 the ballad. Pomfrefs " Choice" stands quite alone ; the 
 single popular poem of its author, an agreeable, pleasant 
 piece of versification, presenting the ideal of a quiet, comfort 
 able, retired literary life. Swift s version of Horace s lines is 
 more Horatian, but less English. Cowley and Norris, who 
 both translated the philosophic picture of Seneca, of a similar 
 strain, are more philosophic and high toned, but do not ap 
 proach so closely the more equal current of daily life. Leigh 
 Hunt has praised Pomfret, and somewhere, we think, directly 
 imitated " Choice," adding to the verse a grace of his own. 
 Dr. Johnson passed upon him no more than a just eulogium. 
 To the masculine moralist and the agreeable essayist we bow, 
 in deference to their united judgment. John Phillips is 
 famous for his celebrated burlesque of Milton (the "Splendid 
 
SINGLE-SPEECH POETS. 205 
 
 Shilling"), but we can recollect no other poem of his of any 
 thing like equal merit. Pamelas Hermit is his chef- 
 d oeuvre. Many who know him as a poet, know nothing of 
 his verses to his wife, and one or two other short pieces, al 
 most equally tine. Blair s " Grave" (the resting place of 
 Mortality) has made him immortal. Green s " Spleen," and 
 Dyer s " Grongar Hill," poems excellent in their different 
 styles of manly satire and picturesque description, are, we be 
 lieve, the only works of these authors that have escaped ob 
 livion. As writers of single poems, we may, by a forced 
 construction, " compel to come in" certain of the old drama 
 tists, and though they do not properly rank under this head, 
 we may be glad to eke out our list by such delights of the 
 muses as the noble Dirge in Webster s terrible tragedy, Shir 
 ley s tine stanzas ; and scattered songs, " fancies," and " good- 
 nights," that occur in the rare old comedies and tragedies : 
 from Gammer Gurton s Needle, that can boast the first and 
 one of the best drinking songs in the language, down to, and 
 half through, the age of Elizabeth, the age of Marlow and 
 his contemporaries, just previous to the golden era of the 
 Shaksperean drama. Many of the minor poets, whether gay 
 or religious, of the seventeenth century, have left sparkling 
 gems, such as the delicate flowers that blossom in the poetic 
 gardens of Carew, Herrick, King, Vnughan, Lovelace, <fec- 
 We had written thus far, when we met with Longfellow s 
 Waif, & delicate and tasteful anthology, which, however, 
 should have included a galaxy of rare old poems : the later 
 writers are sufficiently well known. 
 
 Certain of the noble old prose writers, to be ranked, by the 
 production of one fine poem if by no other claim by title 
 of courtesy, among poets, ought not to be omitted, as Bunyan, 
 in the pithy, sententious lines prefixed to his " Pilgrim ;" 
 
206 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 Burton s fine versified abstract of his own " Anatomy ; and 
 Walton s "Angler s Wish." These are "rarely delicate," as 
 Walton says of Marlow and Raleigh s delicious verses, " bet 
 ter than the strong lines now in vogue in this critical age." 
 
 In one department of verse, that of Hymns and the versi 
 fied Psalms of David, some writers are classic from having 
 produced one or two admirable pieces of the kind ; in this 
 class come Addison, Pope, Young, Ken, Cowper, Heber, 
 Wotton. 
 
 Many writers, of very considerable pretensions, have suc 
 ceeded in one long poem, but are not generally known by 
 any second production of equal value. Of this class the best 
 instances are Young, in his " Night Thoughts" hard reading, 
 except in detached passages ; Akemide s " Pleasures of Im 
 agination" (with all his pomp of philosophic speculation and 
 elaborate fancy, very heavy for these very reasons.) The 
 Pleasures, (by the way) of Memory and Hope, in these long 
 general poems, are far from pleasant reading; Churchill, 
 whose local and temporary satires are forgotten and give 
 place to his " Rosciad," a monument of his sense, acuteness, 
 and happy satire a gallery of theatrical portraits hit off with 
 the justness and vivacity of Pope, and forming a capital sup 
 plement to Colley Gibber s collection ; Allan Ramsay s 
 "Gentle Shepherd," that Arcadian pastoral; Garth, in his 
 " Dispensary," an author in whom the man and humorist 
 was more than a match for the poet ; Somerville s " Chase," 
 pretty fair verse for a sporting country gentleman ; and 
 Armstrong s " Art of Preserving Health," a sensible essay 
 that might as well have been written in prose. The same 
 criticism may be applied to Garth and Somerville. 
 
 Among general readers the Hudibras of Butler is eagerly 
 perused by all who delight in the union of sense, wit, and 
 

 BINGLE-SPEECH POETS. 207 
 
 learning, all devoted to the cause and end of wholesome sa 
 tire ; yet the other sharp satires of the same writer are, 
 virtually, unknown. And the Seasons of Thompson, by no 
 means his best poem, is universally read, while very few ever 
 think of glancing at the delightful " Castle of Indolence," of 
 which he was both the creator and master. 
 
 Then again, certain fine poems are continually quoted, not 
 as the sole efforts, but as the masterpieces of their authors, 
 quite to the exclusion of any other works of theirs ; the se 
 lection, for instance, of such fine poems as the Ode to the 
 Passions and the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, in works 
 on .elocution, with which every schoolboy is familiar, has 
 thrown the other equally fine pieces by the same authors, 
 comparatively into the shade. Shenstone s Schoolmistress 
 comes within the same category ; but after all, the fame of 
 the poet depends on it alone. The ballad of Jemmy Dawson 
 is not superior to many that have been consigned to obscurity ; 
 while the Pastoral Ballad, with a certain vein of tenderness, 
 does not rank much above Hammond s strain (once called 
 the English Ovid), which has been long since, and not un 
 justly, forgotten. 
 
 A delicate volume might be made up of single poems of 
 English and American poets of this century. In English 
 poetical literature, Mrs. Southey s Paupers s Death-Bed, 
 Noels s Pauper s Funeral, delicate verses of Darley, Mont 
 gomery s Grave, <fec., &c. 
 
 Our American Parnassus entertains many occupants, who 
 can prefer but a single claim (or two) for possession. The 
 following are some of the gems we can, at present, recall. 
 The famous song of R. T. Paine, entitled Adams and Liberty, 
 though its poetical value was slight, was the best paid copy 
 of verses ever printed here, and exceedingly popular : the 
 
208 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 spirited " Indian Burial Ground," of Freneau, which Long 
 fellow has lately recovered, and whence Campbell borrowed 
 a line or two. Coke s Florence Vane, Neals s Birth of a 
 Poet, Wilde s My Life is like a Summer s Rose, Pierpont s 
 affecting lines on his dead child, Lindley Murray s charming 
 verses to his wife, Pinckney s spirited and truly poetical songs, 
 Aldrich s Death Bed, Field s Dirge on a Young Girl, Wood- 
 worth s Old Oaken Bucket, Eastman s Farmer s Day, &c. 
 But our best fugitive poetry has been written by prose writers. 
 Irving s delicious lines, the Dull Lecture, illustrating, or 
 illustrated by (we know not which), a capital picture of 
 Stuart Newton ; and his classic verses to the Passaic River, as 
 graceful and picturesque as that winding stream. C. C. Moore 
 has in a choice volume, among other delicate verses, included 
 three classic poems sufficient to secure a place for their author 
 on the same shelf with Gray, Campbell, and Logan : the 
 capital humorous visit of St. Nicholas with the verses to 
 the Poet s wife, and the lines to his children, accompanying 
 their father s portrait : verses worthy of Goldsmith. A noble 
 poem on Alaric, by Governor Everett; some fine versions 
 from the German, by the Hon. Alexander Everett ; three or 
 four admirable pieces by John Waters ; the two last addressed 
 to ladies, printed in the American newspaper, some six or 
 seven years ago. Nicholas Biddle wrote some very agreeable 
 jeux d esprit and vers de societe. A lively epistle of this kind 
 appeared in the weekly New Mirror last summer. A noble 
 poem, "The Days of my Youth and of my Age Contrasted," 
 by the Hon. St. Geo. Tucker, of Virginia, has been going 
 the rounds of the papers for a year past. Can no printed 
 book or magazine show us more of the author ? We often 
 ask ourselves this question, with regard to many other au 
 thors, without ever receiving a satisfactory answer. Very 
 
PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 209 
 
 many such we still remain in utter ignorance of, in common 
 with the reading public, and this fact must account for our 
 omissions. When we think of the stupid long poems, with 
 which the world has been deluged for years past, and recol 
 lect how many exquisite brief pieces are lost merely by their 
 brevity, as a jewel is hidden in a pile of common stones, we 
 often wish that a critical police might be continually kept up, 
 to pound all stray poetical cattle ; or, at least, to advertise 
 where they might be found. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 ON PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 
 
 THE day of prefaces and courtly dedications is well nigh past. 
 The readers of the present generation are generally in too 
 great a hurry to penetrate the inner courts of the Temple of 
 Truth, or oftener of Pleasure, to linger long about the sacred 
 Porch, and are too apt to neglect the formal compliments 
 and elaborate address of the janitor, at the gate. With a 
 disregard and indifference (more especially with us Ameri 
 cans) to the amenities of social intercourse, has also been 
 introduced a carelessness on the part of authors. Rarely we 
 meet a conciliatory poem or an affectionate salutatory ; still 
 less frequently we encounter a critical introduction, or argu 
 ment of the work. Modern society laughs at the studied 
 courtesies of the old school of politeness ; and modern critics 
 are equally inclined to ridicule the hyperbolical praises and 
 scholastic introductions of their literary forefathers. But let 
 us discriminate. At the same time that the herd of authors 
 
210 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 (not very different in the most unpleasant aspects, at any 
 one period from what they are at all others) ran riot in 
 extravagant adulations, and prolix, stupid and tiresome self- 
 eulogium, or worse yet, self-censure, there were writers living 
 who have made the Preface and the Dedication classical pro 
 vinces of elegant composition ; whose skill in spirited por 
 trait and delicate flattery, in the last department, and whose 
 clear, acute, and copious analogies and illustration, in the 
 first, have rendered them indispensable appendages to the 
 works we are accustomed to regard as standards in their 
 class. 
 
 A preface may be regarded as having the same relation 
 to the work that follows as a prologue to a play ; or when 
 extended and explanatory, as an overture to an opera. It 
 should give the reader the key-note to the book itself, and 
 the harmonies it is supposed to contain. Or else it should, 
 in a bird s-eye view, display the whole scope of the theme, 
 with all its bearings. It should rarely admit of an apolo 
 getic tone, and never deprecate the honest severity of just 
 criticism. That is a bad book as well as a feeble character, 
 that begs off from a close inspection. There should be no 
 petitio principiij no morbid modesty ; neither any false fears, 
 nor artful affectations. Its business is to speak the truth, yet 
 not necessarily the whole of the truth. It is well to keep 
 something in reserve; to promise too little rather than too 
 much ; to know how to disappoint one s friends the right 
 way. 
 
 In the Dedication, the writer makes his bow and presents 
 his compliments; addressing a near friend, or heart s idol (a 
 great author or public character, who stands on an elevation 
 far above him, yet whom he cherishes with an affectionate 
 veneration) ; and, although the custom is rapidly falling into 
 
PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 211 
 
 disuse, it seems to us as disrespectful to the reader for a 
 writer to omit this piece of introductory civility, as it would 
 appear to any well-bred company for a person to enter with 
 out saluting any member of it, and depart in the same grace 
 less manner. A similar omission in letters, of an epithet of 
 attachment or regard, strikes us much in the same way as if 
 one stopped another in the street, and fell at once into con 
 versation with him without shaking of hands, a smile, an 
 inquiry after the person s health who is addressed, a passing 
 good-morrow, or even a civil nod. When a man wishes 
 to assume a magisterial air, to write in the imperative or 
 minatory mood, he may waive all forms of address. But 
 between friends it is one of the indispensable bonds of con 
 nection, and furnishes one of the strongest ties (however 
 slight it may appear) to lasting attachment. 
 
 Not to trench further upon the confined limits to which 
 our lucubrations are restricted, we must make an end of these 
 prefatory remarks and come to the point. 
 
 In looking through the Index to the first series of the 
 Curiosities of Literature, we remarked a section on Prefaces ; 
 and began to think we had chanced upon a topic already 
 exhausted by the learned research and ingenious criticism of 
 the elder D lsraeli. But a reference to the paragraph in 
 question speedily satisfied us how much more had been left 
 for subsequent essayists ; that the liberal antiquary had by 
 no means employed a tithe of his resources, had merely in 
 dicated a point or two, leaving the multifarious instances for 
 future inquirers to accumulate and dispose. Of what he has 
 written, however (a page or two only), we readily avail our 
 selves, for who has more justly gained the title of the Literary 
 Antiquary than D lsraeli, and from whose books can our 
 later critics gain a better insight into many curiosities of 
 
212 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 literature, .and the profession of authorship, than from the 
 fragmentary note-books of the same author ? 
 
 Prefaces, it appears, are no modern inventions. Cicero is 
 said to have kept a volume by him fitted for all sorts of 
 works ; a species of assorted common-places cast into the 
 form of an address. Prefaces then, as more lately, even 
 down to the time of Johnson, were written to order, by 
 authors, who wrote only that part of the published book. 
 Some introductions, too, were and have been written which 
 might have answered equally well for any productions of a 
 similar cast. This is well-known of Sail list s introductory 
 paragraphs to his two histories. And, if we are not mis 
 taken in the recollection, Clarendon s preface to his history 
 of the Rebellion might with slight alteration have answered 
 for a narrative of any popular revolution. Sir W. Raleigh s 
 preface might be prefixed to any universal history ; and 
 Hooker s to any treatise on ecclesiastical polity, so far as 
 the bearing of the introduction, on the work that follows, is 
 concerned. All of these are, in themselves, intrinsically noble, 
 but with little individuality or close connection with the par 
 ticular subject. 
 
 A friend reminds us that the same criticism may be ap 
 plied to Voltaire s Preface to his History of Charles XII. ; we 
 had forgotten this instance, but adopt it on the testimony of 
 a witness so likely to be correct. Many other examples, e 
 dare say, might be produced ; but a few are sufficient. 
 
 If we were to fix an era when prefaces might be said to be 
 emphatically in fashion in England, we should be obliged to 
 include a couple of centuries at least; from the beginning of 
 the reign of James I. to the end of the reign of George III. 
 We might commence nearly a century earlier, but restrict 
 ourselves within pretty well defined limits. A book pub- 
 
PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 213 
 
 lished at that period, whatever its character or pretensions, 
 without a preface of some description, or a dedication of some 
 kind, might have been regarded as an anomaly. With this 
 necessary requisition, it was not expected, however, that all 
 prefaces and all dedications should be cast in the same 
 mould. It was enough, if the usual form and style of the 
 one, and the customary spirit and length of the others, 
 were observed. It is curious, therefore, to remark the 
 variety of styles, and the difference of manner. Flattery 
 wore a number of elegant disguises, from the magnificent 
 hyperbole of Bacon to the easy grace of Steele. Criticism 
 was one thing in the hands of the harmonious Dryden, and 
 quite another thing in the pages of the brilliant and senten 
 tious Pope. 
 
 Perhaps the finest preface in the language is Pope s Pre 
 face to his Miscellanies, most of them written before the age 
 of twenty-five. And, for our own parts, we regard the dedi 
 cation of the Lover, by Steele, as the noblest dedication we 
 ever read. As the volume is very scarce, we quote the entire 
 epistle, as a masterpiece of its kind : 
 
 " To Sir Samuel Garth, M. D. 
 
 " SIR : As soon as I thought of making the Lover a 
 present to one of my friends, I resolved, without further dis 
 tracting iny choice, to send it To the Best-natured Man. 
 You are so universally known for this character, that an 
 epistle so directed would find its way to you without your 
 name, and I believe nobody but you yourself would deliver 
 such a superscription to any other person. 
 
 " This propensity is the nearest akin to love ; and good 
 nature is the worthiest affection of the mind, as love is the 
 noblest passion of it; while the latter is wholly employed in 
 
214 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 endeavoring to make happy one single object, the other dif 
 fuses its benevolence to all the world. 
 
 " As this is your natural bent, I cannot but congratulate 
 you on the singular felicity, that your profession is so agree 
 able to your temper. For what condition is more desirable 
 than a constant impulse to relieve the distressed, and a capa 
 city to administer that relief? When the sick man hangs his 
 eye on that of his physician, how pleasing must it be to speak 
 comfort to his anguish, to raise in him the first motions of 
 hope, to lead him into a persuasion that he shall return to the 
 company of his friends, the care of his family, and all the 
 blessings of being. 
 
 " The manner in which you practice this heavenly faculty 
 of aiding human life, is according to the liberality of science, 
 and demonstrates that your heart is more set upon doing 
 good than growing rich. 
 
 "The painful artifices which empirics are guilty of, to draw 
 cash out of valetudinarians, are the abhorrence of your gene 
 rous mind, and it is as common with Garth to supply indi 
 gent patients with money for food, as to receive it from 
 wealthy ones for physic. How much more amiable, Sir, 
 would the generosity which is already applauded by all who 
 know you, appear to those whose gratitude you every day re 
 fuse, if they knew that you resist their presents lest you 
 should supply those whose wants you know, by taking from 
 those with whose necessities you are unacquainted ? 
 
 " The families you frequent receive you as their friend and 
 well-wisher, whose concern, in their behalf, is as great as that 
 of those who are related to them by the ties of blood, and the 
 sanctions of affinity. This tenderness interrupts the satisfac 
 tions of conversations, to which you are so happily turned, but 
 we forgive you that our mirth is often insipid to you, while 
 

 PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 215 
 
 you sit absent to what passes amongst us, from your care of 
 such as languish in sickness. We are sensible their dis 
 tresses, instead of being removed by company, return more 
 strongly to your imagination by comparison of their condition 
 to the jollities of health. 
 
 " But I forget I am writing a dedication ; and, in an ad 
 dress of this kind, it is more usual to celebrate men s great 
 talents, than those virtues to which such talents should be 
 subservient : jet, where the bent of a man s spirit is taken up 
 in the application of his whole force to serve the world in his 
 profession, it would be frivolous not to entertain him rather 
 with thanks for what he is, than applause for what he is ca 
 pable of being. Besides, Sir, there is no room for saying 
 anything to you, as you are a man of wit, and a great poet ; 
 all that can be spoken in the celebration of such faculties has 
 been incomparably said by yourself to others, or by others to 
 you. You have never been excelled in this kind but by those 
 who have written in praise of you : I will not pretend to be 
 your rival, even with such an advantage over you, but assur 
 ing you, in Mr. Codrington s* words, that I do not know 
 whether my admiration or love is greater. 
 
 " I remain, Sir, your most faithful friend, and most obliged 
 
 humble servant, 
 
 " RICHARD STEELE." 
 
 If this be not writing from and to the heart, we know not 
 what is. This was one of those rare occasions where both 
 writer and patron have a generous spirit, and where praise 
 can be given without servility, and received without loss of 
 self respect. 
 
 * Thou hast no faults, or I no faults can spy ; 
 Tbou art all beauty, or nil Llimlness I. 
 
 Codrington to Dr. Garth, before (he Dispensary. 
 
216 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 To return to the earliest writers of dedications in English 
 (we have forsaken regularity of method in the present paper, 
 but shall endeavor to regain it) ; Bacon s dedication of the 
 Advancement, to the King, is a piece of keen satire and mag 
 nificent eulogium united, forming a composition of wonderful 
 ingenuity and eloquence. Dryden s dedications are equally 
 splendid and fulsome. We cannot help admiring his rich 
 musical style, and copious matter (a Field of Cloth of Gold), 
 but at the same time we lose all confidence in the sincerity of 
 a man who could address the most insipid peer of the realm 
 in the same glowing colours with which he would depict the 
 features of the prince of poets. His critical "prefaces are even 
 finer yet, and may be justly styled sesthetical treatises. Mere 
 prefaces in a confined sense Dryden did not write, but rather 
 rich, copious, critical essays. On his own premises, and with 
 his artificial education, Dryden reasoned vigorously, and illus 
 trated his views with beauty, and even splendor of ornament. 
 He has left on record the finest portraits of the Elizabethan 
 dramatists, Shakspeare, Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher. 
 But Dryden is not without defects. He is tediously mi 
 nute in criticising his own dramatic pieces, and displays too 
 much of erudition on points of comparatively trifling impor 
 tance. 
 
 Steele s dedication to the Lover we have extracted. The 
 dedications of the volumes of the Tattler are hardly less fine. 
 They are much shorter, and less personal, but graceful and 
 natural. In the dedication of the first volume, to Mr. Mayn- 
 waring, he thus admirably sets forth (what should have been 
 placed in a preface, for it relates to the work itself, and not to 
 its patron) the sum of his endeavors, and which might be as 
 sumed with the greatest propriety by every work of the kind : 
 " The general purpose of this paper is to expose the false arts 
 
PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 217 
 
 of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity and affec 
 tation, and to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, 
 our discourse and our behavior." In the dedication to the se 
 cond volume, to Mr. Edward Wortley Montague, he thus de 
 licately compliments his benevolent generosity : " I know 
 not how to say a more affectionate thing to you, than to wish 
 that you may be always what you are ; and that you may 
 ever think, as I know you now do, that you have a much 
 larger fortune than you want" The third volume opens 
 with a perfect specimen of amenity and courteous eloquence. 
 It is addressed to Lord Cowper, in Steele s proper person, and 
 includes a brilliant portrait of the great statesman and forensic 
 orator. The concluding volume of the series is presented to 
 Lord Halifax, the Mecsenas of the day, to whom every author 
 of eminence offered the first fruits of his genius, and dedicated 
 the choisest productions of his maturer taste. He was the 
 nobleman, ambitious of literary fame, who was " Fed with 
 soft dedications all day long," by Addison, Steele, Pope, 
 Swift (who afterwards changed his tune upon being neglected 
 by him), &c. 
 
 Addison s dedications have not BO genial a tone as his 
 fellow-laborer s; yet they are unquestionably impressed with 
 the habitual elegance of his style. He was fortunate in his 
 patrons, the first four volumes of the Spectator being address 
 ed to Somers, Halifax, Boyle, and Marlborough. 
 
 Pope s preface, we remarked, was, perhaps, the finest in the 
 language. It is curt, polished, full of sense, with a dash of 
 caustic irony and refined sentiment, curiously blended, and 
 written as with a pen of steel. The same antithetical manner, 
 precision of thought, and brilliancy of expression, that mark 
 the epigrammatic verse of the Wasp of Twit nam prevail in 
 10 
 
218 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 his prose ; and in none of his prose do they appear in such a 
 vivid light as in the preface to his Miscellaneous Works. 
 
 We can only refrain from transcribing passage after pass 
 age by the apprehension of exceeding our prescribed space, 
 and by the reflection that, as the works of Pope are so uni 
 versally accessible, quotation would only tend to encourage 
 indolence in the reader, who can turn to it readily. 
 
 Mr. Chalmers speaks of Johnson s dedications as " models 
 of courtly address ; they might have been such in the reign 
 of the dull Dutchman, George II., but now-a-days they read 
 a little too much like the pompous flourishes of the ancient 
 regime. Goldsmith s dedications are much briefer, but more 
 to the point, and more graceful. In an introduction, despite 
 of the triptology of his style, Johnson was at home. And 
 his style was admirably suitable to occasions of moment and 
 themes of weight and importance. From the sonorous music 
 of his best writing, we can readily admit that Temple (as has 
 been asserted) was one of the models of Johnson s prose. In 
 point and vigor, Johnson was his superior, but he wants 
 Temple s simplicity and ease. Johnson used to say, there 
 were two things he knew he could do well state what a 
 work ought to contain, and then relate the reasons or de 
 duce the causes why the writer had failed in executing what 
 he proposed. The first of these talents he possessed to per 
 fection, as we see by his prefaces, most of which were written 
 to order, and are often vastly superior to the book they in 
 troduced to the reader. The preface to Rolt s Dictionary of 
 Trade and Commerce is a striking instance. Johnson had 
 never seen the book, but was asked to give a preface, which 
 he wrote accordingly. He said he knew what such a book 
 ought to contain, and marked out its expected contents. 
 According to Chalmers, the production was almost worthless. 
 
PREFAC19 AND DEDICATIONS. 219 
 
 When a bookseller s drudge, the noble old moralist indited 
 many an introduction to books of travel and science, school 
 treatises, translations, catalogues. Only a few of these have 
 been preserved in the correct editions of his works. 
 
 Johnson possessed great faculties of method and classifica 
 tion. He had clear and strong, though not fine and subtle 
 powers of analysis and classification. Hence resulted this 
 talent of telling what a book should contain. In a preface, it 
 was not his business to go farther. But in his lives and ex 
 tended criticisms he was equally happy in assigning the 
 causes of ill success and of certain failure, on particular 
 grounds. Goldsmith s prefaces were less vigorous, less pointed, 
 but more graceful and simply beautiful. 
 
 After the dissolution of the Johnsonian school of writers, 
 we read few classical prefaces save by pupils of the old 
 classical school. Irving is the last of these. Scott expended 
 considerable pains on his introductions, and proposed re 
 writing all of his prefaces to the Waverley novels, just before 
 his death. Much of Sir Walter s pleasantest writing occurs 
 in these rambling preludes to his animating narratives. Bul- 
 wer s prefaces are distorted by the narrowest egotism and un 
 bounded assumption ; yet they are such as a man of his 
 talents would alone write. The poets have written the best 
 prose and the best prefaces, too ; such are (wide apart to be 
 sure) Hunt s lively gossipping introductions, and Words 
 worth s elevated lectures, for such they amount to, on the 
 dignity and nobleness of his art. 
 
 We trust the day is coming when writers will return to 
 the composition of prefaces, if only to preserve an historical 
 interest in their works. Much of the interest of the old pre 
 faces is derived from the names at the top and bottom of the 
 page, with the date of publication. Prefaces thus afford 
 
220 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 authentic materials for literary history, and if carefully exe 
 cuted, for literary criticism. They preserve, too, a regard for 
 the good and well-tested standard forms of writing, and in 
 themselves require a species of talent that should not be 
 neglected. To declare his principal aims, and explain his 
 chief intentions, thereby giving the reader a proper clue to 
 the argument of the whole work, with a candid and open 
 avowal of deficiencies, is the proper business of a preface, and 
 of a writer of books. .To address his friend, or at least the 
 reader, with cordiality or respect, in accordance with the 
 spirit of the production ; to bespeak his favorable notice, or 
 seek to avoid unmerited neglect, is the province of the dedi 
 cation. To accomplish these ends, a recurrence to standard 
 models cannot be hurtful, since there is something of a 
 formal, and, as it were, of artistical etiquette in the matter, 
 and which is not to be lost sight of. The author, who is 
 also a gentleman, and it is the effect of letters to make him 
 such, will certainly endeavor to carry himself with as genteel 
 an air on paper as in company. In every place, he will ob 
 serve the universal laws of polite regard and the local ob 
 servances of conventional decorum. One of these is to write 
 a preface to every book he publishes, which should also be 
 accompanied by a dedication. In the first, he addresses the 
 public ; and in the last he acknowledges the claims of private 
 affection or personal gratitude, of admiration for talents or 
 virtue in one of the stars of contemporary renown, or of worth 
 and excellence in obscure genius and unobtrusive merit. The 
 preface pleads, apologizes, defends or attacks : the dedication 
 conciliates and compliments. Let an author be friendless 
 and humble, he still can appeal to the "gentle" reader for 
 sympathy and confidence. 
 
XXIX. 
 
 RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 WE believe Dr. Johnson was the first critic to complain of 
 the "penury" of English biography. It was a complaint that 
 savored more of hastiness and ignorance than the Doctor s 
 contemporary admirers would have been willing to allow any 
 reviewer to discover in him, but still it was such ; and now 
 that every pretender to criticism makes it a point to beard 
 the rough but manly old dogmatist, we may allow ourselves 
 the privilege of picking an additional flaw in his critical repu 
 tation (almost worn out by repeated attacks). It is certain, 
 for his undoubted vigor and ability, no writer of eminence 
 ever made so many and such gross critical blunders as Doctor 
 Johnson. On real life and domestic morals ; the character 
 and manners of the Londoners ; the hypocrisies of men of the 
 world ; the thin-skinned sentimentalities of pretenders to sen 
 timent and criticism, he exhibited an acuteness of observa 
 tion, a comprehensiveness of judgment, and pungency of 
 satire, that have never been surpassed. But in the field of 
 literary criticism, requiring finer tact and a nicer perception, 
 the grossness of his senses, no less than the obtuseness of his 
 taste, rendered him unfit, physically and intellectually, to 
 judge of poets and men of fancy. 
 
 In the rich territory of old English literature, there is not 
 perhaps, a more fruitful province than that of biography, not 
 only in the classic form of lives, but also memoirs, diaries and 
 autobiography. It is true the lives most generally read at 
 present, were written either during the lifetime or since the 
 death of Johnson ; as in the former period the classic lives of 
 Goldsmith and Johnson, and the memoirs of Cumberland, 
 
222 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 and from that period to the present day, among heaps of 
 wretched compilations, we must distinguish the first book of 
 the kind in the world, Boswell s Johnson, the learned auto 
 biography of Gibbon, the simple yet fascinating lives of Hume 
 and Franklin, honest self-painters ; the classic compendiums 
 of Southey, the lives of Burns by Currie and Lockhart, and 
 the minor sketches of Irving. The latest permanent work of 
 this class is the Memoirs of Leigh Hunt. And yet by far 
 the richest treasures of English biography are to be found 
 among the antiquarian volumes of the old English library . 
 The best of these form a choice list ; classic to this day. 
 There are the lives, by Burnet, of Hale and Rochester ; the 
 austere, incorruptible judge and pure citizen, and the lively, 
 volatile wit and libertine subsiding into a sober, earnest 
 Christian. Walton s lives are too well known to dilate upon 
 the heroes of them at present ; yet what a noble company of 
 poets, divines and Christian gentlemen form the subjects of 
 his volumes Hooker, and Wotton, and Donne, and Herbert, 
 and Sanderson ! Zouch s life of Walton himself is fit to be 
 included as the humble companion of these. Then we have 
 North s life of Lord Guildford, full of lively personal strokes 
 and characters of the great lawyers of the time of Charles II. 
 and James II. Fenton s lives of Milton and Waller Fell s 
 Hammond, the Fenelon of the royalist divines, and favorite 
 chaplain of Charles I., sharing his imprisonment and dan 
 gers. Among the latest of the older lives, Doddridge s Life 
 of Colonel Gardiner, of which we shall say more before we 
 conclude. 
 
 The French have the reputation of being the best memoir 
 writers in the world ; yet their most courtly wits have not 
 surpassed Hamilton in his pictures of the royal licentiousness 
 of the age of Charles II., and Pepys and Evelyn. The me- 
 
RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 223 
 
 raoirs of Colonel Hutchinson by his wife, and of Venetia 
 Digby, the beauty of her day, and the popular toast, despite 
 her doubtful reputation, by the quaint fantast Sir Kenelin 
 Digby, are at least a fair match for Bassompiere and Roche 
 foucauld. And then, as repositories of facts and personal 
 circumstances nowhere else to be learned, we have the elabo 
 rate histories of Wood and Fuller, Spence s and Aubrey s 
 anecdotes, and the letter writers, from old Howell himself to 
 Pope and his friends. If such a list looks like " penury," we 
 should like to learn the comparative scale by which " wealth " 
 is to be adjudged. 
 
 A fair proportion of the old lives are those of good Christ 
 ians without pretence, and fine scholars without presumption. 
 Most of them, too, have an additional value as models for 
 conduct: Rochester and Gardiner being the sole instances of 
 " men that need repentance," and they both converted in 
 the heyday of the vicious career in which they were em 
 barked. 
 
 So much by way of preface a long introduction to a brief 
 article. We have selected this topic to point out the preva 
 lent defects, in almost every work of the kind ; defects, too, 
 springing from the best of motives, and more easily dis 
 covered than corrected. In the best of the old lives we find 
 this ever-recurring defect : a desire to paint in the hero of 
 biography, a perfect man ; a tendency to exaggerate indi 
 vidual and particular merits, by the force of contrast with 
 inferior traits in much inferior characters. The writers of 
 lives, in all times, have been too sparing of the shade in their 
 portraits. A profusion of light falling upon the admirable 
 virtues, allows no room for the exhibition of defects. Every 
 trait is heightened ; every characteristic marked with an em- 
 
224 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 phasis seldom found in nature. The subjects of biography, 
 like the heroes of novels, are too often 
 
 " Faultless monsters whom the world ne er saw." 
 
 This disgusts the thoughtful reader, whether young or 
 old ; for the youthful student soon finds these pictures dis 
 proved in real life, and the sage knows their unreality while 
 lie is perusing the page. In the older lives, in all of those to 
 which we have referred, a saving clause may be inserted, that 
 the subjects of the writers were all of them men of that emni- 
 ence that either extravagant praise or excessive censure soon 
 corrected itself. For one would report differently of their 
 lives and actions from another, and hence a balance might 
 easily be struck between them. And besides, in extenuation, 
 we may offer the best apology for the biographer, that his 
 hero was often a character so fascinating, viewed as a whole, 
 that it was very excusable to overlook minor errors and petty 
 defects. All of Walton s characters, for instance, inevitably 
 seduce a writer into encomium, when we should be writing 
 impartially ; and it is pleasanter, as well as easier, to pen an 
 eulogy rather than a life. This was the fault that Johnson 
 accuses Sprat of falling into,* and a fault more glaring in 
 Mrs. Hutchinson s book than in most of the old lives, and less 
 justifiable, since she wrote the history of her time, as well as 
 the life of her husband. 
 
 Doddridge s Life of Colonel Gardiner is a singular speci 
 men of this class of books, of an inferior literary value, com- 
 pard with the rest, but still excellent. As an example of its 
 class, we will give the reader a summary digest of its con 
 tents. The author, a nonconformist divine of considerable 
 reputation, became in the career of his ministry professionally 
 * Life of Cowley. 
 
RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY. 225 
 
 acquainted and intimately connected with the subject of his 
 narrative, who was a royalist officer, a colonel of dragoons. 
 Gardiner revealed to him from time to time the most event 
 ful passages of his life, over which hung, in his devout im 
 agination, a mystical halo, radiant with celestial beauty. He 
 was born at a remarkable period, 1688, the year of the Eng 
 lish Revolution, and expired, at a no less stirring time, on the 
 battle rield at Preston Pans, when the partisans of the house 
 of Stuart " were out" for the second time, in 45. 
 
 This distinguished officer and Christian was the son of an 
 officer of good family, who fought the battles of his country 
 on the continent, during the reign of William III., and of 
 Anne, after him, and in which Marlborough was the presid 
 ing military genius of Great Britain. A military school, with 
 Marlborough and Eugene at its head, could not fail of turn 
 ing out able commanders ; and of these Gardiner was one of 
 the chief. Brave, to a daring rashness, he had all the splen 
 did qualities, and but too many of the striking vices, of the 
 soldier. Like the majority of celebrated men, who have 
 evinced in later life the influence of early education, Gardiner 
 was fortunate in having a most estimable mother, to whoso 
 guidance and example he was wont to attribute the uncor- 
 rupted parts of his character and temper. Yet ill company, 
 and that of a military cast, was allowed at one period to mas 
 ter the original good qualities of his nature, and taint the 
 purity of his soul with the tarnish of vice. lie early fell 
 into gross living, swore dreadfully, cherished a malignant spi 
 rit of revenge (before the age of twenty-one ho had fought 
 three duels) and exhibited even a ferocity, that became so 
 bered down into manly valor and Christian resolution ; so 
 much so, that in middle life he used to say, "I fear sinning 
 more than fighting!" In every engagement he gained ap- 
 10* 
 
226 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 plause for skill, no less than courage, since he scientifically 
 practised his profession. 
 
 Though often remonstrated with, and even sometimes 
 alarming by his horrid imprecations the better portion of his 
 comrades, he still went on in his evil ways, until the occur 
 rence of what he speaks of as a vision from heaven, and would 
 have regarded as a miracle. To fill up the interval, it seems, 
 one morning, previous to the hour appointed for meeting 
 certain of his associates at a dinner party, he took up one of 
 the religious works with a quaint title, published at the era 
 of the Protectorate, when the Puritans were in fashion and 
 in power. He read to ridicule, but was suddenly overpow 
 ered by a conviction, awfully indescribable, of his wickedness, 
 which threw him into a sort of vision or trance, during which 
 he imagined, as we construe the declaration, that he saw a 
 living representation of his crucified Master, and heard the 
 divine voice, in tones of entreaty and to this purport, " Have 
 I not suffered this for thee ?" The dream, the fancied vision, 
 or what you will call it, struck him with profound dismay, 
 and awakened his soul to the consideration of its state. 
 
 From this period he was another man : strictly pious, re 
 gular in every habit, loving solitude and religious conversa 
 tion and prayer. He became a disciplinarian of the noblest 
 sort, the moral teacher as well as commander of his men. 
 He now was used to recount the wonderful providences (so he 
 termed them) of his life, of his extraordinary escapes, of be 
 ing wounded in the mouth just after uttering a horrid oath, 
 a punishment closely consequent on his offence : of striking 
 personal deliverance from imminent dangers. A good man 
 and true Christian hero, after Steele s model, a saint militant, 
 he yet was not without a besetting defect and that was the 
 excitability of his religious imagination. He dreamed a 
 
RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY. 227 
 
 dream of following across the part of a field his Lord and 
 Saviour : he made a prediction of the death of the king, 
 which turned out correct Everything with him was mira 
 culous, and a little heightened by (unconscious) extrava 
 gance. No doubt he was sincere : the only question is, if he 
 was not a self-deceiver. A sudden conversion, an opportune 
 deliverance, is sufficient to turn the head of the wisest man. 
 We think that, like Donne s extraordinary vision of his wife 
 and dear child, his vision was the waking dream of an im 
 aginative mind. 
 
 Whether imagination or reality presided on these occa 
 sions, still he remained consistent and firm : unlike Volney 
 and those cowardly blasphemers, who take back in a moment 
 of security what they uttered in the hour of danger. Ever 
 these circumstances remained before him, a cloud by day and 
 a pillar of fire by night, to guide his faltering steps. A lofty 
 confidence elevated the hopes and daily walk of the happy 
 man, who considered himself blessed in beholding the coun 
 tenance of his Saviour and friend. 
 
 With the mass, the love for the miraculous, for prophecy, 
 for mysteries, is more a false state, a mere religious stimulant, 
 and not the healthy action of a vigorous soul. But it was 
 not so with him. 
 
 Gardiner died the death of a soldier and a Christian, on 
 the field of battle, and in the arms of victory, an officer of 
 the generous strain of Gustavus Adolphus ; and like that lion 
 of the North, high-toned, exact, judicious, and sincere, he 
 fought the good fight of faith, and left behind him a sweet 
 remembrance in the hearts of all, as a brave and accomplish 
 ed officer, a steadfast Christian, a good man, and a courteous 
 gentleman Rcquiescat in pace. 
 
 To return to the general subject: for modern religious 
 
228 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 biography, we entertain no great favor. The writers of it 
 are in most cases ill-fitted for their task, and indeed quite 
 unpractised in composition. Southey s Wesley (a philosophi 
 cal history of Methodism) and Heber s life of Taylor are the 
 only two classic works in this department, of the nineteenth 
 century, we can, at present, recall. The lives of most mis 
 sionaries are more interesting for the satistical information 
 they contain than for aught else. Missionaries should be 
 good travel writers, yet we find only a single Borrow among 
 them. The subjects of religious biography are in most cases 
 good enough people, but quite unworthy of being embalmed 
 for the admiration of posterity. The embalming is thrown 
 away, for they never reach posterity. An eminently great 
 and good man, an exemplar of faith and charity, should never 
 be allowed to pass out of the memories of men, cannot be 
 forgotten ; he will live in tradition, if not in printed books. 
 But many good, humble Christians die daily, whom it is by 
 no means essential to write the lives of; whom it rather hurts 
 the interests of religion, and certainly of literature (consider 
 ed purely as such) to make unduly prominent. The facts of 
 their lives are few ; they have done little to affect the rest of 
 mankind ; their greatest victories (silent and obscure) have 
 been over themselves (the noblest of victories), and their pro- 
 foundest discoveries have been of the wickedness of their 
 own hearts. These facts, to the individual of all others the 
 most important, still have little interest for the world at 
 large. The story of the Christian s life is told in two words, 
 Repentance and Love. Now, unless striking instances occur, 
 or curious details are presented, a religious life, of all others, 
 presents very little to interest even the most sympathizing 
 intelligent) reader. 
 The injury done to literature by a flood of religious lives is 
 
RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPUY. 229 
 
 clear : standard works of the highest character are neglected 
 for a new biography of the least value ; corruptions of style 
 become frequent, and essentially impair the idiomatic graces 
 of our tongue. Inferior models of excellence are held up, 
 to the exclusion of the most excellent ; cant is prevalent ; 
 at first unconscious, it becomes at last confirmed and hypo 
 critical. 
 
 Let no serious reader think we underrate the humblest vir 
 tues of the patient Christian. We reverence piety in the 
 garb of the beggar ; we believe it to add a crowning glory to 
 the wisest head. Yet we protest against an indiscriminate 
 record of the private lives of Christians, who have not some 
 other claim on the universal attention of mankind. Want 
 of literature is not, however, the only want of many, both 
 of the subjects and authors, of religious lives ; many 
 have wanted real humility, many have in a secret self- 
 praise elevated themselves above the rest of mankind, and 
 thought a publication of their conversion and religious ex 
 perience, necessary for the salvation of the world. With 
 such we can pretend to have no patience, since we believe 
 that they are self-deluded after all, and rather to be pitied 
 than admirred. 
 
 The sincere Christian need not fear oblivion. Unknown 
 to men, he is not forgotten by his heavenly Father ; and if 
 his life is not told in the perishable books of human authors, 
 his name is nevertheless registered in the Book of Life. 
 
XXX. 
 
 TITLES . 
 
 WE Americans have been ridiculed for our extravagant ad" 
 miration of titles, with more of justice than most of us are at 
 all willing to allow. Notwithstanding our republican spirit, 
 in government and political rights, we still, as a nation, en 
 tertain a vast respect for forms, ceremonies, honors, grave 
 respects. 
 
 The most laughable part of the matter, too, is found in the 
 fact, that a people characteristically pacific, both from in 
 clination and policy, should affect such a violent attachment 
 for military titles, with all the pomp and insignia of war. 
 Every petty mechanic may become, and often is, a captain or 
 major. ^ Your host at the tavern is colonel : the blacksmith 
 of the village, perhaps a general sometimes a GREENE. The 
 persons holding these offices are frequently among the mildest 
 of men, probably so timid as to run, in actual conflict, at the 
 report of artillery. Our city and country militia would 
 hardly stand before a disciplined army save and excepting 
 always, in a defensive national war, and then cowards would 
 be converted into heroes. We do not speak of such an emer 
 gency, but refer to the soldierly character of our people. A 
 mere soldier of fortune fights equally well, or ill, everywhere, 
 under every government ; but Americans are soldiers from 
 necessity, and at home. There they would act like brave 
 men, as they always have done. 
 
 English writers have noticed this mock heroic trait in our 
 people ; but they have not remarked that the admiration for 
 titles is as common in the line of civil as of military life. We 
 are equally open to satire on that side, also. A judge of a 
 
TITLES. 231 
 
 county court is with us a great man ; and, indeed, a judge- 
 ship is generally the mark of a country gentleman s ambition. 
 One of our Presidents, after filling the highest office, became 
 the justice of one of the Virginia county courts. 
 
 The thirst for office and titular distinctions is not, however, 
 confined to the country. At a charter election, what a rivalry 
 for the petty offices of the wards. Irving, in his satire on the 
 Dutch burgomaster and schepens, has painted with exact 
 fidelity, our contemporary aldermen and their assistants. 
 These are the smallest in general of our little great men. 
 What a turkey-cock is a true alderman of this class ! not 
 the official performing his regular duties, and carefully watch 
 ing the interests and comfort of his ward, but the mere beef 
 eater, the pursy, swelling, pompous ignoramus. Elected by 
 those who have some design upon his pockets, or at least his 
 patronage ; consorting with his kind, and thinking with 
 them, he has nothing to do but to eat rich dinners (at the 
 almshouse for sick and poor) and talk in an imperative 
 style, the autocrat of the side walks, of the church where he 
 attends, for a comfortable nap of a summer s afternoon, of the 
 tradesmen he deigns to employ, and of the barber s shop, 
 where he is first shaved in the morning, and reads all the 
 papers through, keeping a shop full waiting, while he toils 
 through the advertisements. The terror of beggars and of 
 petty criminals, hard-hearted, a usurer, a rigorous landlord, 
 without any bowels of mercy. 
 
 To leave such reflections as these, which are somewhat out 
 of place here in a gossiping essay, a strong objection to the 
 employment of titles is the very inadequate character they 
 bear. The Right Honorable gentleman may be, and often 
 ought to be, called a most dishonorable traitor. The Re 
 verend brother is not always deserving of reverence, nor the 
 
232 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 learned advocate always a model of legal attainments. These 
 titles and epithets are, for the most part, unmeaning, and 
 often savor of downright irony. By a title is often implied 
 much more than is actually meant ; and like the bishop s 
 lawn, the marshal s truncheon, and the judge s ermine, are 
 considered the correlatives of piety, courage, and incoruptible 
 integrity. Yet they afford, in general, merely the substitutes 
 for those qualities. Titles are worshipped by "the great 
 vulgar and the small," who are in the habit of taking the 
 name for the thing. To carry any weight with it, a title 
 should infer some particular merit, as the valor of a hero, or 
 the wisdom of a counsellor. It should have the effect of a 
 judicious epithet : sometimes a sublime description, as in the 
 list of titles of the Saviour of mankind. It should serve as a 
 designation. But what mean the titles of courts ? The 
 " Grace," for instance, of a duke, or an archbishop ; or the 
 " Serenity" of a petty German prince. They can be borne 
 by good and bad men, indiscriminately. The true title must 
 be earned; the reward of merit .is worthless, conferred as an 
 act of favor. Artificial rank can be created. Nature only 
 can form the true nobleman. Kings, we are told, can make 
 or unmake, princes or lords, who may flourish or may fade ; 
 
 " But a bold peasantry, their country s pride, 
 When once destroyed, can never be supplied." 
 
 Or, as Burns nobly sings : 
 
 " A prince can mak a belted knight, 
 A marquis, duke, and a that ; 
 But an honeat man s aboon his might, 
 Gude faith, he maunna fa that." 
 
TITLES. 233 
 
 The noblest of titles, gentleman, not the artificial designation, 
 but the highest perfection of the manly character, cannot be 
 created by letters patent. Ho must bo born one, with a clear 
 head, a warm heart, a noble will, and a gentle soul, invincible 
 by fortune or circumstance. Thus averse, among his other 
 genuine traits of manhood, is the true gentleman to all titular 
 distinctions ; whose character Dekkar has finely drawn in a 
 passage descriptive of the perfect character of the Divine word. 
 
 " The first of nun that e er wore earth about him was a sufferer, 
 A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, 
 The first true gentleman that ever lived," 
 
 The gentleman and the Christian knight are here one, as 
 they always should be, united in the same character. Yet 
 how unlike the ordinary notion of a spirited, showy gallant, 
 or overbearing aristocrat. Man, simply, is a sufficiently lofty 
 title : a true man is the first of created beings. One of Shak- 
 speare s characters nobly says : 
 
 "I tell thee, sirrah, I write man, to which title no age can 
 bring thee." Neither, we may add, can any amount of 
 wealth, degree of power, extent of ability, or elevation of 
 office, if the heart and soul be wanting. 
 
 The admiration of titles is something childish, and pertain 
 ing to a state of barbarism. The names and singular appel 
 lations borne by our native Indians, as well as by the savage 
 tribes of other countries, illustrate this position, and are more 
 worthy of attention, from their real meaning, than the family 
 crests of civilized nations, at the present day, with all the 
 trumpery of the Heralds College. 
 
 The facility of obtaining certain titles, from literary insti 
 tutions, and the ordinary academic degrees, has taken off the 
 
234 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 edge of novelty, and rendered them very commonplace dig 
 nities. You find as many doctors of divinity as of medicine, 
 and masters of arts abound almost as much as simple ba 
 chelors. In most instances, the titles are sadly misapplied. 
 The teachers are learners, and the masters mere tyros. Al 
 most as great a farce as college degrees we speak it sub 
 rosA are the degrees of masonry, the sublime degree of this, 
 and the incomprehensible degree of that. Now-a-days, they 
 do read absurdly, to be sure, in a Masonic Register, the 
 names of honest, plain mechanics, as High-Priests, Grand 
 Kings, Scribes and Sojourners Sir John Johnson of such an 
 encampment, Right Worshipful of such a chapter, &c. One 
 respectable sexton we find a High Priest, and the same office 
 sustained by a noted political ballad singer. Speculative 
 masonry, a benevolent and prudential system, in its origin, 
 fitly and impressively exhibited by figures and symbols, 
 affords, abstractedly and in practice, a wise and striking com 
 mentary on the Christian morality. But the multitude of 
 signs, and the grave burlesque of (the reported) ceremonies, 
 no less than the number, names and functions of several of 
 the officers, have a tendency to degrade into ridicule what 
 was most praiseworthy in its first intention. 
 
 The violent contrast between the ordinary civil occupations, 
 and the elevated titls of the Masonic Dignitaries, is the cause 
 of the comic effect produced on hearing them recited. It is 
 like making Sancho Governor of Barataria, or dubbing poor 
 Saltonstall Duke of Rigmarole. We are apt to look upon 
 many titles as mere nicknames, intended by way of satirical 
 jest upon pretension and affectation : often a serious joke, im 
 perceptible to the party most concerned in extinguishing it. 
 To modern sceptics, the high-flown style of addressing certain 
 of the scholastic doctors was of this nature ; they were uni 
 formly irrefragable, sublime, invincible, celestial. 
 
TITLES. 235 
 
 From a couple of papers in D Israeli s collection of curios 
 ities, we glean a few facts relative to the origin of certain 
 Royal titles. " Illustrious" was never given save to those 
 who merited the epithet, until the time of Constantino. The 
 salutation " Your Grace" was the first form of salutation. 
 "Your Highness" came next into vogue. Henry VIII. is 
 said to have been the first monarch who assumed it. The 
 title " Majesty" was accorded (for the first time) by Francis 
 I., to the same sovereign, in their celebrated interview on the 
 Field of the Cloth of Gold. Selden thought a king of En 
 gland should be styled Emperor. 
 
 Our own countrymen are not the only people who are apt 
 to be captivated by " the glory of a name." We have no 
 orders of nobility [the Governor and Lieut.-Governor of Mas 
 sachusetts are the only public functionaries, in this country, 
 provided by law, with titles of Honor], and ought to be free 
 from any charge of man-worship : hero-worship is another 
 thing, and always existing, should be perpetually cherished 
 in every community. The Spaniards formerly, and the Ger 
 mans of the present day, are the nations most notorious for 
 titled orders. We knew a German barber, of this city, who 
 held his credentials and patent of Baron. French Count is 
 almost a synonyme for unprincipled adventurer. The English 
 entertain a deep and instinctive respect for their nobility. 
 The Spanish Don is the proudest gentleman in Europe. 
 
 These Spaniards, at one period during the glorious epoch 
 of their history, from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella to 
 the conclusion of that of Philip III., accumulated titles and 
 modes g of address, with points of etiquette and precedence, to 
 such an extent as to make it necessary to publish, in a volume, 
 the indispensable forms. The king of Spain, at that time, 
 claimed as many titles as the Grand Seignor, whose address 
 
236 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 fills several pages. The natural stateliness of the Castilian 
 would allow of no remission of dignity. He had, then, rather 
 be robbed by a courteous footpad, who approached him with 
 " all the honors" of the road, than be substantially aided by 
 a rude despiser of ceremonies. Conversations must have been 
 then less an interchange of sentiment or repartee than an ela 
 borate contest of external civilities. Incidentally, the chivalric 
 soldier or bold navigator caught this passion for pomp and 
 magnificence, from oriental discovery and conquest or coloniza 
 tion ; but an original basis was to be found in the national 
 character, which was attracted by the noble, the splendid, and 
 the grand ; and which contained the elements of all these. 
 
 At this present epoch, the Germans appear to be the most 
 smitten with a love of titles. It is, indeed, a passion. The 
 great nation, which has produced the greatest literary artists 
 of this century, the profoundest inquirers, the most learned 
 scholars, still cherishes the baubles of office, and is pleased 
 with the decoration of a ribbon or a medal. The most 
 knowing have their foibles : there are " follies of the wise." 
 The various classes of German titles are endless, and are not 
 less remarkable than their singularity and application. There 
 are titles of rank and of office Rath, or Counsellor, is the 
 commonest of these ; and of this there are several grades. Of 
 schoolmasters there are many ranks Rector, Sub-rector, 
 Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quartus, Quintus, &c., &c., &c. 
 The Professor is ordinarius and extra-ordinarius. Most of 
 them are extraordinary enough, in all conscience. They pro 
 fess every imaginable department of learning, even to Car- 
 lyle s and Jean Paul s Professors of Things in General. These 
 Germans, too, even confer on the wife the husband s title, as 
 Mrs. Court Counsellor, and the like. Goethe s mother, we 
 learn, from Bettine, was always styled Frau-Rath. 
 
TITLES. 237 
 
 Even one bearing no distinct title is always styled as Mr. 
 in every instance not as we employ the term, but Mr. Car 
 penter, Blacksmith, or Grocer, as the case may be. The 
 Chinese are, perhaps, beyond all nations in their passion for 
 honors, but we have not been able to gain any particular de 
 tails, from the general descriptions. The number of manda 
 rins is said to be immense, and their authority with the peo 
 ple almost unbounded. 
 
 To turn to the philosophy of our subject, and leave curious 
 facts. Modern titles, or rather modern aristocracy, a relic of 
 feudalism, arose out of a military aristocracy. Originally, 
 they were the natural offspring of despotism and conquest- 
 They were intended to dazzle only to enslave, or to quote the 
 gist of the whole matter, as it is admirably summed up in the 
 Rights of Man (Vol. II., p. 86). The writer has been dilating 
 upon the law of primogeniture, and thus proceeds to describe 
 the character of the aristocracy growing out of it The pas 
 sage is remarkable for condensed thought and terse expression. 
 " The nature and character of aristocracy shows itself to us in 
 this law. It is a law against every law of nature, and nature 
 herself calls for its destruction. Establish family justice and 
 aristocracy falls. By the aristocratical law of primogeniture, 
 in a family of six, five are exposed. Aristocracy never has 
 but one child. The rest are begotten to be devoured. They 
 are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and the natural parent 
 prepares the unnatural repast. As everything which is out 
 of nature in man affects, more or less, the interests of society 
 so does this. All the children which the aristocracy disowns 
 [which are all except the oldest], are, in general, cast like or 
 phans on a parish, to be provided for by the public, but at a 
 greater charge. Unnecessary offices and places in govern 
 ments and courts are created at the expense of the public to 
 
238 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 maintain them. With what kind of parental reflections can 
 the father or mother contemplate their younger offspring ? By 
 nature they are children, and by marriage they are heirs ; but 
 by aristocracy they are bastards and orphans. They are the 
 flesh and blood of their parents in one line, and akin to them 
 in the other. To restore, therefore, parents to their children, 
 and children to their parents, relations to each other, and man 
 to society, and to exterminate the monster aristocracy, root 
 and branch, the French constitution has destroyed the line of 
 primogeniture. Here, then, lies the monster, and Mr. Burke, 
 if he pleases, may write its epitaph." 
 
 Yet arbitrary and intolerant as Aristocracy is too apt to be 
 and has generally been found too often an overbearing des 
 potism, still we, sometimes, in our visions of the future, 
 imagine a possible Aristocracy, composed purely of the wisest 
 and most virtuous, those intended by Nature and Nature s God 
 to direct their fellows and animate their generous aspirations 
 into manly action. This is, however, a state to be hoped for 
 rather than expected with confidence. The Aristocracy of 
 the present is too much the creature of circumstance to de 
 serve our regard. It is not a self-dependent, bold and intel 
 ligent rule. It looks here at wealth, and inquires not if a 
 man is worthy, but how much he is worth. The best men 
 are they who are good for the greatest amount. Their 
 maxim is, " wealth makes the MAN the want of it, the FEL 
 LOW." If the aristocracy of birth be considered, it looks not 
 to the excellent qualities of a man s own parents or imme 
 diate family (as an ordinary thing), it rather investigates the 
 antiquity of his house (the character of his immediate pre 
 decessors does not avail so much), and the long line of de 
 scent from a famous original. Its glory is retrospective and 
 traditional ; and noble as that may be as an incentive to in- 
 
TITLES. 239 
 
 dividual performance, it can, notwithstanding, never claim the 
 force of a substitute for them. True democracy may, how 
 ever, consist , and ought to be accompanied by true gentle- 
 manliness. That they thus always do not agree is no argu 
 ment against the possible union. Democracy is a principle 
 (political, not social), and does not depend upon the dress or 
 pursuits or accomplishments of the individual professing it. 
 It is a philanthropic and philosophic system of polity, wholly 
 irrespective of personal habits or prejudices. It is the gov 
 ernment of the people by themselves. Of this great body, 
 the leaders (for the mass cannot act as one man, and must 
 delegate duties and assign powers) are expected to be in ad 
 vance, socially and intellectually, if not also morally and 
 politically of their fellows, else why leaders ? And we find 
 as matter of history, the staunchest advocates of liberal views 
 and free government at all times, and especially in the most 
 excited times, to have been able men, good patriots and gen 
 tlemen to look at Lafayette in France ; Sidney and Russell 
 and Hampden in England ; and all of our own great Revo 
 lutionary characters without exception. Not to dilate upon 
 obvious truths, we shall conclude this sketch with an extract 
 from the Rights of Man on the abolition of titles in France, 
 at the framing of their new constitution a masterly passage, 
 equal to certain of Burke s noblest efforts, and which con 
 tains the spirit of the whole matter. " Titles are but a nick 
 name, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly 
 harmless in itself, but it marks a certain foppery in the hu 
 man character that degrades it. It renders man diminutive 
 in things which are little. It talks about its fine riband like 
 a girl, and shows its garters like a child. A certain writer 
 of some antiquity, says, when I was a child, I thought as a 
 child ; but when I became a man, I put away childish 
 things. 
 
240 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 " It is properly from the elevated mind of France that 
 the folly of titles has been abolished. It has outgrown the 
 baby clothes of Count and Duke, and breeched itself into 
 manhood. France has not levelled, it has exalted. It has 
 put down the dwarf to set up the man. The insignificance 
 of a senseless and noble Duke, Count or Earl has ceased to 
 please. Even those who possessed them have disowned the 
 gibberish, and as they outgrow the rickets have despised the 
 rattle. The genuine mind of man thirsting for its native 
 home, society, contemns the gew-gaws that separate him 
 from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician s 
 wand, to contract the sphere of man s felicity. He lives im 
 mortal within the Bastile of a name, and surveys at a dis 
 tance the envied life of man. 
 
 " Is it then any wonder that titles should fall in France ? 
 Is it not a great wonder that they should be kept up any 
 where ? What are they ? What is their worth, nay, what 
 is their amount ? When we think or speak of a judge or 
 general, we associate with it the ideas of office and character ; 
 we think of purity in the one and bravery in the other ; but 
 when we use a word merely as a title, no ideas associate with 
 it. Through all the vocabulary of names, there is not such 
 an animal as a Duke or a Count ; neither can we connect 
 any certain idea of the word. Whether they mean strength 
 or weakness, wisdom or folly, a child or a man, or a rider or 
 a horse, is all equivocal. What respect, then, can be paid to 
 that which describes nothing and means nothing ? Imagina 
 tion has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and 
 down to all the fairy tribe ; but titles baffle even the powers 
 of fancy, and are a chimerical nondescript." 
 
 Acute sense, enlivened by antithesis, and condensed into 
 the form of pointed maxims, cannot in pungency and effect 
 
TITLES. 241 
 
 transcend this spirited tirade. Indeed, there are not many 
 passages, even in Burke s celebrated Reflections, which called 
 forth this reply, that surpass the above episode, in compressed 
 power and epigrammatic point. We have looked in vain 
 into the journals of the first Congress and the secret debates, 
 lately printed, for a discussion on the proper title by which 
 to address the President of the United States whether His 
 Excellency, or by what other designation.* We looked into 
 this matter at the suggestion of one far better fitted than our 
 selves, from his political studies, to resolve this problem. Yet 
 it may be allowed to the generous advocate of the poor 
 criminal, the humane legislator, to be slightly acquainted 
 with what, at present, is no more than a piece of antiquarian 
 curiosity. Human life and human improvement is of more 
 consequence than titles of honor, and the abolition of capital 
 punishment than a matter of form or of courtly address. 
 
 It is to be hoped that beyond the necessary terms of offi 
 cial appellation, titles will never be employed in this country, 
 purely as stereotyped honorary epithets or unmeaning honors. 
 We want men, not a nobility. We would honor greatness 
 and goodness, virtue and talent untitled, far rather than title 
 without either of these claims to attention and respect. We 
 require the thing, and not the name. If we must have su 
 perfluous titles, let them be badges of dishonor, and to bo 
 avoided by every good man, good citizen, and true American. 
 
 * NOTE. Since writing the above, we have been kindly 
 referred to the proper volume. In the Journals of the Senate 
 for the year 89, the question is discussed, of which only a 
 brief minute remains. The debate lasted a week or more, 
 during which the titles of Excellency and of His Highness, 
 the Protector of our Liberties, were proposed, but objected to. 
 The latter title was too much Cromwellian and monarchical 
 11 
 
242 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 perhaps, for even the so-called black-cockade federalist. And, 
 finally, the simple and appropriate address was resolved on 
 of, the President of the United States. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 ESSAYES AND CHARACTERES OF A PRISON AND PRISONERS : 
 BY GEFFRAY MINSHULL, OF GRAYES-INN, GENT. 
 
 THE object of this rare treatise, which is rather a collection 
 of several short characters and fragmentary disquisitions, is 
 to paint Life in Prison, and from the internal evidence it 
 affords, no less than the later accounts of Howard, Buxton 
 and Mrs. Fry, we dare affirm it to be a very faithful picture. 
 Though modern philanthropy has effected much for the im 
 provement of prison discipline, and the ameliorated condition 
 of prisoners, yet still, in certain prominent particulars, a de 
 scription of a prison more than two centuries ago, must an 
 swer to a description of the same place, at the present day. 
 Dark, gloomy walls, barred windows, guards, jailors, locks, 
 confinement, silence, are the outward marks of the prison, 
 now as then. To be sure, the buildings are better, may be 
 more elegantly constructed, are much cleaner, less turbulent ; 
 still a sense of solitude, a feeling of closeness, reigns within 
 its precincts. The mere personal condition of prisoners is, in 
 many respects, far preferable to what it was once. Yet, in 
 these respects even, what great improvements still remain to 
 be discovered and applied. But in more important points 
 the system is little bettered. The prison chaplain, though 
 (we trust) a different personage from the Newgate ordinary 
 
243 
 
 in Fielding s time, is still ill paid, and altogether on a wrong 
 footing. Intellectual light is virtually excluded from prisons, 
 where even freedom of thought might be considered an in 
 fringement on the rules and restraints of the place. 
 
 In despite of all the works of benevolence, and especially 
 of those deeds that tend to prevent the commission of crime, 
 it is to be feared prisons must ever be filled. There is per 
 manent evil in the world, and certain punishment, ever. 
 Misfortune, poverty, vice, blind impulse, it is probable will 
 always exist. Earth may never again see an Eden (the abode 
 of innocence), till purged from grosser impurities by the last 
 penal fires. Out of a world-conflagration only may universal 
 peace and purity arise. Hence, we must conclude, the co 
 existence of crime and prisons for ages hereafter. 
 
 The prison described in this little volume, was a debtors 
 prison, the King s Bench. In our State, imprisonment for 
 debt is now done away ; a measure fraught with vast benefit, 
 but, perhaps, accompanied by certain inevitable disadvan 
 tages. It is wonderful what enormities were suffered to be 
 executed, until within a very few years, on this class of men, 
 of whom, certainly, a considerable portion were innocent 
 men, brought to that condition by the vices, or imprudence, 
 or frauds of those, who stood in the relation of debtors to 
 them. To this suffering, but respectable class of men, the 
 author of this treatise (the fruit of personal observation arid 
 experience) does not appear to belong. From what wo can 
 gather, he was brought by his imprudence and folly to be 
 come an inhabitant of a prison.* He was a gentleman of 
 
 * A strong proof of family pride, rather misplaced, is evinced 
 in the fact of the writer having his crest engraved on the title 
 page. The experience the book displays is hardly of that nature a 
 gentleman might be proud to display, even if enamored of his own 
 cleverness as an author. 
 
244 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 good family and liberal education, who was heartily disgusted 
 by the place, its customs and company ; and who earnestly 
 advises all not to borrow, and run the chance of coming to 
 the same place. He writes with the vigor of a strong charac 
 ter, and with no little elevation of sentiment ; he is judicious 
 and virtuous, with considerable erudition and quaint fancy, 
 bottomed on good sense and manly feeling. 
 
 The composition of these essays and characters afforded 
 the only occupation their author was willing to assume ; and 
 was at once his pleasant task and daily solace. The work is 
 of some antiquity; it was first published in 1618, and re 
 printed twenty years after. The edition before us is of 1821, 
 a reprint by the famous Edinburgh publishing house of 
 Ballantyne & Co. It is one of a small edition of 150 copies, 
 and perhaps there is not a duplicate of the work in this 
 country. We think it very probable that Sir Walter him 
 self, or one of his antiquarian cronies, selected this remark 
 able tract for republication, and with the selfish admiration 
 of a virtuoso, limited the impression to enhance its rarity. 
 
 We spoke of this volume as presenting a picture of life 
 in prison : it presents, also, its concomitants. The first 
 character is of prisons in general ; then of different sorts of 
 prisoners ; afterwards, in turn, of the company : of visitors : 
 of the fare and entertainment : of the keepers, the jailors, the 
 lockers up ; and concludes \vith a relation of some curious 
 local customs and personal observations. 
 
 The intention of the writer is expressed in a sort of proem 
 to the characters. " My purpose is, with cleare water-colours 
 to line me out a heart, yea auch a heart, so discontented and 
 oppressed, that I need not be curious in fitting every colour 
 to his place, or to chuse the pleasantest chamber to draw it 
 in, because in it I am to lay downe the bounds of those tern- 
 
MINBHULL S PRISON AND PRISONERS. 245 
 
 pestuous seas in which ten thousands are every day tossed, 
 if not overwhelmed, which is so usual here amongst us, that 
 every one is art s master in this workmanship ; and every 
 minute something or other is still added to this distressed 
 picture, whose ponderous weight is so great that the frame is 
 scarce able to bear the effigies." The character of a prison 
 we subjoin entire. " A prison is a grave to bury men alive, 
 and a place wherein a man, for half a year s experience, may 
 learn more law, than he can at Westminster for a hundred 
 pounds. It is a microcosrao, a little world of woe, it is a 
 map of misery, it is a place that will learn a young man 
 more villany, if he be apt to take it, in one half yeare, than 
 he can learn at twenty dicing-houses, bowling allies, brothel 
 houses, or ordinaries ; and an old man, more policie than if 
 he had been pupil to Machiavel. It is a place that hath 
 more diseases predominant in it than the pest-house in the 
 plague time, and it stinkes more than the lord mayor s dog 
 house or Paris garden in August. 
 
 " It is a little commonwealth, although little wealth be 
 common there ; it is a desart where desert lyes hoodwinked : 
 it is a famous citie, wherein are all trades, for here lies the 
 alchymist can make ex auro non aurum, then ex non auro, 
 aurum. 
 
 44 It is as intricate a place as Rosamond s Labyrinth, and 
 it is so full of blinde meanders and crooked turnings, that it 
 is impossible to find the way out, except he be directed by a 
 silver clue, and can never overcome the minotaure without a 
 golden ball to work hisowne safety. 
 
 " It is as Innes of Courts ; for herein lawyers inhabit, that 
 have crotchets to free other men, yet all their quirks and 
 quiddities cannot enfranchise themselves. 
 
 "It is the Doctors Commons, where skilful physitians fre- 
 
246 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 quent ; who, like ^Esculapius, can cure men s diseases, yet 
 cannot quintessence out of all their vegetals and minerals, a 
 balsamum or elixir to make a sovereign plaster to heal the 
 surfeit the mace has given them. 
 
 " It is the Chyrurgions Hall, where many rare artists live, 
 that can search other men s wounds, yet cannot treate the 
 wound the serjeant hath give them. 
 
 " It is your Bankrupt s banquetting-house, where he sits 
 feasting with the sweetmeats borrowed from other men s 
 tables, having a voluntary disposition never to repay them 
 again. 
 
 "It is your Prodigal s ultimum refugium, wherein he may 
 see himself as in a glass, what his excess hath brought him 
 to ; and lest he should surfeit, comes hither to physicke him 
 self with moderate diet, and least that his bed of downe 
 should breed too many diseases, comes hither to change his 
 bed, where he is scarce able to lye down. 
 
 " It is a purgatory which doth afflict a man with more 
 miseries than ever he reaped pleasures. It is a pilgrimage 
 to exterminate sins and absolve offences ; for here be semin 
 aries and masse priests, which doe take down the pride of 
 their flesh more than a voyage to the Holy Land or a hair 
 shirt in Lent. 
 
 " It is an evil which doth banish a man from all content 
 ments, wherein his actions do so terrifie him, that it makes a 
 man grow desperate. 
 
 " To conclude, what is it not ? In a word, it is the very 
 idea of all misery and torment ; it converts joy into sorrow, 
 riches into poverty, and ease into discontentments." 
 
 Minshull expends the whole force of his satire on inhuman 
 creditors. His pen on this topic hits the true Juvenal strain ; 
 yet he willingly excuses the creditor, who employs constraint 
 
MINSHULL S PRISON AND PRISONERS. 247 
 
 and the strong arm of the law, to obtain his due, which he 
 needs to prevent his coming hither himself. 
 
 A choice essay on Choice of Company in Prison, com 
 mences thus : u Wouldst thou learn to dispute well ? Be an 
 excellent sophister. Wouldst thou dispute of foreign affairs, 
 and be an excellent linguist? I counsel thee to travel. 
 Wouldst thou be of a pleasing and affectionate behaviour? 
 Frequent the court. Wouldst thou Jive into ike secret vil- 
 lanies of man ? Lye in prison." He divides all the different 
 varieties of prison companions into three sorts. 1. A para 
 site. 2. A John indifferente. 3. A true-hearted Titus : 
 1 the masculine sweetheart. On visitors to the prisoners he 
 is pretty hard : ascribing their assumed condolence to mere 
 curiosity, lie is, perhaps, unjust in his almost universal cen 
 sure ; though all prisoners are not so fortunate as was Leigh 
 Hunt, who had his wife and children, and books, and flowers, 
 and music, and pure fancies, and sweet thoughts. This in 
 nocent prisoner and fine writer had a noble company of visit 
 ors : some of them daily companions, Shelley, Charles 
 Lamb, Tom Moore, Horace Smith, Miss Lamb, William Haz- 
 litt, Jeremy lienthani. A delightful subject for an article, 
 for Hunt himself would be a paper on the great and good 
 men, who have by any mischance become inmates of a prison : 
 and of the admirable books written there. 
 
 In one respect, Minshull bears some resemblance to Cob- 
 bet, i. e., in taking awkward nick-names on the objects of his 
 aversion. He speaks, by way of irony, of his entertainments 
 and entertainers in prison : tin- oiiard at. the gate is a Cerbe 
 rus, of whom there is a terrific print on the title page: his 
 4 chamber-fellows are Threadbare and Monilesse : the gar 
 dener, Potherb j the steward, Cut-throate ; the cook, Mistress 
 Mutton Chops ; the keeper who accompanies the prisoners 
 when they walk without the prison, Argus. 
 
248 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 Upon the jailors Minshull expends all the bitterness, of 
 which the humanity of his nature was capable. He repre 
 sents them as devils rather than men, which, indeed, it is 
 the tendency of their functions to make them. 
 
 The verses prefixed to the treatise, we think, comprise the 
 sum of the matter : 
 
 A prison is a house of care, 
 
 A place where none can thrive, 
 
 A touch-stone true to try a friend, 
 
 A grave for one alive : 
 
 Sometimes a place of right, 
 
 Sometimes a place of wrong, 
 
 Sometimes a place for rogues and thieves. 
 
 And honest men among. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 ON PREACHING. 
 
 I never printed a sermon but upon compulsion, except one. There is enough 
 and too much of that sort of work. Better discourses on morality cannot be had 
 than hundreds the world is in possession of. Abp. Herring, Let. xiy. 
 
 Tis good to preach the same thing again ; for that is the way to have it learned. 
 You see a bird by often whistling, to learn a tune, and a month after to record it 
 to herself. Sdden. Table-Talk. 
 
 WHEN we consider the frequency of the occasion, the noble 
 ness of the topics, their supreme importance, the efficacy of 
 the act well performed, the genius requisite, the variety of 
 congregations, the number of preachers, we are at a complete 
 stand to account for the deplorably low state of preaching. 
 
ON PREACHING. 249 
 
 This confession, extorted from us by the facts of the case, 
 may afford matter of astonishment to many who are very well 
 satisfied with the present state of the pulpit who ask for 
 nothing better who perhaps could not comprehend anything 
 superior. We have always been well pleased at the recol 
 lection of that passage in the Spectator, where Sir Roger de 
 Coverly s parish clergyman being asked who was to preach 
 on the next Sunday for him, replied, " The Bishop of St. 
 Asaph in the morning, and Doctor South in the aftemoon"- 
 meaniug that he intended reading a sermon from those great 
 divines on both occasions. We heartily wish some of the 
 divines of this day would have the courage, as well as the 
 good sense, to adopt a similar practice at suitable opportuni 
 ties. In point of essential merit, no critic, any way qualified, 
 would hesitate to gife the preference to one of South s best 
 sermons over a majority of modern discourses even by di 
 vines of considerable eminence. What pithiness of sense 
 and point of expression in the old divines ! What weak 
 ness, flaccidity, baldness, in the present race ! If the exces 
 sive length of Barrow, or the local satire of South, or the ex 
 travagant erudition and overflowing fancy of Taylor, be ex- 
 cepted to, let Barrow be condensed, expurgate South, and 
 prune the excrescences of the Bishop of Down and Connor. 
 Taste, no mean talents, judgment, are requisite for the selec 
 tion and purgation, and only to the hands of a first-rate man 
 would we consign the task. Inferior intellects, if admitted, 
 on the plea of piety, into the Church at all, should not pre 
 tend to this, but take the best sermons as they find them. It 
 is not for them to abuse and dislocate the fine thoughts of 
 genius, which learning may have overloaded, or temporary 
 allusions render faint and obscure. It is almost presumption 
 in a man of e^ua! genius, to try his skill on the same subjects 
 11* 
 
250 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 that have engaged the attention of those master intellects ; 
 for Cowley to attempt a flight with the Theban eagle. It is 
 absolute profanation for a petty parson to endeavor to hurl 
 the thunders of avenging justice, or to imitate the silver elo 
 quence of an Angel of Mercy. 
 
 From the practice of reading the best published sermons 
 of standard and orthodox divines, two good results, if no 
 more, would follow ; the art of elocution would be much 
 more attended to, and the sermons could be studied and 
 carefully meditated, by which means the preacher might de 
 liver them with greater effect. We suspect that many a 
 minister would then understand his theme better than now, 
 that he is obliged to write so frequently and at such com 
 paratively short notice. 
 
 To this practice the majority of congregations might 
 demur, so strong is the hold of ancient usage upon men s 
 minds. The curse of political seems to be the predominant 
 vice of religious corporations, viz. : a blindness to innova 
 tion even when wholesome reform ; a prejudice in favor 
 of existing practices. Many good people appear to suspect 
 indolence or indifference on the part of a preacher who reads 
 a printed sermon. They call it an imposition. They must 
 have a return for the salary. But is a meagre discourse 
 from your parson as well worth your attention as a sermon 
 from the lips of the English Chrysostoms and Austins ? As 
 it is, are they all original preachers who deliver written ser 
 mons ? A sermon may be transferred as well as anything 
 else. There are other "conveyances" besides those of a 
 legal description. The very critics, who speak so authori 
 tatively, are not always acquainted with the sources of the 
 finest thoughts and most sparkling fancies. When they 
 abuse the preacher s tediousness, they may be reflecting 
 
ON PREACHING. 251 
 
 upon Tillotson ; and when pleased with a graceful expression, 
 they may be only assenting to the sentiment of Sherlock or 
 Atterbury. 
 
 In no department of literature perhaps (considered as 
 such) is a greater decline more manifestly evident than in 
 the eloquence of the pulpit. Most of the current spoken 
 eloquence is confessedly very vapid, and even tiresome, 
 when transferred to paper. Sergeant Talfourd, a man of 
 elegant poetic talent, and a popular debater, a very con 
 siderable portion of whose enviable reputation is derived 
 from his efforts at the bar and in the House, acknowledges 
 the fact in explicit terms in his memoirs of Charles Lamb. 
 This declaration, from the pen of the author of Ion, should 
 certainly weigh as powerful evidence with those who con 
 sider the transitory impressions a practical and fluent 
 speaker can create as incomparably superior to the elabo 
 rate thought and rich fancy of the studious author. There 
 are popular speakers, both in the pulpit and in the Senate, 
 whose oratorical art enables them to control or excite the 
 passions at will, who yet prudently abstain from publica 
 tion, and thus tacitly confess the decay of the literature of 
 eloquence and their inferiority as writers. It is no disgrace 
 for a man to be inferior in one department, merely because 
 he is excellent in another. Speaking and writing are sepa 
 rate arts, and the distinct merits of each are only confounded 
 by those who cannot discriminate, but know only how to 
 extol or condemn. The nice shades of difference, which con 
 stitute this (so real) distinction, are perfectly perceptible and 
 unquestionably true. We are acquainted with, and have 
 listened to, brilliant speakers whose written compositions are 
 below mediocrity, or, at best, only on a par with it. But 
 this should not oblige us to deny the palpable fact of the 
 
252 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 great scarcity of good, not to say excellent, sermons published 
 now-a-days. 
 
 A defect of literary accomplishment, then, among the 
 body of the clergy, may be taken as the cause of the infe 
 riority of modern sermons ; style and manner are not 
 sufficiently attended to. Art is neglected, and yet pulpit 
 eloquence is an art, as much so as political, and a higher 
 art, at the same time. Natural eloquence is not enough 
 by itself; it must be trimmed and trained by scholarship, 
 research, elegance and breeding. To the sacred charac 
 ter of Divine must be appended the no less valuable, 
 though less sacred characters of scholar, critic, orator, and 
 gentleman. Arrayed in such vestments, the clerical cha 
 racter shines the leading order. Deprived of these acces 
 sory qualities and ornaments, it is likely to be abused and 
 degraded. 
 
 The clergy and religious critics of certain denomina 
 tions appear to think just the reverse of this to be the cor 
 rect view. Learning and eloquence, they seem to hold in 
 puritanical abhorrence, and to consider the cause of religion 
 disgraced by the splendid displays of human genius. They 
 oppose taste to piety, and an evangelical spirit, to an inven 
 tive imagination ; as if for a moment, a man of sense could 
 conceive any preference, or even hint at a comparison ; such 
 parallels are offensive, both to religion and criticism. Nar 
 row bigots ! ought they not rather to regard the highest 
 efforts of intellectual power as the truest adoration of the 
 Supreme Being ? To honor or glorify that sacred name, 
 is it not the loftiest occupation of humanity ? A hymn to 
 His praise, the sublimest strain of poesy ? insomuch that a 
 man can evince no higher ambition than that of the great 
 preacher. 
 
ON PREACHING. 258 
 
 The perfect pulpit-orator should be a saint and an orator 
 united ; a Paul, an Augustine, a Jeremy Taylor. No years 
 of study, no libraries, no studious pursuits are wasted on him 
 whose office it is to minister at the altar. His is the highest 
 of all duties that of Adoration and Prayer : to perform these 
 duties with dignity, ignorance is by no means the most fitting 
 preparative. 
 
 A consequence of this vitiated style of composition is seen 
 in the vitiated taste of audiences. They take their standard 
 from contemporary preaching (few scholars constituting 
 modern congregations), and that standard is, too often, a low 
 one. 
 
 The spirit of the age, also, hostile to fanciful illustration, or 
 refined speculation in sacred discourses, and rather looking to 
 utilitarian logic, has, we are apt to imagine, cast a chilling 
 influence over the imagination, and rendered the warm and 
 glowing appeals tame and cold. 
 
 Be the causes what they may, however, the fact remains, 
 of a very certain declension in the eloquence of the chair (as 
 the French term Pulpit Oratory), since the days of the old 
 divines. Whether they were a privileged race of men, had 
 stronger thoughts, and more capacious heads, or more affec 
 tionate and philanthropic hearts, we will not attempt to de 
 termine. That they were far better scholars than the present 
 race, is confessed ; that they had more poetry in them, is 
 granted and it is also admitted, that their poetry did their 
 piety no material injury ; nay, that it heightened and refined it. 
 The old English Divines form a choice department in a library 
 of old English literature. It has been said that a complete 
 library could be formed from their works alone, and that, too, 
 a most valuable collection. For though Divines, they were 
 none the less wits, historians, scholars, and moralists. In this 
 
254 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 respect they differ from the French pulpit orators, who were 
 either mere declaimers or else scholastic controversialists. 
 The English Divines wrote not merely sermons and works of 
 scholastic divinity but they wrote books of moral essays, 
 characters, satires ; works on life and manners. They had 
 wit and humor as well as fancy and sentiment. They were 
 not merely the spiritual guides, but also the popular writers 
 of the day. They had large capacity of reason and richness 
 of imagination. They were picturesque, pointed, practical. 
 Not merely fine writers, they were deep thinkers and acute 
 observers. There is a substance and solidity in every one of 
 them that would furnish out a score of modern writers with 
 brains. Barrow alone would cut up into a dozen fashionable 
 lecturers, and Taylor might serve as a resouree for the poets 
 of at least one generation. Hall and Donne, as satirists, 
 might send Gifford and Byron to school to learn their art ; 
 and Earle is at least as knowing as William Cobbett. 
 
 In their books we find not only the noblest doctrines of a 
 true Christian morality, heightened by pure religion, but we 
 also discover profound speculations on human nature, and a 
 truer insight into the characters of men. We have there 
 preserved for us the truest pictures of that time, and the 
 ruling tendencies of that age. 
 
 They were thus not only scholars and preachers, but also 
 men of the world (in a good senso), and men of reflection. 
 
 As writers, and chiefly as writers of sermons, we shall con 
 sider them, leaving controversy and their individual tenets 
 out of the question. The moot points of that day, and indeed 
 of every age, interest but very few ; but the wholesome doc 
 trines and high principles these writings contain, are good at 
 and in all times. They have good thoughts for our times, 
 and noble thoughts for the best seasons. To the student, 
 
ON PREACHING. 255 
 
 their works are full of thought and learning ; to the specula- 
 tist, they are full of high aims and generous aspirations ; to 
 to the afflicted, they contain the surest consolation, next to 
 the Scriptures themselves. 
 
 We beg leave to premise, on the very threshold of these 
 criticisms, that we write not for the professional reader, 
 who, doubtless, is at least equally well, if not (as he 
 should be) much better acquainted than we can be with these 
 old writers ; but for the general inquirer, who may be easily 
 repelled in his researches, by unfortunately stumbling on the 
 worst scribblers of that time. At that time, as now, there 
 were a large class of writers, crude thinkers; and such are 
 ever in the majority. Old English literature may be com 
 pared to the book-closet in an old-fashioned country house, 
 which contains a vast variety of learned lumber and useless 
 trash ; still, here and there a rare volume ; an old manuscript 
 of great value ; a set of books, entirely preserved, of some 
 fruitful and popular writer years ago. These have all been 
 tumbled in together in one medley. Even in many other 
 wise worthless books he will find a brilliant page or two, or 
 a curious chapter, or erudite notes, or a fantastic appendix. 
 The very titles and mottoes of some these curious treatises 
 cannot foil to breed some speculation ; the prefaces and dedi 
 cations form materials for a literary history of the time. 
 
 If the student has never happened upon these writers be 
 fore, he will be surprised to find a manly vigor of thought 
 and independence of expression in them, of which very few 
 examples remain at the present day. 
 
 It is to be wondered at the ignorance on this subject. Most 
 readers regard all that is old as trite, and speak of the great 
 body of English divines as dull and tiresome. 
 
 A point not sufficiently regarded is the admirable morality 
 
256 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 of these divines ; not only the Christian morality (the high 
 est) of their writings, but also the wide and liberal range of 
 their sympathies as men. They not only taught as Christian 
 ministers, but also felt as men and for their fellow-creatures. 
 There is more humanity in their moral teaching than in any 
 of the professed books on morality. They are more truly 
 moral than the merely technical teachers of morality. Pas 
 sages even occur in their works of a tendency to which the 
 strait-laced professors of later times might object, as free and 
 latitudinarian ; they are more compassionate than censorious. 
 Do not these objectors forget, however, that the severest 
 moralist in judging of himself may be, and, indeed, ought to 
 be, the most merciful in his judgment of others ? The true 
 Christian is not he who finds most errors in other sects or 
 ndividuals. Rebuke is not religion, nor captiousness Chris 
 tianity. "Judge not, that ye be not judged," is a cardinal 
 rule of Chris nan conduct. 
 
 Equally sound and admirable are the old divines in point 
 of Christian doctrine. The squeamish churchman need never 
 fear to contract any taint of heresy, or run foul of any dis 
 puted and doubtful dogmas in their writings. As writers 
 and thinkers, they are above all praise. In the language of 
 a fine writer, also a judicious admirer of these old worthies: 
 " It is well to moralize with Hall, and raise the fancy with 
 the imagination of Taylor ; to raise the flame of piety with 
 Herbert, or to be jested into seriousness by the points of 
 Fuller." 
 
 The defects of contemporary preaching are two-fold : lite 
 rary and religious. We must premise two considerations be 
 fore entering upon these points of criticism. Preaching is too 
 general to have any special efficacy. It is directed against 
 vice and sin in the abstract: it enforces virtue and goodness 
 
ON PREACHING. 257 
 
 in the general. It recognises passions and sentiments, rather 
 than a separate act or an individual feeling. It wants par 
 ticularity. The preacher addresses his congregation, rather 
 than any single member of it. Perhaps there is no speciality 
 in his ideas ; he may himself entertain only general impres 
 sions of the beauty of holiness or the heinousness of crime. 
 His own soul may not be truly alive to the convictions 
 of his reason ; his own spirit may not be wholly imbued 
 with his own doctrines. As a matter of course, he can 
 produce no impression, who feels no strong motives for ex 
 citing any. 
 
 Preaching is al?o too frequent. It is made too common. 
 In the early history of the Church, priests, or at least one 
 class of them, were allowed to preach only at stated times, 
 some, if we are not mistaken, not oftener than once a month. 
 This, too, at a time when preaching, as a means of making 
 proselytes, was much more essential to the growth of the 
 Church than at present. 
 
 The true intent of preaching, the object of a sermon, it 
 seems to us, is not comprehended. We are impressed 
 with the truth, that a preacher should teach rather than 
 declaim ; convince than speculate ; persuade than exhort, and 
 not merely amuse or entertain. His business is to teach 
 men doctrine and duty ; but, of the two, duty rather than 
 doctrine, as practice is more important than opinion. He 
 must be himself sincere, if he would gain influence; and of 
 his sincerity, a good life is the only test. He must speak 
 from experience, who would speak with authority. The 
 mere orator in the pulpit is contemptible. What audacity 
 to play off rhetorical tricks before High Heaven for the ad 
 miration of a gaping crowd ! At the same time, severely 
 as we repudiate hollow display, even of the finest genius, 
 
258 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 we yet hold the noblest exercise of the faculties to be the 
 worship and adoration of the Almighty Father. To his 
 service should the richest genius the costliest research, 
 the most accomplished talents, be dedicated ; yet with hu 
 mility, and all in his honor. 
 
 The pulpit should be the school, the lecture-room, the 
 press for the people. How many glean all their scanty stock 
 from the preacher ! Many take all their religious and moral 
 views from their clergyman. This alone should incline us 
 to fix the standard of preaching high, to make it very com 
 prehensive. 
 
 Of all the varieties of preaching, we place the moral dis 
 course at the head ; that which impresses our highest duties 
 and directs our familiar offices ; that which regards man as 
 a social creature, as well as a spiritual being ; that which, in 
 its zeal for heavenly things does not overlook the period 
 spent here on this bank and shoal of time ! Such preaching 
 is Christian, for it is after the model of the Sermon on the 
 Mount that compend of Christian duties. Much idle cant 
 has been expended on a distinction between evangelical and 
 moral sermons; as if a good moralist was not, from the 
 philosophical nature of the case, religious. Not that mo 
 rality is better than religion. It is as good. It is the same 
 with it. It is Christianity applied to action. Christianity is, 
 in a word, a divine morality. The law of God and the moral 
 law coincide, are contemporary. Morality is not only as old 
 as the creation, but existed long before it before all time 
 in the bosom of the Supreme Being. An awful sense of duty 
 governs all beneath the Creator of the world down to the 
 meanest of his intelligent and responsible creatures. This we 
 would have preached. The most sterling of the old divines 
 afford abundant precedents. The sermons of Barrow in par- 
 
 
ON PREACHING. 259 
 
 ticular are almost entirely moral treatises. Tillotson founds 
 revelation on the law of nature ; and speaks of the latter as 
 antecedent to the former. 
 
 Evangelical piety, often pure and sincere, has as often been 
 assumed by those who, disregarding the common rules of 
 morality, expect from their very wickedness to shine out as 
 brilliant lights ; " the greater sinner, the greater saint." Is 
 it harsh to suspect such repentance half the time ? About 
 strict morality, there can be less mistake. It affords ground 
 for fewer deceptions. 
 
 There is another vulgar (though time-honored) error 
 regarding the personal character of the priest, which would 
 teach us a bad man may still be a good priest; that the 
 office sanctifies the clerical acts of the incumbent. This 
 cannot be so. It is too revolting to common reason, let the 
 sophisms of controversialists be marshalled as they may. 
 For our own part (and wo think we share the feeling with 
 many) we cannot hear the sermon of a preacher, let him be 
 ever so eloquent or acute, if we do not reverence his personal 
 character. The two are inseparable and of the two, the 
 man should predominate. When the man is good and the 
 priest is perfect in his function, then we find the true charac 
 ter. The formalist and the hypocrite sometimes usurp his 
 place, and in passing we will glance at each. The formalist 
 in the pulpit is as injurious to the cause of religion as the 
 sceptic in company ; perhaps more hurtful, because with less 
 art, and without an avowed design. The one disgusts the 
 man of sense and sincere Christian ; the other, by specious 
 logic, alarms the wary and puts his opponents on their guard. 
 We find a passage in Mr. Emerson s Divinity Address so 
 germane to the matter, that we cannot forbear quoting it : 
 
 " Whenever the pulpit is usurped by a formalist, then is 
 
260 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 the worshipper defrauded and disconsolate. We shrink as 
 soon as the prayers begin, which do not uplift, but smite and 
 offend us. We are fain to wrap our cloak about us, and 
 secure as best we can, a solitude that hears not. I once 
 heard a preacher who sorely tempted me to say, I would go 
 to church no more. Men go, thought I, where they are wont 
 to go, else had no soul entered the temple in the afternoon. 
 A snow-storm was falling around us. The snow-storm was 
 real, the preacher merely spectral ; and the eye felt the sad 
 contrast in looking at him, and then out of the window 
 behind him into the beautiful meteor of the snow. He had 
 lived in vain. He had not one word intimating that he had 
 laughed or wept, was married or in love, had been com 
 mended, or cheated, or chagrined. If he had ever lived and 
 acted, we were none the wiser for it. The capital secret of 
 his profession, namely, to convert life into truth, he had not 
 learned. Not one fact in all his experience had he yet 
 imported into his doctrine. This man had ploughed and 
 planted, and talked, and bought, and sold; he had read 
 books ; he had eaten and drunken ; his head aches ; his 
 heart throbs; he smiles and suffers; yet there was not a 
 surmise, a hint in all the discourse that he had ever lived at 
 all. Not a line did he draw out of real history. The true 
 preacher can always be known by this, that he deals out to 
 the people his life, life passed through the fire of thought. 
 But of the bad preacher, it could not be told from his sermon, 
 what age of the world he fell in ; whether he had a father or 
 a child ; whether he was a freeholder or a pauper ; whether 
 he was a citizen or a countryman, or any other fact of his 
 biography." 
 
 The hypocrite is much worse, and, next to the man of cold, 
 malicious heart, the worst man in the world. Cant, always 
 
ON PREACHING. 261 
 
 despicable, in the pulpit is blasphemy. Yet there ia a cant 
 (if we are not wrong) without hypocrisy ; a professional style 
 of speech, an assumption of using common words in a par 
 ticular and pedantic sense. Such is the phrase, "professing" 
 Christian, a puritanical expression, that has become quite 
 common ; a presumptuous term, vain-glorious, pharisaical. 
 The character of the good parson is far removed from either 
 of these. 
 
 From two masterly essays (a little too formally cut, 
 perhaps, for the present day) ; the one by an old English 
 master, Owen Felltham, and the other, the production of 
 the prince of French moralists, Labruyere, we select a few 
 passages equally striking and true. Owen Felltham, in his 
 admirable Resolves, in an essay on Preaching [he was a sort 
 of amateur divine himself, and lived in an age of the very 
 finest, and also of the most indifferent pulpit eloquence, 
 according as you study the works of the very first divines, 
 or the merely statistical or chronological discourses of mere 
 " enumerators," as Labruyere himself calls the most tedious 
 class of exhorters], has these just thoughts thus curtly and a 
 little pedantically set forth : 
 
 " The excess which is in the defect of preaching, has made 
 the pulpit slighted ; I mean the much bad oratory we find it 
 guilty of. It is a wonder to me how men can preach so little 
 and so long, so long at a time and so little matter ; as if they 
 thought to please by the inculcation of their vain tautologies. 
 I see no reason that so high a Princess as Divinity is, should 
 be presented to the people in the sordid rags of the tongue ; 
 nor that he, which speaks from the Father of languages, 
 should deliver his embassage in an ill one. A man can 
 never speak too well, where he speaks not too obscure. 
 Long and distended clauses are both tedious to the ear and 
 
262 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 difficult for their retaining. A sentence well couched takes 
 both the sense and the understanding. I love not those cart- 
 rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can 
 fathom. I see not but that divinity put into apt significants, 
 might ravish as well as poetry. 
 
 "The weighty lines men find upon the stage, I am 
 persuaded, have been the means to draw away the pulpit s 
 followers. We complain of drowsiness at a sermon, when a 
 play of doubled length leads us on still with alacrity. But 
 the fault is not all in ourselves. If we saw divinity acted, the 
 gesture and variety would as much invigorate. But it is too 
 high to be personated by humanity." 
 
 The last sentence recalls to memory the pithy reply of 
 Barren, the famous French actor, who, on being asked why 
 the stage produced more forcible effects than the pulpit, 
 made answer, that they [the actors] represented things 
 feigned as if they were real, whereas the divines treated the 
 most important themes in such an indifferent manner as to 
 appear as if they hardly credited their own representations. 
 
 " At a sermon well dressed, what understanding can have 
 a motion to sleep? Divinity well ordered, casts forth a bait 
 which angles the soul into the ear, and how can that close 
 when such a guest sits in it ? They are sermons but of baser 
 metals which lead the eyes to slumber. And should we have 
 a continued oration, upon such a subject as the stage treats 
 on, in such words as we hear some sermons, I am confident 
 it would not only be far more tedious, but nauseous and con- 
 temptful. The most advantage they have of other places is 
 in their good lives and actions ; for it is certain Cicero and 
 Roscius are the most complete when they both make but 
 man." ****** 
 
 " I grieve that anything so excellent as divinity is, should 
 
ON PREACHING. LMJ. f 
 
 fall into a sluggish handling. Sure though other inter- 
 posures do eclipse her, yet this is a principal. I never yet 
 knew a good tongue that wanted ears to hear it. I will 
 honor her in her plain trim ; but I will wish to meet in her, 
 graceful jewels, not that they give addition to her goodness, 
 but that she is more persuasive in working on the soul she 
 meets with. When I meet with worth which I cannot over- 
 love, I can well endure that art which is a means to heighten 
 liking. Confections that are cordial are not the worse, but 
 the better, for being gilded." 
 
 Labruyere, in his admirable chapter of the Pulpit, in his 
 famous book of characters and manners of the present age, 
 has exhausted the whole topic, with his habitual acuteness 
 and profound judgment. We transcribe some of the most 
 striking passages, to show what this keen observer and just 
 critic thought of the matter. The truths he states are of uni 
 versal application, as fresh now as when they were first 
 written more than a century and a half ago. The transla 
 tion is by Rowe, the dramatist, and extremely well done. It 
 preserves the propriety of the thoughts, the nicety of the dis 
 tinctions, and all the point of the original. It is, in a word, 
 almost the best prose translation from French into English, 
 that we at present remember : 
 
 "Preaching is now-a-days become a mere show ; that evan 
 gelic gravity, the life of preaching, is absolutely laid aside ; 
 an advantageous mien, a pretty tone of voice, exactness of 
 gesture, choice of expression, and long enumerations, supply 
 its place. To attend seriously on the Dispensation of the IIolv 
 Word is no longercustomary, going to church is an amuse 
 ment among a thousand others, and preaching a diversion. 
 The preachers play for the prize, and the hearers bet upon 
 their heads. * * * * 
 
264 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 " Profane eloquence is transferred from the bar, where it 
 formerly reigned, to the pulpit, where it never ought to 
 come. 
 
 " On the vain, unprofitable sermons now-a-days ; the time 
 of the Homilies is no more; the Basils, the Chrysostorns 
 could not restore it ; we should fly into other diocesses to get 
 out of the reach of their voices and their familiar discourses. 
 The generality of men love fine phrases and handsome pe 
 riods ; admire what they do not understand ; fancy them 
 selves to be informed ; content with deciding between the 
 first and second doctrine, or between the last sermon or the 
 last but one." 
 
 Dr. Eachard, in his admirable book on the contempt of 
 the clergy, enumerates most of the vices of bad preaching. 
 An early Spanish satirist, the author of the history of Friar 
 Gerund, has hit off very spirited caricatures of the prevalent 
 faults of the clergy of his day Ciceronians, Jesuits, and 
 others ; while Erasmus, with his delicate irony, and good 
 Father Latimer, with his old English strength and sincerity, 
 have handsomely satirized the lazy drones, ignorant monks, 
 and " bells without clappers," " dumb dogs," &c., of their 
 age. To give the reader a fair taste of the French wit, we 
 transcribe the following pithy passages : 
 
 " The Bishop of Meaux and Father Bourdaloue recall 
 to my mind Demosthenes and Cicero. Both of them abso 
 lute masters of the eloquence of the pulpit, have had the 
 fate of other great models ; one of them has made a great 
 
 many ill censures, the other a great many ill imitators." 
 * # * * 
 
 " A preacher, methinks, ought in every one of his sermons, 
 to make choice of one principal truth, whether it be to move 
 terror or yield instruction, to handle that alone largely and 
 
ON PREACHING. 265 
 
 fully, omitting all those foreign divisions and subdivisions 
 which are so intricate and perplexed. I would not have him 
 pre-suppose a thing really false, which is, that the great or 
 the genteel men understand the religion they profess, and so 
 be afraid to instruct persons of their wit and breeding in 
 their catechism ; lot him employ the long time others are 
 composing a set, formal discourse, in making, that the turn 
 and expressions may, of course, flow easily from him. Let 
 him, after necessary preparation, yield himself up to his own 
 genius, and to the emotions with which a great subject will 
 inspire him ; let him spare those prodigious efforts of memory 
 which look more like reciting for a wager than anything 
 serious, and which destroy all graceful action ; let him, on the 
 contrary, by a noble enthusiasm dart conviction into the 
 soul and alarm the conscience ; let him, in fine, touch the 
 hearts of his hearers with another fear than that of seeing 
 him make some blunder or halt in his sermon. 
 
 " Let not him who is not yet arrived to such perfection, 
 as to forget himself in the dispensation of the holy word; 
 let not him, I say, be discouraged by the austere rules 
 prescribed him, as if they robbed him of the means of 
 showing his genius and attaining the honors to which he 
 aspires. What greater or more noble talent can there be 
 than to preach like an Apostle, or which deserves a bishop- 
 rick better? Was Fenelon unworthy of that dignity ? 
 Was it possible he should have escaped his Prince s choice, 
 but for another choice ?" 
 
 To descend from the epigram of Labruyere to plain prose 
 and critical commentary. The style of sermons cannot be 
 too plain and simple, in general. The text should be per 
 fectly clear and earnest. Strength and seriousness are chief 
 qualities. Let it be rather a labored plainness than a labored 
 12 
 
206 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 elegance. The greatest truths, like the richest gems, show 
 best plain set. The best character, for a writer of sermons, 
 is Ben Jonson s character of Cartwright, the Dramatist, who 
 was also a preacher. " He, my son Cartwright, writes all 
 like a man." Joined to this manly sense let there be 
 a liberal spirit of humanity, a sympathy with men as 
 men ; compassion and fellow-feeling. Let suavity modify 
 the rigor of your doctrines, and let a Christian feeling 
 overspread your whole spirit. Thus we would address the 
 preacher. 
 
 Action and gesture, when natural, are always right when 
 artificial, very seldom. To the youthful student we would 
 further say, the old Divines afford a good school, but a 
 knowledge of human nature is better. Still, of the old 
 Divines drink your fill of wisdom, and fancy, and piety, 
 and acute knowledge, and ability of every kind. What 
 pictures, and fair conceits, and rich harmonies, in Taylor! 
 what ingenius thoughts, so fine, so delicate, in Donne ! what 
 massy arguments in Barrow and Sherlock : and he that reads 
 the contemporaries of these old masters, will confess them to 
 have written as with a crisped pen. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 PERHAPS nowhere throughout these United States is there 
 to be found one, who unites so many various characters as Dr. 
 Francis ; whether we look upon him in the light of a highly 
 
 * Abridged from S. Quart. Rev., June 1861. 
 
DR. JOHN W. FRANCIS. 267 
 
 scientific and skilful physician; a general polite scholar; a 
 lover of the whole family of the arts ; an acute inquirer into 
 every branch of science ; an accurate and philosophical anti 
 quary, yet fresh and lively in his sympathies with the world 
 as it moves; a humane, kindly, generous philanthropist; a 
 converser full of spirit and resources, and the general friend 
 of authors and scholars. 
 
 Dr. John W. Francis is a native of the city of New York. 
 In 1807, he commenced his professional course of study under 
 the late Dr. Ilosack, at that period one of the most prominent 
 physicians in New York, and Professor of Materia Medica 
 and Botany in Columbia College. In 1809, the young me 
 dical student was graduated Bachelor of Arts from Columbia 
 College: receiving his degree of M. D. in 1811, from the 
 College of Physicians and Surgeons; a distinct institution 
 which had been established in 1807. Of this academy Dr. 
 Samuel Bard was the first President, and Dr. Francis the first 
 graduate, whose name is recorded in the College Album. On 
 this score, and in one sense, therefore, Dr. Francis, though 
 still in the prime of life, with his faculties and talents as vigor 
 ous as those of an active and energetic man of forty, may be 
 called the leader, and be placed at the head of the medical 
 body of the city, if not of the State, in point of talents, skill, 
 and learning. 
 
 From his earliest youth a severe student, and blessed with 
 a constitution which admitted of it, he has been, through 
 life, a hard worker in the fields of acquisition, and of practical 
 beneficence. 
 
 Soon after he commenced the practice of his profession, he 
 received a flattering proposition from Dr. Ilosack, his eminent 
 instructor, to accept a copartnership with him in his practice, 
 with which he closed. This union lasted till 1820 ; since 
 
268 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 which time he has been without any partner in his laborious 
 duties. 
 
 Nearly contemporaneous with his partnership, Dr. F. was 
 appointed lecturer on the Institutes of Medicine and the Ma- 
 teria Medica. In 1813, he was appointed Professor of Mate- 
 ria Medica, at the early age (for such a post) of twenty-three 
 years. With characteristic generosity, he taught gratuitously, 
 and delivered his first public course of instruction to a class of 
 one hundred and twenty students. 
 
 About this time, he made his trip to Europe, for the pur 
 pose of adding to his own rich stores, and of bringing home 
 all the latest improvements in his art, for the benefit of the 
 profession and of society. He was absent but a single year ; 
 but, during that period, managed to see more, (which was 
 all carefully treasured up,) than most men would in a sojourn 
 of thrice the length. He visited the great hospitals, and sat, 
 an attentive listener, at the lectures of the celebrated profes 
 sors of the day. With most of these he was intimate, and 
 was cordially received by such men as Gregory, Brewster and 
 Brown, in Scotland ; McCartney and Sheridan, in Ireland ; 
 Denon, Cuvier and Gall, in France. Abernethy, amongst the 
 most distinguished in London, the sarcastic wit and most able 
 practitioner, welcomed him with open arms, and offered him 
 a share of his immense practice. What higher eulogium 
 could we present of a young American physician ! 
 
 Dr. Francis traversed England, Ireland, Scotland, France 
 and Holland : on returning home, he brought a valuable libra 
 ry with him, which has been greatly augmented since in ex 
 tent and value. 
 
 In 1817, Dr. Francis, in connexion with his other duties, 
 filled the chair of Medical Jurisprudence; in 1819, that of 
 Professor of Obstetrics, in addition to his former branch of 
 
DR. JOHN W. FRANCIS. 269 
 
 Medical Jurisprudence. So thoroughly versed is this master 
 of his profession in all its branches, that he could turn from 
 one department to another, with the same facility a clever sur 
 geon can perform a variety of operations. And, as a sufficient 
 proof of his largeness of spirit and true generosity in this 
 single channel, we may state that, for nearly twenty years, 
 Dr. Francis devoted from four to six hours a-day, in instruction 
 alone, at a time, too, when he was occupied with his private 
 and increasing practice. 
 
 With Dr. Hosack, Dr. Francis edited the American and 
 Medical Register, and in which he wrote a great deal This 
 periodical reached four volumes, and was almost entirely filled 
 with original matter. Dr. Francis edited the standard edition 
 of Denman s Midwifeiy. 
 
 In conjunction with Drs. Dyckman and Beck, he edited 
 the New York Medical and Physical Journal, until the ter 
 mination of the third volume. 
 
 It must be confessed, that our Doctor has done his full share 
 towards paying that debt every eminent man owes to his 
 profession. New York has produced not only some of the 
 ablest lawyers, but she can boast to have given birth to 
 some of the most admirable physicians our country can 
 display. 
 
 In his professional character towards his brethren of the 
 faculty, he is liberal, frank, cordial ; free from all jealousies 
 and petty meanness ; a model of conduct and courtesy. In 
 charities, professional and pecuniary, he is as munificent as he 
 is unostentatious; doing constantly good by stealth, and 
 realizing the delightful picture drawn of Garth by his affec 
 tionate friend, that prince of gentlemen, and elegant writers, 
 Sir Richard Steele. 
 
 In 1820, he retired from these chairs, which he resigned at 
 
270 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 the same time, with Drs. Hosack, Mott, Mackneven, Mitchell 
 and Post. 
 
 Since that period, Dr. Francis has been one of the busiest 
 of practitioners one of the most arduous among professional 
 and general students an indefatigable writer of the first class, 
 on all the various subjects that have come under his pen, and 
 prominently engaged in all the literary, artistic and social in 
 stitutions of New York city. A lover of society and conver 
 sation, he is no less a cordial host than an engaging compa 
 nion. His house is the resort of artists and authors, of travel 
 lers and divines, and, indeed, of all clever and agreeable peo 
 ple, who can contribute aught to good conversation, or under 
 stand the art of listening. 
 
 For authors and literary men, the Doctor has always 
 cherished a fondness, arising from sympathy and mutual ad 
 miration. Extensively and minutely read in polite literature, 
 with a memory most tenacious, and yet most ready an un 
 erring judgment and generous feeling, for every kind of ex 
 cellence he is a true lover of literature, without cant or pre 
 tence. 
 
 He is equally fond of art and artists an enthusiast in 
 music, painting and the drama. His portrait has been painted 
 by at least eight or ten of the first artists, from Leslie, in Lon 
 don, to Elliott, perhaps the most spirited American portrait 
 painter of the present day. A miniature by Wenzler, is 
 thought to convey the most faithful resemblance. The por 
 trait by Elliott, was done for the Art-Union, at their request, 
 of which institution Dr. Francis was the first President, and 
 with Herring, the original projector. 
 
 Music, in all its forms, from the simplicity of the old bal 
 lads, to the rich musical art of the opera, finds a hearty ad 
 mirer in the Doctor. 
 
DR. JOHN W. FRANCIS. 271 
 
 Of the stage, in its best days, he was a great admirer and 
 nice judge. From Cooko to Macready, he has had all thf 
 great actors for his patients and friends. Kean is his idol of 
 these, the truest tragic genius since Garrick. 
 
 Ills anecdotes of these eminent performers, elicit the atten 
 tion of the most indifferent, and in the Old Knickerbocker 
 Magazine, of New York, we have a rich display of facts 
 touching the career of both Cooko and Kean. His epitaph 
 on Cooke s monument, in St. Paul s Church Yard, is widely 
 known and appreciated. 
 
 Three kingdoms claim his birth ; 
 Both hemispheres pronounce his worth. 
 
 Celebrities, domestic and foreign, he cherishes with pecu 
 liar fondness; and modest merit, that blossoms into very mo 
 derate public uccess, finds a kind and ready friend in him. 
 He is a member of the Ethnological Society ; for years was 
 one of the most prominent leaders of the New York Histori 
 cal Society, which he contributed greatly to establish, and 
 which is indebted to him for many valuable gifts and great 
 pecuniary support. We believe, from its formation, he was 
 the chief physician of the St. Nicholas Society, whose annual 
 dinner he enlivens with his witty budget. 
 
 Such books as Watson s Annals, and Dunlap s Histories 
 of the Stage and Arts of Design, owe much to him. 
 
 Mr. Poe, in an admirable sketch, a little over-colored, in his 
 Literati, thus graphically paints the address and conversa 
 tional powers of Dr. Francis: 
 
 " His address is the most genial that can be conceived its 
 bon-kommie irresistible. He speaks in a loud, clear, hearty 
 tone, dogmatically, and his head thrown back and his chest 
 
2^2 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 out ; never waits for an introduction to any lady ; slaps a per 
 fect stranger on the back, and calls him * Doctor or * Learned 
 Theban ; pats every lady on the head, and (if she be pretty 
 and petite,) designates her by some such title as My pocket 
 edition of the Lives of the Saints. His conversation proper 
 is a sort of Roman punch, made up of tragedy, comedy, and 
 the broadest of all possible farces. He has a natural, felicit 
 ous flow- of talk, always overswelling the boundaries and 
 sweeping everything before it, right and left. He is very 
 earnest, intense, emphatic ; thumps the table with his fist ; 
 shocks the nerves of the ladies. His/orte, after all, is humor, 
 the richest conceivable, a compound of Swift, Rabelais, and 
 the clown in the pantomime." 
 
 Of his writings, miscellaneous and medical, we have space 
 but for a brief resume. 
 
 The Address before the Agricultural Society is an elegant 
 essay, giving the history of the art, and the views held 
 respecting it, in the chief epochs of modern civilization in 
 England, France, and this country in particular. It is full of 
 ingenious suggestions, and is studded with vivid portraits of 
 the great patrons of this, one of the most delightful of the 
 fine arts, and which is constantly on the advance in this 
 country. 
 
 The Address before the Literary Society of Columbia Col 
 lege is mainly devoted to a masterly biographical sketch of 
 Chancellor Livingston, with which President Madison was so 
 much gratified, that he wrote Dr. Francis a congratulatory 
 letter of thanks, for this valuable contribution to American 
 history. As this Address is now out of print, the reader will 
 thank us for telling him that a very full extract from it, com 
 prising the essential portion, may be read in Knapp s Ameri 
 can Biography, which forms the Sixth part of the Treasury of 
 Knowledge. [New York: Conner & Cooke. 1833.] 
 
DP. JOHN W. FRANCIS. 273 
 
 The letter on the cholera, and the observations on the 
 Avon waters, are highly valuable medical papers. The 
 former has attracted general notice, been translated and 
 recommended at Havana, by the authorities. During the 
 three seasons of cholera in New York city in 1832, in 1834, 
 and in 1849 Dr. Francis was untiring, ever at his post, a 
 devoted and faithful practitioner and philanthropist, fearless 
 of danger to himself, though full of a noble anxiety for others, 
 adapting his profound science with readiness, and most 
 efficient skill, to the disease. During the yellow fever of 
 1822, and the previous visitation of that scourge, he was 
 indefatigable, and came very near being added to the list of 
 the victims. What hero so bold, what soldier so daring, as 
 the dauntless physician, full of knowledge, hope and spirit, in 
 such a crisis ? Truly did the poet exclaim, of the skillful 
 Machaon : 
 
 " A wise physician, skill d our wounds to Leal, 
 Is more than armies to the public wenl." 
 
 POPE S Homer s Iliad, Book xi., 636-7. 
 
 The sulphur springs, at Avon, have relieved many a suf 
 ferer, and many who imbibe these life-restoring waters little 
 know to whom they are indebted for the clearest elucidation 
 of their virtues which has been given to the public. New 
 York is as rich as Virginia in sulphur springs. There are 
 three, of the very first class ; at Richfield, Otsego county, 
 some fourteen miles from Cooperstown, (of which we can 
 speak from personal knowledge of their admirably cura 
 tive effects,) at Sharon, the more fashionable resort, and at 
 Avon. 
 
 The discourse on Natural History is worthy of a review 
 by itself so full, so comprehensive, and yet so compact. 
 It is a succinct treatise, which, by a little of the arts of com- 
 12* 
 
274 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 position, might be readily expanded into a volume. This 
 discourse developes an immense variety of scientific know 
 ledge, and, for style, is deserving of very high praise, and 
 has been, in connection with his other addresses and bio 
 graphies, justly characterized as " models of fine writing, 
 just sufficiently tamed down by an indomitable common 
 sense." 
 
 The Anniversary Discourse, before the Academy of Medi 
 cine, we must select, however, as the work, by which those 
 who are yet to read these fine pieces of composition, may 
 get the general idea of the style and manner of our author. 
 And we may here add, that, among the various collections 
 of " Miscellanies," " Literary Remains," etc., so frequently 
 put forth, few volumes will be more interesting than one con 
 taining a selection from the addresses, discourses, and bio 
 graphical notices of Dr. Francis. 
 
 We had the pleasure of hearing this admirable oration. 
 It was delivered before an audience of nearly four thousand 
 persons, the majority professional and scientific, with the 
 flower of New York society and fashion. About as large a 
 number as obtained entrance into the Tabernacle were 
 obliged to leave, for want of space to accommodate them, 
 and the fact deserves to be recorded, that no scientific dis 
 course has ever collected so large an audience, or com 
 manded such profound attention, in New York city a dis 
 course of over one hundred printed pages, and occupying 
 over two hours in the delivery, that could so fix the attention 
 of such an assemblage, must have had rare merits. It is, 
 indeed, an encyclopedic resume of the present state of the 
 art, in all of its departments, of each of which, from long 
 study and wide practice, the orator was master ; compre 
 hensive and yet concise, richly freighted with learning, 
 
DR. JOHN W. FRANCIS. 2*75 
 
 strong sense and broad views, in its historical portion, 
 while its biographical reminiscences were full of life and 
 spirit In its latter half, it contains a gallery of medical 
 portraits, of the great lights of the profession, now ex 
 tinct. 
 
 The New York feeling of the author comes up, at times, 
 most agreeably. Dr. Francis, a true Knickerbocker, watches 
 with pride the progress of New York city. Full as well 
 as any writer he referred to, on this ground, did he devote 
 himself to it ; he could accumulate a mass of information, 
 antiquarian and statistical, as well as picturesque and hu 
 morous, that would give the slanderers of New York pain, 
 and show that she had a distinct character and claims of her 
 own, not to be set aside. Of much of the discourse, only a 
 professional reader can justly appreciate the thoroughness 
 and accuracy. But there are portions all must admire. 
 
 Biography has been a favorite recreation with Dr. Francis, 
 and to his faithful and affectionate pen we are indebted for a 
 number of most excellent notices, and personal accounts of 
 individuals, eminent for professional skill and learning, and 
 for personal worth. These lives are scattered up and down 
 several works : the Family Magazine, edited by Dr. Doane ; 
 the American Medical and Philosophical Register, edited by 
 Drs. Hosack and Francis, Knapp s American Biography, etc. 
 The lives we can now refer to distinctly, as from his pen, are 
 those of Cadwallader Golden and his great uncle, Dr. Col- 
 den, Thomas Eddy, Drs. Mitchell, Miller, McNeven, Jones, 
 Rush, Striugham, Williamson, the capital sketch of Bishop 
 Berkeley, etc., etc. Medical biography is under real obliga 
 tions to Dr. Francis, and, in this nice art, the portraiture of 
 character, he undoubtedly excels. 
 
 Of his medical writings, (we have noticed but two of his 
 
276 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 tracts, of general interest,) we speak on the authority of those 
 best qualified to judge, when we give them no more than 
 due credit for scientific accuracy, for a rich illustration of 
 facts, for comprehensive, and often original views, and for a 
 novel and successful application of former discoveries. Many 
 of these have an European reputation. His medical thesis on 
 mercury was well received at once, abroad, and his cholera 
 pamphlet was translated into Spanish, and propagated by the 
 authorities at Havana, during the season of the pestilence, 
 when it was issued. At least a score of his professional arti 
 cles are held in high esteem by the faculty, in Great Britain 
 and on the continent. 
 
 Dr. Francis has, with reliable accuracy, from an intimate 
 acquaintance with that fell disorder to which his father fell a 
 victim, and from which he very narrowly escaped death him 
 self, established the position of the immunity cf the constitu 
 tion from a second attack of yellow fever. He has written a 
 most able paper, entitled the Anatomy of Drunkenness, the 
 universal circulation of which would, we have no doubt, 
 contribute in large degree to the attainment of that bene 
 volent ideal which is the aim of the temperance societies. 
 
 At home, in one department at least, he is supreme 
 in all the delicate diseases of females ; nor is he less suc 
 cessful in his treatment of a variety of disorders to which 
 the human frame and constitution are subject. 
 
XXXIV. 
 
 WILLIAM S. MOUNT.* 
 
 THE classic comic painters of all countries are few in number. 
 A score of masterly artists in portraiture may be enumerated 
 for every single humorous genius in the art of design. The 
 Flemish school, with Teniers, Ostade, Jan Steen, Gerard 
 Douw, Brou wer, and Mieris, is undoubtedly the richest, both 
 in number of artists and in variety of comic subjects. The 
 Spanish school, with Murillo at the head, comes next. And 
 although, in respect to character, expression, thought, satire 
 and dramatic power, no one master in this department can, 
 for a moment, be compared with Hogarth, the English school 
 has few others to boast of. Wilkie, who approaches most 
 nearly, was a Scotchman, as well as the great predecessor of 
 Cruickshank, (the inimitable caricaturist of this century,) 
 Gilray, who was the Cruickshank in political caricature of his 
 day. Maclise is, we believe, an Irishman ; and Leslie, with 
 Newton, (delicious humorists of the school of Addisou, Gold 
 smith, Sterne, and Irving,) delicate limners, graceful, spirited 
 and Virgilian, displaying in their charming productions, 
 the amenity, gentle beauties, and subtle refinements of those 
 masters of authorship, we claim as American, partly from 
 their early education here, and partly from their American 
 illustrations of Irving. 
 
 The French pride themselves, and justly, on the possession 
 of the genteel as well in painting as in style ; but with all 
 his courtly elegance, neither can Watteau be fairly con 
 sidered a humorist, nor Coypel, though he has illustrated 
 Don Quixote with so much vivacity and effect. 
 *1861. 
 
2*78 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 The paintings of W. S. Mount, one of the few American 
 artists, that deserve to be called painters, are of a strictly 
 national character; the pride and boast, not only of his 
 native Long Island, nor yet of the State of New York solely, 
 but of the whole country. Of an inferior grade, in the same 
 department, are the pictures of Bingham, Ranney, Wood- 
 ville, Edmonds, and Clonney, all of whom are subsequent to 
 him, in point of time ; and although several of their paint 
 ings are of great merit, evincing observation and study, full 
 of character and expression, yet none of them can justly be 
 compared, in point of equality, or with any fair pretensions 
 to rivalry, with the comic designs of Mount. 
 
 Doctors of Law and Divinity, Judges and Bishops, can be 
 easily created by conventions and councils, but a true humorist 
 is worth a county of such dignitaries. "What does the world 
 know or care about the Dutch theologians or commentators, 
 who carried their heads high during the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries ? But the Dutch school of art of that 
 period is as well known as anything in Holland, to all out of 
 it. Those dull, learned professors, who lecture on the genius 
 of the very men, after death has made them immortal, upon 
 whom living they would affect to look down, talk of comic 
 pictures as of the Ethiopian farces, as the lowest phase of 
 intellectual effort. But how many libraries of sermons, and 
 controversial theology, and church history, may be bought 
 for the smallest collection of Teniers and Ostade ! 
 
 Among those, too, who affect a liking for art in this walk, 
 how few correctly appreciate it ; placing the department of 
 humorous description and comic satire below portrait and 
 landscape, to say nothing of what passes under the style and 
 title of history. In painting, however, as in literature, 
 familiar history is in general far more valuable and directly 
 
WILLIAM 8. MOUNT. 270 
 
 interesting than the so-called heroic phases of art. Every 
 thing depends on the artist and his mode of treatment of a 
 subject. A great artist will make more of an ordinary scene 
 than the inferior genius will be able to create out of the 
 noblest materials. True, the grand style, in the hands of a 
 Raphael, a Titian, a Rubens, is above anything of Dutch or 
 Flemish art. We are not instituting a comparison between 
 the divine Italians and the homely Dutchmen ; rather would 
 we oppose a first-rate artist of the actual to a second-rate 
 painter of the ideal school. Something germane to this 
 subject are the following remarks of Leslie, whose single 
 authority is sufficient to decide a point of this kind. In a 
 letter to Dunlap, he writes, speaking of Newton : " For my 
 own part, I had much rather have been the painter of one 
 of Sir Joshua Reynold s best portraits, or one of Claude s 
 landscapes, than of any historical painting by Guido, Domeui- 
 chino, or Aunibal Carracci, I ever saw. If dramatic inven 
 tion, a true expression of the passions and feelings of human 
 nature, and a perfect knowledge of physiognomy, are to be 
 estimated by their rarity, Hogarth was the greatest painter 
 the world ever saw. Yet, according to the received classifi 
 cation, his art must take a lower rank than that of his father- 
 in-law, Sir Thomas Thoruhill, who designed the dome of St. 
 Paul s with the history of the saint from whom the church 
 is named." In Heine s letters we find an idea expressed so 
 similar to this, and with such clearness, that we append it by 
 way of corollary to the above. He is contrasting Goethe and 
 Schiller, and in his light, fleering tone of sarcastic irony, which 
 probes a subject as effectually as the finest serious analysis, he 
 declares : " Those highly painted, those purely ideal forms, 
 those altar images of virtue and morality, which Schiller has 
 erected, are far easier to produce than those frail, every-day, 
 
280 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 contaminated beings that Goethe reveals to us in his works. 
 Indifferent painters ever present the full-length picture of 
 some holy saint upon the canvas ; but it requires a con 
 summate master to paint a Spanish beggar, or a Dutch 
 peasant suffering a tooth to be extracted, or hideous old 
 women as we see them in the little Dutch cabinet pictures, 
 true to life and perfect in art. The grand and fearful are of 
 much easier representation in art than the trifling and the 
 little. The Egyptian sorcerers could imitate many of the 
 acts of Moses, as the snake, the blow, the frogs even ; but 
 when he did acts much more seemingly easy for the magi 
 cians, namely, brought vermin upon the land, then they con 
 fessed their inability, and said, That is the finger of God. " 
 
 If any further criticism were necessary, we might add, that 
 two exquisitely just and original critics of the present cen 
 tury, admirable writers upon art as well as literature, Hazlitt 
 and Lamb, in their essays upon the works of Hogarth, have 
 abundantly and brilliantly illustrated and confirmed this 
 position, 
 
 A biographical sketch of the artist, whose name stands at 
 the head of this paper, may be comprised within a brief 
 space, the external events of his life being few, and not in 
 any sense extraordinary. The few facts are gleaned from 
 Dunlap s meagre notice, and confirmed on the personal au 
 thority of the artist. 
 
 The youngest of three brothers, artists, our painter, the son 
 of a substantial Long Island farmer, was born at Setauket, 
 Suffolk Co., Nov. 26, 1507. Up to the age of seventeen he 
 had been bred " a farmer s boy," as he himself expresses it, 
 and which early education sufficiently explains the character 
 of the subjects of his art all rural scenes of a domestic cha 
 racter, or, as in most cases, of out of-door scenes and occupa- 
 
WILLIAM 8. MOUNT. 281 
 
 tions. At that age, he came up to New York and com 
 menced an apprenticeship as sign and ornamental painter, to 
 his eldest brother, Henry S. Mount, who pursued that 
 branch of painting, although with powers and execution much 
 superior to it, especially excellent in pieces of still-life. Feeling 
 no doubt an instinctive superiority to this occupation, the 
 future artist relinquished it for a higher walk. He com 
 menced seeking after good pictures as models, and entered a 
 student of the National Academy of Design, 1826. The 
 next year he returned to the country, partly on account of 
 his health and for recreation, but chiefly from a native pre 
 ference for its quiet, and the innocent pleasures it affords. As 
 a more congenial residence, from early associations, and the 
 proper field of his labors, no less than from its intrinsic at 
 tractions, he has always (except for a short interval) continued 
 to reside there ; coming up to the city on brief periodical 
 visits of business. 
 
 In 1828, he painted his first picture, a portrait of himself. 
 In 1829, recommenced painting, in New York, portraits. 
 History early fired his ambition, and he imagined himself 
 destined to succeed in Scripture pieces. He has not entirely re 
 linquished this fancy yet. Liston came out in tragedy, and, 
 as a matter of history, comic geniuses have in general mado 
 a beginning in a similar way. Time, sooner or later, corrects 
 the error. The first painting he exhibited at the Academy 
 was Christ raising the daughter of Jairus, followed by Saul 
 and the Witch of Eudor. But he soon found his true line. 
 His first comic picture was exhibited in 1830 the Kustic 
 Dance. A few years after, the judgment of the great artist 
 of the country was thus expressed. In a letter to Dunlap, 
 August, 1834, by Allston, occurs the following most judi 
 cious criticism, cordially presented : " I *aw some pieces in 
 
282 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 the Athenaeum (of Boston) last year, by a young man of 
 your city, Mount, which showed great power of expression. 
 He has, too, a firm, decided pencil, and seems to have a good 
 notion of a figure. If he would study Ostade and Jan Steen, 
 and master their chiaro-oscuro, there is nothing, as I see, to 
 prevent his becoming a great artist in the line he has chosen." 
 Had Mount gone abroad at that time, he might very pro 
 bably have learned new secrets of coloring ; but as probably 
 he would have been confused by the brilliancy of so much 
 excellence, and, in his attempt to gain too much facility, 
 have lost his distinctive local freshness, and untaught, natural 
 beauties. A truly national painter might have been sacri 
 ficed to the varied accomplishments of a tasteful artist of the 
 schools. Perhaps it was wisest for him to have remained at 
 home. Copies of some of his most characteristic pictures 
 might be bought up in England, by wealthy connoisseurs, at 
 a liberal rate, and one field still remains open to him which 
 he could worthily occupy the Southern negro, plantation 
 life, cornshuckings, &c. He would find open-handed patrons 
 among the cultivated and opulent planters. His heads of 
 negroes, in Right and Left, and the Lucky Throw, are the 
 finest Ethiopian portraits ever put upon canvas. 
 
 Mount has painted some fifty pictures which he would be 
 willing to acknowledge. Among the best of these are Men 
 Husking Corn, Walking the Crack, the Sportsman s Last 
 Visit, the Raffle, the Courtship, the Tough Story, the Barn- 
 Floor Dance, Birding, Turning the Leaf, Undutiful Boys, 
 Bargaining for a Horse, Cider-Making on Long Island, Boys 
 Trapping, Nooning, Power of Music, and Music is Conta 
 gious, Just in Time, Right and Left, California News, the 
 Lucky Throw, and Who ll Turn Grindstone ? his latest efforts. 
 
 He has been so universally considered the comic painter 
 
WILLIAM 8. MOUNT. 283 
 
 of tho country, that his power in portraits has been over 
 looked. Portraits of Bishop Onderdonk, Rev. Drs. Seabury 
 and Carmichael, lion. Jeremiah Johnson, of Brooklyn, (fee., 
 attest his skill in depicting the human countenance, in catch 
 ing the genuine expression of the sitter and fixing it on the 
 canvas. One of the latest productions of the artist in this de 
 partment is a portrait of E. H. Nicoll, Esq., exhibited at the 
 annual exposition of the Academy, some years ago, and which 
 was pronounced by Frothingham, (a master in portraiture ; ) to 
 be one of the very best heads in the collection. Since then, 
 he has just finished a head of Mrs. William Nicoll, of Islip, 
 which has given the utmost satisfaction to the family. 
 
 Mount sometimes speaks of comic design as so slightly re 
 munerative, on tho whole, though good prices are paid for 
 the few orders he receives, that if he should paint to satisfy 
 himself, he would soon qualify himself for an honorary de 
 gree at that modern temple of artistic fame the alms-house. 
 
 Doubtless many would be gratified to be immortalized to 
 posterity, in a portrait by Mount, even if the head was not so 
 admirably painted, with the truth and fidelity of his faces 
 and figures in his familiar scenes. But he might, if ho chose 
 to devote himself to it, be at least as successful as many of 
 our portrait painters, who, with a tithe of his genius, enjoy 
 high position and command handsome prices. 
 
 To return, however, to his peculiarly original works, those 
 which have given him an individual reputation. Some of 
 these have been, for fifteen years or so, locked up, in private 
 collections, which we have not seen ; others we saw so long 
 since, that we hesitate to speak of them confidently. Some 
 ten or a dozen masterpieces, however, are familiar to us, and 
 must be to our readers. Of these, two are in the New York 
 Gallery, several are already engraved, two are now in Paris, 
 
284 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 and one is now in the engraver s hands ; and, during the last 
 two or three years, some of his finest have been in the exhi 
 bitions of the Academy, the Art-Union, and the rooms of 
 Goupil & Co. 
 
 In a brief review of his works, we cannot enter into any 
 detailed description : a few words must suffice. 
 
 Bargaining for a Horse, in the New York Gallery, and 
 which is to be one of the Art- Union engravings for next year, 
 and Nooning, engraved by Alfred Jones, a capital engraving, 
 appear to us his chefs d ceuvre in his out-of-door scenes. In 
 the first picture, remark the diplomatic manner of the traf 
 fickers ; how cool and indifferent ; whittling ; their attitudes, 
 like their dress, easy and slouching. Nooning is nature itself, 
 a perfect transcript from life ; how close and sultry the mid 
 day heats ; how lazily lolls the sleeping negro on the hay, 
 whose ear the boy is tickling with a straw, which produces a 
 slightsmile ! The white laborers are naturally disposed about 
 with their farming implements. The landscape is unmistak 
 ably that of Long Island, bare and homely, yet with an air of 
 thrift and comfort. In all of his productions, the details are 
 carefully painted, but in some of them, separate faces or some 
 special object form the most attractive features. 
 
 Power of Music and Music is Contagious are, like most of 
 his works, of cabinet size and companion pieces. The titles 
 tell the story, which is narrated with pictorial effect. They 
 represent the love of music at different periods of life. The 
 phrenological hobby of the artist is apparent in the musical 
 bump of the negro, whose organ of tune in the second picture 
 has been much developed. The faces of the boys are full of 
 sweetness. California News is a hit at the times. A group 
 of Hsteners surround the reader of an " extra," containing the 
 miraculous developments of gold discovery at the El Dorado; 
 
WILLIAM B. MOUNT. 285 
 
 the scene, a village tavern bar-room, hung round, among other 
 ornaments, with a handbill advertisement of a vessel up for 
 the mines. This is, altogether, a capital thing, full of telling 
 effects ; an historical painting, though of an humble order, in 
 the genuine sense. 
 
 Within the last year Mr. Mount has been executing orders 
 (of which Just in Time, Right and Left, and the Lucky Throw, 
 are three already completed) for the enterprising French pub 
 lishing and print-selling house of Goupil & Co., whose agent, 
 Mr. Schauss had the taste and judgment to select Mount, 
 as the most national of our artists, to introduce to the French 
 and European public. These pictures are tastefully lithograph 
 ed in Paris by La Salle, a spirited hand. In this enterprise, 
 he has ventured on the experiment of combining portrait and 
 comic design. The heads are life-size, half-lengths ; but to 
 our eye, what they gain as portraits, they lose as humorous 
 pictures. The classic size for comic pieces has been diminu 
 tive. Yet they are truly excellent, and we must add a few 
 words by way of description. 
 
 Just in Time represents a handsome young countryman, 
 who, violin in hand, has just hit the proper pitch. This pic 
 ture is in the exhibition of the present year. It has been 
 beautifully lithographed, and is worthy of a rural Adonis by 
 Morland. 
 
 Right and Left is a negro fiddler calling out the figures of 
 a dance at a ball, fully equal to the last-mentioned. The 
 negro is a comely specimen of his race, and something of a 
 village dandy, to boot. 
 
 The Lucky Throw a negro who has won a goose at a 
 raffle inimitable for spirit, expression, details, and coloring. 
 Indeed, the coloring in these last three is much superior to 
 that in his earlier works : a fine tone is prevalent, and thero 
 is no sign of carelessness or neglect. 
 
286 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 His last work, in this year s exhibition of the Academy, 
 Who ll Turn Grindstone ? illustrates a well-known apologue 
 of Dr. Franklin, impressing the moral of the heartless con 
 duct of worldly men towards those whose good offices they 
 have exhausted. The countenance of the boy is the trait we 
 like best in this picture. It reminds one of the amenity of 
 Gainsborough s children, and of the faces in the Truant 
 Gamblers. The barn is as natural as possible. It was painted 
 for Mr. Sturges, the President of the New York Gallery, and 
 a liberal patron of art. 
 
 Mount has been fortunate in his patrons the late judicious 
 lover and munificent friend of art, Luman Reed, Esq., his 
 successor in the Presidency, James Lenox, Esq., Mrs. Gideon 
 Lee, Messrs. Leupp, Goupil & Co., gentlemen of discrimina 
 tion and cultivated taste. The prices he is paid are generally 
 higher than those he places upon his productions ; and yet, 
 although handsome for this country, he would probably re 
 ceive double or thrice the amount abroad. 
 
 Commonly considered indolent, he is indefatigable in ela 
 borating his productions. Fastidious and full of conscientious 
 integrity, he is accused of slowness by those who are ignorant 
 of the internal, intellectual labor of the artist, who, faithful to 
 his cherished conceptions, seeks to work them out by dili 
 gence and pains. Much is going on in the mind, while the 
 artist may not touch his brush for days or weeks. He is 
 also much censured for his coloring, at one time too cold, 
 again too hot. It is true, expression and character are his 
 fortes, coloring is not. Yet he is sometimes highly successful 
 as in his later works, and almost always his coloring suits 
 his peculiar class of subjects, which, homely and rustic as 
 they are, neither require nor approve vivid tints. 
 
 Mr. Mount is now living at Stoney Brook, some three 
 
WILLIAM 8. MOUNT. 287 
 
 miles from Setauket, on the Sound side of Long Island, with 
 his married sister. His studio is as rustic as possible, and 
 nothing could be more appropriate. It is in the upper story 
 or garret of an old-fashioned cottage, a comfortable home 
 stead, with the light artistically let in from the roof. 
 
 Mr. Shepherd Mount, well known as a successful portrait 
 painter, for which department of his art he has a fine feeling, 
 and especially for color, is an able and intelligent artist. His 
 drawings and sketches are even better than most of his por 
 traits ; and, in pieces of still-life, he has done some capital 
 things. He has also a turn for landscape. It is delightful 
 to witness the frank and generous pride of the brothers in 
 each other, and their family connections, an instance of bro 
 therly sympathy and disinterestedness as rare as it is grateful. 
 
 The scenery about Stony Brook is not beautiful nor ro 
 mantic, but has a certain rural charm that confirms local af 
 fection, when a more picturesque scene might fade out of the 
 fancy. It has that ever-delicious repose of the country, that 
 air of quiet and seclusion, so full of unobtrusive beauty to the 
 citizen, tired of the turmoil of a town life. It was a favorite 
 resort of the late Henry Inman. The country about here is 
 one of the oldest settlements on the Island. It has some an 
 tiquities of its own, the chief of which is the quaint little old 
 Caroline church, an Episcopal church, erected during the 
 reign of George II. and named after his consort. Old farm 
 houses and aged people are not unfrequently met, and com 
 fort with contentment is the ruling characteristic of the neigh 
 borhood. Here, in serenity, and in the enjoyment of social 
 pleasures, practising a genial hospitality, with abundance of 
 good humor and native courtesy, combining much intelli 
 gence and true natural refinement, reside a pleasant society, 
 of which the Mount family forms the centre of attraction. 
 
288 CHARACTERS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 Pleasant excursions, and little parties at home or in the neigh 
 borhood, relieve the toils of the studio, the farm, the manu 
 factory; and more real happiness is found than amid the 
 splendid luxuries of the city. 
 
 The place of W. S. Mount, as an artist, may be considered 
 as not easily assignable. He is an original painter, a follow 
 er of no school, an imitator of no master. But yet he may 
 be classed generally with English painters, as partaking of 
 certain of their qualities and as possessing similar attributes. 
 Mount is not merely a comic painter, and by no means a cari 
 caturist. At the same time, he is much above the most suc 
 cessful painter of still-life. His forte properly is rustic pic- 
 turesqueness, and heightened by true humorous descriptive 
 power. He is something akin to Wilkie, with traits of the 
 better part of Morland and a good deal of Gainsborough in him. 
 Some of his cabinet pieces, with a variety of figures deserve to be 
 ranked in the same category with the admirable pictures of 
 the Dutch and Flemish schools. Of course, we would not in 
 sult Mount by declaring such an extravagance, as that be 
 equalled Ostade in coloring, or Denner in minute finish. The 
 general characteristics of his paintings, however, are much the 
 same with theirs. 
 
 A comic artist without doubt, he is still essentially a rural 
 painter. There is nothing of the town life in his pictures : all 
 are imbued with feeling of the country its freshness, its foli 
 age, its sweet airs and soul-calming secret recesses. His best 
 works are, in a word, humorous pastorals, with sweetness and 
 fine-tempered satire, (where there is any at all ;) no bitterness, 
 no moral obliquity or personal deformity impair their effect ; 
 they present a picture of country life, at once satisfactory for 
 its truth and agreeable in its aspect and general features. 
 
 The character of the artist is reflected in his works, his 
 sweetness of temper, purity of feeling, truthfulness, gayety of 
 
WILLIAM 8. MOUNT. 289 
 
 heart, humorous observation, and appreciation of homely 
 beauties of nature that are overlooked by the common eye. 
 
 He loves to discover the good in others, in artists, espe 
 cially beginners, in all pictures, and indeed in everything. He 
 is a practical optimist, in the best meaning of the term. With 
 maturity of judgment and character, he has the vivacity of 
 youthful feeling and the freshness of the morning of life. A 
 guileless, generous gentlemen, indifferent to the pecuniary 
 rewards of his art, except so far as they insure the essential 
 comforts of life and brinir the independence he cherishes with 
 manly spirit. 
 
 In common with all the members of his family, who inherit 
 a turn for humor and vivacity of spirit, he is a lover of and 
 skilled in music, plays with spirit on the violin, and is fond of 
 all social and innocent pleasures. 
 
 His figure is tall and slight, but graceful ; his gait buoyant 
 and springy ; his manners cordial, and full of bonhommie ; with 
 a voice uncommonly musical and insinuating. Those who 
 have not met him, may obtain a good idea of his physiogno 
 my and expression, from the admirable head by Elliott, paint 
 ed for Goupil <fe Co. s gallery a trifle too highly colored 
 perhaps, and making him look more like a bandit than the 
 painter, still a picturesque head of an artist, by one who well 
 deserves that title. His smile and frank expression, both 
 very attractive, give way in the portrait to a more elevated ex 
 pression, not the habitual look. His eye is remarkably mild 
 and intelligent ; the whole profile, in a word, is such as one 
 fancies a painter s face should be. 
 
 In conversation, he is modest and unassuming ; his remarks 
 are direct, full of sense, humor and feeling. He speaks hur 
 riedly at times, and without any pedantic precision ; but his 
 expressions are generally as pithy as his ideas are just and 
 true. 
 
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