LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 SANTA CRUZ 
 
C/2W 
 
 P5 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 NORTH AMERICAN 
 REVIEW. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 ALLEN THORNDIKE RICE. 
 
 > //' 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 D. APPLETON ANDCOMPANY 
 
 549 AND 551 BROADWAY. 
 
 1879. 
 
COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 1879. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE Essays collected in this volume may, without 
 pretension, be truly said to represent the growth of 
 native thought and scholarship in the United States 
 from the close of the second war with Great Britain 
 down to the close of the great Civil War. In few 
 libraries, public or private, can complete sets of the 
 " North American Review " be found, and the best 
 thoughts and the freshest activity of two generations 
 of conspicuous American writers have thus remained 
 inaccessible to the great mass of the American reading 
 public. 
 
 When the " North American Review " was pro- 
 jected, the object of its founders was to give public 
 voice to a group of students, scholars, and thinkers in 
 and around the university at Cambridge and the capi- 
 tal of Massachusetts, then not unaptly called the Athens 
 of the New World ; and the form of the " Review " was 
 suggested by the amazing success which had attended 
 the experiment so boldly ventured upon but a few years 
 before by Jeffrey, Brougham, Horner, Sydney Smith, 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 and their associates at Edinburgh. The new periodical 
 instantly drew to itself as contributors a concourse of 
 rising American scholars, statesmen, poets, and jurists, 
 whose names have long since become household words 
 in this country, and among whom, as a glance at these 
 pages will show, were numbered almost all the men 
 who have since won a high place for American literature 
 in the intellectual annals of the modern world. 
 
 It is to afford the present generation of readers an 
 easy access to this most interesting chapter of our liter- 
 ary history that, with the kind permission of such of the 
 authors as are still living, this volume is now given to 
 the public. 
 
 A. T. R. 
 NEW YORK, June, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sir Walter Scott (APRIL, 1838) ... . . 3 
 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 
 
 The Social Condition of Woman (APRIL, 1836) . 64 
 CALEB GUSHING. 
 
 John Milton QULY, 1838) 99 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 The Last Moments of Eminent Men (JANUARY, 1834) 123 
 GEORGE BANCROFT. 
 
 Peter the Great (OCTOBER. 1845) . . . .146 
 JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 
 
 The Northmen (OCTOBER, 1832) . . . .215 
 WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 The Earl of Chesterfield (JULY, 1846) . . .255 
 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 
 
 Defense of Poetry (JULY, 1832) .... 303 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne (OCTOBER, 1864) . . .334 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 James Fenimore Cooper (JANUARY, 1852) . . 358 
 
 FRANCIS PARKMAN. 
 
 Shakespeare once more (APRIL, 1868) . . - 377 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 The Mechanism of Vital Actions (JULY, 1857) . 433 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
WALTER SCOTT* 
 
 THERE is no kind of writing which has truth and in- 
 struction for its main object so interesting and popular, on 
 the whole, as biography. History, in its larger sense, has to 
 deal with masses, which, while they divide the attention by 
 the dazzling variety of objects, from their very generality, 
 are scarcely capable of touching the heart. The great ob- 
 jects on which it is employed have little relation to the 
 daily occupations with which the reader is most intimate. 
 A nation, like a corporation, seems to have no soul ; and its 
 checkered vicissitudes may be contemplated rather with 
 curiosity for the lessons they convey than with personal 
 sympathy. How different are the feelings excited by the 
 fortunes of an individual one of the mighty mass, who in 
 the page of history is swept along the current, unnoticed 
 and unknown ! Instead of a mere abstraction, at once we 
 see a being like ourselves, "fed with the same food, hurt 
 with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed 
 by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter 
 and summer " as we are. We place ourselves in his posi- 
 
 * i. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by J. G. Lockhart. 
 Five vols., I2mo. Boston : Otis, Broaders & Co. 1837. 
 
 2. Recollections of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. i6mo. London : James 
 Fraser. 1837. 
 
4 .S7/? WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 tion, and see the passing current of events with the same 
 eyes. We become a party to all his little schemes, share in 
 his triumphs, or mourn with him in the disappointment of 
 defeat. His friends become our friends. We learn to take 
 an interest in their characters, from their relation to him. 
 As they pass away from the stage, one after another, and 
 as the clouds of misfortune, perhaps, or of disease, settle 
 around the evening of his own day, we feel the same sad- 
 ness that steals over us on a retrospect of earlier and hap- 
 pier hours. And, when at last we have followed him to the 
 tomb, we close the volume, and feel that we have turned 
 over another chapter in the history of life. 
 
 On the same principles, probably, we are more moved 
 by the exhibition of those characters whose days have been 
 passed in the ordinary routine of domestic and social life, 
 than by those most intimately connected with the great pub- 
 lic events of their age. W T hat, indeed, is the history of such 
 men but that of the times ? The life of Wellington, or of 
 Bonaparte, is the story of the wars and revolutions of Eu- 
 rope. But that of Cowper, gliding away in the seclusion 
 of rural solitude, reflects all those domestic joys, and, alas ! 
 more than the sorrows, which gather round every man's fire- 
 side and his heart. In this way the story of the humblest 
 individual, faithfully recorded, becomes an object of lively 
 interest. How much is that interest increased in the case 
 of a man like Scott, who, from his own fireside, has sent 
 forth a voice to cheer and delight millions of his fellow 
 men ; whose life, indeed, passed within the narrow circle 
 of his own village, as it were, but who, nevertheless, has 
 called up more shapes and phantasies within that magic 
 circle, acted more extraordinary parts, and afforded more 
 
S 1 //? WALTER SCOTT. 5 
 
 marvels for the imagination to feed on, than can be fur- 
 nished by the most nimble-footed, nimble-tongued traveler, 
 from Marco Polo down to Mrs. Trollope, and that literary 
 Sindbad, Captain Hall ! 
 
 Fortunate as Sir Walter Scott was in his life, it is not 
 the least of his good fortunes that he left the task of record- 
 ing it to one so competent as Mr. Lockhart; who, to a 
 familiarity with the person and habits of his illustrious sub- 
 ject, unites such entire sympathy with his pursuits, and such 
 fine tact and discrimination in arranging the materials for 
 their illustration. We have seen it objected, that the biog- 
 rapher has somewhat transcended his lawful limits, in oc- 
 casionally exposing what a nice tenderness for the reputa- 
 tion of Scott should have led him to conceal. But, on 
 reflection, we are not inclined to adopt these views. It is, 
 indeed, difficult to prescribe any precise rule by which the 
 biographer should be guided in exhibiting the peculiarities, 
 and still more the defects, of his subject. He should, 
 doubtless, be slow to draw from obscurity those matters 
 which are of a strictly personal and private nature, particu- 
 larly when they have no material bearing on the character 
 of the individual. But whatever the latter has done, said, 
 or written to others, can rarely be made to come within this 
 rule. A swell of panegyric, where everything is in broad 
 sunshine, without the relief of a shadow to contrast it, is out 
 of nature, and must bring discredit on the whole. Nor is 
 it much better, when a sort of twilight mystification is spread 
 over a man's actions, until, as in the case of all biographies 
 of Cowper previous to that of Southey, we are completely 
 bewildered respecting the real motives of conduct. If ever 
 there was a character above the necessity of any manage- 
 
6 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 ment of this sort, it was Scott's ; and we can not but think 
 that the frank exposition of the minonblemishes which sully 
 it, by securing the confidence of the reader in the general 
 fidelity of the portraiture, and thus disposing him to receive, 
 without distrust, those favorable statements in his history 
 which might seem incredible, as they certainly are unpre- 
 cedented, is, on the whole, advantageous to his reputation. 
 As regards the moral effect on the reader, we may apply 
 Scott's own argument for not always recompensing suffering 
 virtue, at the close of his fictions, with temporal prosperity, 
 that such an arrangement would convey no moral to the 
 heart whatever, since a glance at the great picture of life 
 would show that virtue is not always thus rewarded. 
 
 In regard to the literary execution of Mr. Lockhart's 
 work, the public voice has long since pronounced on it. A 
 prying criticism may, indeed, discern a few of those contra- 
 band epithets, and slipshod sentences, more excusable in 
 young " Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk," where, indeed, they 
 are thickly sown, than in the production of a grave Aris- 
 tarch of British criticism. But this is small game, where 
 every reader of the least taste and sensibility must find so 
 much to applaud. It is enough to say that, in passing from 
 the letters of Scott, with which the work is besprinkled, to 
 the text of the biographer, we find none of those chilling 
 transitions which occur on the like occasions in more bun- 
 gling productions ; as, for example, in that recent one, in 
 which the unfortunate Hannah More is done to death by 
 her friend Roberts. On the contrary, we are sensible only 
 to a new variety of beauty in the style of composition. 
 The correspondence is illumined by all that is needed to 
 make it intelligible to a stranger, and selected with such 
 
5/7? WALTER SCOTT. 7 
 
 discernment as to produce the clearest impression of the 
 character of its author. The mass of interesting details is 
 conveyed in language richly colored with poetic sentiment, 
 and at the same time without a tinge of that mysticism 
 which, as Scott himself truly remarked, " will never do for 
 a writer of fiction, no, nor of history, nor moral essays, nor 
 sermons " ; but which, nevertheless, finds more or less favor 
 in our own community, at the present day, in each and all 
 of these. 
 
 The second work which we have placed at the head of 
 this article, and from which the last remark of Sir Walter's 
 was borrowed, is a series of notices originally published in 
 " Fraser's Magazine," but now collected, with considerable 
 additions, into a separate volume. Its author, Mr. Robert 
 Pierce Gillies, is a gentleman of the Scotch bar, favorably 
 known by translations from the German. The work conveys 
 a lively report of several scenes and events which, before the 
 appearance of Lockhart's book, were of more interest and 
 importance than they can now be, lost as they are in the 
 flood of light which is poured on us from that source. In 
 the absence of the sixth and last volume, however, Mr. 
 Gillies may help us to a few particulars respecting the clos- 
 ing years of Sir Walter's life, that may have some novelty 
 we know not how much to be relied on for the reader. 
 In the present notice of a work so familiar to most persons, 
 we shall confine ourselves to some of those circumstances 
 which contributed to form, or have an obvious connection 
 with, his literary character. 
 
 WALTER SCOTT was born at Edinburgh, August 15, 1771. 
 The character of his father, a respectable member of that 
 class of attorneys who in Scotland are called Writers to the 
 
8 SIX WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 Signet, is best conveyed to the reader by saying that he sat 
 for the portrait of Mr. Saunders Fairford, in " Redgauntlet." 
 His mother was a woman of taste and imagination, and had 
 an obvious influence in guiding those of her son. His an- 
 cestors, by both father's and mother's side, were of " gentle 
 blood " a position which, placed between the highest and 
 the lower ranks in society, was extremely favorable, as af- 
 fording facilities for communication with both. A lameness 
 in his infancy a most fortunate lameness for the world, if, 
 as Scott says, it spoiled a soldier and a delicate constitu- 
 tion made it expedient to try the efficacy of country air 
 and diet ; and he was placed under the roof of his paternal 
 grandfather at Sandy-Knowe, a few miles distant from the 
 capital. Here his days were passed in the open fields, 
 " with no other fellowship," as he says, " than that of the 
 sheep and lambs " ; and here, in the lap of Nature 
 
 " Meet nurse for a poetic child," 
 
 his infant vision was greeted with those rude, romantic 
 scenes which his own verses have since hallowed for the 
 pilgrims from every clime. In the long evenings, his im- 
 agination, as he grew older, was warmed by traditionary 
 legends of border heroism and adventure, repeated by the 
 aged relative who had herself witnessed the last gleams of 
 border chivalry. His memory was one of the first powers 
 of his mind which exhibited an extraordinary development. 
 One of the longest of these old ballads, in particular, stuck 
 so close to it, and he repeated it with such stentorian vocif- 
 eration, as to draw from the minister of a neighboring kirk 
 the testy exclamation, " One may as well speak in the mouth 
 of a cannon as where that child is." 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 9 
 
 On his removal to Edinburgh, in his eighth year, he was 
 subjected to different influences. His worthy father was a 
 . severe martinet in all the forms of his profession, and it may 
 be added, indeed, of his religion, which he contrived to 
 make somewhat burdensome to his more volatile son. The 
 tutor was still more strict in his religious sentiments, and 
 the lightest literary divertissement in which either of them 
 indulged was such as could be gleaned from the time-hon- 
 ored folios of Archbishop Spottiswoode, or worthy Robert 
 Wodrow. Even here, however, Scott's young mind con- 
 trived to gather materials and impulses for future action. 
 In his long arguments with Master Mitchell, he became 
 steeped in the history of the Covenanters, and the perse- 
 cuted Church of Scotland, while he was still more rooted 
 in his own Jacobite notions, early instilled into his mind by 
 the tales of his relatives of Sandy-Knowe, whose own family 
 had been out in the "affair of forty-five." Amid the pro- 
 fessional and polemical worthies of his father's library, Scott 
 detected a copy of Shakespeare ; and he relates with what 
 gotit he used to creep out of his bed, where he had been 
 safely deposited for the night, and, by the light of the fire, 
 in puris naturalibus, as it were, pore over the pages of the 
 great magician, and study those mighty spells by which he 
 gave to airy phantasies the forms and substance of humanity. 
 Scott distinctly recollected the time and the spot where he 
 first opened a volume of Percy's " Reliques of English Po- 
 etry " ; a work which may have suggested to him the plan 
 and the purpose of the " Border Minstrelsy." Every day's 
 experience shows us how much more actively the business 
 of education goes on out of school than in it. And Scott's 
 history shows equally that genius, whatever obstacles may 
 
I0 .577? WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 be thrown in its way in one direction, will find room for its 
 expansion in another; as the young tree sends forth its 
 shoots most prolific in that quarter where the sunshine is 
 permitted to fall on it. 
 
 At the High School, in which he was placed by his fa- 
 ther at an early period, he seems not to have been particu- 
 larly distinguished in the regular course of studies. His 
 voracious appetite for books, however, of a certain cast, 
 as romances, chivalrous tales, and worm-eaten chronicles 
 scarcely less chivalrous, and his wonderful memory for such 
 reading as struck his fancy, soon made him regarded by his 
 fellows as a phenomenon of black-letter scholarship, which 
 in process of time achieved for him the cognomen of that 
 redoubtable schoolman, Duns Scotus. He now also gave 
 evidence of his powers of creation as well as of acquisition. 
 He became noted for his own stories, generally bordering 
 on the marvelous, with a plentiful seasoning of knight- 
 errantry, which suited his bold and chivalrous temper. 
 "Slink over beside me, Jamie," he would whisper to his 
 schoolfellow Ballantyne, " and I'll tell you a story." Jamie 
 was, indeed, destined to sit beside him during the greater 
 part of his life. 
 
 The same tastes and talents continued to display them- 
 selves more strongly with increasing years. Having beaten 
 pretty thoroughly the ground of romantic and legendary lore, 
 at least so far as the English libraries to which he had access 
 would permit, he next endeavored, while at the University, 
 to which he had been transferred from the High School, 
 to pursue the same subject in the Continental languages. 
 Many were the strolls which he took in the neighborhood, 
 especially to Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, where, 
 
WALTER SCOTT. IZ 
 
 perched on some almost inaccessible eyrie, he might be seen 
 conning over his Ariosto or Cervantes, or some other bard 
 of romance, with some favorite companion of his studies, or 
 pouring into the ears of the latter his own boyish legends, 
 glowing with 
 
 " . . . . achievements high, 
 And circumstance of chivalry." 
 
 A critical knowledge of these languages he seems not to 
 have obtained ; and, even in the French, made but an indif- 
 ferent figure in conversation. An accurate acquaintance 
 with the pronunciation and prosody of a foreign tongue is 
 undoubtedly a desirable accomplishment. But it is, after all, 
 a mere accomplishment, subordinate to the great purposes 
 for which a language is to be learned. Scott did not, as is 
 too often the case, mistake the shell for the kernel. He 
 looked on language only as the key to unlock the foreign 
 stores of wisdom, the pearls of inestimable price, wherever 
 found, with which to enrich his native literature. 
 
 After a brief residence at the University, he was regu- 
 larly indented as an apprentice to his. father, in 1786. One 
 can hardly imagine a situation less congenial with the 
 ardent, effervescing spirit of a poetic fancy ; fettered down 
 to a daily routine of drudgery, scarcely above that of a mere 
 scrivener. It proved a useful school of discipline to him, 
 however. It formed early habits of method, punctuality, 
 and laborious industry ; business habits, in short, most ad- 
 verse to the poetic temperament, but indispensable to the 
 accomplishment of the gigantic tasks which he afterward 
 assumed. He has himself borne testimony to his general 
 diligence in his new vocation, and tells us that on one occa- 
 
12 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 sion he transcribed no less than a hundred and twenty folio 
 pages at a sitting. 
 
 In the midst of these mechanical duties, however, he did 
 not lose sight of the favorite objects of his study and medi- 
 tation. He made frequent excursions into the Lowland as 
 well as Highland districts, in search of traditionary relics. 
 These pilgrimages he frequently performed on foot. His 
 constitution, now become hardy by severe training, made 
 him careless of exposure, and his frank and warm-hearted 
 manners eminently favorable to his purposes, by thawing 
 at once any feelings of frosty reserve, which might have en- 
 countered a stranger made him equally welcome at the 
 staid and decorous manse, and at the rough but hospitable 
 board of the peasant. Here was indeed the study of the 
 future novelist ; the very school in which to meditate those 
 models of character and situation which he was afterward, 
 long afterward, to transfer, in such living colors, to the can- 
 vas. "He was makin' himsell a' the time," says one of his 
 companions, " but he didna ken, maybe, what he was about, 
 till years had past. At first he thought o' little, I dare say, 
 but the queerness and the fun." The honest Writer to the 
 Signet does not seem to have thought it either so funny or 
 so profitable ; for on his son's return from one of these raids, 
 as he styled them, the old gentleman peevishly inquired how 
 he had been living, so long. " Pretty much like the young 
 ravens," answered Walter; "I only wished I had been as 
 good a player on the flute as poor George Primrose in ' The 
 Vicar of Wakefield.' If I had his art, I should like no- 
 thing better than to tramp like him from cottage to cottage 
 over the world." " I doubt," said the grave Clerk to the 
 Signet, " I greatly doubt, sir, you were born for nae better 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 13 
 
 than a gangrel scrapegut!" Perhaps even the revelation, 
 could it have been made to him, of his son's future literary 
 glory, would scarcely have satisfied the worthy father, who, 
 probably, would have regarded a seat on the bench of the 
 Court of Sessions as much higher glory. At all events, this 
 was not far from the judgment of Dominie Mitchell, who, in 
 his notice of his illustrious pupil, " sincerely regrets that Sir 
 Walter's precious time was so much devoted to the dulce 
 rather than the utile of composition, and that his great tal- 
 ents should have been wasted on such subjects " ! 
 
 It is impossible to glance at Scott's early life without 
 perceiving how powerfully all its circumstances, whether 
 accidental or contrived, conspired to train him for the pecu- 
 liar position he was destined to occupy in the world of let- 
 ters. There never was a character in whose infant germ, 
 as it were, the mature and fully developed lineaments might 
 be more distinctly traced. What he was in his riper age, so 
 he was in his boyhood. We discern the same tastes, the 
 same peculiar talents, the same social temper and affections, 
 and, in a great degree, the same habits in their embryo 
 state, of course, but distinctly marked and his biographer 
 has shown no little skill in enabling us to trace their gradual, 
 progressive expansion, from the hour of his birth up to the 
 full prime and maturity of manhood. 
 
 In 1792, Scott, whose original destination of a Writer 
 had been changed to that of an Advocate from his father's 
 conviction, as it would seem, of the superiority of his talents 
 to the former station was admitted to the Scottish bar. 
 Here he continued in assiduous attendance during the regu- 
 lar terms, but more noted for his stories in the Outer House, 
 than his arguments in court. It may appear singular that 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 a person so gifted, both as a writer and as a raconteur, 
 should have had no greater success in his profession. But 
 the case is not uncommon. Indeed, experience shows that 
 the most eminent writers have not made the most successful 
 speakers. It is not more strange than that a good writer 
 of novels should not excel as a dramatic author. Perhaps 
 a consideration of the subject would lead us to refer the 
 phenomena in both cases to the same principle. At all 
 events, Scott was an exemplification of both ; and we leave 
 the solution to those who have more leisure and ingenuity 
 to unravel the mystery. 
 
 Scott's leisure, in the mean time, was well employed in 
 storing his mind with German romance, with whose wild 
 fictions, intrenching on the grotesque, indeed, he found at 
 that time more sympathy than in later life. In 1796 he first 
 appeared before the public as a translator of Burger's well- 
 known ballads, thrown off by him at a heat, and which found 
 favor with the few into whose hands they passed. He sub- 
 sequently adventured in Monk Lewis's crazy bark " Tales 
 of Wonder" which soon went to pieces, leaving, however, 
 among its surviving fragments the scattered contributions 
 of Scott. 
 
 At last, in 1802, he gave to the world his first two vol- 
 umes of the u Border Minstrelsy," printed by his old school- 
 fellow, Ballantyne, and which, by the beauty of the typogra- 
 phy, as well as literary execution, made a sort of epoch in 
 Scottish literary history. There was no work of Scott's 
 after-life which showed the result of so much preliminary 
 labor. Before ten years old, he had collected several vol- 
 umes of ballads and traditions, and we have seen how dili- 
 gently he pursued the same vocation in later years. The 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 publication was admitted to be far more faithful, as well as 
 more skillfully collated, than its prototype, the " Reliques " of 
 Bishop Percy ; while his notes contained a mass of antiqua- 
 rian information relative to border life, conveyed in a style 
 of beauty unprecedented in topics of this kind, and enliv- 
 ened with a higher interest than poetic fiction. Percy's 
 " Reliques " had prepared the way for the kind reception of 
 the " Minstrelsy," by the general relish notwithstanding 
 Dr. Johnson's protest it had created for the simple pictures 
 of a pastoral and heroic time. Burns had since familiarized 
 the English ear with the Doric melodies of his native land ; 
 and now a greater than Burns appeared, whose first produc- 
 tion, by a singular chance, came into the world in the very 
 year in which the Ayrshire minstrel was withdrawn from it, 
 as if Nature had intended that the chain of poetic inspira- 
 tion should not be broken. The delight of the public was 
 further augmented on the appearance of the third volume 
 of the " Minstrelsy," containing various imitations of the old 
 ballad, which displayed all the rich fashion of the antique, 
 purified from the mold and rust by which the beauties of 
 such weather-beaten trophies are defaced. 
 
 The first edition of the " Minstrelsy," consisting of eight 
 hundred copies, went off, as Lockhart tells us, in less than 
 a year; and the poet, on the publication of a second, re- 
 ceived five hundred pounds sterling from Longman an 
 enormous price for such a commodity, but the best bargain, 
 probably, that the bookseller ever made, as the subsequent 
 sale has since extended to twenty thousand copies. 
 
 Scott was not in great haste to follow up his success. It 
 was three years later before he took the field as an inde- 
 pendent author, in a poem which at once placed him among 
 
!6 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 the great original writers of his country. The " Lay of the 
 Last Minstrel," a complete expansion of the ancient ballad 
 into an epic form, was published in 1805. It was opening a 
 new creation in the realm of fancy. It seemed as if the 
 author had transfused into his page the strong delineations 
 of the Homeric pencil, the rude but generous gallantry of a 
 primitive period, softened by the more airy and magical in- 
 ventions of Italian romance,* and conveyed in tones of 
 natural melody such as had not been heard since the strains 
 of Burns. The book speedily found that unprecedented 
 circulation which all his subsequent compositions attained. 
 Other writers had addressed themselves to a more peculiar 
 and limited feeling to a narrower and generally a more 
 select audience. But Scott was found to combine all the 
 qualities of interest for every order. He drew from the 
 pure springs which gush forth in every heart. His narra- 
 tive chained every reader's attention 'by the stirring variety 
 of its incidents, while the fine touches of sentiment with 
 which it abounded, like wild flowers, springing up spontane- 
 ously around, were full of freshness and beauty, that made 
 one wonder that others should not have stooped to gather 
 them before. 
 
 The success of the " Lay " determined the course of its 
 author's future life. Notwithstanding his punctual attention 
 
 * " Mettendo lo Turpin, lo metto anch* io," 
 says Ariosto, playfully, when he tells a particularly tough story. 
 " I can not tell how the truth may be, 
 
 I say the tale as 'twas said to me," 
 
 says the author of the " Lay," on a similar occasion. The resemblance 
 might be traced much further than mere forms of expression, *to the 
 Italian, who, like 
 
 " - ' the Atiosto of the North, 
 Sung ladye-love, and war, romance, and knightly worth." 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. I7 
 
 to his profession, his utmost profits for any one year of the 
 ten he had been in practice had not exceeded two hundred 
 and thirty pounds ; and of late they had sensibly declined. 
 Latterly, indeed, he had coquetted somewhat too openly 
 with the Muse for his professional reputation. Themis has 
 always been found a stern and jealous mistress, chary of 
 dispensing her golden favors to those who are seduced into 
 a flirtation with her more volatile sister. 
 
 Scott, however, soon found himself in a situation that 
 made him independent of her favors. His income from the 
 two offices to which he was promoted, of Sheriff of Selkirk 
 and Clerk of the Court of Sessions, was so ample, combined 
 with what fell to him by inheritance and marriage, that he 
 was left at liberty freely to consult his own tastes. Amid 
 the seductions of poetry, however, he never shrunk from his 
 burdensome professional duties ; and he submitted to all 
 their drudgery with unflinching constancy, when the labors 
 of his pen made the emoluments almost beneath considera- 
 tion. He never relished the idea of being divorced from 
 active life by the solitary occupations of a recluse. And his 
 official functions, however severely they taxed his time, may 
 be said to have, in some degree, compensated him by the 
 new scenes of life which they were constantly disclosing 
 the very materials of those fictions on which his fame and 
 his fortune were to be built. 
 
 Scott's situation was, on the whole, eminently propitious 
 to literary pursuits. He was married, and passed the better 
 portion of the year in the country, where the quiet pleasures 
 of his fireside circle and a keen relish for rural sports re- 
 lieved his mind and invigorated both health and spirits. In 
 early life, it seems, he had been crossed in love ; and, like 
 
 2 
 
!8 Sf WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 Dante and Byron, to whom in this respect he is often com- 
 pared, he has more than once, according to his biographer, 
 shadowed forth in his verses the object of his unfortunate 
 passion. He does not appear to have taken it so seriously, 
 however, nor to have shown the morbid sensibility in rela- 
 tion to it discovered by both Byron and Dante, the former 
 of whom perhaps found his cara sposa so much too cold, as 
 the latter certainly did his too hot, for his own tempera- 
 ment, as to seek relief from the present in the poetical vis- 
 ions of the past. 
 
 Scott's next great poem was his " Marmion," transcend- 
 ing, in the judgment of many, all his other epics, and con- 
 taining, in the judgment of all, passages of poetic fire which 
 he never equaled ; but which, nevertheless, was greeted on 
 its entrance into the world by a critique in the leading jour- 
 nal of the day of the most caustic and unfriendly temper. 
 The journal was the " Edinburgh," to which he had been 
 a frequent contributor, and the reviewer was his intimate 
 friend Jeffrey. The unkindest cut in the article was the 
 imputation of a neglect of Scottish character and feeling. 
 " There is scarcely one trait of true Scottish nationality or 
 patriotism introduced into the whole poem ; and Mr. Scott's 
 only expression of admiration for the beautiful country to 
 which he belongs is put, if we rightly remember, into the 
 mouth of one of his southern favorites." This of Walter 
 Scott ! The critic had some misgivings, it would seem, as 
 to the propriety of the part he was playing, or at least as to 
 its effect on the mind of his friend, since he sent a copy of 
 the yet unpublished article to the latter on the day he was 
 engaged to dine with him, with a request for a speedy an- 
 swer. Scott testified no visible marks of vexation, although 
 
WALTER SCOTT. I9 
 
 his wife was not so discreet, telling Jeffrey rather bluntly 
 she hoped Constable would pay him well for abusing his 
 friend. The gossips of the day in Edinburgh exaggerated 
 the story into her actually turning the reviewer out of doors. 
 He well deserved it. 
 
 The affair, however, led to important consequences. 
 Scott was not slow after this in finding the political princi- 
 ples of the " Edinburgh " so repugnant to his own (and they 
 certainly were as opposite as the poles) that he first dropped 
 the journal, and next labored with unwearied diligence to 
 organize another, whose main purpose should be to coun- 
 teract the heresies of the former. This was the origin of the 
 London "Quarterly," more imputable to Scott's exertions 
 than to those of any, indeed all, other persons. The result 
 has been, doubtljess, highly serviceable to the interests of 
 both morals and letters. Not that the new review was con- 
 ducted with more fairness or, in this sense, principle than 
 its antagonist. A remark of Scott's own, in a letter, to Ellis, 
 shows with how much principle. " I have run up an at- 
 tempt on ' The Curse of Kehama ' for the ' Quarterly.' It 
 affords cruel openings to the quizzers, and I suppose will 
 get it roundly in the * Edinburgh Review.' I would have 
 made a very different hand of it, indeed, had the order of 
 the day been pour cttchirer" But, although the fate of the 
 individual was thus, to a certain extent, a matter of caprice 
 or rather prejudgment in the critic, yet the great abstract 
 questions in morals, politics, and literature, by being dis- 
 cussed on both sides, were presented in a fuller and of 
 course fairer light to the public. Another beneficial result 
 to letters was and we shall gain credit, at least, for candor 
 in confessing it that it broke down somewhat of that 
 
20 -S/ff WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 divinity which hedged in the despotic we of the reviewer, so 
 long as no rival arose to contest the scepter. The claims to 
 infallibility, so long and slavishly acquiesced in, fell to the 
 ground when thus stoutly asserted by conflicting parties. 
 It was pretty clear that the same thing could not be all black 
 and all white at the same time. In short, it was the old 
 story of pope and antipope ; and the public began to find 
 out that there might be hopes for the salvation of an author, 
 though damned by the literary popedom. Time, indeed, by 
 reversing many of its decisions, must at length have shown 
 the same thing. 
 
 But to return. Scott showed how nearly he had been 
 touched to the quick by two other acts not so discreet. 
 These were the establishment of an Annual Register, and 
 of the great publishing house of the Ballantynes, in which 
 he became a silent partner. The last step involved him in 
 grievous embarrassments, and stimulated him to exertions 
 which required " a frame of adamant and soul of fire " to 
 have endured. At the same time, we find him overwhelmed 
 with poetical, biographical, historical, and critical composi- 
 tions, together with editorial labors of appalling magnitude. 
 In this multiplication of himself in a thousand forms, we see 
 him always the same, vigorous and effective. " Poetry," he 
 says, in one of his letters, " is a scourging crop, and ought 
 not to be hastily repeated. Editing, therefore, may be con- 
 sidered as a green crop of turnips or peas, extremely useful 
 to those whose circumstances do not admit of giving their 
 farm a summer fallow." It might be regretted, however, 
 that he should have wasted powers fitted for so much higher 
 culture on the coarse products of a kitchen-garden, which 
 might have been safely trusted to inferior hands. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 21 
 
 In 1811 Scott gave to the world his exquisite poem, 
 " The Lady of the Lake." One of his fair friends had re- 
 monstrated with him on thus risking again the laurel he had 
 already won. He replied, with characteristic and indeed 
 prophetic spirit : " If I fail, / will write prose all my life. 
 But if I succeed 
 
 ' Up wi' the bonnie blue bonnet, 
 The dirk and the feather an a' ! '" 
 
 In his eulogy on Byron, Scott remarks : " There has been 
 no reposing under the shade of his laurels, no living upon 
 the resource of past reputation ; none of that coddling and 
 petty precaution which little authors call 'taking care of 
 their fame.' Byron let his fame take care of itself." Scott 
 could not have more accurately described his own char- 
 acter. 
 
 " The Lady of the Lake " was welcomed with an enthu- 
 siasm surpassing that which attended any other of his 
 poems. It seemed like the sweet breathings of his native 
 pibroch, stealing over glen and mountain, and calling up all 
 the delicious associations of rural solitude, which beautifully 
 contrasted with the din of battle and the shrill cry of the 
 war-trumpet that stirred the soul in every page of his 
 " Marmion." The publication of this work carried his fame 
 as a poet to its most brilliant height. Its popularity may 
 be inferred from the fact stated by Lockhart, that the post- 
 horse duty rose to an extraordinary degree in Scotland, 
 from the eagerness of travelers to visit the localities of the 
 poem. A more substantial evidence was afforded in its 
 amazing circulation, and consequently its profits. The 
 press could scarcely keep pace with the public demand, 
 
22 SIX WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 and no less than fifty thousand copies of it have been sold 
 since the date of its appearance. The successful author 
 realized more than two thousand guineas from his produc- 
 tion. Milton received ten pounds for the two editions 
 which he lived to see of his "Paradise Lost." The Ayr- 
 shire bard had sighed for " a lass wi' a tocher." Scott had 
 now found one in the Muse, such as no Scottish nor any 
 other poet had ever found before. 
 
 While the poetical fame of Scott was thus at its zenith, a 
 new star rose above the horizon, whose eccentric course and 
 dazzling radiance completely bewildered the spectator. In 
 1812 "Childe Harold" appeared, and the attention seemed 
 to be now called, for the first time, from the outward form 
 of man and visible nature to the secret depths of the soul. 
 The darkest recesses of human passion were laid open, and 
 the note of sorrow was prolonged in tones of agonized sen- 
 sibility, the more touching as coming from one who was 
 placed on those dazzling heights of rank and fashion which, 
 to the vulgar eye at least, seem to lie in unclouded sunshine. 
 Those of the present generation who have heard only the 
 same key thrummed ad nauseam by the feeble imitators of 
 his lordship, can form no idea of the effect produced when 
 the chords were first swept by the master's fingers. It was 
 found impossible for the ear once attuned to strains of such 
 compass and ravishing harmony, to return with the same 
 relish to purer, it might be, but tamer melody; and the 
 sweet voice of the Scottish minstrel lost much of its power 
 to charm, let him charm never so wisely. While " Rokeby " 
 was in preparation, bets were laid on the rival candidates 
 by the wits of the day. The sale of this poem, though great, 
 showed a sensible decline in the popularity of its author. 
 
SIX WALTER SCOTT. 23 
 
 This became still more evident on the publication of " The 
 Lord of the Isles " ; and Scott admitted the conviction with 
 his characteristic spirit and good nature. "' Well, James,' 
 he said to his printer, ' I have given you a week ; what are 
 people saying about " The Lord of the Isles " ? ' I hesitated 
 a little, after the fashion of Gil Bias, but he speedily brought 
 the matter to a point. 'Come,' he said, 'speak out, my good 
 fellow; what has put it into your head to be on so much 
 ceremony with me all of a sudden ? But, I see how it is, the 
 result is given in one word disappointment' My silence 
 admitted his inference to the fullest extent. His counte- 
 nance certainly did look rather blank for a few seconds ; 
 in truth, he had been wholly unprepared for the event. At 
 length he said, with perfect cheerfulness : ' Well, well, James, 
 so be it; but you know we must not droop, for we can't 
 afford to give over. Since one line has failed, we must stick 
 to something else.' " This something else was a mine he had 
 already hit upon, of invention and substantial wealth, such 
 as Thomas the Rhymer, or Michael Scott, or any other adept 
 in the black art, had never dreamed of. 
 
 Everybody knows the story of the composition of " Wa- 
 verley " the most interesting story in the annals of letters 
 and how, some ten years after its commencement, it was 
 fished out of some old lumber in an attic, and completed in 
 a few weeks for the press, in 1814. Its appearance marks a 
 more distinct epoch in English literature than that of the 
 poetry of its author. All previous attempts in the same 
 school of fiction a school of English growth had been 
 cramped by the limited information or talent of the writers. 
 Smollett had produced his spirited sea-pieces, and Fielding 
 his warm sketches of country life, both of them mixed up 
 
24 SJX WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 with so much Billingsgate as required a strong flavor of wit 
 to make them tolerable. Richardson had covered acres 
 of canvas with his faithful family pictures. Mrs. Radcliffe 
 had dipped up to the elbows in horrors ; while Miss Bur- 
 ney's fashionable gossip and Miss Edgeworth's Hogarth 
 drawings of the prose not the poetry of life and charac- 
 ter had each and all found favor in their respective ways. 
 But a work now appeared in which the author swept over 
 the whole range of character with entire freedom as well as 
 fidelity, ennobling the whole by high historic associations, 
 and in a style varying with his theme, but whose pure and 
 classic flow was tinctured with just so much of poetic color- 
 ing as suited the purposes of romance. It was Shakespeare 
 in prose. 
 
 The work was published, as we know, anonymously. 
 Mr. Gillies states, however, that while in the press frag- 
 ments of it were communicated to "Mr. Mackenzie, Dr. 
 Brown, Mrs. Hamilton, and other savants or savantes, whose 
 dicta on the merits of a new novel were considered unim- 
 peachable." By their approbation " a strong body of friends 
 was formed, and the curiosity of the public prepared the 
 way for its reception." This may explain the rapidity with 
 which the anonymous publication rose into a degree of 
 favor which, though not less surely, perhaps, it might have 
 been more slow in achieving. The author jealously pre- 
 served his incognito, and, in order to heighten the mysti- 
 fication, flung off almost simultaneously a variety of works, 
 in prose and poetry, any one of which might have been the 
 labor of months. The public for a moment was at fault. 
 There seemed to be six Richmonds in the field. The world, 
 therefore, was reduced to the dilemma of either supposing 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 2 5 
 
 that half a dozen different hands could work in precisely 
 the same style, or that one could do the work of half a 
 dozen. With time, however, the veil wore thinner and 
 thinner, until at length, and long before the ingenious argu- 
 ment of Mr. Adolphus, there was scarcely a critic so pur- 
 blind as not to discern behind it the features of the mighty 
 Minstrel. 
 
 Constable had offered seven hundred pounds for the new 
 novel. "It was," says Mr. Lockhart, "ten times as much 
 as Miss Edgeworth ever realized from any of her popular 
 Irish tales." Scott declined the offer, which had been a 
 good one for the bookseller had he made it as many thou- 
 sand. But it passed the art of necromancy to divine this. 
 
 Scott, once entered on this new career, followed it up 
 with an energy unrivaled in the history of literature. The 
 public mind was not suffered to cool for a moment, before 
 its attention was called to another miracle of creation from 
 the same hand. Even illness that would have broken the 
 spirit of most men, as it prostrated the physical energies 
 of Scott, opposed no impediment to the march of compo- 
 sition. When he could no longer write, he could dictate ; 
 and in this way, amid the agonies of a racking disease, he 
 composed " The Bride of Lammermoor," the " Legend of 
 Montrose," and a great part of "Ivanhoe." The first, in- 
 deed, is darkened with those deep shadows that might seem 
 thrown over it by the somber condition of its author. But 
 what shall we say of the imperturbable dry humor of the gal- 
 lant Captain Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, or of the 
 gorgeous revelries of Ivanhoe 
 
 " Such sights as youthful poets dream, 
 On summer eves by haunted stream " 
 
26 S/tf WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 what shall we say of such brilliant daydreams for a bed of 
 torture ? Never before had the spirit' triumphed over such 
 agonies of the flesh. "The best way," said Scott, in one 
 of his talks with Gillies, " is, if possible > to triumph over dis- 
 ease by setting it at defiance, somewhat on the same prin- 
 ciple as one avoids being stung by boldly grasping a nettle." 
 The prose fictions were addressed to a much larger 
 audience than the poems could be. They had attractions 
 for every age and every class. The profits, of course, were 
 commensurate. Arithmetic has never been so severely 
 taxed as in the computation of Scott's productions, and 
 the proceeds resulting from them. In one year he received 
 (or, more properly, was credited with for it is somewhat 
 doubtful how much he actually received) fifteen thousand 
 pounds for his novels, comprehending the first edition and 
 the copyright. The discovery of this rich mine furnished 
 its fortunate proprietor with the means of gratifying the 
 fondest, and indeed most chimerical, desires. He had 
 always coveted the situation of a lord of acres a Scottish 
 laird; where his passion for planting might find scope in 
 the creation of whole forests for everything with him was 
 on a magnificent scale and where he might indulge the 
 kindly feelings of his nature in his benevolent offices to a 
 numerous and dependent tenantry. The few acres of the 
 original purchase now swelled into hundreds, and, for aught 
 we know, thousands ; for one tract alone we find inciden- 
 tally noticed as costing thirty thousand pounds. " It rounds 
 off the property so handsomely," he says in one of his 
 letters. There was always a corner to " round off." The 
 mansion, in the mean time, from a simple cottage orne, was 
 amplified into the dimensions almost, as well as the bizarre 
 
677? WALTER SCOTT. 27 
 
 proportions, of some old feudal castle. The furniture and 
 decorations were of the costliest kind; the wainscots of 
 oak and cedar, the floors tesselated with marbles, or woods 
 of different dyes, the ceilings fretted and carved with all the 
 delicate tracery of a Gothic abbey, the storied windows 
 blazoned with the richly-colored insignia of heraldry, the 
 walls garnished with time-honored trophies, or curious speci- 
 mens of art, or volumes sumptuously bound in short, with 
 all that luxury could demand or ingenuity devise ; while a 
 copious reservoir of gas supplied every corner of the man- 
 sion with such fountains of light as must have puzzled the 
 genius of the lamp to provide for the less fortunate Aladdin. 
 
 Scott's exchequer must have been seriously taxed in an- 
 other form, by the crowds of visitors whom he entertained 
 under his hospitable roof. There was scarcely a person of 
 note, or indeed not of note, who visited that country with- 
 out paying his respects to the Lion of Scotland. Lockhart 
 reckons up a full sixth of the British peerage who had been 
 there within his recollection ; and Captain Hall, in his 
 amusing " Notes," remarks that it was not unusual for a doz- 
 en or more coach-loads to find their way into his grounds in 
 the course of the day, most of whom found or forced an 
 entrance into the mansion. Such was the heavy tax paid 
 by his celebrity, and, we may add, his good nature. For, 
 if the one had been a whit less than the other, he could 
 never have tolerated such a nuisance. 
 
 The cost of his correspondence gives one no light idea 
 of the demands made on his time, as well as purse, in 
 another form. His postage for letters, independently of 
 franks, by which a large portion of it was covered, amounted 
 to a hundred and fifty pounds, it seems, in the course of the 
 
28 SIX WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 year. In this, indeed, should be included ten pounds for 
 a pair of unfortunate " Cherokee Lovers," sent all the way 
 from our own happy land, in order to be godfathered by Sir 
 Walter on the London boards. Perhaps the smart-money 
 he had to pay on this interesting occasion had its influence 
 in mixing up rather more acid than was natural to him in 
 his judgments of our countrymen. At all events the Yan- 
 kees find little favor on the few occasions on which he has 
 glanced at them in his correspondence. " I am not at all 
 surprised," he says, in a letter to Miss Edgeworth, ap- 
 parently chiming in with her own tune " I am not at all 
 surprised at what you say of the Yankees. They are a 
 people possessed of very considerable energy, quickened 
 and brought into eager action by an honorable love of their 
 country, and pride in their institutions ; but they are as yet 
 rude in their ideas of social intercourse, and totally igno- 
 rant, speaking generally, of all the art of good-breeding, 
 which consists chiefly in a postponement of one's own petty 
 wishes or comforts to those of others. By rude questions 
 and observations, an absolute disrespect to other people's 
 feelings, and a ready indulgence of their own, they make 
 one feverish in their company, though perhaps you may be 
 ashamed to confess the reason. But this will wear off, and 
 is already wearing away. Men when they have once got 
 benches will soon fall into the use of cushions. They are 
 advancing in the lists of our literature, and they will not 
 be long deficient in the petite morale, especially as they have, 
 like ourselves, the rage for traveling." On another oc- 
 casion he does, indeed, admit having met with in the 
 course of his life "four or five well-lettered Americans 
 ardent in pursuit of knowledge, and free from the igno- 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 29 
 
 ranee and forward presumption which distinguish many 
 of their countrymen." This seems hard measure; but per- 
 haps we should find it difficult among the many who have 
 visited this country to recollect as great a number of Eng- 
 lishmen and Scotchmen to boot entitled to a higher de- 
 gree of commendation. It can hardly be that the well- 
 informed and well-bred men of both countries make a point 
 of staying at home ; so we suppose we must look for the 
 solution of the matter in the existence of some disagree- 
 able ingredient, common to the characters of both nations, 
 sprouting as they do from a common stock, which remains 
 latent at home, and is never fully disclosed till they get into 
 a foreign climate. But as this problem seems pregnant with 
 philosophical, physiological, and, for aught we know, psy- 
 chological matter, we have not courage for it here, but rec- 
 ommend the solution to Miss Martineau, to whom it will 
 afford a very good title for a new chapter in her next edition. 
 The strictures we have quoted, however, to speak more 
 seriously, are worth attending to, coming as they do from 
 a shrewd observer, and one whose judgments, though here 
 somewhat colored, no doubt, by political prejudice, are in 
 the main distinguished by a sound and liberal philanthropy. 
 But, were he ten times an enemy, we would say, " Fas est 
 ab hoste doceri." 
 
 With the splendid picture of the baronial residence at 
 Abbotsford, Mr. Lockhart closes all that at this present 
 writing we have received of his delightful work in this 
 country. And in the last sentence the melancholy sound 
 of " the muffled drum " gives ominous warning of what we 
 are to expect in the sixth and concluding volume. In the 
 dearth of more authentic information, we will piece out our 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 sketch with a few facts gleaned from the somewhat meager 
 bill of fare meager by comparison with the rich banquet 
 of the true Amphitryon afforded by the " Recollections " 
 of Mr. Robert Pierce Gillies. 
 
 The unbounded popularity of the Waverley novels led 
 to still more extravagant anticipations on the part both of 
 the publishers and author. Some hints of a falling off, 
 though but slightly, in the public favor, were unheeded by 
 both parties ; though, to say truth, the exact state of things 
 was never disclosed to Scott, it being Ballantyne's notion 
 that it would prove a damper, and that the true course was 
 " to press on more sail as the wind lulled." In these san- 
 guine calculations not only enormous sums, or, to speak 
 correctly, bills, were given for what had been written, but 
 the author's drafts, to the amount of many thousand pounds, 
 were accepted by Constable in favor of works, the very 
 embryos of which lay not only unformed but unimagined, 
 in the womb of time. In return for this singular accommo- 
 dation, Scott was induced to endorse the drafts of his pub- 
 lisher ; and in this way an amount of liabilities was incurred 
 which, considering the character of the house, and its trans- 
 actions, it is altogether inexplicable that a person in the 
 independent position of Sir Walter Scott should have sub- 
 jected himself to for a moment. He seems to have had 
 entire confidence in the stability of the firm ; a confidence 
 to which it seems, from Mr. Gillies's account, not to have 
 been entitled from the first moment of his connection with 
 it. The great reputation of the house, however, the success 
 and magnitude of some of its transactions, especially the 
 publication of these novels, gave it a large credit, which 
 enabled it to go forward with a great show of prosperity in 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 31 
 
 ordinary times, and veiled the tottering state of things prob- 
 ably from Constable's own eyes. It is but the tale of yes- 
 terday. The case of Constable & Co. is, unhappily, a very 
 familiar one to us. But, when the hurricane of 1825 came 
 on, it swept away all those buildings that were not founded 
 on a rock ; and those of Messrs. Constable, among others, 
 soon became literally mere castles in the air. In plain Eng- 
 lish, the firm stopped payment. The assets were very 
 trifling in comparison with the debts. And Sir Walter 
 Scott was found on their paper to the frightful amount of 
 one hundred thousand pounds. 
 
 His conduct on the occasion was precisely what was to 
 have been anticipated from one who had declared on a simi- 
 lar though much less appalling conjuncture, " I am always 
 ready to make any sacrifices to do justice to my engage- 
 ments, and would rather sell anything or everything than 
 be less than a true man to the world." He put up his house 
 and furniture in town at auction ; delivered over his per- 
 sonal effects at Abbotsford, his plate, books, furniture, etc., 
 to be held in trust for his creditors (the estate itself had 
 been recently secured to his son, on occasion of his mar- 
 riage), and bound himself to discharge a certain amount 
 annually of the liabilities of the insolvent firm. He then, 
 with his characteristic energy, set about the performance of 
 his Herculean task. He took lodgings in a third-rate house 
 in St. David's Street ; saw but little company ; abridged the 
 hours usually devoted to his meals and his family ; gave up 
 his ordinary exercise ; and, in short, adopted the severe 
 habits of a regular Grub Street stipendiary. 
 
 " For many years," he said to Mr. Gillies, " I have been 
 accustomed to hard work, because I found it a pleasure ; 
 
32 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 now, with all due respect for Falstaff's principle, * nothing 
 on compulsion,' I certainly will not shrink from work be- 
 cause it has become necessary." 
 
 One of his first tasks was his "Life of Bonaparte," 
 achieved in the space of thirteen months. For this he re- 
 ceived fourteen thousand pounds, about eleven hundred per 
 month ; not a bad bargain, either, as it proved, for the pub- 
 lishers. The first two volumes of the nine which make up 
 the English ^edition were a rifacimento of what he had before 
 compiled for the "Annual Register." With every allowance 
 for the inaccuracies and the excessive expansion incident 
 to such a flashing rapidity of execution, the work, taking 
 into view the broad range of its topics, its shrewd and saga- 
 cious reflections, and the free, bold, and picturesque coloring 
 of its narration and, above all, considering the brief time in 
 which it was written is indisputably one of the most remark- 
 able monuments of genius and industry perhaps .the most 
 remarkable ever recorded. 
 
 Scott's celebrity made everything that fell from him, 
 however trifling the dew-drops from the lion's mane of 
 value. But none of the many adventures he embarked in, 
 or rather set afloat, proved so profitable as the republication 
 of his novels, with his notes and illustrations. As he felt 
 his own strength in the increasing success of his labors, he 
 appears to have relaxed somewhat from them, and to have 
 again resumed somewhat of his ancient habits, and in a 
 mitigated degree his ancient hospitality. But still his exer- 
 tions were too severe, and pressed heavily on the springs of 
 health, already deprived by age of their former elasticity 
 and vigor. At length, in 1831, he was overtaken by one 
 of tho'se terrible shocks of paralysis which seem to have 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 33 
 
 been constitutional in his family, but which, with more pre- 
 caution and under happier auspices, might doubtless have 
 been postponed if not wholly averted. At this time he had, 
 in the short space of little more than five years, by his sacri- 
 fices and efforts, discharged about two thirds of the debt for 
 which he was responsible ; an astounding result, wholly un- 
 paralleled in the history of letters ! There is something in- 
 expressibly painful in this spectacle of a generous heart thus 
 courageously contending with fortune, bearing up against 
 the tide with unconquerable spirit, and finally overwhelmed 
 by it just within reach of shore. 
 
 The rest of his story is one of humiliation and sorrow. 
 He was induced to make a voyage to the Continent, to try 
 the effect of a more genial climate. Under the sunny sky 
 of Italy he seemed to gather new strength for a while. But 
 his eye fell with indifference on the venerable monuments 
 which in better days would have kindled all his enthusiasm. 
 The invalid sighed for his own home at Abbotsford. The 
 heat of the weather and the fatigue of rapid travel brought 
 on another shock which reduced him to a state of deplor- 
 able imbecility. In this condition he returned to his own 
 halls, where the sight of early friends and. of the beautiful 
 scenery the creation, as it were, of his own hands seemed 
 to impart a gleam of melancholy satisfaction, which soon, 
 however, sunk into insensibility. To his present situation 
 might well be applied the exquisite verses which he indited 
 on another melancholy occasion : 
 
 " Yet not the landscape to mine eye 
 
 Bears those bright hues that once it bore ; 
 Though evening, with her richest dye, 
 
 Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick's shore. 
 3 
 
34 SJX WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 " With listless look along the plain 
 
 I see Tweed's silver current glide, 
 And coldly mark the holy fane 
 Of Melrose rise in ruined pride. 
 
 " The quiet lake, the balmy air, 
 
 The hill, the stream, the tower, the tree 
 Are they still such as once they were, 
 Or is the dreary change in me ? " 
 
 Providence in its mercy did not suffer the shattered 
 frame long to outlive the glorious spirit which had informed 
 it. He breathed his last on September 21, 1832. His re- 
 mains were deposited, as he had always desired, in the 
 hoary abbey of Dryburgh ; and the pilgrim from many a 
 distant clime shall repair to the consecrated spot so long as 
 the reverence for exalted genius and worth shall survive in 
 the human heart. 
 
 This sketch, brief as we could make it, of the literary 
 history of Sir Walter Scott, has extended so far as to leave 
 but little space for what Lockhart's volumes afford ample 
 materials for his personal character. Take it for all and 
 all, it is not too much to say that this character is probably 
 the most remarkable on record. -There is no man that we 
 now recall of historical celebrity who combined in so emi- 
 nent a degree the highest qualities of the moral, the intel- 
 lectual, and the physical. He united in his own character 
 what hitherto had been found incompatible. Though a 
 poet and living in an ideal world, he was an exact, methodi- 
 cal man of business ; though achieving with the most won- 
 derful fertility of genius, he was patient and laborious ; a 
 mousing antiquarian, yet with the most active interest in 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 35 
 
 the present and whatever was going on around him ; with a 
 strong turn for a roving life and military adventure, he was 
 yet chained to his desk more hours at some periods of his 
 life than a monkish recluse ; a man with a heart as capa- 
 cious as his head ; a Tory, brim full of Jacobitism, yet full 
 of sympathy and unaffected familiarity with all classes, even 
 the humblest ; a successful author, without pedantry and 
 without conceit ; one, indeed, at the head of the republic of 
 letters, and yet with a lower estimate of letters, as compared 
 with other intellectual pursuits, than was eVer hazarded 
 before. 
 
 The first quality of his character, or rather that which 
 forms the basis of it, as of all great characters, was his en- 
 ergy. We see it in his early youth triumphing over the 
 impediments of nature, and in spite of lameness making him 
 conspicuous in every sort of athletic exercise clambering 
 up dizzy precipices, wading through treacherous fords, and 
 performing feats of pedestrianism that make one's joints 
 ache to read of. As he advanced in life we see the same 
 force of purpose turned to higher objects. A striking ex- 
 ample occurs in his organization of the journals and the 
 publishing-house in opposition to Constable. In what Her- 
 culean drudgery did not -this latter business, in which he 
 undertook to supply matter for the nimble press of Ballan- 
 tyne, involve him ! While, in addition to his own concerns, 
 he had to drag along by his solitary momentum a score of 
 heavier undertakings, that led Lockhart to compare him to 
 a steam-engine with a train of coal-wagons hitched on to it. 
 "Yes," said Scott, laughing, and making a crashing cut with 
 his axe (for they were felling larches), "and there was a 
 cursed lot of dung-carts, too." 
 
36 Sf WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 We see the same powerful energies triumphing over dis- 
 ease at a later period, when, indeed, nothing but a resolu- 
 tion to get the better of it enabled him to do so. " Be 
 assured," he remarked to Mr. Gillies, " that if pain could 
 have prevented my application to literary labor, not a page 
 of * Ivanhoe ' would have been written. Now, if I had given 
 way to mere feelings and ceased to work, it is a question 
 whether the disorder might not have taken a deeper root 
 and become incurable." But the most extraordinary in- 
 stance of this trait is the readiness with which he assumed, 
 and the spirit with which he carried through till his mental 
 strength broke down under it, the gigantic task imposed on 
 him by the failure of Constable. 
 
 It mattered little, indeed, what the nature of the task 
 was, whether it were organizing an opposition to a political 
 faction, or a troop of cavalry to resist invasion, or a medley 
 of wild Highlanders and Edinburgh cockneys to make up 
 a royal puppet-show a loyal celebration for "his Most 
 Sacred Majesty " he was the master-spirit that gave the 
 cue to the whole dramatis persona. This potent impulse 
 showed itself in the thoroughness with which he prescribed 
 not merely the general orders but the execution of the mi- 
 nutest details in his own person. Thus all around him was 
 the creation, as it were, of his individual exertion. His 
 lands waved with forests planted with his own hands, and 
 in process of time cleared by his own hands. He did not 
 lay the stones in mortar exactly for his whimsical castle, 
 but he seems to have superintended the operation from the 
 foundation to the battlements. The antique relics, the 
 curious works of art, the hangings and furniture even with 
 which his halls were decorated, were specially contrived or 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 37 
 
 selected by him ; and, to read his letters at this time to his 
 friend Terry, one might fancy himself perusing the corre- 
 spondence of an upholsterer, so exact and technical is he in 
 his instructions. We say this not in disparagement of his 
 great qualities. It is only the more extraordinary, for, while 
 he stooped to such trifles, he was equally thorough in mat- 
 ters of the highest moment. It was a trait of character. 
 
 Another quality which, like the last, seems to have 
 given the tone to his character, was his social or benevolent 
 feelings. His heart was an unfailing fountain which, not 
 merely the distresses, but the joys, of his fellow creatures 
 made to flow like water. In early life, and possibly some- 
 times in later, high spirits and a vigorous constitution led 
 him occasionally to carry his social propensities into con- 
 vivial excess. But he never was in danger of the habitual 
 excess to which a vulgar mind and sometimes, alas ! one 
 more finely tuned abandons itself. Indeed, with all his 
 conviviality, it was not the sensual relish, but the social, 
 which acted on him. He was neither gourmet nor gour- 
 mand ; but his social meetings were endeared to him by the 
 free interchange of kindly feelings with his friends. La 
 Bruyere says (and it is odd he should have found it out in 
 Louis XIV.'s court), " The heart has more to do than the 
 head with the pleasures, or rather promoting the pleasures, 
 of society " ( (< Un homme est d'un meilleur commerce dans 
 la societe par le cceur que par 1'esprit "). If report, the re- 
 port of travelers, be true, we Americans, at least the New- 
 Englanders, are too much perplexed with the cares and 
 crosses of life, to afford many genuine specimens of this 
 bonhomie. However this may be, we all, doubtless, know 
 some such character, whose shining face, the index of a 
 
38 S/ff WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 cordial heart radiant with beneficent pleasure, diffuses its 
 own exhilarating glow wherever it appears. Rarely, indeed, 
 is this precious quality found united with the most exalted 
 intellect. Whether it be that Nature, chary of her gifts, 
 does not care to shower too many of them on one head ; or, 
 that the public admiration has led the man of intellect to 
 set too high a value on himself, or at least his own pursuits, 
 to take an interest in the inferior concerns of others ; or, 
 that the fear of compromising his dignity puts him " on 
 points " with those who approach him ; or, whether, in 
 truth, the very magnitude of his own reputation throws a 
 freezing shadow over us little people in his neighborhood ; 
 whatever be the cause, it is too true that the highest powers 
 of mind are very often deficient in the only one which can 
 make the rest of much worth in society the power of 
 pleasing. 
 
 Scott was not one of these little great. His was not one 
 of those dark-lantern visages which concentrate all their 
 light on their own path and are black as midnight to all 
 about them. He had a ready sympathy, a word of conta- 
 gious kindness or cordial greeting for all. His manners, too, 
 were of a kind to dispel the icy reserve and awe which his 
 great name was calculated to inspire. His frank address 
 was a sort of open sesame to every heart. He did not deal 
 in sneers, the poisoned weapons which come not from the 
 head, as the man who launches them is apt to think, but 
 from an acid heart, or perhaps an acid stomach, a very com- 
 mon laboratory of such small artillery. Neither did Scott 
 amuse the company with parliamentary harangues or meta- 
 physical disquisitions. His conversation was of the nar- 
 rative kind, not formal, but as casually suggested by some 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 39 
 
 passing circumstance or topic, and thrown in by way of 
 illustration. He did not repeat himself, however, but con- 
 tinued to give his anecdotes such variations, by rigging 
 them out in a new "cocked hat and walking-cane," as he 
 called it, that they never tired like the thrice-told tale of a 
 chronic raconteur. He allowed others, too, to take their 
 turn, and thought with the Dean of St. Patrick's : 
 
 " Carve to all but just enough, 
 Let them neither starve nor stuff ; 
 And that you may have your due, 
 Let your neighbors carve for you." 
 
 He relished a good joke, from whatever quarter it came, 
 and was not over-dainty in his manner of testifying his 
 satisfaction. " In the full tide of mirth he did indeed laugh 
 the heart's laugh," says Mr. Adolphus. " Give me an hon- 
 est laugher," said Scott himself, on another occasion, when 
 a buckram man of fashion had been paying him a visit at 
 Abbotsford. His manners, free from affectation or artifice 
 of any sort, exhibited the spontaneous movements of a kind 
 disposition, subject to those rules of good-breeding which 
 Nature herself might have dictated. In this way he an- 
 swered his own purposes admirably, as a painter of charac- 
 ter, by putting every man in good humor with himself; in 
 the same manner as a cunning portrait-painter amuses his 
 sitters with such store of fun and anecdote as may throw 
 them off their guard, and call out the happiest expressions 
 of their countenances. 
 
 Scott, in his wide range of friends and companions, does 
 not seem to have been over-fastidious. In the instance of 
 John Ballantyne it has exposed him to some censure. In- 
 
40 SfjR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 deed, a more worthless fellow never hung on the skirts of a 
 great man ; for he did not take the trouble to throw a decent 
 veil over the grossest excesses. But then he had been the 
 schoolboy friend of Scott ; had grown up with him in a 
 sort of dependence a relation which begets a kindly feel- 
 ing in the party that confers the benefits at least. How 
 strong it was in him may be inferred from his remark at 
 his funeral. " I feel," said Scott, mournfully, as the solem- 
 nity was concluded " I feel as if there would be less sun- 
 shine for me from this day forth." It must be admitted, 
 however, that his intimacy with little Rigdumfunnidos, 
 whatever apology it may find in Scott's heart, was not very 
 creditable to his taste. 
 
 But the benevolent principle showed itself not merely 
 in words, but in the more substantial form of actions. How 
 many are the cases recorded of indigent merit which he 
 drew from obscurity, and almost warmed into life by his 
 own generous and most delicate patronage. Such were the 
 cases, among others, of Leyden, Weber, Hogg. How often 
 and how cheerfully did he supply such literary contribu- 
 tions as were solicited by his friends and they taxed him 
 pretty liberally amid all the pressure of business, and at 
 the height of his fame when his hours were golden hours 
 indeed to him ! In the more vulgar and easier forms of 
 charity he did not stint his hand, though, instead of direct 
 assistance, he preferred to enable others to assist them- 
 selves ; in this way fortifying their good habits, and reliev- 
 ing them from the sense of personal degradation. 
 
 But the place where his benevolent impulses found their 
 proper theatre for expansion was his own home ; surrounded 
 by a happy family, and dispensing all the hospitalities of a 
 
677? WALTER SCOTT. 4I 
 
 great feudal proprietor. " There are many good things in 
 life," he says, in one of his letters, "whatever satirists and 
 misanthropes may say to the contrary, but probably the best 
 of all, next to a conscience void of offense (without which, 
 by the by, they can hardly exist), are the quiet exercise and 
 enjoyment of the social feelings in which we are at once 
 happy ourselves and the cause of happiness to them who 
 are dearest to us." Every page of the work almost shows 
 us how intimately he blended himself with the pleasures 
 and the pursuits of his own family, watched over the educa- 
 tion of his children, shared in their rides, their rambles, and 
 sports, losing no opportunity of kindling in their young 
 minds a love of virtue and honorable principles of action. 
 He delighted, too, to collect his tenantry around him, multi- 
 plying holidays, when young and old might come together 
 under his roof-tree, when the jolly punch was liberally dis- 
 pensed by himself and his wife among the elder people, and 
 the Hogmanay cakes and pennies were distributed among 
 the young ones ; while his own children mingled in the end- 
 less reels and hornpipes on the earthen floor, and the laird 
 himself, mixing in the groups of merry faces, had his " pri- 
 vate joke for every old wife or ' gausie carle,' his arch com- 
 pliment for the ear of every bonnie lass, and his hand and 
 his blessing for the head of every little Eppie Daidle from 
 Abbotstown or Broomylees." " Sir Walter," said one of 
 his old retainers, " speaks to every man as if he were his 
 blood-relation." No wonder that they should have re- 
 turned this feeling with something warmer than blood-rela- 
 tions usually do. Mr. Gillies tells an anecdote of the " Et- 
 rick Shepherd," showing how deep a root such feelings, 
 notwithstanding his rather odd way of expressing them, 
 
4 2 SIX WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 sometimes had taken in his honest nature. " Mr. James 
 Ballantyne walking home with him one evening from Scott's, 
 where, by the by, Hogg had gone uninvited, happened to 
 observe : ' I do not at all like this illness of Scott's. I have 
 often seen him look jaded of late, and am afraid it is seri- 
 ous.' 'Haud your tongue, or I'll gar you measure your 
 length on the pavement ! ' replied Hogg. * You fause, 
 down-hearted loon, that you are; ye daur to speak as if 
 Scott were on his deathbed ! It can not be, it must not 
 be! I will not suffer you to speak that gait.' The senti- 
 ment was like that of Uncle Toby at the bedside of Le 
 Fevre ; and, at these words, the Shepherd's voice became 
 suppressed with emotion." 
 
 But Scott's sympathies were not confined to his species ; 
 and, if he treated them like blood-relations, he treated his 
 brute followers like personal friends. Every one remembers 
 old Maida, and faithful Camp, the " dear old friend," whose 
 loss cost him a dinner. Mr. Gillies tells us that he went into 
 his study on one occasion, when he was winding off his 
 "Vision of Don Roderick." " * Look here,' said the poet, 
 ' I have just begun to copy over the rhymes that you heard 
 to-day, and applauded so much. Return to supper, if you 
 can ; only don't be late, as you perceive we keep early hours, 
 and Wallace will not suffer me to rest after six in the morn - 
 ing. Come, good dog, and help the poet.' At this hint, 
 Wallace seated himself upright on a chair next his master, 
 who offered him a newspaper, which he directly seized, look- 
 ing very wise, and holding it firmly and contentedly in his 
 mouth. Scott looked at him with great satisfaction, for he 
 was excessively fond of dogs. ' Very well,' said he, ' now we 
 shall get on.' And so I left them abruptly, knowing that my 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 43 
 
 * absence would be the best company.'" This fellowship, 
 indeed, extended much further than to his canine followers, 
 of which, including hounds, terriers, mastiffs, and mongrels, 
 he had certainly a goodly assortment. We find, also, Grimal- 
 kin installed in a responsible post in the library, and out of 
 doors pet hens, pet donkeys, and tell it not in Judea a 
 pet pig ! 
 
 Scott's sensibilities, though easily moved, and widely dif- 
 fused, were warm and sincere. None shared more cordially 
 in the troubles of his friends ; but on all such occasions, with 
 a true manly feeling, he thought less of mere sympathy than 
 of the most effectual way for mitigating their sorrows. After 
 a touching allusion, in one of his epistles, to his dear friend 
 Erskine's death, he concludes, " I must turn to, and see what 
 can be done about getting some pension for his daughters." 
 In another passage, which may remind one of some of the 
 exquisite touches in Jeremy Taylor, he indulges in the fol- 
 lowing beautiful strain of philosophy : " The last three or 
 four years have swept away more than half the friends with 
 whom I lived in habits of great intimacy. So it must be 
 with us 
 
 ' When ance life's day draws near the gloamin' ' 
 
 and yet we proceed with our plantations and plans as if any 
 tree but the sad cypress would accompany us to the grave, 
 where our friends have gone before us. It is the way of the 
 world, however, and must be so ; otherwise life would be 
 spent in unavailing mourning for those whom we have lost. 
 It is better to enjoy the society of those who remain to us." 
 His well-disciplined heart seems to have confessed the influ- 
 ence of this philosophy, in his most ordinary relations. " I 
 
44 SJ& WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 can't help it," was a favorite maxim of his, " and therefore 
 will not think about it ; for that at least I can help." 
 
 Among his admirable qualities must not be omitted a 
 certain worldly sagacity or shrewdness, which is expressed 
 as strongly as any individual trait can be, in some of his por- 
 traits, t especially in the excellent one of him by Leslie. In- 
 deed, his countenance would seem to exhibit, ordinarily, 
 much more of Dandie Dinmont's benevolent shrewdness 
 than of the eye glancing from earth to heaven, which in fancy 
 we assign to the poet, and which, in some moods, must have 
 been his. This trait may be readily discerned in all his 
 business transactions, which he managed with perfect knowl- 
 edge of character, as well as of his own rights. No one 
 knew better than he the market value of an article ; and, 
 though he underrated his literary wares, as to their mere 
 literary rank, he set as high a money value on them, and 
 made as sharp a bargain, as any of the trade could have 
 done. In his business concerns, indeed, he managed rather 
 too much ; or, to speak more correctly, was too fond of mix- 
 ing up mystery in his transactions, which, like most myste- 
 ries, proved of little service to their author. Scott's corre- 
 spondence, especially with his son, affords obvious examples 
 of shrewdness, in the advice he gives as to his deportment 
 in the novel situations and society into which the young 
 cornet was thrown. Occasionally, indeed, in the cautious 
 hints about etiquette and social observances, we are re- 
 minded of that ancient " arbiter elegantiarum," Lord Ches- 
 terfield ; though, it must be confessed, there is throughout a 
 high moral tone, which the noble lord did not very scrupu- 
 lously affect. 
 
 Another feature in Scott's character was his loyalty; 
 
SIX WALTER SCOTT. 45 
 
 which, indeed, some people would extend into a more gen- 
 eral deference to rank not royal. We do, indeed, meet with 
 a tone of deference occasionally to the privileged orders (or 
 rather privileged persons, as the King, his own Chief, etc., 
 for to the mass of stars and garters he showed no such re- 
 spect), which falls rather unpleasantly on the ear of a re- 
 publican. But, independently of the feelings which should 
 rightfully have belonged to him as the subject of a monarchy, 
 and without which he must have been a false-hearted subject, 
 his own were heightened by a poetical coloring, that mingled 
 in his mind even with much more vulgar relations of life. 
 At the opening of the regalia in Holyrood House, when the 
 honest burgomaster deposited the crown on the head of one 
 of the young ladies present, the good man probably saw 
 nothing more in the dingy diadem than we should have 
 seen a head-piece for a set of men no better than himself, 
 and, if the old adage of a " dead lion " holds true, not quite 
 so good. But to Scott's imagination other views were un- 
 folded. " A thousand years their cloudy wings expanded " 
 around him, and, in the dim visions of distant times, he be- 
 held the venerable line of monarchs who had swayed the 
 councils of his country in peace, and led her armies in bat- 
 tle. The " golden round " became in his eye the symbol of 
 his nation's glory ; and, as he heaved a heavy oath from his 
 heart, he left the room in agitation, from which he did not 
 speedily recover. There was not a spice of affectation in 
 this for who ever accused Scott of affectation ? but there 
 was a good deal of poetry, the poetry of sentiment. 
 
 We have said that this feeling mingled in the more com- 
 mon concerns of his life. His cranium, indeed, to judge 
 from his busts, must have exhibited a strong development of 
 
46 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 the organ of veneration. He regarded with reverence every- 
 thing connected with antiquity. His establishment was on 
 the feudal scale ; his house was fashioned more after the 
 feudal ages than his own ; and even in the ultimate distribu- 
 tion of his fortune, although the circumstance of having 
 made it himself relieved him from any legal necessity of con- 
 travening the suggestions of natural justice, he showed such 
 attachment to the old aristocratic usage as to settle nearly 
 the whole of it on his eldest son. 
 
 The influence of this poetic sentiment is discernible in 
 his most trifling acts, in his tastes, his love of the arts, 
 his social habits. His museum, house, and grounds were 
 adorned with relics, curious not so much from their workman- 
 ship as their historic associations. It was the ancient foun- 
 tain from Edinburgh, the Tolbooth lintels, the blunderbuss 
 and spleughan of Rob Roy, the drinking-cup of Prince Char- 
 lie, or the like. It was the same in the arts. The tunes he 
 loved were not the refined and complex melodies of Italy, but 
 the simple notes of his native minstrelsy, from the bagpipe of 
 John of Skye, or from the harp of his own lovely and accom- 
 plished daughter. So also in painting. It was not the mas- 
 terly designs of the great Flemish and Italian schools that 
 adorned his walls, but some portrait of Claverhouse, or of 
 Queen Mary, or of " glorious old John." In architecture, we 
 see the same spirit in the singular " romance of stone and 
 lime," which may be said to have been his own device, down 
 to the minutest details of its finishing. We see it again in the 
 joyous celebrations of his feudal tenantry, the good old fes- 
 tivals, the Hogmanay, the Kirn, etc., long fallen into desue- 
 tude, when the old Highland piper sounded the same wild 
 pibroch that had so often summoned the clans together, for 
 
S7X WALTER SCOTT. 47 
 
 war or for wassail, among the fastnesses of the mountains. 
 To the same source, in fine, may be traced the feelings of 
 superstition which seemed to hover round Scott's mind like 
 some " strange, mysterious dream," giving a romantic color- 
 ing to his conversation and his writings, but rarely if ever 
 influencing his actions. It was a poetic sentiment. 
 
 Scott was a Tory to the backbone. Had he come into 
 the world half a century sooner he would, no doubt, have 
 made a figure under the banner of the Pretender. He was 
 at no great pains to disguise his political creed ; witness his 
 jolly drinking-song on the acquittal of Lord Melville. This 
 was verse ; but his prose is not much more qualified. " As 
 for Whiggery in general," he says, in one of his letters, " I 
 can only say that, as no man can be said to be utterly over- 
 set until his rump has been higher than his head, so I cannot 
 read in history of any free state which has been brought to 
 slavery until the rascal and uninstructed populace had had 
 their short hour of anarchical government, which naturally 
 leads to the stern repose of military despotism. . . . With 
 these convictions, I am very jealous of Whiggery, under all 
 modifications ; and I must say my acquaintance with the to- 
 tal want of principle in some of its warmest professors does 
 not tend to recommend it." With all this, however, his 
 Toryism was not, practically, of that sort which blunts a 
 man's sensibilities for those who are not of the same porce- 
 lain clay with himself. No man, Whig or Radical, ever had 
 less of this pretension, or treated his inferiors with greater 
 kindness, and indeed familiarity ; a circumstance noticed 
 by every visitor at his hospitable mansion, who saw him 
 strolling round his grounds, taking his pinch of snuff out of 
 the mull of some " gray-haired old hedger," or leaning on 
 
4 8 S7tf WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 honest Tom Purdie's shoulder, and taking sweet counsel as 
 to the right method of thinning a plantation. But, with all 
 this familiarity, no man was better served by his domestics. 
 It was the service of love ; the only service that power can 
 not command, and money can not buy. 
 
 Akin to the feelings of which we have been speaking was 
 the truly chivalrous sense of honor which stamped his whole 
 conduct. We do not mean that Hotspur honor which is 
 roused only by the drum and fife though he says of him- 
 self, " I like the sound of a drum as well as Uncle Toby 
 ever did " but that honor which is deep-seated in the heart 
 of every true gentleman, shrinking with sensitive delicacy 
 from the least stain or imputation of a stain on his faith. 
 " If we lose everything else," writes he on a trying occasion 
 to a friend who was not so nice in this particular, " we will 
 at least keep our honor unblemished." It reminds one of 
 the pithy epistle of a kindred chivalrous spirit, Francis I., 
 to his mother from the unlucky field of Pavia : " Tout est 
 perdu, fors 1'honneur." Scott's latter years furnished a noble 
 commentary on the sincerity of his manly principles. 
 
 Little is said directly of his religious sentiments in the 
 biography. They seem to have harmonized well with his 
 political. He was a member of the English Church, a 
 stanch champion of established forms, and a sturdy enemy 
 to everything that savored of the sharp twang of Puritanism. 
 On this ground, indeed, the youthful Sampson used to 
 wrestle manfully with worthy Dominie Mitchell, who, no 
 doubt, furnished many a screed of doctrine for the Rev. 
 Peter Poundtext, Master Nehemiah Holdenough, and other 
 lights of the Covenant. Scott was no friend to cant under 
 any form. But, whatever were his speculative opinions, in 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 49 
 
 practice his heart overflowed with that charity which is the 
 life-spring of our religion. And, whenever he takes occa- 
 sion to allude to the subject directly, he testifies a deep 
 reverence for the truths of revelation as well as for its divine 
 Original. 
 
 Whatever estimate be formed of Scott's moral qualities, 
 his intellectual were of a kind which well entitled him to 
 the epithet conferred on Lope de Vega, "monstruo de 
 naturaleza," " a miracle of nature." His mind, indeed, did 
 not seem to be subjected to the same laws which control the 
 rest of his species. His memory, as is usual, was the first 
 of his powers fully developed. While an urchin at school 
 he could repeat whole cantos, he says, of Ossian and of 
 Spenser. In riper years we are constantly meeting with 
 similar feats of his achievement. Thus on one occasion he 
 repeated the whole of a poem in some penny magazine inci- 
 dentally alluded to, which he had not seen since he was a 
 schoolboy. On another, when the Ettrick Shepherd was 
 trying ineffectually to fish up from his own recollections 
 some scraps of a ballad he had himself manufactured years 
 before, Scott called to him, " Take your pencil, Jemmy, and 
 I will tell it to you word for word " ; and he accordingly did 
 so. But it is needless to multiply examples of feats so star- 
 tling as to look almost like the tricks of a conjurer. 
 
 What is most extraordinary is, that while he acquired 
 with such facility that the bare perusal or the repetition of a 
 thing once to him was sufficient, he yet retained it with the 
 greatest pertinacity. Other men's memories are so much 
 jostled in the rough and tumble of life that most of the facts 
 get sifted out nearly as fast as they are put in ; so that we 
 are in the same pickle with those unlucky daughters of Da- 
 4 
 
5 
 
 SfjR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 nans, of schoolboy memory, obliged to spend the greater 
 part of the time in replenishing. But Scott's memory seemed 
 to be hermetically sealed, suffering nothing once fairly in 
 to leak out again. This was of immense service to him 
 when he took up the business of authorship, as his whole 
 multifarious stock of facts, whether from books or observa- 
 tion, became in truth his stock in trade, ready furnished to 
 his hands. This may explain in part, though it is not less 
 marvelous, the cause of his rapid execution of works, often 
 replete with rare and curious information. The labor, the 
 preparation, had been already completed. His whole life 
 had been a business of preparation. When he ventured, as 
 in the case of " Rokeby " and of " Quentin Durward," on 
 ground with which he had not been familiar, we see how 
 industriously he set about new acquisitions. 
 
 In most of the prodigies of memory which we have ever 
 known, the overgrowth of that faculty seems to have been 
 attained at the expense of all the others. But in Scott the 
 directly opposite power of the imagination the inventive 
 power was equally strongly developed, and at the same 
 early age. For we find him renowned for story-craft while 
 at school. How many a delightful fiction, indeed, warm 
 with the flush of ingenuous youth, did he not throw away 
 on the ears of thoughtless childhood which, had they been 
 duly registered, might now have amused children of a 
 larger growth ! We have seen Scott's genius in its prime 
 and its decay. The frolic graces of childhood are alone 
 wanting. 
 
 The facility with which he threw his ideas into language 
 was also remarked very early. One of his first ballads, and 
 a long one, was dashed off at the dinner-table. His " Lay " 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 5I 
 
 was written at the rate of a canto a week. "Waverley," or 
 rather the last two volumes of it, cost the evenings of a 
 summer month. Who that has ever read the account can 
 forget the movements of that mysterious hand as descried 
 by the two students from the window of a neighboring attic, 
 throwing off sheet after sheet with untiring rapidity of the 
 pages destined to immortality ? Scott speaks pleasantly 
 enough of this marvelous facility in a letter to his friend 
 Morritt : " When once I set my pen to the paper it will 
 walk fast enough. I am sometimes tempted to leave it 
 alone, and see whether it will not write as well without the 
 assistance of my head as with it. A hopeful prospect for 
 the reader." 
 
 As to the time and place of composition, he appears to 
 have been nearly indifferent. He possessed entire power of 
 abstraction, and it mattered little whether he were nailed to 
 his clerk's desk, under the drowsy eloquence of some long- 
 winded barrister, or dashing his horse into the surf on Por- 
 tobello sands, or rattling in a post-chaise, or amid the hum 
 of guests in his overflowing halls at Abbotsford it mattered 
 not, the same well-adjusted little packet, " nicely corded and 
 sealed," was sure to be ready at the regular time for the 
 Edinburgh mail. His own account of his composition, to a 
 friend who asked when he found time for it, is striking 
 enough. " Oh," said Scott, " I lie simmering over things for 
 an hour or so before I get up and there's the time I am 
 dressing to overhaul my half-sleeping half-waking projet de 
 chapitre and when I get the paper before me it commonly 
 runs off pretty easily. Besides, I often take a doze in the 
 plantations, and, while Tom marks out a dike or a drain, 
 as I have directed, one's fancy may be running its ain riggs 
 
5 2 
 
 SIX WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 in some other world." Never, indeed, did this sort of sim- 
 mering produce such a splendid bill of fare. ' 
 
 The quality of the material under such circumstances is, 
 in truth, the great miracle of the whole. The execution of 
 so much work as a mere feat of penmanship would un- 
 doubtedly be very extraordinary ; but, as a mere scrivener's 
 miracle, would be hardly worth recording. It is a sort of 
 miracle that is every day performing under our own eyes, as 
 it were, by Messrs. James, Bulwer & Co., who, in all the 
 various staples of " comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comi- 
 cal, historical-pastoral," etc., etc., supply their own market 
 and ours too with all that can be wanted. In Spain and in 
 Italy, too, we may find abundance of improvvisatori and im- 
 prowisatrici, who perform miracles of the same sort in verse, 
 too, in languages whose vowel terminations make it very 
 easy for the thoughts to tumble into rhyme without any 
 malice prepense. Governor Raffles, in his account of Java, 
 tells us of a splendid avenue of trees before his house, which 
 in the course of a year shot up to the height of forty feet. 
 But who shall compare the brief, transitory splendors of a 
 fungous vegetation with the mighty monarch of the forest, 
 sending his roots deep into the heart of the earth, and his 
 branches, amid storm and sunshine, to the heavens ? And 
 is not the latter the true emblem of Scott ? For who can 
 doubt that his prose creations, at least, will gather strength 
 with time, living on through succeeding generations, even 
 when the language in which they are written, like those of 
 Greece and Rome, shall cease to. be a living language ? 
 
 The only writer deserving in these respects to be named 
 with Scott is Lope de Vega, who in his own day held as 
 high a rank in the republic of letters as our great contem- 
 
SIX WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 53 
 
 porary. The beautiful dramas which he threw off for the 
 entertainment of the capital, and whose success drove Cer- 
 vantes from the stage, outstripped the abilities of an aman- 
 uensis to copy. His intimate friend Montalvan, one of the 
 most popular and prolific authors of the time, tells us that 
 he undertook with Lope once to supply the theatre with a 
 comedy in verse, and in three acts, as the Spanish dramas 
 usually were at a very short notice. In order to get 
 through his half as soon as his partner, he rose by two in 
 the morning, and at eleven had completed it ; an extraordi- 
 nary feat, certainly, since a play extended to between thirty 
 and forty pages, of a hundred lines each. Walking into the 
 garden he found his brother poet pruning an orange-tree. 
 " Well, how do you get on ? " said Montalvan. " Very 
 well," answered Lope. " I rose betimes, at five ; and, after 
 I had got through, ate my breakfast; since which I have 
 written a letter of fifty triplets, and watered the whole of 
 the garden, which has tired me a good deal." 
 
 But a little arithmetic will best show the comparative 
 fertility of Scott and Lope de Vega. It is so germane to 
 the present matter that we shall make no apology for tran- 
 scribing here some computations from our last July num- 
 ber; and, as few of our readers, we suspect, have the air- 
 tight memory of Sir Walter, we doubt not that enough of it 
 has escaped them by this time to excuse us from equipping 
 it with one of those " cocked hats and walking-sticks " with 
 which he furbished up an old story : 
 
 " It is impossible to state the results of Lope de Vega's labors in 
 any form that will not powerfully strike the imagination. Thus, he 
 has left twenty-one million three hundred thousand verses in print, 
 besides a mass of manuscript. He furnished the theatre, according 
 
54 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 to the statement of his intimate friend Montalvan, with eighteen 
 hundred regular plays and four hundred autos or religious dramas 
 all acted. He composed, according to his own statement, more 
 than one hundred comedies in the almost incredible space of twen- 
 ty-four hours each ; and a comedy averaged between two and three 
 thousand verses, great part of them rhymed and interspersed with 
 sonnets, and other more difficult forms of versification. He lived 
 seventy-two years ; and supposing him to have employed fifty of 
 that period in composition, although he filled a variety of engrossing 
 vocations during that time, he must have averaged a play a week, 
 to say nothing of twenty-one volumes, quarto, of miscellaneous 
 works, including five epics, written in his leisure moments, and all 
 now in print ! 
 
 " The only achievements we can recall in literary history bearing 
 any resemblance to, though falling far short of this, are those of our 
 illustrious contemporary, Sir Walter Scott. The complete edition 
 of his works, recently advertised by Murray, with the addition of 
 two volumes, of which Murray has not the copyright, probably con- 
 tains ninety volumes, small octavo. [To these should further be 
 added a large supply of matter for the " Edinburgh Annual Regis- 
 ter," as well as other anonymous contributions.] Of these, forty- 
 eight volumes of novels and twenty-one of history and biography 
 were produced between 1814 and 1831, or in seventeen years. These 
 would give an average of four volumes a year, or one for every three 
 months during the whole of that period, to which must be added 
 twenty-one volumes of poetry and prose previously published. The 
 mere mechanical execution of so much work, both in his case and 
 Lope de Vega's, would seem to be scarce possible in the limits 
 assigned. Scott, too, was as variously occupied in other ways as 
 his Spanish rival ; and probably, from the social hospitality of his 
 life, spent a much larger portion of his time in no literary occupa- 
 tion at all." 
 
 Of all the wonderful dramatic creations of Lope de 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 55 
 
 Vega's genius what now remains ? Two or three plays only 
 keep possession of the stage, and few, very few, are still read 
 with pleasure in the closet. They have never been collected 
 into a uniform edition, and are now met with in scattered 
 sheets only on the shelves of some mousing bookseller, or 
 collected in miscellaneous parcels in the libraries of the 
 curious. 
 
 Scott, with all his facility of execution, had none of that 
 pitiable affectation sometimes found in men of genius, who 
 think that the possession of this quality may dispense with 
 regular, methodical habits of study. He was most economi- 
 cal of time. He did not, like Voltaire, speak of it as " a 
 terrible thing that so much time should be wasted in talk- 
 ing." He was too little of a pedant and far too benevolent 
 not to feel that there are other objects worth living for than 
 mere literary fame. But he grudged the waste of time on 
 merely frivolous and heartless objects. "As for dressing 
 when we are quite alone," he remarked one day to Mr. Gil- 
 lies, whom he had taken home with him to a family dinner, 
 " it is out of the question. Life is not long enough for such 
 fiddle-faddle." In the early part of his life he worked late 
 at night. But subsequently from a conviction of the supe- 
 rior healthiness of early rising, as well as the desire to se- 
 cure, at all hazards, a portion of the day for literary labor, 
 he rose at five the year -round ; no small effort, as any one 
 will admit who has seen the pain and difficulty which a reg- 
 ular bird of night finds in reconciling his eyes to daylight. 
 He was scrupulously exact, moreover, in the distribution of 
 his hours. In one of his letters to his friend Terry, the 
 player, replete, as usual, with advice that seems to flow 
 equally from the head and the heart, he says, in reference 
 
5 6 Sf WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 to the practice of dawdling away one's time : " A habit of the 
 mind it is which is very apt to beset men of intellect and 
 talent, especially when their time is not regularly filled up, 
 but left to their own arrangement. But it is like the ivy 
 round the oak, and ends by limiting, if it does not destroy, 
 the power of manly and necessary exertion. I must love a 
 man so well to whom I offer such a word of advice that I 
 will not apologize for it, but expect to hear you are become 
 as regular as a Dutch clock hours, quarters, minutes, all 
 marked and appropriated" With the same emphasis he in- 
 culcates the like habits on his son. If any man might dis- 
 pense with them it was surely Scott. But he knew that 
 without them the greatest powers of mind will run to waste 
 and water but the desert. 
 
 Some of the literary opinions of Scott are singular, con- 
 sidering, too, the position he occupied in the world of let- 
 ters. " I promise you," he says in an epistle to an old friend, 
 " my oaks will outlast my laurels ; and I pique myself more 
 on my compositions for manure than on any other compo- 
 sitions to which I was ever accessary." This may seem 
 badinage. But he repeatedly, both in writing and conversa- 
 tion, places literature, as a profession, below other intellec- 
 tual professions, and especially the military. The Duke of 
 Wellington, the representative of the last, seems to have 
 drawn from him a very extraordinary degree of deference, 
 which, we can not but think, smacks a little of that strong 
 relish for gunpowder which he avows in himself. 
 
 It is not very easy to see on what this low estimate of 
 literature rested. As a profession, it has too little in com- 
 mon with more active ones to afford much ground for run- 
 ning a parallel. The soldier has to do with externals ; and 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 57 
 
 his contests and triumphs are over matter, in its various 
 forms, whether of man or material nature. The poet deals 
 with the bodiless forms of air, of fancy lighter than air. His 
 business is contemplative ; the other's is active, and depends 
 for its success on strong moral energy and presence of mind. 
 He must, indeed, have genius of the highest order to effect 
 his own combinations, anticipate the movements of his ene- 
 my, and dart with eagle eye on his vulnerable point. But 
 who shall say that this practical genius, if we may so term it, 
 is to rank higher in the scale than the creative power of the 
 poet, the spark from the mind of Divinity itself? 
 
 The orator might seem to afford better ground for com- 
 parison, since, though his theatre of action is abroad, he may 
 be said to work with much the same tools as the writer. 
 Yet, how much of his success depends on qualities other 
 than intellectual! " Action," said the father of eloquence, 
 " action, action, are the three most essential things to an 
 orator." How much, indeed, depends on the look, the ges- 
 ture, the magical tones of voice, modulated to the passions 
 he has stirred ; and how much on the contagious sympathies 
 of the audience itself, which drown everything like criticism 
 in the overwhelming tide of emotion ! If any one would 
 know how much, let him, after patiently standing 
 
 " till his feet throb, 
 
 And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath 
 Of patriots bursting with heroic rage," 
 
 read the same speech in the columns of a morning newspa- 
 per, or in the well-concocted report of the orator himself. 
 The productions of the writer are subjected to a fiercer or- 
 deal. He has no excited sympathies of numbers to hurry 
 
58 SJX WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 his readers along over his blunders. He is scanned in the 
 calm silence of the closet. Every flower of fancy seems 
 here to wilt under the rude breath of criticism ; every link 
 in the chain of argument is subjected to the touch of prying 
 scrutiny, and if there be the least flaw in it it is sure to be 
 detected. There is no tribunal so stern as the secret tribu- 
 nal of a man's own closet, far removed from all the sympa- 
 thetic impulses of humanity. Surely there is no form in 
 which intellect can be exhibited to the world so completely 
 stripped of all adventitious aids as the form of written com- 
 position. But, says the practical man, let us estimate things 
 by their utility. " You talk of the poems of Homer," said a 
 mathematician, " but after all what do they prove ?" A 
 question which involves an answer somewhat too volumi- 
 nous for the tail of an article. But, if the poems of Homer 
 were, as Heeren asserts, the principal bond which held the 
 Grecian states together, and gave them a national feeling, 
 they " prove " more than all the arithmeticians of Greece 
 and there were many cunning ones in it ever did. The 
 results of military skill are indeed obvious. The soldier by 
 a single victory enlarges the limits of an empire ; he may do 
 more he may achieve the liberties of a nation, or roll back 
 the tide of barbarism ready to overwhelm them. Wellington 
 was placed in such a position, and nobly did he do his 
 work or, rather, he was placed at the head of such a gigan- 
 tic moral and physical apparatus as enabled him to do it. 
 With his own unassisted strength of course he could have 
 done nothing. But it is on his own solitary resources that 
 the great writer is to rely. And yet who shall say that the 
 triumphs of Wellington have been greater than those of 
 Scott whose works are familiar as household words to every 
 
SIX WALTER SCOTT. 59 
 
 fireside in his own land, from the castle to the cottage ; have 
 crossed oceans and deserts, and, with healing on their wings, 
 found their way to the remotest regions ; have helped to 
 form the character, until his own mind may be said to be in- 
 corporated into those of hundreds of thousands of his fellow- 
 men ? Who is there that has not, at some time or other, felt 
 the heaviness of his heart lightened, his pains mitigated, and 
 his bright moments of life made still brighter by the magical 
 touches of his genius ? And shall we speak of his victories 
 as less real, less serviceable to humanity, less truly glorious, 
 than those of the greatest captain of his day ? The triumphs 
 of the warrior are bounded by the narrow theatre of his own 
 age. But those of a Scott or a Shakespeare will be renewed, 
 with greater and greater luster, in ages yet unborn, when the 
 victorious chieftain shall be forgotten, or shall live only in 
 the song of the minstrel and the page of the chronicler. 
 
 But, after all, this sort of parallel is not very gracious nor 
 very philosophical ; and, to say truth, is somewhat foolish. 
 We have been drawn into it by the not random, but very 
 deliberate, and in our poor judgment very disparaging esti- 
 mate by Scott of his own vocation ; and, as we have taken 
 the trouble to write it, our readers will excuse us from blot- 
 ting it out. There is too little ground for the respective par- 
 ties to stand on for a parallel. As to the pedantic cui bono 
 standard, it is impossible to tell the final issues of a single 
 act ; how can we then hope to, those of a course of action ? 
 As for the honor of different vocations, there never was a truer 
 sentence than the stale one of Pope stale now because it is 
 
 so true 
 
 " Act well your part, there all the honor lies." 
 
 And it is the just boast of our own country that in no civil- 
 
60 SIX WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 ized nation is the force of this philanthropic maxim so nobly 
 illustrated as in ours thanks to our glorious institutions. 
 
 A great cause, probably, of Scott's low estimate of letters, 
 was the facility with which he wrote himself. What costs us 
 little we are apt to prize little. If diamonds were as com- 
 mon as pebbles, and gold dust as any other, who would 
 stoop to gather them ? It was the prostitution of his muse, 
 by the by, for this same gold dust which brought a sharp 
 rebuke on the poet from Lord Byron, in his " English 
 
 Bards " 
 
 " For this we spurn Apollo's venal son " ; 
 
 a coarse cut, and the imputation about as true as most satire 
 that is, not true at all. This was indited in his lordship's 
 earlier days, when he most chivalrously disclaimed all pur- 
 pose of bartering his rhymes for gold. He lived long enough, 
 however, to weigh his literary wares in as nice a money- 
 balance as any more vulgar manufacturer ever did. And, in 
 truth, it would be ridiculous if the produce of the brain 
 should not bring its price, in this form as well as any other ; 
 there is little danger, we imagine, of finding too much gold 
 in the bowels of Parnassus. 
 
 Scott took a more sensible view of things. In a letter to 
 Ellis, written soon after the publication of the " Minstrelsy," 
 he observes : " People may say this and that of the pleasure 
 of fame, or of profit, as a motive of writing ; I think the only 
 pleasure is in the actual exertion and research, and I would 
 no more write upon any other terms than I would hunt 
 merely to dine upon hare-soup. At the same time, if credit 
 and profit came unlocked for I would no more quarrel with 
 them than with the soup." Even this declaration was some- 
 what more magnanimous than was warranted by his subse- 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 61 
 
 quent conduct. The truth is, he soon found out, especially 
 after the Waverley vein had opened, that he had hit on a 
 gold mine. The prodigious returns he got gave the whole 
 thing the aspect of a speculation. Every new work was an 
 adventure ; and the proceeds naturally suggested the indul- 
 gence of the most extravagant schemes of expense, which, 
 in their turn, stimulated him to fresh efforts. In this way 
 the " profits " became, whatever they might have been once, 
 a principal incentive to, as they were the recompense of, ex- 
 ertion. His productions were cash articles, and were esti- 
 mated by him more on the Hudibrastic rule of " the real 
 worth of a thing " than by any fanciful standard of fame. 
 He bowed with deference to the judgment of the book-sell- 
 ers, and trimmed his sails dexterously as the " aura popu- 
 laris " shifted. "If it is na weil bobbit," he writes to his 
 printer, on turning out a less lucky novel, " we'll bobb it 
 again." His muse was of that school who seek the greatest 
 happiness of the greatest possible number. We can hardly 
 imagine him invoking her, like Milton 
 
 " Still govern thou my song, 
 Urania, and fit audience find, though few." 
 
 Still less can we imagine him, like the blind old bard, feed- 
 ing his soul with visions of posthumous glory, and spinning 
 out epics for five pounds apiece. 
 
 It is singular that Scott, although he set as high a money 
 value on his productions as the most enthusiastic of the 
 " trade " could have done, in a literary view, should have 
 held them so cheap. "Whatever others may be," he said, 
 " I have never been a partisan of my own poetry ; as John 
 Wilkes declared that, ' in the height of his success, he had 
 
62 SIX WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 himself never been a Wilkite.' " Considering the poet's pop- 
 ularity! this was but an indifferent compliment to the taste 
 of his age. With all this disparagement of his own produc- 
 tions, however, Scott was not insensible to criticism. He 
 says somewhere, indeed, that " if he had been conscious of 
 a single vulnerable point in himself, he would not have taken 
 up the business of writing." But on another occasion he 
 writes, " I make it a rule never to read the attacks made upon 
 me." And Captain Hall remarks : " He never reads the criti- 
 cisms on his books ; this I know, from the most unquestion- 
 able authority. Praise, he says, gives him no pleasure, and 
 censure annoys him." Madame de Graffigny says, also, of 
 Voltaire, that " he was altogether indifferent to praise, but the 
 least word from his enemies drove him crazy." Yet both 
 these authors banqueted on the sweets of panegyric as much 
 as any who ever lived. They were in the condition of an 
 epicure, whose palate has lost its relish for the dainty fare in 
 which it has been so long reveling, without becoming less 
 sensible to the annoyances of sharper and coarser flavors. 
 It may afford some consolation to humble mediocrity, to the 
 less fortunate votaries of the muse, that those who have 
 reached the summit of Parnassus are not much more con- 
 tented with their condition than those who are scrambling 
 among the bushes at the bottom of the mountain. The fact 
 seems to be, as Scott himself intimates more than once, that 
 the joy is in the chase, whether in the prose or the poetry 
 of life. 
 
 But it is high time to terminate our lucubrations, which, 
 however imperfect and unsatisfactory, have already run to a 
 length that must trespass on the patience of the reader. We 
 rise from the perusal of these delightful volumes with the 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 63 
 
 same sort of melancholy feeling with which we wake from a 
 pleasant dream. The concluding volume, of which such 
 ominous presage is given in the last sentence of the fifth, 
 has not yet reached us ; but we know enough to anticipate 
 the sad catastrophe it is to unfold of the drama. In those 
 which we have seen, however, we have beheld a succession 
 of interesting characters come upon the scene and pass 
 away to their long home. " Bright eyes now closed in dust, 
 gay voices for ever silenced," seem to haunt us, too, as we 
 write. The imagination reverts to Abbotsford the romantic 
 and once brilliant Abbotsford the magical creation of his 
 hands. We see its halls radiant with the hospitality of Ms 
 benevolent heart, thronged with pilgrims from every land, 
 assembled to pay homage at the shrine of genius, echoing to 
 the blithe music of those festal holidays, when young and old 
 met to renew the usages of the good old times. 
 
 " These were its charms but all these charms are fled." 
 
 Its courts are desolate, or trodden only by the foot of the 
 stranger. The stranger sits under the shadows of the trees 
 which his hand planted. The spell of the enchanter is dis- 
 solved. His wand is broken. And the mighty Minstrel 
 himself now sleeps in the bosom of the peaceful scenes, 
 embellished by his taste and which his genius has made 
 immortal. 
 
THE 
 
 SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN* 
 
 INVENTIVE writing is full of commonplace respecting 
 woman, drawn from the feelings or the imagination, some- 
 times depicting her character as a brilliant constellation of 
 all the virtues, sometimes as a virulent concentration of all 
 the vices and weaknesses incident to human nature. For 
 instance, we take up Otway's " Orphan," and we read in one 
 place verses like these : 
 
 " Who can describe 
 
 Women's hypocrisies ? Their subtile wiles, 
 Betraying smiles, feigned tears, inconstancies ? 
 Their painted outsides and corrupted minds ? 
 The sum of all their follies and their falsehoods ? " 
 
 And again, at another page, these : 
 
 " Your sex 
 
 Was never in the right : you're always false 
 Or silly. Even your dreams are not more 
 
 * i. Memoirs of Celebrated Women of all Countries. By Madame 
 Junot. 2 vols. 
 
 2. Noble Deeds of Woman. 2 vols., I2mo. 1836. 
 
 3. The History of the Condition of Women in Various Ages and 
 Nations. By Mrs. D. L. Child. 2 vols., I2mo. 1835. 
 
 4. Legouve, Le Merite des Femmes. 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 65 
 
 Fantastical than your appetites. You think 
 Of nothing twice. Opinion you have none : 
 To-day you are nice, to-morrow not so fine ; 
 Now smile, then frown ; now sorrowful, then glad ; 
 Now pleased, now not ; and all you know not why. 
 Virtue you affect." 
 
 Is this harsh ? Turn the leaves, and you come to the 
 other side of the question, in that beautiful passage of the 
 same Otway's " Venice Preserved " : 
 
 " O woman, lovely woman ! Nature made you 
 To temper man ; we had been brutes without you. 
 Angels are painted fair, to look like you ; 
 There's in you all that we believe of heaven ; 
 Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, 
 Eternal joy and everlasting love." 
 
 It would be curious, if in our way, to run over what the 
 novelists and dramatists have had to say upon this point. 
 In the latter especially there is a perfect arsenal of the 
 small artillery of stale reproaches on feminine weakness and 
 falsehood. In reference to all such matter, whether set 
 fixedly in books, or floating on the surface of society, we 
 hold this axiom in reverent belief : there is no man of good 
 morals who does not admire and esteem the female charac- 
 ter. Whoever disparages the female sex is of necessity a 
 bad son, and a thousand to one he is, in his custom of life, 
 a bad member of society. 
 
 Reflecting upon the diverse forms under which woman 
 
 appears in the great classic writers of our language, we 
 
 think it demonstrates that each one's individual temper and 
 
 experience, much more than philosophical observation of 
 
 5 
 
66 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 general fact, have produced his particular representation of 
 her social destiny. 
 
 Open, for instance, the poems of Pope and Swift, which 
 abound with such coarse, bitter, humiliating satire of the 
 female sex. Are all women, then, without discrimination, 
 utterly destitute of delicacy and purity of sentiment, as 
 those writers would have it ? Or was there not some seated 
 distemper in the moral constitution of their minds which 
 jaundiced all their views of woman? The truth in this 
 matter is familiar to every scholar. They were each the 
 object of the devoted but unmerited and unrequited affec- 
 tions of some of the best hearts that ever beat in human 
 bosoms. What men deeply injure, that they deeply hate. 
 Festering in misanthropical celibacy, the mind of each 
 transferred to the canvas its own dark tints of spiteful 
 malignity in place of the reflected image they professed to 
 copy. If we analyze the life and character of Milton and 
 Byron, we shall there in like manner find a key to all the 
 peculiarities in their conception of the social condition of 
 woman. There is one poet and one prose writer, however, 
 each preeminent for his intuitive perception of character, 
 and his marvelous knowledge of human nature, who have 
 written a vast deal concerning the female sex, full of in- 
 struction, good sense, good feeling and truth. We mean 
 Shakespeare and Scott. They loved fondly, but wisely, and 
 there was not, therefore, in their domestic history, any great 
 disturbing fact to distort their judgment of the fair sex ; and 
 they have recorded woman as she is ; rich in the virtues and 
 graces appropriate to her career on earth ; if with less of 
 the sustained vigor of active resolution, and less of the 
 analytical comprehensiveness of intellect than man, yet with 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 67 
 
 more intensity of purpose, and more instinctive quickness 
 and force of thought in a given emergency ; when good, in 
 principle better than he, when bad, worse; in a word, 
 neither greater nor less than man, but different, as her 
 natural vocation is different, and both so far equal, that 
 each is superior to the other in their respective departments 
 of thought and action. 
 
 In taking up this topic of the social condition of woman 
 in modern Christendom, we avow in advance that we are 
 not preparing to present a mere panegyric on the female 
 sex. What we propose to ourselves on this occasion is 
 neither a reasoned analysis of the general spirit of the gen- 
 tler sex, nor a diatribe upon her defects, nor a declamation 
 upon her excellences ; but a just deduction and estimate, so 
 far as we are able to give it, of what Christian civilization 
 has done for the condition and character of woman. After 
 speaking of the leading facts of her history, we may best 
 pronounce upon her true rank in the scale of society, and 
 of moral and intellectual beings. 
 
 Without covering so much ground as would be needful 
 were we to attempt elucidating at large the condition of 
 woman in societies unconnected with our own, it will suffice 
 if, as preliminary to considering her place in the economy 
 of modern Christendom, we briefly explain what she is in 
 countries highly civilized but not Christian, in a purely bar- 
 barous state of society generally, and what she was in those 
 communities which chiefly contributed to form the spirit of 
 Christendom, namely, in Palestine, in Greece, in Rome, and 
 among the ancient Germans. 
 
 Of modern countries highly civilized but not Christian 
 we shall take but two examples, China and Hindostan, both 
 
68 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 as composing so large a portion of the human race, and as 
 having really attained a high degree of general culture. 
 
 In considering the purely savage or hunter stage of 
 human society, notwithstanding there be in different coun- 
 tries great diversities in the condition of the female sex, yet 
 in every case we discover certain marked traits which clear- 
 ly indicate the deleterious effect of barbarism of manners 
 upon the social position of woman. One is the similarity 
 of savage life, in the nearest of all the social relations, to 
 the condition of brute animals. In the hunter state the 
 supply of the first necessity of life, food, is precarious, and 
 this uncertainty of the means of subsistence counteracts the 
 natural tendency of mankind to a permanent connubial 
 union between the sexes, a tendency which develops itself 
 more and more in proportion as society grows more fixed 
 and stable in its forms. Hence in many such communities 
 children are distinguished with reference to their mother 
 alone, whose name they bear, and not their father's. In 
 some of those tribes of North America which admitted of 
 hereditary sovereignty, royalty of blood was tested by deri- 
 vation from the mother alone, in reverse of the usage of 
 all civilized nations. Such institutions or usages necessarily 
 imply the degradation of the female sex. Another of the 
 distinctive peculiarities of the savage life is the common 
 fact that women are held as property. In some barbarous 
 communities the wife is purchased, in others she is forcibly 
 seized by her future husband and master. And universally 
 we may say, at all times, in every climate, under whatever 
 circumstances of local situation, savage man regards and 
 treats the feebler sex as born to menial service. Woman is 
 the humble slave of his pleasure, the handmaid of his daily 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 69 
 
 wants, his laborious drudge of the field, the household, and 
 the journey, consigned to toil and subservience, while he, 
 the proud lord of creation, aspires exclusively to the stirring 
 chances of the chase, or the yet nobler game of war. Nor 
 does this description apply to a class only of savage society. 
 Such is the general condition of women in barbarous com- 
 munities, however exalted the station of their rude connec- 
 tions, how much soever they happen to be cherished by 
 their untutored lords. Out of innumerable illustrations of 
 this which might be given, we select one for its peculiar 
 fullness, pertinency, and homely force and truth. Samuel 
 Hearne is well known as one of the adventurous explorers 
 of the Arctic coast of North America. He was returning on 
 his way back to Prince of Wales's Fort, unsuccessful from 
 his second expedition, when he met Matonabbee, whom he 
 describes as "a powerful and intelligent chief," and who 
 undertook to explain the cause of his failure, ascribing it to 
 the want of female attendants. " In an expedition of this 
 kind," said Matonabbee, " when all the men are so heavily 
 laden that they can neither hunt nor travel to any consider- 
 able distance, in case they meet with success in hunting, 
 who is to carry the produce of their labor ? Women were 
 made for labor ; one of them can carry or haul as much as 
 two men can do. They also pitch our tents, make and 
 mend our clothing, rake our fires at night ; and, in fact, 
 there is no such thing as traveling any considerable distance 
 or for any length of time in this country without them ; and 
 yet, though they do everything, they are maintained at a 
 trifling expense ; for, as they always act the cook, the very 
 licking of their fingers in scarce times is sufficient for their 
 subsistence." Under the auspices of Matonabbee, and with 
 
yo THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 seven of his wives to accompany him, Hearne set out on his 
 third expedition ; and in his plain, unvarnished description 
 of the incredible hardships he underwent, and of the exces- 
 sive toil imposed upon the females of the expedition, we 
 have a vivid representation of the servile and wretched con- 
 dition of the female sex in the very highest rank of their 
 nation ; for such was Matonabbee, as expressly stated by 
 Hearne, and as incidentally apparent throughout his narra- 
 tive of the journey. And if in some savage societies the 
 condition of woman was better, in others it was worse than 
 represented in the pages of Hearne's "Journey." 
 
 While the people of Hindostan, it is true, have made such 
 advances in certain of the forms and fixed improvements of 
 civilization, that they can not be deemed a barbarous people, 
 still the practice of infanticide and the disregard of chastity 
 are facts upon the face of things attesting a barbaric degra- 
 dation in the social position of woman. Yet there it is that 
 the widow proves how irreparable is her grief by devoting 
 herself on the funeral pile as a burnt-offering to hallow the 
 memory of her deceased lord. But how did he earn such 
 unequaled ardor of love? We may read in the Abbe 
 Dubois an extract from one of the sacred books of the 
 Hindoos, which expressly enjoins upon her not merely that 
 she is to obey her husband as a master, but that she is to 
 revere him as a god. " When in the presence of her hus- 
 band," are the words, " a woman must keep her eyes upon 
 her master, and be ready to receive his commands. When 
 he speaks she must be quiet, and listen to nothing besides. 
 When he calls she must leave everything else and attend 
 upon him alone. A woman has no other god on earth than 
 her husband. The most excellent of all good works she 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 7 i 
 
 can perform is to gratify him with the strictest obedience. 
 This should be her only devotion. Though he be aged, in- 
 firm, dissipated, drunkard, or a debauchee, she must still 
 regard him as her god." Such is the text. And these pre- 
 cepts, it is notorious, are practically observed in the domestic 
 intercourse of the Hindoos. 
 
 Nor is the state of things any better in China, as is well 
 stated in, if we remember rightly, Morrison's authentic trans- 
 lation of " The She-king " : " In childhood slighted, in maid- 
 enhood sold, in mature womanhood shackled by the laws 
 which prescribe numerous and unpleasing duties, or rather 
 tasks, to their husband's relations in widowhood controlled 
 by their own sons, in all ages and states considered as im- 
 measurably inferior to men, denied even moral agency in the 
 power of doing either good or evil woman is considered by 
 the laws of the country as the bond and appointed slave of 
 man and nature, made such by the same law that gives to 
 the sun its light and to the leopard its spots ; and they find 
 their fate but slightly modified' by the opinions and practices 
 of their husbands and fathers." No addition of ours to this 
 comprehensive description of the social condition of woman 
 in cultivated and lettered China could augment its graphic 
 force. 
 
 The Christian religion issued out of Judea ; and our 
 opinions, especially in Protestant countries where the Bible 
 is so universally read, expounded, and reverenced, are greatly 
 influenced by the Old Testament, that is, the inspired his- 
 tory, laws, poetry, prophecies, and moral disquisitions of the 
 Jews, which are incorporated into our literature and bias all 
 our trains of thought. Society, as represented in the Bible, 
 had already emerged from the barbarism of the hunter state, 
 
f2 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 and presents itself in the three successive stages of the pas- 
 toral, the agricultural, and the commercial and manufacturing 
 states, each being superior in civilization to its predecessor. 
 Substantially the same system of legislation, however, regu- 
 lated the whole period of time, from the age of the patri- 
 archs, or at least from the exodus out of Egypt, down to the 
 advent of our Saviour. And it was not such as favored the 
 condition of the female sex ; for polygamy obtained, as in 
 other Oriental countries, and women were entirely depen- 
 dent upon the men, who might repudiate them at will and 
 without cause. Such laws could not be otherwise than 
 decisive of their general condition , and a careful study 
 of particular facts will bring the mind to the same con- 
 clusion which a consideration of those laws would lead us 
 to draw. The persevering attachment of Jacob for Rachel 
 shows that in the patriarchal age woman had acquired a 
 value unknown to the hunter-life ; but all the circumstances 
 of their domestic history, so distinctly told by the sacred 
 penman, show at the same time that their love was destitute 
 of the delicacy and individuality essential to the true re- 
 spectability of woman. Again, it is observable that Sarah, 
 Rebekah, Zipporah, Ruth, Tamar, the wives and daughters 
 of rich men and princes, appear before us continually in the 
 performance of menial services, or humbly uniting in the 
 pleasures of their lords, not as with us the cherished objects 
 of respectful affection and equal observance. And the re- 
 markable incidents, which wellnigh occasioned the annihila- 
 tion of the tribe of Benjamin, as related in the book of 
 Judges, when the man of Gibeah, instead of contending to 
 the death as we should have done in defense of the females 
 of his family, offered them as a sacrifice to purchase the 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN, ?3 
 
 safety of his guest, are characteristic of the contemporary 
 estimation of woman. To be sure, her condition improved 
 along with the introduction of arts and manufactures into 
 the country ; and what it was in the Augustan age of Judea 
 we see plainly in Solomon's description of a good wife : 
 " She maketh herself coverings of tapestry ; her clothing is 
 silk and purple. She maketh fine linen and selleth it, and 
 delivereth girdles unto the merchant. She openeth her 
 mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kind- 
 ness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and 
 eateth not the bread of idleness." Such, therefore, was the 
 model of a perfect woman at the highest point of civilization 
 among the Jews a laborious artisan, a discreet housewife, 
 and withal one amiable and judicious in her deportment 
 and conversation. At the same time, even at this period, 
 there is no social equality, no intellectual refinement, in the 
 comparative condition of the female sex; it is that of an 
 Asiatic laboring under the disabilities of polygamy, just as 
 in the Syria of our own day. 
 
 Pass to the Greeks, to a European population, though in 
 and upon the confines of Asia. We know little of the heroic 
 age of Greece ; but that little exhibits a manifest social su- 
 periority of woman over what she was in Judea, because 
 polygamy, with all its train of attendant ills, disappears. It 
 is said in the Iliad of bad men, that they deserve not to en- 
 joy the rights of a citizen, nor the happiness of domestic 
 life ; and, as to be out of the pale of citizenship was to be 
 an outlaw, we may judge, by the coupling of it with domes- 
 ticity in the poet's mind, how much woman had begun to be 
 prized. And we think the fact that in primitive Greece so 
 many women were deified, and the female deities, as Rhea, 
 
74 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 Juno, Proserpina, Venus, Minerva, held in at least equal 
 veneration with the male ones, testifies that some imperfect 
 glimpse of the true destiny of woman was dawning out upon 
 the age. To this hour, Andromache and Penelope are beau- 
 tiful examples of conjugal truth and virtue. On the other 
 hand, so many women, who attained a bad eminence by 
 their vices Medea, Phaedra, Helen, Clytemnestra do yet 
 attest the growing personal consequence of the sex, in this 
 the cradle of the intellect and civilization of Europe. 
 
 Two republics, contrasted in all their institutions, stood 
 at the head of the Greeks. In Sparta, everything was forced, 
 artificial, unnatural ; in Athens, the finely organized Hellenic 
 mind, enamored of taste, beauty, and refinement, had free 
 scope in the following of its native bent. Lycurgus im- 
 pressed on the women of Sparta a character of hardness and 
 exclusive devotion to the military success of the republic, at 
 the expense of every feminine quality. To wrestle in the 
 Palaestra promiscuously with men, and half naked ; not to 
 know or conceive that which is the most indispensable, and 
 yet the first and lowest of the virtues of a wife ; to rejoice 
 over the death of a son in the wars ; to practice the crime 
 of infanticide as a matter of course, if a child seemed to be 
 of feeble structure such was the education, such the char- 
 acter, such the habits of the women of Lacedaemon. Not 
 so in civilized Attica. There a singular state of things en- 
 sued, from the keen sense which the cultivated Athenians 
 felt of the value of intellectual female society, acting upon 
 their peculiar domestic institutions. Usage, more despotic 
 and more tyrannical than law, exacted of matrons and other 
 ingenuous women a life of extreme seclusion. To live in 
 society, to cultivate the exquisite social arts which give in- 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 75 
 
 tellectual interest to the female sex, was to overstep those 
 conventional boundaries of virtue which admitted of no re- 
 turn. Hence, although in Attica and other parts of Greece 
 of congenial manners, highly accomplished women existed, 
 and held a preeminently brilliant position in society, cele- 
 brated by poetic and mimetic art, courted by philosophers, 
 and enriched by princes Sappho, the poetess, Leaena, 
 famed for her constancy to the slayers of the Pisistratidse 
 Aspasia, at once a Ninon de 1'Enclos to Socrates, and a 
 Maintenon to Pericles Lais, the glory and the shame of Cor- 
 inth Phryne, who offered to rebuild Thebes at her own 
 charge, and who could boast of a golden image erected to 
 her honor in the temple of Apollo at Delphi yet all these 
 were public wantons, who usurped among the spiritual and 
 beauty-loving Greeks that estimation which is the rightful 
 due of purity and virtue alone, and which degraded irrepa- 
 rably, while it seemed the most to honor, the nicely consti- 
 tuted character of woman. x 
 
 Proceed now to Italy, and raise the veil from the domestic 
 sanctuary of the Romans. There is nothing more striking 
 all through the history of the kings and of the early republic 
 than the new aspect under which woman presents herself, so 
 different from anything in Greece. The Roman matron 
 possessed the patriotism of the Spartan without her cruelty 
 and coarseness, and the purity of the Athenian without her 
 extreme seclusion ; she fell short of the modern European 
 in that intellectual refinement and high accomplishment 
 which, combined with virtue, belong exclusively to Christen- 
 dom. Her occupations for a long period were such as to 
 imply inferiority of condition. Thus, when the Sabines 
 made peace with the Romans at the conclusion of the war 
 
76 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 occasioned by the forcible abduction of the Sabine maidens, 
 it was stipulated that no labor should be exacted of the latter 
 except spinning.* Hence an old writer, who enumerates the 
 qualities of a good wife, to probity, beauty, fidelity, and 
 chastity, a.dds skill in spinning. Nay, the Emperor Augustus 
 seldom wore any apparel but of the manufacture of his wife, 
 daughter, and the ladies of his household.! 
 
 What originally gave consequence to the female sex in 
 Rome was the necessity of seeking them, under which the 
 infant people of Romulus labored. Thereafter we perceive, 
 in the important part played by individual women, what was 
 the general consequence of the sex. Hersilia, with her 
 fellow matrons, reconciled the Sabines to the city of her 
 forced adoption; the crime of Tarquin gave birth to the 
 republic ; the death of Virginia destroyed the tyranny of 
 the Decemvirs ; Veturia rescued Rome from the wrath of 
 Coriolanus; when Brennus held the city at ransom, the 
 Roman ladies stripped themselves of their gold and jewels 
 for the service of the republic, as they did in the equally 
 desperate crisis of the battle of Cannae. And where such a 
 spirit earned to women such an estimation, it is not strange 
 that it became lawful to praise them in the tribune, to pro- 
 nounce eulogies to their memory, and to draw them in 
 chariots to the public games ; nor that we see in Rome at 
 this time, instead of the corruption of the Paphian Venus, 
 temples to Female Fortune, and the sacred fire of the re- 
 public consigned in custody to the virgin priestess of the 
 spotless Vesta. 
 
 In the decay of the republic, and the still deeper abase- 
 
 Plutarch's Romulus. f Sueton, August. 73. 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 77 
 
 ment of the empire, as the female sex still continues an im- 
 portant element of society, this consequence follows. Fre- 
 quent examples of eminent female excellence occur, con- 
 trasted with cases of equally eminent infamy. If Cornelia 
 could inspire the Gracchi, and Julia sustain the fortunes of 
 Pompey, and another Cornelia nobly share them for better 
 and for worse, and Atia form the genius of Octavius, and 
 Portia approve herself worthy to be the wife of Brutus, yet 
 in the same age Metella could dishonor the household of 
 Sylla, and Catiline and Clodius range at will among the best 
 in blood and highest in rank of the patrician wives of 
 Rome. So, in the next generation, we have a Julia Augusta, 
 and a Messalina steeped in the very lees of vice, by the side 
 of an Agrippina at the pinnacle of dignity and faith. And 
 when the profligacy of imperial Rome had sunk to a depth 
 of abomination which no modern tongue can express, nor 
 any modern mind well conceive, there were two Arrias, a 
 Paulina, and an Eponina, who recalled the ancient glory of 
 the best matrons of the republic. But there needed a new 
 dispensation of religion for the moral reform of society in 
 the days of the empire; nor that only, since the whole 
 frame of society was corrupt ; and nothing less than a dis- 
 pensation of blood and fire could suffice to work its physi- 
 cal renovation. Long before the overthrow of the empire, 
 indeed, Christianity had begun to make its benign influ- 
 ences felt in the condition and character of woman ; but as 
 its operation covered a later period, and chiefly in that was 
 active upon the present civilization of modern Europe, be- 
 fore entering upon it we subjoin a few words on the social 
 standing of the female sex among the invading Germans. 
 For, while our religion is derived from Judea, and our intel- 
 
7 8 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 lectual tastes from the Greeks and Romans, the basis of our 
 manners descends to us from the Saxons, Franks, and other 
 tribes of the German race, who overturned the Roman Em- 
 pire and established themselves upon its ruins. 
 
 Our most authentic knowledge of this great primitive 
 state of modern Europe is derived from the works of Caesar 
 and Tacitus. The picture which these authors present to 
 us displays in part the usual features of savage life, in part 
 others of a better aspect and higher promise. Among the 
 ancient Germans, as in other like conditions of society, all 
 agricultural as well as household labor was devolved upon 
 their women, and the infirm or less respected male mem- 
 bers of the community. In Gaul, the husband possessed 
 the power of life and death over his wife. But in Britain, 
 and especially Germany, it seems to have been otherwise ; 
 or at least, if such were the legal power of the husband, yet 
 custom had established more of practical equality between 
 the sexes than obtained in Palestine, in Greece, or even in 
 Rome. The Germans, above all other barbarians, held in 
 special regard the singleness of the connubial relation, and 
 the purity of the female character. They married by the 
 interchange of gifts in cattle and arms ; for the wife, says 
 Tacitus, that she may not imagine herself beyond the 
 thought of virtue or the vicissitudes of war, is admonished, 
 by the very auspices of incipient matrimony, that she comes 
 to be the associate of her husband's toils and dangers, the 
 same to suffer and the same to dare, whether in peace or in 
 battle. But there is a still clearer manifestation, in another 
 place, of our own modern spirit of chivalrous admiration of 
 the sex, animating the rude hearts of these wild hunters 
 of the north. The Germans fought their battles with their 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 79 
 
 wives and families near at hand. These, continues Tacitus, 
 are the sacredest witnesses of martial prowess, these its loud- 
 est applauders. Each one carries his wounds to his mother, 
 to his wife ; nor do these shrink from numbering or exacting 
 them ; and they administer food and exhortation to the com- 
 batants. It is had in remembrance that their line of battle, 
 when already bent and broken, has been restored by their 
 women, with constancy of prayers and bared bosoms, and 
 warnings of coming captivity, which they dread far more in- 
 tolerably on account of their female connections. Where- 
 fore, the more effectually to insure the execution of treaties, 
 noble virgins are demanded as hostages to bind the public 
 faith. For they think there is something holy and foresee- 
 ing in the mind of woman ; for which reason they neither 
 despise her counsels nor neglect her answers. Under Ves- 
 pasian, we have seen Veleda, as formerly Aurinia and others, 
 held by them in deep reverence, not with adulation, nor as 
 goddesses, and yet withal as persons endued with special au- 
 thority and wisdom. Is not all this finely conceived ; and 
 an omen of what woman is to be, when these uncultivated 
 barbarians shall have been exalted, by religious and intel- 
 lectual teaching, into civilized Christians ? 
 
 In considering this point, of the particular influence of 
 Christianity upon the condition of woman, there is a mate- 
 rial distinction important to be noted. Certain effects are 
 often described as evidently flowing from the tenets and 
 general spirit of our religion, although not directly and spe- 
 cifically aimed at by express inculcation of the gospel. For 
 instance, submission to existing political institutions is com- 
 manded, notwithstanding the corruptions of the empire 
 would seem to have been such as to justify, nay, to require 
 
8o THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 revolution for their reform. And yet nothing is clearer than 
 that the general tendency of the doctrines of the New Tes- 
 tament is to further republican equality. It is a religion for 
 the universal human race. It associates sovereign and sub- 
 ject in the same service of religion upon earth ; it ushers 
 them into equal responsibility in heaven for good done or 
 evil prevented, or the reverse, in the passages of this sub- 
 lunary life of probation. It is emphatically a leveling re- 
 ligion, and of the right kind, for it levels upward ; elevating 
 all men to the same high standard of sanctity, faith, and 
 spiritual promise on earth as in heaven. Just so it is that, 
 wherever Christianity is taught, it inevitably dignifies and 
 exalts the female character. Throughout the New Testa- 
 ment she is contemplated as a spiritual and immortal being, 
 the equal partaker with man of all the offices of religion 
 here, and of all its divine aspirations hereafter. We listen 
 to prayer and exhortation within the same holy walls of 
 God's temples ; we kneel in supplication to the same con- 
 secrated altar ; children are admitted into the visible Church 
 of Christ at the same baptismal font ; we mutually plight our 
 faith under the solemn sanction and observances of a com- 
 mon religion ; and, when the dearest bonds of blood or 
 affection are sundered by death, there is left us the one ad- 
 mirable solace of sorrow, that the sainted spirit of the wife, 
 sister, daughter, we may have lost, has winged its flight up- 
 ward to rest for ever in the bosom of the Christian's God. 
 
 We familiarly know how different in this relation are the 
 opinions and feelings of that religion which, in its single 
 adoration of one overruling God, as in its respect for Moses 
 and for Jesus Christ, approaches nearer Christianity than 
 the old pagan system of polytheism. There is much con- 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 81 
 
 troversy as to whether Mohammed did or did not teach that 
 women have no souls. We have not examined the Koran 
 with reference to the question ; but an author, whose learn- 
 ing, judgment, and good faith are worthy of all confidence, 
 Father Feijoo, in his elaborate defense of women, says he 
 carefully perused it in the sole view to ascertain the point ; 
 and the Koran is in fact silent on the subject. And the in- 
 tellectual, or rather spiritual degradation of woman, in the 
 countries of the Mohammedan law, is deduced from this 
 silence more than from any positive text ; and has a deeper 
 foundation than text or doctrine, in the practice of polyga- 
 my, and the prevalence of purchased connection, the stand- 
 ing curse of society in the luxurious climate of the Levant. 
 Nay, the propagation of the sanguinary fanaticism of Mo- 
 hammed and his disciples, in regions once occupied by Chris- 
 tianity, may be partly ascribed to the important difference 
 between the two religions, and the superior correspondence 
 of Islamism to the settled moral and social debasement of 
 Asia in respect of woman. A curious and interesting illus- 
 tration of this occurs in the case of Spain, when the occa- 
 sional intermarriages of Christian with Mohammedan, and the 
 intermixture of the Arabs and Goths by reason of the con- 
 quests made by each in the territory of the other, and the fre- 
 quent residence or visits of Christians at the Moorish courts 
 of Saragossa, Cordova, Seville, or Granada, and of Moors 
 in the Christian cities of Leon and Castile, visibly modified 
 the manners of each nation, communicating to the Goths 
 something of the Asiatic averseness to female independence, 
 and to the Spanish Mohammedan something of the chivalry 
 and courtesy of the modern inhabitants of Christian Europe. 
 
 What we have thus reasoned of the influence of Chris- 
 6 
 
82 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 tianity applies to all its forms, and to the institution itself 
 as we are the witnesses of its operations in modern times 
 and in the Protestant countries of Europe or America. 
 But, in the early ages, when Christianity first impressed it- 
 self upon European society, other religious causes besides 
 the essential doctrine of the Christian faith aided it in the 
 noble work of elevating the social condition of woman. 
 
 Whoever is personally acquainted with the usages of 
 society in the countries of the Roman Catholic and Greek 
 faith, which compose the larger part of both Europe and 
 America, can not fail to be struck with the reverence there 
 paid to females of sainted memory, martyrs of old who have 
 been canonized for their devotedness to Christianity, or the 
 Virgin Mary and other females consecrated in the New 
 Testament. The Virgin is, perhaps, in all those countries, 
 a more constant object of address for interest or protection 
 than even our Saviour himself; so much so, that this very 
 fact is among Protestants a common article of reproach 
 against Greek and Roman Catholic Christians. In coun- 
 tries dependent upon the See of Rome, while the veneration 
 of the Virgin Mother is not less intense than it is in Greece 
 or in Russia, the veneration of other sainted females is 
 more universal. Their images and their pictures every- 
 where meet the eye ; their festivals are of continual recur- 
 rence ; churches and shrines are dedicated to their mem- 
 ory; their names are perpetually upon the lip in every hour 
 of business or pleasure ; children receive their names, and 
 learn to regard them through life as their special interces- 
 sors in all seasons of doubt or peril for the mercy and favor 
 of Heaven. This may be very exceptionable as matter of 
 religious doctrine ; at least it is very abhorrent to the usages 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 83 
 
 of devout Protestants. Its influence, however, in the mid- 
 dle ages, eminently contributed to exalt the character of 
 the female sex. It habituated and still habituates all per- 
 sons of whatever condition to the contemplation of feminine 
 excellence of a spiritual, moral, or intellectual kind, in con- 
 tradistinction to the less refined and ennobled estimation 
 of woman in countries out of the pale of Christendom. 
 
 Furthermore, the individuals thus regarded with a ven- 
 eration so peculiar as even to offend the principles of Chris- 
 tians professing the reformed faith, belonged to the vast 
 body of women of the early ages, who by their constancy, 
 their zeal, their sufferings, their self-sacrifice, their martyr- 
 dom, were living examples of the wonderful influence of the 
 tenets of Christianity in purifying the heart and elevating 
 the character of woman. In the impressible and enthusiastic 
 constitution of the female mind, there is a remarkable apti- 
 tude for the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. We see the 
 readiness of women in receiving and their instrumentality 
 in propagating the gospel in the inspired narratives of the 
 evangelists ; we see it in the teachings and reasonings of the 
 epistles ; we see it in the writings of the early fathers of the 
 Church ; we see it in the innumerable cases of surpassing 
 magnanimity and fortitude which honor the female name 
 through all the persecutions of the pagan emperors; we see 
 it in Saint Helena opening the heart of Constantine, and 
 thus making Christianity the religion of the empire ; we see 
 it in the conversion of Clovis and his Franks through the 
 pious eloquence of Clotilda. How, indeed, could it be 
 otherwise ? What woman of sense or sensibility but would 
 cling to a faith which lifted her from the humiliation of 
 long centuries into her appropriate sphere of moral dignity 
 
84 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 and spiritual value and influence, and thus redeemed her 
 as it were from the divine malediction which fell in paradise 
 on our erring mother Eve ? No wonder that Christianity 
 commended itself to the female mind ; no wonder that wo- 
 man was last at the cross and foremost at the grave ; no 
 wonder that persecution did but prove her truth, and thus 
 filled the Roman and Greek world with so many examples 
 of female excellence honored and revered in the traditions 
 of the Church. 
 
 One thing in addition. We cordially concur with all 
 other Protestants, and with many if not the major part of 
 Catholics, in the condemnation of monastic institutions; 
 because we know they are unfitted to the advanced stage of 
 our civilization. The times when they were calculated to 
 be useful have ceased to exist. But he who is unaware of 
 the important uses they had in the furtherance of intelli- 
 gence, religion, and moral purity in the middle ages, must 
 be untaught in the lessons of history. In the first place, 
 they were the sole repositories of knowledge and religion in 
 those barbarous times, standing like oases in the midst of 
 the desert, green spots of earth environed with desolation 
 and corruption. In the second place, they were sources of 
 moral influence particularly beneficial to the dignity of the 
 female sex ; for the inculcation of moral purity among 
 the monastic orders, and the professed and apparent if 
 not real exercise of it, had an astonishing effect upon the 
 imagination and actions of the wild conquerors of Europe. 
 Finally, they were the asylum and refuge of the oppressed, 
 the destitute, the mourner, the thousands left unfriended 
 and unhappy by the violence of the age, or unwilling to 
 dare its dangers. Doubtless, crime and sin made their way 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 85 
 
 into the convents, as into everything human; but we are 
 slow to believe that corruption ever came to pervade and 
 permanently qualify those abodes of the vowed servants of 
 Christ. We do injustice to religion in itself in supposing 
 there is no truth or reality in the profession of moral recti- 
 tude. In fact, a large part of the reproachful matter cur- 
 rent on this point comes from the pen of M. de Potter, 
 a systematic and inveterate foe of the very institution of 
 Christianity. And his great object in collecting it avow- 
 edly was, to serve the cause of irreligion. At any rate, 
 believing or admitting whatever we will of the alleged cor- 
 ruptions of the monastic institution, its beneficial influence 
 on the character and condition of woman at the period 
 when European society settled into its present forms, is a 
 demonstrable fact in the history of Christendom. 
 
 Christianity, therefore, proved infinitely efficacious in 
 elevating the character and condition of woman. It began 
 to work out this effect even amid all the corruption of the 
 declining period of the Roman Empire. And its beneficial 
 operation was yet more discernible in the sequel, when it 
 came to cooperate with some remarkable peculiarities in the 
 secular institutions founded by the new masters of Europe. 
 For the barbarians, destructively as they pursued their 
 career of conquest, yet brought along with them the germ 
 of many things which constitute with good reason the boast 
 and pride of modern times. What they did toward the cul- 
 tivation of woman would suffice to recompense humanity 
 for much of the desolation and misery which, in the long 
 interval between their fierce eruptions from the North and 
 the renovation of civilized life, they inflicted on the Euro- 
 pean world. 
 
86 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 How it was that the feudal system acquired possession 
 of Europe belongs not to the present subject. Suppose it, 
 however, to exist in full vigor, and let us see wherein it 
 affected the conditioa of woman. 
 
 In comparing the political institutions of ancient and 
 modern Europe with other great subdivisions of the human 
 family, we observe that in one an empire is split into frag- 
 ment states, or smaller states are united in a single empire, 
 by the transmission of sovereignty through the female sex 
 in a manner quite peculiar to Christendom. In the repub- 
 lics of Greece and Rome no such fact occurs. Nor even 
 in the time of the Caesars and their successors do we find 
 any instance of sovereignty and territorial power annexed 
 to females and transferred from one family to another by 
 marriage. Among the Mohammedans, also, territorial sove- 
 reignty belongs only to man. True it is that revenues of 
 particular cities, islands, or provinces are specially appropri- 
 ated to particular female connections of the Sultan ; but 
 these are held not in personal sovereignty, transmissible 
 through the form of marriage in succession, but as a tem- 
 porary appendage merely ; just as, under the Persian Em- 
 pire, one city furnished the head-dress of the queens, an- 
 other their slippers, and a third their girdle ; * and as the 
 queen-consort in England anciently had queen-gold reserved 
 to her out of the rent of royal domains for specified objects 
 of apparel and maintenance. f But the conquerors of Eu- 
 rope introduced laws of inheritance which had the effect 
 either of making a woman a feudal sovereign in her own 
 right, or at least the medium of conveying the feudal rights 
 
 * Cicero, Orat. in Verrem, 1. iii., c. 33. 
 
 f Blackstone's Commentary, vol. i., p. 221. 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 87 
 
 of her deceased father to the person of her husband. Take 
 the feudal law, for instance, as practiced in England. For 
 some time after the Conquest, dignity and power were an- 
 nexed to the tenure of lands in the usual condition of feu- 
 dal service rendered by the holders as liegemen of the king, 
 or vassals of some intermediate chief. He who held lands 
 of the king was a baron of Parliament, the immediate lord 
 of tenants holding in like manner of him, and the qualified 
 sovereign of the territory constituting his fief or fiefs. Some 
 of these fiefs or estates with dignity attached were male 
 fiefs, that is, limited to male heirs of the baron or knight in 
 possession ; but others, and those not the least valuable, de- 
 scended to his heirs generally, females included in default 
 of male heirs. If a baron died, leaving several daughters, 
 either the king selected some one of them, or her hus- 
 band, to be invested with the feudal dignity ; or it remained 
 in abeyance, or suspent, until by the extinction of other 
 branches there was but a single male heir entitled by blood. 
 If there was but one daughter, she became at once a baron- 
 ess in her own right, and her husband was the possessor and 
 administrator of her feudal power during his lifetime, when 
 it descended to her male heirs, with her nobility and rank, 
 so that her hand conferred or transmitted not wealth only 
 but territorial sovereignty and political distinction. 
 
 In some instances, to be sure, these institutions operated 
 hardly upon the affections of a woman, by restricting her 
 freedom of choice in the bestowment of her hand. An 
 heiress was the ward of her feudal superior ; and his inter- 
 est, as 'the political chief, was to be consulted in the dispo- 
 sition of her person, because involving that of her estates 
 and vassals. The ancient records of the exchequer, says 
 
88 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 Edmund Burke, afford many instances where some women 
 purchased by heavy fines the privilege of a single life, some 
 the free choice of a husband, others the liberty of rejecting 
 some one particularly disagreeable. And there are not 
 wanting examples where a woman, having offered a consid- 
 erable fine to escape marriage with a certain person, the 
 suitor on the other hand has outbid her, and has thus effected 
 his object avowedly against her inclination. Notwithstanding 
 the occurrence of such abuses, the general operation of the 
 feudal law of succession was to augment the importance and 
 respectability of women ; for the lord depended very much 
 upon the good will of his vassals ; and the particular in- 
 stances of misrule in question show that woman had at least 
 a will to be consulted and conciliated. And, if herself a 
 great vassal, she exercised a direct personal power in pub- 
 lic affairs, which of necessity made her to be feared and re- 
 garded. In England, for instance, abbesses attended Par- 
 liament in person. Lay peeresses did not appear in person, 
 but they nominated their proxies just like lay peers ; and in 
 the Parliament of the 31 Edward III. it appears there were 
 ten peeresses who thus voted by proxy among the great 
 barons. And, previous to the passage of the Reform Bill, 
 females, as proprietors of boroughs, could and did in various 
 cases hold and exercise the right of returning members to 
 the House of Commons. 
 
 Such was the principle. And, to comprehend thoroughly 
 its political operation, let us consider it in the cases of great 
 states, rather than in the obscurer examples of subordinate 
 feudal sovereignties. In France, a peculiar text called the 
 Salic law, whose origin is lost in the darkness of the barbar- 
 ous ages, excluded the female line from the throne ; but in 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 89 
 
 all the other great monarchies of Europe, and even in the 
 feudal subdivisions of France itself, there was no distinction 
 in this respect between the regal and any other dignity. 
 Thus it happened, by the marriage of English princes with 
 French heiresses, that Guienne, Anjou, and other provinces 
 of France became subject to England. Nay, the English 
 long denied the force of the Salic law itself; in pursuance of 
 which Henry V., like his predecessor, Edward III., invaded 
 France, claiming the crown through a female, in preference 
 to a male heir nearly related to the last monarch ; and the 
 kings of England, until near to our own day, continued to 
 style themselves kings of France. Thus, in process of time, 
 some of the large French fiefs became vested in the crown. 
 Thus Catalonia was united to Aragon, and Aragon to Cas- 
 tile. And thus the grandson of a Duke of Austria came to 
 be master of the Netherlands, Bohemia, Hungary, Germany, 
 and Spain. To say nothing of women who, like Boadicea 
 of ancient Britain, ascended the throne themselves, and 
 either remained unmarried, as Elizabeth Tudor, and Chris- 
 tina of Sweden, or, if married, yet retained still the govern- 
 ment of their hereditary dominions, as Mary Tudor, and 
 Anne Stuart of England, Mary of Scotland, Isabel of Castile, 
 and Maria Theresa of Hungary ; at the present time, Spain 
 and Portugal have youthful queens for their sovereigns, and 
 Great Britain will, in all probability, devolve on a princess 
 likewise, through marriage with whom the crowns of each of 
 those countries may pass into a foreign house ; just in the 
 same way that a Bourbon originally acquired Spain, and a 
 Guelph inherited Great Britain. 
 
 It requires no extended argument to show the efficacy of 
 such laws in imparting personal respectability to woman. 
 
9 o THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 In the first place, the world saw her actually possessed of 
 power, and invested with all its external insignia, its pomp, 
 and its imposing circumstances. In the second place, she 
 became an object of desire and pursuit to the other sex, not 
 merely because, as in other countries, she might confer 
 wealth in the bestowment of her hand, but because rank, 
 power, and sovereignty itself passed by her to her husband 
 and to her descendants. Proceed we, therefore, to the social 
 state of the Franks and Normans, so as to see what influence 
 that had upon the condition of woman. 
 
 One of the most eminent statesmen and profound schol- 
 ars of our day, M. Guizot, ascribes much of the importance 
 of woman in the social relation of modern Christendom to 
 the peculiar mode of life adopted by the northern invaders 
 almost universally, in connection with or in consequence of 
 the introduction of the feudal system. Each baron or land- 
 holder established himself in some elevated or otherwise 
 defensible spot, which he fortified, constructing there his 
 feudal castle, where he lived in solitary independence. Who 
 are the inmates of his castle ? His wife, his children, his 
 domestics, his military retainers, perhaps a small number of 
 freemen who have no lands themselves and attach them- 
 selves to his fortune. Around the foot of his castle is 
 grouped a little settlement, chiefly composed of serfs, who 
 cultivate his domain, and look to the castle and its military 
 occupants for protection in all emergencies of danger. Un- 
 der such circumstances, the life of each individual of ingen- 
 uous condition, except when he was engaged in the chase, 
 or in expeditions of war, was emphatically domestic. In 
 Rome, as in Greece, the life of men was, on the other hand, 
 civic. They dwelt in cities for the most part, repairing to 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. gi 
 
 the country only for temporary recreation. The private 
 dwellings even of the wealthy were nowise calculated for 
 what we know as domestic comfort and enjoyment. They 
 had sumptuous dining halls, but none of the commodious 
 apartments for retirement and repose, none of the bright sa- 
 loons for conversation and domestic association, which be- 
 long to modern residences. The social intercourse of men 
 was carried on at the baths, in the forum, and under the 
 basilica, which decorated every considerable town or city. 
 Those of the highest rank in society depended upon the 
 good will and the votes of their fellow townsmen for every- 
 thing which distinguished life, or made it useful and endur- 
 able. Hence the great Roman statesman would have his 
 dwelling so constructed that all the citizens of Rome might 
 overlook him in every act and movement of his whole exist- 
 ence ; whereas the baron of the middle ages, living isolated, 
 independent of the world, even at feud with some of his 
 neighbors, had few or no social resources except in the 
 bosom of his own family, or in the midst of little circles of 
 the same description, allied to him by affinity or friendship. 
 It was for these narrow domestic societies 'of the baronial 
 hall that so many lays of love and fabliaux of the wandering 
 minstrels of that period were composed, giving birth to a 
 delightful fireside literature, quite unknown to classical an- 
 tiquity. In such habitudes of life there was full scope for 
 the development of that respectful regard for the female sex 
 which we have seen to exist in the forests of Germany and 
 Scandinavia. 
 
 To the dignity and importance of the female sex, as pro- 
 duced by the combination of circumstances which we have 
 described, namely, the influence of Christianity and the 
 
9 2 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 old German deference for women, developed in the pecu- 
 liar social state of the feudal masters of Europe, there came 
 finally to be added the institution of chivalry. This also 
 had its root in the military usages of the ancient Germans ; 
 for the investiture of arms, the fondness for single combats, 
 the painting of shields, and the presence of women at martial 
 sports and exercises are as plainly recorded in Tacitus as in 
 Froissart or Saint Palaye. At the present time the mind 
 sees much that is exaggerated and extravagant in the max- 
 ims and practices of chivalry. Errant knights, roving over 
 the country slaying monsters, combating giants and en- 
 chanters, delivering distressed damsels from the hands of 
 cruel oppressors, and seeking adventures all over the world, 
 are alien to existing manners and the fixed civilization of 
 the day. So also are tournaments, jousts, and the deeds of 
 steel-clad knights deciding battles by their single prowess. 
 Amadis de Gaul would at this time be deemed a worse 
 madman than Don Quixote de la Mancha; and Orlando 
 quite as furious in his soberest moments as when he split 
 solid rocks in twain with his good sword for the jealousy of 
 the false traitor Medoro. Civilization has accomplished all 
 this by substituting the reign of law for that of violence, 
 diffusing knowledge, and infusing in society such notions of 
 right and wrong as do away with the vocation of individual 
 redresses of injured innocence. And the invention of gun- 
 powder, transferring the decision of battles to the organized 
 action of masses instead of the rash prowess of a few knights 
 armed in proof and riding down whole battalions of helpless 
 archers or billmen, has operated a similar change in the art 
 of war, making it a game of skill, that is, of intellect rather 
 than of mere physical force. But in those times, when each 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN, 93 
 
 one did what seemed good in his own eyes, and when every 
 person of ingenuous birth enjoyed the right of private war, 
 there needed something to modify and check the universal 
 lawlessness of men and to protect the weak, and especially 
 females, from being the victims of perpetual outrage. The 
 evils of the social state sooner or later work out their own 
 cure. What the world fell upon as a remedy for the disor- 
 dered condition of things which we have described was the 
 institution of chivalry, consisting in the voluntary associa- 
 tion of men as knights pledged by promises and solemn 
 religious sanctions to do that justice to each other and to 
 society as a point of honor which the law of the land did 
 not exact or had no means to enforce. To guard and pro- 
 tect the female sex in that universal dissolution of society 
 was the pressing necessity, and it became of course the first 
 point of honor in the heart of a good knight. He was edu- 
 cated in the baronial hall of his feudal lord ; he waited on 
 its mistress as her page ; he followed its master in battle as 
 his faithful esquire ; in the bower he acquired the senti- 
 ments and the language of courtesy, gallantry, and truth ; in 
 the courtyard he trained himself to the feats of arms ; in 
 the field he emulated the prowess of his lord ; and thus he 
 grew up to be at once a brave soldier and a true gentleman. 
 He learned to vow himself to the cause of his lady-love ; he 
 wore her scarf in the tourney ; he silently invoked her name 
 as he dashed into the melee j and reflectively he respected 
 the whole sex through his admiration of her whom he fol- 
 lowed as the lode-star of his life and adored as second only 
 to his God. We are not drawing a picture of imaginary 
 scenes proper only to the page of a romance it is the reali- 
 ty so beautifully described by Burke : " That generous loy- 
 
94 
 
 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 alty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified 
 obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, 
 even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom ; 
 that untaught grace of life, that sensibility of principle, that 
 chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which in- 
 spired courage while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled 
 whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its 
 evil by losing all its grossness." It is the reality finely ex- 
 emplified in the actions of Edward the Black Prince, show- 
 ing by his whole life that knighthood was no idle extrava- 
 gance of the obscure adventurers of the middle ages and 
 the apocryphal romance of Turpin. It is a state of things 
 which actually existed from the time of Charlemagne, or 
 soon after, down to the time of the settlement of America, 
 for at that late period all the maxims and sports of chivalry 
 continued in full force. France and Spain were ever the 
 nations where it flourished in the greatest splendor. And 
 in the history of the wars waged in Italy between the Span- 
 iards and French during the reign of Ferdinand and his 
 grandson Charles we read continually of jousts, single com- 
 bats, extravagant gallantry, and all the incidents of the early 
 days of chivalry. Gonsalvo de Cordova, commander of the 
 Spanish armies, a wise and shrewd man as well as a brave 
 one; Francis of France himself; and Bayard, chevalier sans 
 peur et sans reproche, a great noble and an eminent general 
 officer not less than a knight these were at the very head 
 of the order, mirrors of courtesy, gallantry, and honor, and 
 superlatively famous as such through all Europe. 
 
 Thus have we explained, as briefly as we might, the facts 
 in the history of civilization which molded the condition 
 of woman, and gave to the social relations of the sexes the 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 95 
 
 body and general outline which it wore at the time of the 
 discovery of America. Since that period the social position 
 of the female sex, which it attained under the continued 
 impulse of Christianity and chivalry, has been modified by 
 two new facts, the progress of intellectual refinement and 
 of the useful arts. Presupposing the original causes of 
 woman's elevation in Christendom to have had the effects 
 ascribed, and then to have given a right impulsion to soci- 
 ety, it is obvious that whatever develops mind and aug- 
 ments its ascendancy in the world must add to the 
 respectability of woman, who depends for her social rela- 
 tion upon the moral and intellectual influences she exerts 
 over man. Accordingly, though chivalry has ceased to 
 exist, yet the moral dignity and social equality of the 
 female sex continue to be distinctive of Christendom. 
 If a woman belong to the industrious walks of life she 
 has a relative value, enhanced by civilization, in her apti- 
 tude for any trade requiring skill, rather than physical 
 strength, for its performance. If placed by fortune in a 
 more elevated condition of society, then she is prompted 
 and encouraged to the acquisition and the display of intel- 
 lectual qualities, either in the intercourse of society, the 
 duties of family, or the cultivation of science and literature. 
 To appreciate this fact we have only to compare the intel- 
 lectual cultivation of celebrated women in our age with any 
 of the distinguished examples of it recorded in other times 
 and other societies. No case can be found more favorable 
 to the other side of the question than that of the Romans. 
 Preeminent in classical history is Cornelia, the mother of 
 the Gracchi, born of that Cornelian and ^Emilian family 
 which seemed to have a charter of hereditary genius. 
 
96 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 There was a like succession of distinguished females in the 
 Lselian family, three generations of which are commemo- 
 rated by Cicero. Another Roman lady, Ccerellia, is famed as 
 having gained the respect and society of Cicero by her tal- 
 ents and knowledge. What monument of either of them 
 remains to attest their intellectual elevation ? Wherein con- 
 sisted their intellectual cultivation ? It is evident that they 
 were courted and admired, first for their good sense, and 
 then for the grace and elegance of their conversation ; but 
 they were not to be compared to any of the great female 
 names of modern letters, as for instance the Edgeworths, the 
 Somervilles, the Martineaus, the Hemanses of our own living 
 vernacular literature. In fact, no Roman authoress, deserv- 
 ing the name, is handed down to posterity. The younger 
 Pliny dwells applaudingly on the character of his second 
 wife, Calpurnia; and his affectionate account of her con- 
 veys, we suppose, the best possible idea of the cultivation 
 of an intellectual Roman wife. " From attachment to me," 
 he says, " she has acquired a love of study. My books she 
 carries with her, reads, learns by heart. What solicitude she 
 testifies when I am about to plead in a cause, what joy 
 when I have done ! She has messengers disposed to tell 
 her what assent, what applause I receive ; and what is the 
 event of the trial. ' She sings my verses to her lyre with no 
 other art but love, the best of masters. Wherefore I enter- 
 tain a confident hope that our mutual attachment will be 
 perpetual and will grow stronger and stronger with time. 
 For it is not my youth or my person, which fail with age, 
 but my fame, which she loves."* Interesting as this picture 
 
 * Plin. Epist., 1. iv., ep. 19. 
 
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 97 
 
 of connubial felicity is, they are moral not intellectual qual- 
 ities which Pliny praises, and that of being an admirer of 
 her husband's writings and talents stands preeminent in the 
 catalogue. What inferior female cultivation does not this 
 bespeak, compared with the times which produced such 
 women as Vittoria Colonna, Maria de Padilla, Lady Fan- 
 shawe, Mrs. Hutchinson, Lady Rachel Russell, Madame 
 Roland, and Madame Larochejaquelein, combining the high- 
 est excellence in the relations of wife and mother, and intel- 
 lectual traits and acquirements infinitely beyond the Corne- 
 lias and the Calpurnias, those pattern wives and mothers of 
 ancient Rome ! 
 
 Before leaving the subject there is one remaining class 
 of considerations which we can not well omit to touch. 
 It may seem to be an anomaly of Christian institutions, that 
 while women are admitted by inheritance to the highest 
 of all political stations, in hereditary monarchies that of 
 the throne, they are excluded from equal participation 
 with men in the ordinary political privileges. They do not 
 vote at elections ; they do not sit in legislative bodies even 
 where the right of membership is hereditary. Such wo- 
 men as Catharine of Russia, Elizabeth of England, Isa- 
 bel of Spain, Maria Theresa of Hungary, might justify, it 
 would seem, the imposition of any degree of political re- 
 sponsibility upon the female sex. True, but the only cases 
 which countenance this idea are of woman exercising in- 
 herited sovereign power, in solitary examples, constituting 
 exceptions to the usual destiny of the sex, and these excep- 
 tions, when analyzed, serving to confirm the general rule. 
 They were not thrown into the vulgar strife and competi- 
 tion of honor, which necessarily pervade the ranks of ordi- 
 7 
 
98 THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF WOMAN. 
 
 nary life. They did not have to run the career of arms as 
 the road to power. And the condition of a great prince 
 in the countries of Christendom is rather that of one rep- 
 resenting sovereignty than of one actually exercising it ; 
 since all the labor and responsibility and personal danger 
 devolve on ministers and generals holding the delegated 
 powers of government. Aurelius, it is said, contemplated 
 the establishment of a female senate. Heliogabalus actu- 
 ally did organize one under the presidency of his mother ; 
 but ^Elius Lampridius, who tells the tale, says the members 
 chiefly occupied themselves with points of etiquette, of 
 regulation of dress, and other like feminine mysteries of 
 state. And whether the story of the Amazons be authentic 
 history, or only a cunningly devised fable, it presents at all 
 events a poor picture of what society would become if our 
 councils were rilled and our armies manned with women, 
 and they rather than men, or equally with men, discharged 
 the external and political duties of society, doing so at the 
 sacrifice of all that delicacy and maternal tenderness which 
 are among the most appropriate and the highest charms of 
 woman. Hers be the domain of the moral affections, the 
 empire of the heart, the coequal sovereignty of intellect, 
 taste, and social refinement ; leave the rude commerce of 
 camps and the soul-hardening struggles of political power 
 to the harsher spirit of man, that he may still look up to 
 her as a purer and brighter being, an emanation of some 
 better world, irradiating like a rainbow of hope the stormy 
 elements of life. 
 
JOHN MILTON* 
 
 THE discovery of the lost work of Milton, the treatise 
 " Of the Christian Doctrine," in 1823, drew a sudden at- 
 tention to his name. For a short time the literary journals 
 were filled with disquisitions on his genius ; new editions 
 of his works and new compilations of his life were pub- 
 lished. But the new-found book having in itself less attrac- 
 tion than any other work of Milton, the curiosity of the 
 public as quickly subsided, and left the poet to the enjoy- 
 ment of his permanent fame, or to such increase or abate- 
 ment of it only as is incidental to a sublime genius, quite 
 independent of the momentary challenge of universal atten- 
 tion to his claims. 
 
 But, if the new and temporary renown of the poet is 
 silent again, it is nevertheless true that he has gained in 
 this age some increase of permanent praise. The fame of a 
 great man is not rigid and stony like his bust. It changes 
 with time. It needs time to give it due perspective. It 
 was very easy to remark an altered tone in the criticism 
 when Milton . reappeared as an author, fifteen years ago, 
 from any that had been bestowed on the same subject be- 
 
 * The Poetical Works of John Milton. A new edition. 2 vols., 8vo. 
 Boston : Milliard, Gray & Co. 1836. 
 
I00 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 fore. It implied merit indisputable and illustrious ; yet so 
 near to the modern mind as to be still alive and life-giving. 
 The aspect of Milton, to this generation, will be part of the 
 history of the nineteenth century. There is no name in 
 literature between his age and ours that rises into any ap- 
 proach to his own. And as a man's fame, of course, char- 
 acterizes those who give it as much as him who receives it, 
 the new criticism indicated a change in the public taste, 
 and a change which the poet himself might claim to have 
 wrought. 
 
 The reputation of Milton had already undergone one or 
 two revolutions long anterior to its recent aspects. In his 
 lifetime he was little or not at all known as a poet, but ob- 
 tained great respect from his contemporaries as an accom- 
 plished scholar and a formidable controvertist. His poem 
 fell unregarded among his countrymen. His prose writings, 
 especially the " Defence of the English People," seem to 
 have been read with avidity. These tracts are remarkable 
 compositions. They are earnest, spiritual, rich with allu- 
 sion, sparkling with innumerable ornaments; but as writ- 
 ings designed to gain a practical point they fail. They are 
 not effective like similar productions of Swift and Burke ; 
 or, like what became also controversial tracts, several mas- 
 terly speeches in the history of the American Congress. 
 Milton seldom deigns a glance at the obstacles that are to 
 be overcome before that which he proposes can be done. 
 There is no attempt to conciliate no mediate, no prepara- 
 tory course suggested but, peremptory and impassioned, 
 he demands on the instant an ideal justice. Therein they 
 are discriminated from modern writings, in which a regard 
 to the actual is all but universal. 
 
JOHN MILTON. IO i 
 
 Their rhetorical excellence must also suffer some deduc- 
 tion. They have no perfectness. These writings are won- 
 derful for the truth, the learning, the subtilty and pomp of 
 the language ; but the whole is sacrificed to the particular. 
 Eager to do fit justice to each thought, he does not subor- 
 dinate it so as to project the main argument. He writes 
 while he is heated ; the piece shows all the rambles and 
 resources of indignation ; but he has never integrated the 
 parts of the argument in his mind. The reader is fatigued 
 with admiration, but is not yet master of the subject. 
 
 Two of his pieces may be excepted from this description, 
 one for its faults, the other for its excellence. The " De- 
 fence of the People of England," on which his contempora- 
 ry fame was founded, is, when divested of its pure Latinity, 
 the worst of his works. Only its general aim and a few 
 elevated passages can save it. We could be well content if 
 the flames to which it was condemned at Paris, at Toulouse, 
 and at London, had utterly consumed it. The lover of his 
 genius will always regret that he should not have taken 
 counsel of his own lofty heart at this, as at other times, and 
 have written from the deep convictions of love and right 
 which are the foundations of civil liberty. There is little 
 poetry or prophecy in this mean and ribald scolding. To 
 insult Salmasius, not to acquit England, is the main design. 
 What under heaven had Madame de Saumaise, or the man- 
 ner of living of Saumaise, or Salmasius, or his blunders of 
 grammar, or his niceties of diction, to do with the solemn 
 question whether Charles Stuart had been rightly slain? 
 Though it evinces learning and critical skill, yet, as an his- 
 torical argument, it can not be valued with similar disquisi- 
 tions of Robertson and Hallam, and even less celebrated 
 
102 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 scholars. But, when he comes to speak of the reason of the 
 thing, then he always recovers himself. The voice of the 
 mob is silent, and Milton speaks. And the peroration in 
 which he implores his countrymen to refute this adversary 
 by their great deeds is in a just spirit. The other piece is 
 his " Areopagitica," the discourse addressed to the Parlia- 
 ment in favor of removing the censorship of the press the 
 most splendid of his prose works. It is, as Luther said of 
 one of Melanchthon's writings, " alive, hath hands and feet 
 and not like Erasmus's sentences, which were made, not 
 grown." The weight of the thought is equaled by the vi- 
 vacity of the expression, and it cheers as well as teaches. 
 This tract is far the best known and the most read of all, 
 and is still a magazine of reasons for the freedom of the 
 press. It is valuable in history as an argument addressed 
 to a government to produce a practical end, and plainly 
 presupposes a very peculiar state of society. 
 
 But deeply as that peculiar state of society, in which 
 and for which Milton wrote, has engraved itself in the 
 remembrance of the world, it shares the destiny which 
 overtakes everything local and personal in nature ; and the 
 accidental facts, on which a battle of principles was fought, 
 have already passed, or are fast passing, into oblivion. We 
 have lost all interest in Milton as the redoubted disputant 
 of a sect ; but by his own innate worth this man has stead- 
 ily risen in the world's reverence, and occupies a more 
 imposing place in the mind of men at this hour than ever 
 before. 
 
 It is the aspect which he presents to this generation that 
 alone concerns us. Milton, the controvertist, has lost his 
 popularity long ago ; and, if we skip the pages of " Paradise 
 
JOHN MILTON. 103 
 
 Lost " where " God the Father argues like a school divine," 
 so did the next age to his own. But we are persuaded he 
 kindles a love and emulation in us which he did not in fore- 
 going generations. We think we have seen and heard criti- 
 cism upon the poems which the bard himself would have 
 more valued than the recorded praise of Dryden, Addison, 
 and Johnson, because it came nearer to the mark ; was finer 
 and closer appreciation ; the praise of intimate knowledge 
 and delight; and, of course, more welcome to the poet 
 than the general and vague acknowledgment of his genius 
 by those able but unsympathizing critics. We think we 
 have heard the recitation of his verses by genius, which 
 found in them that which itself would say ; recitation which 
 told, in the diamond sharpness of every articulation, that 
 now first were such perception and enjoyment possible ; the 
 perception and enjoyment of all his varied rhythm, and 
 his perfect fusion of the classic and the English styles. 
 This is a poet's right ; for every masterpiece of art goes 
 on for some ages reconciling the world unto itself, and 
 despotically fashioning the public ear. The opposition to 
 it, always greatest at first, continually decreases and at 
 last ends; and a new race grows up in the taste and 
 spirit of the work, with the utmost advantage for seeing 
 intimately its power and beauty. 
 
 But it would be great injustice to Milton to consider him 
 as enjoying merely a critical reputation. It is the preroga- 
 tive of this great man to stand at this hour foremost of all 
 men in literary history, and so (shall we not say?) of all 
 men, in the power to inspire. Virtue goes out of him into 
 others. Leaving out of view the pretensions of our con- 
 temporaries (always an incalculable influence), we think no 
 
104 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 man can be named whose mind still acts on the cultivated 
 intellect of England and America with an energy compara- 
 ble to that of Milton. As a poet, Shakespeare undoubt- 
 edly transcends and far surpasses him in his popularity with 
 foreign nations ; but Shakespeare is a voice merely ; who 
 and what he was that sang, that sings, we know not. Mil- 
 ton stands erect, commanding, still visible as a man among 
 men, and reads the laws of the moral sentiment to the new- 
 born race. There is something pleasing in the affection 
 with which we can regard a man who died a hundred and 
 sixty years ago in the other hemisphere, who, in respect to 
 personal relations, is to us as the wind, yet by an influence 
 purely spiritual makes us jealous for his fame as for that of 
 a near friend. He is identified in the mind with all select 
 and holy images, with the supreme interests of the human 
 race. If hereby we attain any more precision, we proceed 
 to say that we think no man in these later ages, and few 
 men ever, possessed so great a conception of the manly 
 character. Better than any other he has discharged the 
 office of every great man, namely, to raise the idea of man 
 in the minds of his contemporaries and of posterity to 
 draw after nature a life of man, exhibiting such a compo- 
 sition of grace, of strength, and of virtue as poet had not 
 described nor hero lived. Human nature in these ages is 
 indebted to him for its best portrait. Many philosophers 
 in England, France, and Germany have formally dedicated 
 their study to this problem ; and we think it impossible to 
 recall one in those countries who communicates the same 
 vibration of hope, of self-reverence, of piety, of delight in 
 beauty which the name of Milton awakens. Lord Bacon, 
 who has written much and with prodigious ability on this 
 
JOHN MILTON. IO5 
 
 science, shrinks and falters before the absolute and un- 
 courtly Puritan. Bacon's " Essays " are the portrait of an 
 ambitious and profound calculator a great man of the 
 vulgar sort. Of the upper world of man's being they speak 
 few and faint words. The man of Locke is virtuous with- 
 out enthusiasm, and intelligent without poetry. Addison, 
 Pope, Hume, and Johnson, students, with very unlike tem- 
 per and success, of the same subject, can not, taken to- 
 gether, make any pretension to the amount or the quality 
 of Milton's inspirations. The man of Lord Chesterfield is 
 unworthy to touch his garment's hem. Franklin's man is 
 a frugal, inoffensive, thrifty citizen, but savors of nothing 
 heroic. The genius of France has not, even in her best 
 days, yet culminated in any one head not in Rousseau, 
 not in Pascal, not in Fenelon into such perception of all 
 the attributes of humanity as to entitle it to any rivalry in 
 these lists. In Germany the greatest writers are still too 
 recent to institute a comparison ; and yet we are tempted 
 to say that art and not life seems to be the end of their 
 effort. But the idea of a purer existence than any he saw 
 around him, to be realized in the life and conversation of 
 men, inspired every act and every writing of John Milton. 
 He defined the object of education to be, " to fit a man to 
 perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, 
 both private and public, of peace and war." He declared 
 that " he who would aspire to write well hereafter in laud- 
 able things, ought himself to be a true poem ; that is, a com- 
 position and pattern of the best and honorablest things, 
 not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous 
 cities unless he have in himself the experience and the 
 practice of all that which is praiseworthy." Nor is there 
 
106 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 in literature a more noble outline of a wise external educa- 
 tion than that which he drew up at the age of thirty-six in 
 his "Letter to Samuel Hartlib." The muscles, the nerves, 
 and the flesh with which this skeleton is to be filled up and 
 covered, exist in his works and must be sought there. 
 
 For the delineation of this heroic image of man, Milton 
 enjoyed singular advantages. Perfections of body and of 
 mind are attributed to him by his biographers, that, if the 
 anecdotes had come down from a greater distance of time, 
 or had not been in part furnished or corroborated by politi- 
 cal enemies, would lead us to suspect the portraits were 
 ideal, like the Cyrus of Xenophon, the Telemachus of Fene- 
 lon, or the popular traditions of Alfred the Great. 
 
 Handsome to a proverb, he was called the lady of his 
 college. Aubrey says, " This harmonical and ingenuous 
 soul dwelt in a beautiful and well-proportioned body." His 
 manners and his carriage did him no injustice. Wood, his 
 political opponent, relates that "his deportment was affa- 
 ble, his gait erect and manly, bespeaking courage and un- 
 dauntedness." Aubrey adds a sharp trait, that "he pro- 
 nounced the letter R very hard, a certain sign of a satirical 
 genius." He had the senses of a Greek. His eye was quick, 
 and he was accounted an excellent master of his rapier. 
 His ear for music was so acute that he was not only enthu- 
 siastic in his love, but a skillful performer himself; and his 
 voice, we are told, was delicately sweet and harmonious. 
 He insists that music shall make a part of a generous edu- 
 cation. 
 
 With these keen perceptions, he naturally received a love 
 of nature, and a rare susceptibility to impressions from ex- 
 ternal beauty. In the midst of London, he seems, like the 
 
JOHN MILTON. IO7 
 
 creatures of the field and the forest, to have been tuned in 
 concord with the order of the world; for he believed his 
 poetic vein only flowed from the autumnal to the vernal 
 equinox ; and, in his essay on " Education," he doubts 
 whether, in the fine days of spring, any study can be ac- 
 complished by young men. " In those vernal seasons of the 
 year when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury 
 and sullenness against Nature, not to go out and see her 
 riches and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth." 
 His sensibility to impressions from beauty needs no proof 
 from his history ; it shines through every page. The form 
 and the voice of Leonora Baroni seem to have captivated 
 him in Rome, and to her he addressed his Italian sonnets 
 and Latin epigrams. 
 
 To these endowments it must be added that his address 
 and his conversation were worthy of his fame. His house 
 was resorted to by men of wit, and foreigners came to Eng- 
 land, we are told, " to see the Lord Protector and Mr. Mil- 
 ton." In a letter to one of his foreign correspondents, 
 Emeric Bigot, and in reply apparently to some compliment 
 on his powers of conversation, he writes : " Many have been 
 celebrated for their compositions whose common conversa- 
 tion and intercourse have betrayed no marks of sublimity or 
 genius. But, as far as possible, I aim to show myself equal 
 in thought and speech to what I have written, if I have 
 written anything well." 
 
 These endowments received the benefit of a careful and 
 happy discipline. His father's care, seconded by his own 
 endeavor, introduced him to a profound skill in all the trea- 
 sures of the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Italian tongues ; and, 
 to enlarge and enliven his elegant learning, he was sent into 
 
io8 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 Italy, where he beheld the remains of ancient art, and the 
 rival works of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Correggio ; 
 where also he received social and academical honors 
 from the learned and the great. In Paris he became ac- 
 quainted with Grotius ; in Florence or Rome with Galileo ; 
 and probably no traveler ever entered that country of his- 
 tory with better right to its hospitality, none upon whom its 
 influences could have fallen more congenially. 
 
 Among the advantages of his foreign travel, Milton cer- 
 tainly did not count it the least that it contributed to forge 
 and polish that great weapon of which he acquired such ex- 
 traordinary mastery his power of language. His lore of. 
 foreign tongues added daily to his consummate skill in the 
 use of his own. No individual writer has been an equal 
 benefactor of the English tongue by showing its capabilities. 
 Very early in life he became conscious that he had more to 
 say to his fellow men than they had fit words to embody. 
 At nineteen years, in a college exercise, he addresses his na- 
 tive language, saying to it that it would be his choice to 
 leave trifles for a grave argument 
 
 " Such as may make thee search thy coffers round, 
 Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound ; 
 Such where the deep transported mind may soar 
 Above the wheeling poles, and at heaven's door 
 Look in, and see each blissful deity, 
 How he before the thunderous throne doth lie." 
 
 Michael Angelo calls " him alone an artist whose hands 
 can execute what his mind has conceived." The world, no 
 doubt, contains very many of that class of men whom Words- 
 worth denominates " silent poets" whose minds teem with 
 
JOHN MILTON. IO p 
 
 images which they want words to clothe. But Milton's mind 
 seems to have no thought or emotion which refused to be 
 recorded. His mastery of his native tongue was more than 
 to use it as well as any other ; he cast it into new forms. 
 He uttered in it things unheard before. Not imitating, but 
 rivaling Shakespeare, he scattered, in tones of prolonged 
 and delicate melody, his pastoral and romantic fancies ; 
 then, soaring into unattempted strains, he made it capable 
 of an unknown majesty, and bent it to express every trait of 
 beauty, every shade of thought ; and searched the kennel 
 and jakes as well as the palaces of sound for the harsh dis- 
 cords of his polemic wrath. We may even apply to his per- 
 formance on the instrument of language his own description 
 of music : 
 
 " .... notes, with many a winding bout 
 Of linked sweetness long drawn out, 
 With wanton heed and giddy cunning, 
 The melting voice through mazes running, 
 Untwisting all the chains that tie 
 The hidden soul of harmony." 
 
 But, while Milton was conscious of possessing this intel- 
 lectual voice, penetrating through ages, and propelling its 
 melodious undulations forward through the coming world, 
 he knew also that this mastery of language was a secondary 
 power, and he respected the mysterious source whence it 
 had its spring; namely, clear conceptions and a devoted 
 heart. " For me," he said, in his " Apology for Smectym- 
 nuus," "although I can not say that I am utterly untrained 
 in those rules which best rhetoricians have given, or unac- 
 quainted with those examples which the prime authors of 
 
no JOHN MILTON. 
 
 eloquence have written in any learned tongue, yet true elo- 
 quence I find to be none but the serious and hearty love 
 of truth ; and that whose mind soever is fully possessed 
 with a fervent desire to know good things, and with the 
 dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of them into others, 
 when such a man would speak, his words, by what I can ex- 
 press, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him 
 at command, and in well-ordered files, as he would wish, 
 fall aptly into their own places." 
 
 But, as basis or fountain of his rare physical and intel- 
 lectual accomplishments, the man Milton was just and de- 
 vout. He is rightly dear to mankind, because in him 
 among so many perverse and partial men of genius in him 
 humanity rights itself; the old eternal goodness finds a 
 home in his breast, and for once shows itself beautiful. His 
 gifts are subordinated to his moral sentiments. And his 
 virtues are so graceful that they seem rather talents than 
 labors. Among so many contrivances as the world has seen 
 to make holiness ugly, in Milton at least it was so pure a 
 flame that the foremost impression his character makes is 
 that of elegance. The victories tff the conscience in him 
 are gained by the commanding charm which all the severe 
 and restrictive virtues have for him. His virtues remind us 
 of what Plutarch said of Timoleon's victories, that they re- 
 sembled Homer's verses, they ran so easy and natural. His 
 habits of living were austere. He was abstemious in diet, 
 chaste, an early riser, and industrious. He tells us, in a 
 Latin poem, that the lyrist may indulge in wine and in a 
 freer life ; but that he who would write an epic to the na- 
 tions must eat beans and drink water. Yet in his severity 
 is no grimace or effort. He serves from love, not from fear. 
 
JOHN MILTON. TII 
 
 He is innocent and exact, because his taste was so pure and 
 delicate. He acknowledges to his friend Diodati, at the age 
 of twenty-one, that he is enamored, if ever any was, of moral 
 perfection. " For, whatever the Deity may have bestowed 
 upon me in other respects, he has certainly inspired me, if 
 any ever were inspired, with a passion for the good and fair. 
 Nor did Ceres, according to the fable, ever seek her daughter 
 Proserpine with such unceasing solicitude as I have sought 
 this rov Kakov ideav, this perfect model of the beautiful in 
 all forms and appearances of things." 
 
 When he was charged with loose habits of living, he de- 
 clares that " a certain niceness of nature, an honest haughti- 
 ness and self-esteem either of what I was or what I might 
 be, and a modesty, kept me still above those low descents 
 of mind, beneath which he must deject and plunge himself, 
 that can agree " to such degradation. 
 
 "His mind gave him," he said, " that every free and gen- 
 tle spirit, without that oath of chastity, ought to be born a 
 knight ; nor needed to expect the gilt spur, or the laying of 
 a sword upon his shoulder, to stir him up, by his counsel and 
 his arm, to secure and protect " attempted innocence. 
 
 He states these things, he says, " to show that, though 
 Christianity had been but slightly taught him, yet a certain 
 reservedness of natural disposition and moral discipline, 
 learned out of the noblest philosophy, was enough to keep 
 him in disdain of far less incontinences than these," that had 
 been charged on him. In like spirit, he replies to the sus- 
 picious calumny respecting his morning haunts. " Those 
 morning haunts are where they should be, at home; not 
 sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but 
 up and stirring, in winter, often ere the sound of any bell 
 
ii2 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 awake men to labor or devotion ; in summer, as oft with the 
 bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good au- 
 thors, or cause them to be read, till the attention be weary, 
 or memory have its perfect fraught ; then with useful and 
 generous labors preserving the body's health and hardiness, 
 to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obedience to the 
 mind, to the cause of religion, and our country's liberty, 
 when it shall require firm hearts in sound bodies to stand 
 and cover their stations. These are the morning practices." 
 This native honor never forsook him. It is the spirit of 
 " Comus," the loftiest song in the praise of chastity that is 
 in any language. It always sparkles in his eyes. It breathed 
 itself over his decent form. It refined his amusements, 
 which consisted in gardening, in exercise with the sword, 
 and in playing on the organ. It engaged his interest in 
 chivalry, in courtesy, in whatsoever savored of generosity 
 and nobleness. This magnanimity shines in all his life. He 
 accepts a high impulse at every risk, and deliberately un- 
 dertakes the defense of the English people, when advised 
 by his physicians that he does it at the cost of sight. There 
 is a forbearance even in his polemics. He opens the war 
 and strikes the first blow. When he had cut down his op- 
 ponents he left the details of death and plunder to meaner 
 partisans. He said, " he had learned the prudence of the 
 Roman soldier, not to stand breaking of legs, when the 
 breath was quite out of the body." 
 
 To this antique heroism Milton added the genius of the 
 Christian sanctity. Few men could be cited who have so 
 well understood what is peculiar in the Christian ethics, 
 and the precise aid it has brought to men in being an em- 
 phatic affirmation of the omnipotence of spiritual laws, and, 
 
JOHN MILTON. II3 
 
 by way of marking the contrast to vulgar opinions, laying 
 its chief stress on humility. The indifferency of a wise 
 mind to what is called high and low, and the fact that true 
 greatness is a perfect humility, are revelations of Christian- 
 ity which Milton well understood. They give an inexhaust- 
 ible truth to all his compositions. His firm grasp of this 
 truth is his weapon against the prelates. He celebrates in 
 the martyrs, " the unresistible might of weakness." He told 
 the bishops that, " instead of showing the reason of their 
 lowly condition from divine example and command, they 
 seek to prove their high preeminence from human consent 
 and authority." He advises that in country places, rather 
 than to trudge many miles to a church, public worship be 
 maintained nearer home, as in a house or barn. "For, 
 notwithstanding the gaudy superstition of some still devoted 
 ignorantly to temples, we may be well assured that He who 
 disdained not to be born in a manger disdains not to be 
 preached in a barn." And the following passage, in the 
 " Reason of Church Government," indicates his own per- 
 ception of the doctrine of humility : " Albeit, I must con- 
 fess to be half in doubt whether I should bring it forth or 
 no, it being so contrary to the eye of the world that I shall 
 endanger either not to be regarded or not to be understood. 
 For, who is there, almost, that measures wisdom by simplici- 
 ty, strength by suffering, dignity by lowliness ? " Obeying 
 this sentiment, Milton deserved the apostrophe of Words- 
 worth : 
 
 " Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 
 
 So didst them travel on life's common way 
 In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
 The lowlies-t duties on itself did lay." 
 8 
 
II4 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 He laid on himself the lowliest duties. Johnson petulantly 
 taunts Milton with " great promise and small performance " 
 in returning from Italy because his country was in danger, 
 and then opening a private school. Milton, wiser, felt no 
 absurdity in this conduct. He returned into his revolution- 
 ized country, and assumed an honest and useful task by 
 which he might serve the state daily, while he launched 
 from time to time his formidable bolts against the enemies 
 of liberty. He felt the heats of that " love " which " esteems 
 no office mean." He compiled a logic for boys; he wrote 
 a grammar ; and devoted much of his time to the preparing 
 of a Latin dictionary. But the religious sentiment warmed 
 his writings and conduct with the highest affection of faith. 
 The memorable covenant which in his youth in the second 
 book of the "Reason of Church Government" he makes 
 with God and his reader expressed the faith of his old age. 
 For the first time since many ages the invocations of the 
 Eternal Spirit in the commencement of his books are not 
 poetic forms, but are thoughts, and so are still read with 
 delight. His views of choice of profession and choice in 
 marriage equally expect a divine leading. 
 
 Thus chosen by the felicity of his nature and of his 
 breeding for the clear perception of all that is graceful and 
 all that is great in man, Milton was not less happy in his 
 times. His birth fell upon the agitated years when the 
 discontents of the English Puritans were fast drawing to a 
 head against the tyranny of the Stuarts. No period has 
 surpassed that in the general activity of mind. It is said 
 that no opinion, no civil, religious, moral dogma can be 
 produced that was not broached in the fertile brain of that 
 age. Questions that involve all social and personal rights 
 
JOHN MILTON. n 5 
 
 were hasting to be decided by the sword, and were searched 
 by eyes to which the love of freedom, civil and religious, 
 lent new illumination. Milton, gentle, learned, delicately 
 bred in all the elegancy of art and learning, was set down 
 in England in the stern, almost fanatic, society of the Puri- 
 tans. The part he took, the zeal of his fellowship, make us 
 acquainted with the greatness of his spirit, as in tranquil 
 times we could not have known it. Susceptible as Burke 
 to the attractions of historical prescription, of royalty, of 
 chivalry, of an ancient church illustrated by old martyrdoms 
 and installed in cathedrals, he threw himself, the flower of 
 elegancy, on the side of the reeking conventicle, the side of 
 humanity, but unlearned and unadorned. His muse was 
 brave and humane, as well as sweet. He felt the dear love 
 of native land and native language. The humanity which 
 warms his pages begins, as it should, at home. He preferred 
 his own English, so manlike he was, to the Latin, which 
 contained all the treasures of his memory. " My mother 
 bore me," he said, ' a speaker of what God made mine own, 
 and not a translator." He told the Parliament that "the 
 imprimaturs of Lambeth House had been writ in Latin ; 
 for that our English, the language of men ever famous and 
 foremost in the achievements of liberty, will not easily find 
 servile letters enow to spell such a dictatory presumption." 
 At one time he meditated writing a poem on the settlement 
 of Britain ; and a history of England was one of the three 
 main tasks which he proposed to himself. He proceeded 
 in it no further than to the Conquest. He studied with 
 care the character of his countrymen, and once in the 
 " History/' and once again in the " Reason of Church Govern- 
 ment," he has recorded his judgment of the English genius. 
 
n6 JOHN MILTON, 
 
 Thus drawn into the great controversies of the times, in 
 them he is never lost in a party. His private opinions and 
 private conscience always distinguish him. That which 
 drew him to the party was his love of liberty, ideal liberty ; 
 this, therefore, he could not sacrifice to any party. Toland 
 tells us : " As he looked upon true and absolute freedom to 
 be the greatest happiness of this life, whether to societies 
 or single persons, so he thought constraint of any sort to be 
 the utmost misery ; for which reason he used to tell those 
 about him the entire satisfaction of his mind, that he had 
 constantly employed his strength and faculties in the de- 
 fense of liberty, and in direct opposition to slavery." Truly 
 he was an apostle of freedom; of freedom in the house, 
 in the state, in the church ; freedom of speech, freedom of 
 the press, yet in his own mind discriminated from savage 
 license, because that which he desired was the liberty of 
 the wise man containing itself in the limits of virtue. He 
 pushed, as far as any in that democratic age, his ideas of 
 civil liberty. He proposed to establish a republic, of which 
 the federal power was weak and loosely defined, and the 
 substantial power should remain with primary assemblies. 
 He maintained that a nation may try, judge, and slay their 
 king if he be a tyrant. He pushed as far his views of 
 ecclesiastical liberty. He taught the doctrine of unlimited 
 toleration. One of his tracts is writ to prove that no 
 power on earth can compel in matters of religion. He 
 maintained the doctrine of literary liberty, denouncing the 
 censorship of the press, and insisting that a book shall 
 come into the world as freely as a man, so only it bear the 
 name of author or printer, and be responsible for itself like 
 a man. He maintained the doctrine of domestic liberty, or 
 
JOHN MILTON. n 7 
 
 the liberty of divorce, on the ground that unfit disposition of 
 mind was a better reason for the act of divorce than infirmity 
 of body, which was good ground in law. The tracts he wrote 
 on these topics are, for the most part, as fresh and pertinent 
 to-day as they were then. The events which produced them, 
 the practical issues to which they tend, are mere occasions 
 for this philanthropist to blow his trumpet for human rights. 
 They are all varied applications of one principle, the liberty 
 of the wise man. He sought absolute truth, not accommo- 
 dating truth. His opinions on all subjects are formed for 
 man as he ought to be for a nation of Miltons. He would 
 be divorced when he finds in his consort unfit disposition, 
 knowing that he should not abuse that liberty, because with 
 his whole heart he abhors licentiousness and loves chastity. 
 He defends the slaying of the king, because a king is a 
 king no longer than he governs by the laws ; " it would be 
 right to kill Philip of Spain making an inroad into England, 
 and what right the King of Spain hath to govern us at all, 
 the same hath the King Charles to govern tyranically." He 
 would remove hirelings out of the Church, and support 
 preachers by voluntary contributions ; requiring that such 
 only should preach as have faith enough to accept so 
 self-denying and precarious a mode of life, scorning to 
 take thought for the aspects of prudence and expediency. 
 The most devout man of his time, he frequented no church ; 
 probably from a disgust at the fierce spirit of the pulpits. 
 And so, throughout all his actions and opinions, is he a 
 consistent spiritualist, or believer in the omnipotence of 
 spiritual laws. He wished that his writings should be 
 communicated only to those who desired to see them. He 
 thought nothing honest was low. He thought he could be 
 
'n8 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 famous only in proportion as he enjoyed the approbation 
 of the good. He admonished his friend "not to admire 
 military prowess, or things in which force is of most avail. 
 For it would not be matter of rational wonder if the 
 wethers of our country should be born with horns that 
 could batter down cities and towns. Learn to estimate 
 great characters, not by the amount of animal strength, 
 but by the habitual justice and temperance of their con- 
 duct." 
 
 Was there not a fitness in the undertaking of such a 
 person to write a poem on the subject of Adam, the first 
 man ? By his sympathy with all nature, by the proportion 
 of his powers, by great knowledge, and by religion, he 
 would reascend to the height from which our nature is 
 supposed to have descended. From a just knowledge of 
 what man should be, he described what he was. He be- 
 holds him as he walked in Eden : 
 
 " His fair large front and eye sublime declared 
 Absolute rule ; and hyacinthine locks 
 Round from his parted forelock manly hung 
 Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad." 
 
 And the soul of this divine creature is excellent as his 
 form. The tone of his thought and passion is as health- 
 ful, as even, and as vigorous as befits the new and perfect 
 model of a race of gods. 
 
 The perception we have attributed to Milton, of a purer 
 ideal of humanity, modifies his poetic genius. The man is 
 paramount to the poet. His fancy is never transcendent, 
 extravagant; but, as Bacon's imagination was said to be 
 " the noblest that ever contented itself to minister to the 
 
JOHN MILTON. II9 
 
 understanding," so Milton's ministers to character. Mil- 
 ton's sublimest song, bursting into heaven with its peals of 
 melodious thunder, is the voice of Milton still. Indeed, 
 throughout his poems one may see under a thin veil the 
 opinions, the feelings, even the incidents of the poet's life, 
 still reappearing. The sonnets are all occasional poems. 
 " L'Allegro " and " II Penseroso " are but a finer autobiog- 
 raphy of his youthful fancies at Harefield. The " Comus " 
 is but a transcript in charming numbers of that philosophy 
 of chastity which, in the " Apology for Smectymnuus," and 
 in the " Reason of Church Government," he declares to be 
 his defense and religion. The " Samson Agonistes " is too 
 broad an expression of his private griefs to be mistaken, 
 and is a version of the " Doctrine and Discipline of Di- 
 vorce." The most affecting passages in " Paradise Lost " 
 are personal allusions ; and, when we are fairly in Eden, 
 Adam and Milton are often difficult to be separated. Again, 
 in " Paradise Regained," we have the most distinct marks 
 of the progress of the poet's mind, in the revision and en- 
 largement of his religious opinions. This may be thought 
 to abridge his praise as a poet. It is true of Homer and 
 Shakespeare that they do not appear in their poems ; that 
 those prodigious geniuses did cast themselves so totally into 
 their song that their individuality vanishes, and the poet 
 towers to the sky, while the man quite disappears. The 
 fact is memorable. Shall we say that, in our admiration and 
 joy in these wonderful poems, we have even a feeling of 
 regret that the men knew not what they did ; that they 
 were too passive in their great service ; were channels 
 through which streams of thought flowed from a higher 
 source which they did not appropriate, did not blend with 
 
120 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 their own being. Like prophets, they seem but imperfectly 
 aware of the import of their own utterances. We hesitate 
 to say such things, and say them only to the unpleasing 
 dualism, when the man and the poet show like a double 
 consciousness. Perhaps we speak to no fact but to mere 
 fables of an idle mendicant, Homer ; and of a Shakespeare, 
 content with a mean and jocular way of life. Be it how it 
 may, the genius and office of Milton were different, namely, 
 to ascend by the aids of his learning and his religion by 
 an equal perception, that is, of the past and the future to 
 a higher insight and more lively delineation of the heroic 
 life of man. This was his poem ; whereof all his indignant 
 pamphlets and all his soaring verses are only single cantos 
 or detached stanzas. It was plainly needful that his poetry 
 should be a version of his own life, in order to give weight 
 and solemnity to his thoughts, by which they might pene- 
 trate and possess the imagination and the will of mankind. 
 The creations of Shakespeare are cast into the world of 
 thought, to no further end than to delight. Their intrinsic 
 beauty is their excuse for being. Milton, fired " with 
 dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of good things into 
 others," tasked his giant imagination and exhausted the 
 stores of his intellect for an end beyond, namely, to teach. 
 His own conviction it is which gives such authority to his 
 strain. Its reality is its force. If out of the heart it came, 
 to the heart it must go. What schools and epochs of com- 
 mon rhymers would it need to make a counterbalance to 
 the severe oracles of his muse ! 
 
 " In them is plainest taught and easiest learned, 
 What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so." 
 
JOHN MILTON. I2 i 
 
 The lover x of Milton reads one sense in his prose and in 
 his metrical compositions; and sometimes the muse soars 
 highest in the former, because the thought is more sincere. 
 Of his prose in general, not the style alone, but the argu- 
 ment also, is poetic ; according to Lord Bacon's definition 
 of poetry, following that of Aristotle, " Poetry, not finding 
 the actual world exactly conformed to its idea of good and 
 fair, seeks to accommodate the shows of things to the de- 
 sires of the mind, and to create an ideal world better than 
 the world of experience." Such certainly is the explanation 
 of Milton's tracts. Such is the apology to be entered for the 
 plea for freedom of divorce ; an essay which, from the first 
 until now, has brought a degree of obloquy on his name. It 
 was a sally of the extravagant spirit of the time overjoyed, as 
 in the French Revolution, with the sudden victories it had 
 gained, and eager to carry on the standard of truth to new 
 heights. It is to be regarded as a poem on one of the griefs 
 of man's condition, namely, unfit marriage. And as many 
 poems have been written upon unfit society, commending 
 solitude, yet have not been proceeded against, though their 
 end was hostile to the state, so should this receive that 
 charity which an angelic soul suffering more keenly than 
 others from the unavoidable evils of human life is en- 
 titled to. 
 
 We have offered no apology for expanding to such length 
 our commentary on the character of John Milton, who, in 
 old age, in solitude, in neglect, and blind, wrote the " Para- 
 dise Lost " a man whom labor or danger never deterred 
 from whatever efforts a love of the supreme interests of man 
 prompted. For are we not the better ; are not all men for- 
 tified by the remembrance of the bravery, the purity, the 
 
122 JOHN MILTON. 
 
 temperance, the toil, the independence, and the angelic 
 devotion of this man, who, in a revolutionary age, taking 
 counsel only of himself, endeavored in his writings and in 
 his life to carry out the life of man to new heights of 
 spiritual grace and dignity, without any abatement of its 
 strength ? 
 
THE 
 
 LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 " LIFE," says Sir William Temple, " is like wine ; he 
 who would drink it pure must not drain it to the dregs." 
 " I do not wish," Byron would say, " to live to become old." 
 The expression of the ancient poet, " that to die young is a 
 boon of Heaven to its favorites," was repeatedly quoted by 
 him with approbation. The certainty of a speedy release 
 he would call the only relief against burdens which could 
 not be borne were they not of very limited duration. 
 
 But the general sentiment of mankind declares length 
 of days to be desirable. After an active and successful 
 career, the repose of decline is serene and cheerful. By 
 common consent gray hairs are a crown of glory ; the only 
 object of respect that can never excite envy. The hour of 
 evening is not necessarily overcast ; and the aged man, ex- 
 changing the pursuits of ambition for the quiet of observa- 
 tion, the strife of public discussion for the diffuse but in- 
 structive language of experience, passes to the grave amid 
 grateful recollections and the tranquil enjoyment of satis- 
 fied desires. 
 
 The happy, it is agreed by all, are afraid to contemplate 
 their end ; the unhappy, it has been said, look forward to 
 it as a release from suffering. " I think of death often," 
 
I2 4 THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 said a distinguished but dissatisfied man ; " and I view it as 
 a refuge. There is something calm and soothing to me in 
 the thought ; and the only time that I feel repugnance to it 
 is on a fine day, in solitude, in a beautiful country, when all 
 nature seems rejoicing in light and life." 
 
 This is the language of self-delusion. Numerous as may 
 be the causes for disgust with life, its close is never contem- 
 plated with carelessness. Religion may elevate the soul to 
 a sublime reliance on a future existence ; nothing else can 
 do it. The love of honor may brave danger ; the passion 
 of melancholy may indulge an aversion to continued being ; 
 philosophy may take its last rest with composure ; the sense 
 of shame may conduct to fortitude ; yet they who would 
 disregard the grave must turn their thoughts from the con- 
 sideration of its terrors. It is an impulse of nature to strive 
 to preserve our being; and the longing can not be eradi- 
 cated. The mind may shun the contemplation of horrors ; 
 it may fortify itself by refusing to observe the nearness or 
 the extent of the impending evil ; but the instinct of life is 
 stubborn ; and he who looks directly at its termination and 
 professes indifference is a hypocrite or is self-deceived. He 
 that calls boldly upon Death is sure to be dismayed on find- 
 ing him near. The oldest are never so old, but they desire 
 life for one day longer ; the child looks to its parent as if to 
 discern a glimpse of hope ; even the infant, as it exhales its 
 breath, springs from its pillow to meet its mother as if there 
 were help where there is love. 
 
 There is a story told of one of the favorite marshals of 
 Napoleon, who, in a battle in the south of Germany, was 
 struck by a cannon-ball, and so severely wounded that there 
 was no possibility of a respite. Summoning the surgeon, 
 
THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. I25 
 
 he ordered his wounds to be dressed ; and, when aid was 
 declared to be unavailing, the dying officer clamorously de- 
 manded that Napoleon should be sent for, as one who had 
 power to stop the effusion of blood, and awe nature itself 
 into submission. Life expired amid maledictions and threats 
 heaped upon the innocent surgeon. This foolish frenzy 
 may have appeared like blasphemy ; it was but the uncon- 
 trolled outbreak of the instinct of self-preservation, in a 
 rough and undisciplined mind. 
 
 Even in men of strong religious convictions, the end is 
 not always met with serenity ; and the preacher and philoso- 
 pher sometimes express an apprehension which can not be 
 pacified. The celebrated British moralist, Samuel Johnson, 
 was the instructor of his age ; his works are full of the au- 
 stere lessons of reflecting wisdom. It might have been sup- 
 posed that religion would have reconciled him to the decree 
 of Providence ; that philosophy would have taught him to 
 acquiesce in a necessary issue ; that science would have in- 
 spired him with confidence in the skill of his medical attend- 
 ants. And yet it was not so. A sullen gloom overclouded 
 his faculties ; he could not summon resolution to tranquilize 
 his emotions; and, in the absence of his attendants, he 
 gashed himself with ghastly and debilitating wounds, as if 
 the blind lacerations of his misguided arm could prolong 
 the moments of an existence which the best physicians of 
 London declared to be numbered. 
 
 " Is there anything on earth I can do for you ? " said 
 Taylor to Wolcott, known as Peter Pindar, as he lay on his 
 death-bed. " Give me back my youth," were the last words 
 of the satirical buffoon. 
 
 If Johnson could hope for relief from self-inflicted 
 
126 THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 wounds, if the poet could prefer to his friend the useless 
 prayer for a restoration of youth, we may readily believe 
 what historians relate to us of the end of Louis XI. of 
 France, a monarch who was not destitute of eminent quali- 
 ties as well as repulsive vices ; possessing courage, a knowl- 
 edge of men and of business, an indomitable will, a dispo- 
 sition favorable to the administration of justice among his 
 subjects ; viewing impunity in wrong as exclusively a royal 
 prerogative. Remorse, fear, a consciousness of being de- 
 tected, disgust with life and horror of death these were the 
 sentiments which troubled the sick-couch of the absolute 
 king. The first of his line who bore the epithet of " the 
 most Christian," he was so abandoned to egotism that he 
 allowed the veins of children to be opened, and greedily 
 drank their blood ; believing, with physicians of that day, 
 that it would renovate his youth, or at least check the decay 
 of nature. The cruelty was useless. At last, feeling the 
 approach of death to be certain, he sent for an anchorite 
 from Calabria, since revered as St. Francis de Paula ; and, 
 when the hermit arrived, the monarch of France entreated 
 him to spare his life. He threw himself at the feet of the 
 man who was believed to derive healing virtues from the 
 sanctity of his character ; he begged the intercession of his 
 prayers ; he wept, he supplicated, he hoped that the voice 
 of a Calabrian monk would reverse the order of nature, and 
 successfully plead for his respite. 
 
 We find the love of life still more strongly acknowledged 
 by an English poet, who, after describing our being as the 
 dream of a shadow, " a weak-built isthmus between two 
 eternities, so frail that it can sustain neither wind nor wave," 
 yet avows his preference of a few days', nay, of a few hours' 
 
THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 127 
 
 longer residence upon earth, to all the fame which poetry 
 
 can achieve. 
 
 " Fain would I see that prodigal, 
 
 Who his to-morrow would bestow, 
 For all old Homer's life, e'er since he died, till now." 
 
 We do not believe the poet sincere, for one passion may 
 prevail over another, and in many a breast the love of fame 
 is at times, if not always, the strongest. But if those who 
 pass their lives in a struggle for glory may desire the attain- 
 ment of their object at any price, the competitors for politi- 
 cal power are apt to cling fast to the scene of their rivalry. 
 Lord Castlereagh could indeed commit suicide ; but it was 
 not from disgust ; his mind dwelt on the precarious condi- 
 tion of his own elevation, and the unsuccessful policy in 
 which he had involved his country. He did not love death ; 
 he did not contemplate it with indifference ; .he failed to 
 observe its terrors, because his attention was absorbed by 
 apprehensions which pressed themselves upon him with un- 
 relenting force. 
 
 The ship of the Marquis of Badajoz, Viceroy of Peru, 
 was set on fire by Captain Stayner. The Marchioness, and 
 her daughter, who was betrothed to the Duke of Medina- 
 Celi, swooned in the flames, and could not be rescued. The 
 Marquis resigned himself also to die, rather than survive 
 with the memory of such horrors. It was not that he was 
 careless of life ; the natural feelings remained unchanged ; 
 the love of grandeur, the pride of opulence and dominion ; 
 but he preferred death, because that was out of sight, and 
 would rescue him from the presence of absorbing and in- 
 tolerable sorrows. 
 
 Madame de Sevigne, in her charming letters, gives the 
 
i 2 8 THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT 'MEN. 
 
 true sensations of the ambitious man when suddenly called 
 to leave the scenes of his efforts and his triumphs. Rumor, 
 with its wonted credulity, ascribed to Louvois, the powerful 
 minister of Louis XIV., the crime of suicide. His death 
 was sudden, but not by his own arm ; he fell a victim, if 
 not to disease, to the revenge of a woman. In a night the 
 most energetic, reckless statesman in Europe, passionately 
 fond of place, extending his influence to every cabinet, and 
 embracing in his views the destiny of continents, was called 
 away. How much business was arrested in progress ! how 
 many projects defeated ! how many secrets buried in the 
 silence of the grave ! Who should disentangle the interests 
 which his policy had rendered complicate ? Who should 
 terminate the wars which he had begun ? Who should fol- 
 low up the blows which he had aimed ? Well might he 
 have exclaimed to the angel of death : u Ah, grant me a 
 short reprieve ; spare me till I can check the Duke of Sa- 
 voy ; checkmate the Prince of Orange ! " " No ! no ! You 
 shall not have a single, single minute." Death is as in- 
 exorable to the prayer of ambition as to the entreaty of 
 despair. The ruins of the Palatinate, the wrongs of the 
 Huguenots, were to be avenged; and Louvois, like Louis 
 XI. and like the rest of mankind, was to learn that the pas- 
 sion for life, whether expressed in the language of supersti- 
 tion, of abject despondency, or of the desire of continued 
 power, could not prolong existence for a moment. 
 
 But, though the love of life may be declared a universal 
 instinct, it does not follow that death is usually met with 
 abjectness. It belongs to virtue and to manliness to accept 
 the inevitable decree with firmness. It is often sought vol- 
 untarily, but even then the latent passion is discernible. A 
 
THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 129 
 
 sense of shame, a desire of plunder, a hope of emolument 
 these, not less than a sense of duty, are motives sufficient to 
 influence men to defy all danger; yet the feeling for self- 
 preservation does not cease to exert its power. The com- 
 mon hireling soldier contracts to expose himself to the 
 deadly fire of a hostile army whenever his employers may 
 command it ; he does it, in a controversy of which he knows 
 not the merits, for a party to which he is essentially indiffer- 
 ent, for purposes which, perhaps, if his mind were enlight- 
 ened, he would labor to counteract. The life of the soldier 
 is a life of contrast ; of labor and idleness ; it is a course of 
 routine, easy to be endured, and leading only at intervals to 
 exposure. The love of ease, the certainty of obtaining the 
 means of existence, the remoteness of peril, conspire to 
 tempt adventurers, and the armies of Europe have never 
 suffered from any other limit than the wants of the treasury. 
 But the same soldier would fly precipitately from any hazard 
 which he had not bargained to encounter. The merchant 
 will visit the deadliest climates in pursuit of gain ; he will 
 pass over regions where the air is known to be corrupt, and 
 disease to have anchored itself in the hot, heavy atmosphere. 
 And this he will attempt repeatedly, and with firmness, in 
 defiance of the crowds of corpses which he may see carried 
 by wagon-loads to the graveyards. But the same merchant 
 would be struck by panic and desert his own residence in 
 a more favored clime, should it be invaded by epidemic 
 disease. He who would fearlessly meet the worst forms of 
 a storm at sea, and take his chance of escaping the fever as 
 he passed through New Orleans, would shun New York in 
 the season of the cholera, and shrink from any danger which 
 was novel and unexpected. The widows of India ascend 
 9 
 
130 
 
 THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 the funeral-pile with a fortitude which man could never 
 display, and emulously yield up their lives to a barbarous 
 usage which, if men had been called upon to endure it, 
 would never have been perpetuated. Yet is it to be sup- 
 posed that these unhappy victims are indifferent to the 
 charms of existence, or blind to the terrors of its extinction ? 
 Calmly as they may lay themselves upon the pyre, they 
 would beg for mercy were their execution to be demanded 
 in any other way ; they would confess their fear were it not 
 that love and honor and custom confirm their doom. 
 
 No class of men in the regular discharge of duty incur 
 danger more frequently than the honest physician. There 
 is no type of malignant maladies with which he fails to be- 
 come acquainted, no hospital so crowded with contagion 
 that he dares not walk freely through its wards. His voca- 
 tion is among the sick and the dying; he is the familiar 
 friend of those who are sinking under infectious disease ; 
 and he never shrinks from the horror of observing it under 
 all its aspects. He must do so with equanimity ; as he in- 
 hales the poisoned atmosphere, he must coolly reflect on 
 the medicines which may mitigate the sufferings that he can 
 not remedy. Nay, after death has ensued, he must search 
 with the dissecting-knife for its hidden cause, if so by mul- 
 tiplying his own perils he may discover some alleviation for 
 the afflictions of others. And why is this? Because the 
 physician is indifferent to death ? Because he is steeled 
 and hardened against the fear of it ? Because he despises 
 or pretends to despise it ? By no means. It is his especial 
 business to value life, to cherish the least spark of animated 
 existence. And the habit of caring for the lives of his 
 fellow men is far from leading him to an habitual indiffer- 
 
THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 13 x 
 
 ence to his own. The physician shuns every danger but 
 such as the glory of his profession commands him to defy. 
 
 Thus we are led to explain the anomaly of suicide, and 
 reconcile the apparent contradiction of a terror of death, 
 which is yet voluntarily encountered. It may seem a para- 
 dox ; but the dread of dying has itself sometimes prompted 
 suicide, and the man who seeks to destroy himself, at the 
 very moment of perpetrating his crime betrays the passion 
 for life. Menace him 'with death under a different form 
 from that which he has chosen, and, like other men, he will 
 get out of its way. He will defend himself against the as- 
 sassin, though he might be ready to cut his own throat ; he 
 will, if at sea, and the ship were sinking in a storm, labor 
 with his whole strength to save it from going down, even if 
 he had formed the design to leap into the ocean in the first 
 moment of a calm. Place him in the van of an army, it is 
 by no means certain that he will not prove a coward ; tell 
 him the cholera is about to rage, and he will deluge himself 
 with preventive remedies ; send him to a house visited with 
 yellow fever, and he will steep himself in vinegar and carry 
 with him an atmosphere of camphor. It is only under the 
 one form, which the mind in some insane excitement may 
 have chosen, that he preserves the desire to leave the world. 
 
 It will not be difficult, then, to set a right value on the 
 declaration of those who profess to regard death not with 
 indifference merely but with contempt. It is pure affecta- 
 tion, or the indulgence of a vulgar levity ; and must excite 
 either compassion or disgust, according as it is marked by 
 the spirit of fiendish scoffing or of human vanity and self- 
 deception. A French moralist tells us of a valet who danced 
 merrily on the scaffold, where he was to be broken on the 
 
I 3 2 
 
 THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 wheel. A New England woman, belonging to a family which 
 esteemed itself one of the first, was convicted of aiding her 
 paramour to kill her husband. She was a complete sensu- 
 alist, one to whom life was everything, and the loss of it the 
 total shipwreck of everything. On her way to the place of 
 execution she was accompanied by a clergyman of no very 
 great ability ; and all along the road, with the gallows in 
 plain sight, she amused herself in teasing the good man, 
 whose wits were no match for her raillery. He had been 
 buying a new chaise, quite an event in the life of a humble 
 country pastor, and when he spoke of the next world she 
 would amuse herself in praising his purchase. If he deplored 
 her fate and her prospects, she would grieve at his exposure 
 to the inclement weather, and laughed and chatted as if she 
 had been driving to a wedding and not to her own funeral. 
 And why was this ? Because death was not feared ? No ; 
 "but because death was feared, and feared intensely. The 
 Eastern women, who are burned alive with their deceased 
 husbands, often utter shrieks that would pierce the hearers 
 to the soul ; and, to prevent a compassion which would en- 
 danger the reign of superstition, the priests, with drums and 
 cymbals, drown the terrific cries of their victims. So it is 
 with those who go to the court of the King of Terrors with 
 merriment on their lips. They dread his presence, and they 
 seek to drown the noise of his approaching footsteps by the 
 sound of their own ribaldry. If the scaffold often rings with 
 a jest, it is because the mind shrinks from the solemnity of 
 the impending change. 
 
 Perhaps the most common device for averting contem- 
 plation from death itself is, in directing it to the manner of 
 dying. Vanitas vanitatum ! Vanity does not give up its 
 
THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 133 
 
 hold on the last hour. Men wish to die with distinction, to 
 be buried in state ; and the last thoughts are employed on 
 the decorum of the moment, or in the anticipation of funeral 
 splendors. It was no uncommon thing among the Romans 
 for a rich man to appoint an heir, on condition that his ob- 
 sequies should be celebrated with costly pomp. " When I 
 am dead," said an Indian chief, who fell into his last sleep 
 at Washington " when I am dead let the big guns be fired 
 over me." The words were thought worthy of being en- 
 graved on his tomb ; but they are no more than a plain ex- 
 pression of a very common passion ; the same which leads 
 the humblest to desire that at least a stone may be placed 
 at the head of his grave, and demands the erection of splen- 
 did mausoleums and costly tombs for the mistaken men 
 
 " Who by the proofs of death pretend to live." 
 
 Among the ancients, an opulent man, while yet in health, 
 would order his own sarcophagus; and nowadays the wealthy 
 sometimes build their own tombs, for the sake of securing a 
 satisfactory monument. A vain man, who had done this at 
 a great expense, showed his motive so plainly that his neigh- 
 bors laughed with the sexton of the parish, who wished that 
 the builder might not be kept long out of the interest of his 
 money. 
 
 But it is not merely in the decorations of the grave that 
 vanity is displayed. Saladin, in his last illness, instead of his 
 usual standard, ordered his shroud to be uplifted in front of 
 his tent ; and the herald, who hung out this winding-sheet 
 as a flag, was commanded to exclaim aloud : " Behold ! this 
 is all which Saladin, the vanquisher of the East, carries away 
 of all his conquests." He was wrong there. He came naked 
 
i 3 4 THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 into the world, and he left it naked. Grave-clothes were a 
 superfluous luxury, and, to the person receiving them, as 
 barren of comfort as his scepter or his scimitar. Saladin was 
 vain. He sought in dying to contrast the power he had en- 
 joyed with the feebleness of his condition ; to pass from the 
 world in a striking antithesis; to make his death-scene an 
 epigram. All was vanity. 
 
 A century ago it was the fashion for culprits to appear 
 on the scaffold in the dress of dandies. Some centuries 
 before it was the privilege of noblemen, if they merited 
 hanging, to escape the gallows and perish on the block. 
 The Syrian priests had foretold to the emperor Helio- 
 gabalus that he would be reduced to the necessity of 
 committing suicide ; believing them true prophets, he kept 
 in readiness silken cords and a sword of gold. Admirable 
 privilege of the nobility, to be beheaded instead of hanged ! 
 Enviable prerogative of imperial dignity, to be strangled 
 with a knot of silk or to be assassinated with a golden 
 sword ! 
 
 " ' Odious ! in woolen ! 'twould a saint provoke ' 
 (Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke). 
 ' No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace 
 Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face ; 
 One would not sure be frightful when one's dead, 
 And Betty give this cheek a little red.' " 
 
 The example chosen by the poet extended to appear- 
 ances after death ; for the presence of the same weakness 
 in the hour of mortality we must look to the precincts 
 of courts, where folly used to reign by prescriptive right ; 
 where caprice gives law and pleasures consume life. There 
 
THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 135 
 
 you may witness the harlot's euthanasia. The French 
 court was at Choisy when Madame de Pompadour felt 
 the pangs of a fatal malady. It had been the established 
 etiquette that none but princes and persons of royal blood 
 should breathe their last in Versailles. Proclaim to the 
 gay circles of Paris that a thing new and unheard-of is to 
 be permitted! Announce to the world that the rules of 
 palace propriety and Bourbon decorum are to be broken ! 
 that the chambers where vice had fearlessly lived and 
 laughed, but never been permitted to expire, were to admit 
 the novel spectacle of the King's favorite mistress struggling 
 with death ! 
 
 The Marchioness questioned the physicians firmly ; she 
 perceived their hesitation ; she saw the hand that beckoned 
 her away ; and she determined, says the historian, to depart 
 in the pomp of a queen. Louis XV., himself not capable 
 of a strong emotion, was yet willing to concede to his 
 dying friend the consolation which she coveted, the oppor- 
 tunity to reign till her parting gasp. The courtiers thronged 
 round the death-bed of a woman who distributed favors 
 with the last exhalations of her breath ; and the King hur- 
 ried to name to public offices the persons whom her falter- 
 ing accents recommended. Her sick-room became a scene 
 of state ; the princes and grandees still entered to pay their 
 homage to the woman whose power did not yield to mortal 
 disease, and were surprised to find her richly attired. The 
 traces of death in her countenance were concealed by 
 rouge. She reclined on a splendid couch ; questions of 
 public policy were discussed by ministers in her presence; 
 she gloried in holding to the end the reins of the kingdom 
 in her hands. Even a sycophant clergy showed respect to 
 
I 
 
 136 THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 the expiring favorite, and felt no shame at sanctioning with 
 their frequent visits the vices of a woman who had entered 
 the palace only as an adulteress. Having complied with 
 the rites of the Roman Church, she next sought the appro- 
 bation of the philosophers. She lisped no word of peni- 
 tence ; she shed no tears of regret. The Curate left her as 
 she was in the agony. " Wait a moment," said she ; " we 
 will leave the house together." 
 
 The dying mistress was worshiped while she breathed ; 
 hardly was she dead when the scene changed : two domes- 
 tics carried out her body on a hand-barrow from the palace 
 to her private home. The King stood at the window look- 
 ing at the clouds as her remains were carried by. " The Mar- 
 chioness," said he, "will have bad weather on her journey." 
 
 The flickering lamp blazes with unusual brightness just 
 as it goes out. "The fit gives vigor, as it destroys." He 
 who has but a moment remaining is released from the com- 
 mon motives 'for dissimulation ; and Time, that lays his 
 hand on everything else, destroying beauty, undermining 
 health, and wasting the powers of life, spares the ruling 
 passion, which is connected with the soul itself. That 
 passion 
 
 " . . . . sticks to our last sand. 
 Consistent in our follies and our sins, 
 Here honest Nature ends as she begins." 
 
 Napoleon expired during the raging of a whirlwind, and 
 his last words showed that his thoughts were in the battle- 
 field. The meritorious author of the " Memoir of Cabot," 
 a work which in accuracy and in extensive research is very 
 far superior to most late treatises on maritime discovery, 
 
THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 137 
 
 tells us that the discoverer of our continent, in an halluci- 
 nation before his death, believed himself again on the ocean, 
 once more steering in quest of adventure over waves which 
 knew him as the steed knows its rider. How many a gentle 
 eye has been dimmed with tears as it read the fabled fate 
 of Fergus Maclvor ! Not inferior to the admirable hero of 
 the romance was the Marquis of Montrose, who had fought 
 for the Stuarts and fell into the hands of the Presbyterians. 
 His head and his limbs were ordered to be severed from 
 his body, and to be hanged on the Tolbooth in Edinburgh 
 and in other public towns of the kingdom. He listened to 
 the sentence with the pride of loyalty and the fierce anger 
 of a generous defiance. " I wish," he exclaimed, " I had 
 flesh enough to be sent to every city in Christendom, as a 
 testimony to the cause for which I suffer." 
 
 But let us take an example of sublimer virtue, such as 
 we find in a statesman who lived without a stain from youth 
 to maturity, and displayed an unwavering consistency to 
 the last ; a hero in civil life, who was in some degree our 
 own. It becomes America to take part in rescuing from 
 undeserved censure the names and the memory of victims 
 to the unconquerable love of republican liberty. 
 
 " Vane, young in years, in counsel old : to know 
 Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, 
 
 What severs each, thou'st learned, which few have done. 
 The bounds of either sword to thee we owe ; 
 
 Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans 
 In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son." 
 
 He that would discern the difference between magnani- 
 mous genius and a shallow wit may compare this splendid 
 
138 THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 eulogy of Milton with the superficial levity in the commen- 
 tary of Warton. It is a fashion to call Sir Heiwry Vane a 
 fanatic. And what is fanaticism ? True, he was a rigid 
 Calvinist. True, he has written an obscure book on the 
 mystery of godliness, of which all that we understand is 
 excellent, and we may therefore infer that the vein of the 
 rest is good. But does this prove him a fanatic ? If to be 
 the uncompromising defender of civil and religious liberty 
 be fanaticism ; if to forgive injuries be fanaticism ; if to be- 
 lieve that the mercy of God extends to all his creatures, and 
 may reach even the angels of darkness, be fanaticism ; if to 
 have earnestly supported in the Long Parliament the free- 
 dom of conscience ; if to have repeatedly, boldly, and zeal- 
 ously interposed to check the persecution of Roman Catho- 
 lics ; if to have labored that the sect which he least approved 
 should enjoy their property in security and be safe from all 
 penal enactments for nonconformity ; if in his public life 
 to have pursued a career of firm, conscientious, disinterested 
 consistency, never wavering, never trimming, never chang- 
 ing if all this be fanaticism, then was Sir Harry Vane a 
 fanatic. Not otherwise. The people of Massachusetts de- 
 clined to continue him in office ; and when his power in 
 England was great, he requited the colony with the benefits 
 of his favoring influence. He resisted the arbitrariness of 
 Charles I., but would not sit as one of his judges. He op- 
 posed the tyranny of Cromwell. When that extraordinary 
 man entered the House of Commons to break up the Par- 
 liament which was about to pass laws that would have en- 
 dangered his supremacy, Vane rebuked him for his purpose 
 of treason. When the musketeers invaded the hall of de- 
 bate, and others were silent, Vane exclaimed to the most 
 
THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 139 
 
 despotic man in Europe : " This is not honest. It is against 
 morality and common honesty." Well might Cromwell, since 
 his designs were criminal, reply : " Sir Henry Vane ! Sir 
 Henry Vane ! The Lord deliver me from Sir Henry 
 Vane ! " 
 
 Though Vane suffered from the usurpation of the Pro- 
 tector, he lived to see the Restoration. On the return of 
 the Stuarts, like Lafayette among the Bourbons, he remained 
 the stanch enemy of tyranny. The austere patriot whom 
 Cromwell had feared struck terror into the hearts of a faith- 
 less and licentious court. It was resolved to destroy him. 
 In a different age or country the poisoned cup, or the knife 
 of the assassin, might have been used ; in that season of 
 corrupt influence a judicial murder was resolved upon. His 
 death was a deliberate crime, contrary to the royal promise ; 
 contrary to the express vote of "the healing Parliament"; 
 contrary to law, to equity, to the evidence. But it suited 
 the designs of a monarch who feared to be watched by a 
 statesman of incorruptible elevation of character. The 
 night before his execution he enjoyed the society of his 
 family as if he had been reposing in his own mansion. The 
 next morning he was beheaded. The least concession would 
 have saved him. If he had only consented to deny the 
 supremacy of Parliament the King would have restrained 
 the malignity of his hatred. " Ten thousand deaths for 
 me," exclaimed Vane, " ere I will stain the purity of my 
 conscience." Historians report that life was dear to him; 
 he submitted to his end with the firmness of a patriot, the 
 serenity of a Christian. 
 
 " ' I give and I devise ' (old Euclio said, 
 
 And sighed) ' my lands and tenements to Ned.' 
 
I 4 o THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 ' Your money, sir ? ' ' My money, sir ! what, all ? 
 ' Why, if I must ' (then wept), ' I give it Paul.' 
 ' The manor, sir ? ' ' The manor ! hold,' he cried, 
 ' Not that I can not part with that ' and died." 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, upon his death-bed, sent for Savo- 
 narola to receive his confession and grant him absolution. 
 The severe anchorite questioned the dying sinner with un- 
 sparing rigor. " Do you believe entirely in the mercy of 
 God?" "Yes, I feel it in my heart." "Are you truly 
 ready to restore all the possessions and estates which you 
 have unjustly acquired?" The dying Duke hesitated; he 
 counted up in his mind the sums which he had hoarded ; 
 delusion whispered that nearly all had been so honestly 
 gained that the sternest censor would strike but little from 
 his opulence. The pains of hell were threatened if he 
 denied, and he gathered courage to reply that he was ready 
 to make restitution. Once more the unyielding priest re- 
 sumed his inquisition. " Will you resign the sovereignty of 
 Florence, and restore the democracy of the republic ? " 
 Lorenzo, like Macbeth, had acquired a crown ; but, unlike 
 Macbeth, he saw sons of his own about to become his suc- 
 cessors. He gloried in the hope of being the father of 
 princes, the founder of a line of hereditary sovereigns. 
 Should he crush this brilliant expectation and tremble at 
 the wild words of a visionary ? Should he who had reigned 
 as a monarch stoop to die as a merchant? No! though 
 hell itself were opening beneath his bed. " Not that ! I 
 can not part with that." Savonarola left his bedside with 
 indignation, and Lorenzo died without shrift. 
 
 " And you, brave Cobham, to the latest breath, 
 Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death, 
 
THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 141 
 
 Such in those moments, as in all the past 
 
 ' Oh, save my country, Heaven ! ' shall be your last." 
 
 Like this was the exclamation of the patriot Quincy, 
 whose virtues have been fitly commemorated by the pious 
 reverence of his son. The celebrated Admiral Blake 
 breathed his last as he came in sight of England, happy in 
 at least descrying the land of which he had advanced the 
 glory by his brilliant victories. Quincy died as he ap- 
 proached the coast of Massachusetts. He loved his family ; 
 but at that moment he gave his whole soul to the cause of 
 freedom. " Oh, that I might live " it was his dying wish 
 " to render to my country one last service ! " 
 
 The coward falls panic-stricken ; the superstitious man 
 dies with visions of terror floating before his fancy. It has 
 even happened that a man has been in such dread of eternal 
 woe as to cut his throat in his despair. The phenomenon 
 seems strange ; but the fact is unquestionable. The giddy, 
 that are near a precipice, totter toward the brink which 
 they would shun. Everybody remembers the atheism and 
 bald sensuality of the septuagenarian Alexander VI. ; and 
 the name of his natural son, Caesar Borgia, is a proverb, as a 
 synonym for the most vicious selfishness. Let one tale, of 
 which Macchiavelli attests the truth, set forth the deep base- 
 ness of a cowardly nature. Borgia had, by the most solemn 
 oaths, induced the Duke of Gravina, Oliverotto, Vitellozzo 
 Vitelli, and another, to meet him in Sinigaglia, for the pur- 
 pose of forming a treaty, and then issued the order for the 
 massacre of Oliverotto and Vitelli. Can it be believed ? 
 Vitelli, as he expired, begged of the infamous Borgia, his as- 
 sassin, to obtain of Alexander a dispensation for his omis- 
 sions, a release from purgatory. 
 
i 4 2 THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 The death-bed of Cromwell himself was not free from 
 superstition. When near his end, he asked if the elect could 
 never fall. " Never," replied Godwin the preacher. " Then 
 I am safe," said the man whose last years had been stained 
 by cruelty and tyranny ; " for I am sure I was once in a 
 state of grace." 
 
 Ximenes languished from disappointment at the loss of 
 power and the want of royal favor. A smile from Louis 
 would have cheered the death-bed of Racine. 
 
 In a brave mind the love of honor endures to the last. 
 " Don't give up the ship ! " cried Lawrence, as his life-blood 
 was flowing in torrents. Abimelech groaned that he fell ig- 
 nobly by the hand of a woman. We have ever admired the 
 gallant death of Sir Richard Grenville, who, in a single ship, 
 encountered a numerous fleet ; and, when mortally wounded, 
 husbanded his strength till he could summon his victors to 
 bear testimony to his courage and his patriotism. " Here 
 die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyous and quiet mind, for 
 that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, 
 fighting for his country, queen, religion, and honor." 
 
 The public has been instructed through the press in the 
 details of the treason of Benedict Arnold, by an inquirer, 
 who has compassed earth and sea in search of historic truth, 
 and has merited the applause of his country, not less for 
 candor and judgment, than for diligence and ability. The 
 victim of the intrigue was Andre. The mind of the young 
 soldier revolted at the service of treachery in which he had 
 become involved, and, holding a stain upon honor to be 
 worse than the forfeiture of life, he shuddered at the sight 
 of the gallows, but not at the thought of dying. He felt the 
 same sentiment which made death welcome to Nelson and 
 
THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 143 
 
 to Wolfe, to whom it came with glory and victory for its 
 companions ; but for Andre the keen sense of honor added 
 bitterness to the cup of affliction by exciting fear lest the 
 world should take the manner of his execution as evidence 
 of merited opprobrium. 
 
 Finally : he who has a good conscience and a well-bal- 
 anced mind meets death with calmness, resignation, and hope. 
 Saint Louis died among the ruins of Carthage a Christian 
 king, laboring in vain to expel the religion of Mohammed 
 from the spot where Dido had planted the gods of Syria. 
 " My friends," said he, " I have finished my course. Do 
 not mourn for me. It is natural that I, as your chief and 
 leader, should go before you. You must follow me. Keep 
 yourselves in readiness for the journey." Then, giving his 
 son his blessing and the best advice, he received the sacra- 
 ment, closed his eyes, and died as he was repeating from the 
 Psalms : " I will come into thy house ; I will worship in thy 
 holy temple." 
 
 The Curate of St. Sulpice asked the confessor who had 
 shrived Montesquieu on his death-bed if the penitent had 
 given satisfaction. " Yes," replied Father Roust, " like a man 
 of genius." The Curate was displeased; unwilling to leave 
 the dying man a moment of tranquillity, he addressed him, 
 " Sir, are you truly conscious of the greatness of God ? " 
 " Yes," said the departing philosopher, " and of the littleness 
 of man." 
 
 How calm were the last moments of Cuvier ! Benevo- 
 lence of feeling and self-possession diffused serenity round 
 the hour of his passing away. Confident that the hand of 
 death was upon him, he yet submitted to the application of 
 remedies, that he might gratify his more hopeful friends. 
 
I 44 THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 
 
 They had recourse to leeches ; and with delightful simplicity 
 the great naturalist observed, // was he who had discovered 
 that leeches possess red blood. The discovery, which he made 
 in his youth, had been communicated to the public in the 
 memoir that first gained him celebrity. The thoughts of the 
 dying naturalist recurred to the scenes of his early life, to 
 the coast of Normandy, where, in the solitude of conscious 
 genius, he had roamed by the side of the ocean, and achieved 
 fame by observing the wonders of animal life which are 
 nourished in its depths. He remembered his years of pov- 
 erty, the sullen rejection which his first claims for advance- 
 ment had received, and all the vicissitudes through which 
 he had been led to the highest distinctions in science. The 
 son of the Wiirtemberg soldier, of too feeble a frame to em- 
 brace the profession of his father, had found his way to the 
 secrets of nature. The man who, in his own province, had 
 been refused the means of becoming the village pastor of an 
 ignorant peasantry, had succeeded in charming the most 
 polished circles of Paris by the clearness of his descriptions, 
 and commanding the attention of the Deputies of France by 
 the grace and fluency of his elocution. And now he was 
 calmly predicting his departure ; his respiration became 
 rapid, and his head fell as if he were in meditation. Thus 
 his soul passed to its Creator without a struggle. " Those 
 who entered afterward would have thought that the noble 
 old man, seated in his arm-chair by the fireplace, was 
 asleep, and would have walked softly across the room 
 for fear of disturbing him." Heaven had but "recalled its 
 own." 
 
 The death of Haller himself was equally tranquil. When 
 its hour approached, he watched the ebbing of life and con- 
 
THE LAST MOMENTS OF EMINENT MEN. 145 
 
 tinned to observe the beating of his pulse till sensation was 
 gone. 
 
 A tranquil death becomes the man of science, or the 
 scholar. He should cultivate letters to the last moment of 
 life ; he should resign public honors as calmly as one would 
 take off a domino on returning from a mask. He should 
 listen to the signal for his departure, not with exultation, 
 and not with indifference. Respecting the dread solemnity 
 of the change, and reposing in hope on the bosom of death, 
 he should pass, without boldness and without fear, from the 
 struggles of inquiry to the certainty of knowledge, from a 
 world of doubt to a world of truth. 
 10 
 
PETER THE GREAT* 
 
 ONE day, in the year 1697, the great Duke of Marl- 
 borough happened to be in the village of Saardam. He 
 visited the dockyard of one Mynheer Calf, a rich ship- 
 builder, and was struck with the appearance of a jour- 
 neyman at work there. He was a large, powerful man, 
 dressed in a red woolen shirt and duck trousers, with a 
 sailor's hat, and seated, with an adze in his hand, upon a 
 rough log of timber which lay on the ground. The man's 
 features were bold and regular, his dark brown hair fell in 
 natural curls about his neck, his complexion was strong and 
 ruddy, with veins somewhat distended, indicating an ardent 
 temperament and more luxurious habits than comported 
 with his station ; and his dark, keen eye glanced from one 
 object to another with remarkable restlessness. He was 
 engaged in earnest conversation with some strangers, whose 
 remarks he occasionally interrupted, while he rapidly ad- 
 dressed them in a guttural but not unmusical voice. As he 
 became occasionally excited in conversation, his features 
 
 * i. La Russia en 1839. Par le Marquis de Custine. 4 vols. 
 Seconde edition, revue, corrigee, et augmentee. Paris. 1843. 
 
 2. A Memoir of the Life of Peter the Great. By John Barrow, Esq., 
 Secretary to the Admiralty. New York : Harper & Brothers. 1839. 
 
PETER THE GREAT. I47 
 
 twitched convulsively, the blood rushed to his forehead, his 
 arms were tossed about with extreme violence of gesticula- 
 tion, and he seemed constantly upon the point of giving way 
 to some explosion of passion, or else of falling into a fit 
 of catalepsy. His companions, however, did not appear 
 alarmed by his vehemence, although they seemed to treat 
 him with remarkable deference ; and, after a short time, his 
 distorted features would resume their symmetry and agree- 
 able expression, his momentary frenzy would subside, and a 
 bright smile would light up his whole countenance. 
 
 The Duke inquired the name of this workman, and was 
 told it was one Pieter Baas, a foreign journeyman of remark- 
 able mechanical abilities and great industry. Approaching, 
 he entered into some slight conversation with him upon 
 matters pertaining to his craft. While they were convers- 
 ing a stranger of foreign mien and costume appeared, hold- 
 ing a voluminous letter in his hand ; the workman started 
 up, snatched it from his hand, tore off the seals and greedily 
 devoured its contents, while the stately Marlborough walked 
 away unnoticed. The Duke was well aware that, in this 
 thin disguise, he saw the Czar of Muscovy. Pieter Baas, 
 or Boss Peter, or Master Peter, was Peter the despot of all 
 the Russias, a man who, having just found himself the un- 
 disputed proprietor of a quarter of the globe with all its in- 
 habitants, had opened his eyes to the responsibilities of his 
 position, and had voluntarily descended from his throne for 
 the noble purpose of qualifying himself to reascend it. 
 
 The empire of Russia, at this moment more than twice 
 as large as Europe, having a considerable extent of seacoasts, 
 with flourishing commercial havens both upon the Baltic 
 and the Black Seas, and a chain of internal communication, 
 
148 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 by canal and river, connecting them both with the Caspian 
 and the Volga, was at the accession of Peter I. of quite suf- 
 ficient dimensions for any reasonable monarch's ambition, 
 but of most unfortunate geographical position. Shut off 
 from civilized western Europe by vast and thinly peopled 
 forests and plains, having for neighbors only " the sledded 
 Polack," the Turk, the Persian, and the Chinese, and touch- 
 ing nowhere upon the ocean, that great highway of civiliza- 
 tion- the ancient empire of the Czars seemed always in a 
 state of suffocation. Remote from the sea, it was a mam- 
 moth without lungs, incapable of performing the functions 
 belonging to its vast organization, and presenting to the 
 world the appearance of a huge, incomplete, and inert mass, 
 waiting the advent of some new Prometheus to inspire it 
 with life and light. 
 
 Its capital, the bizarre and fantastic Moscow, with its 
 vast, turreted, and venerable Kremlin its countless church- 
 es, with their flashing spires and clustering and turbaned 
 minarets glittering in green, purple, and gold ; its mosques, 
 with the cross supplanting the crescent ; its streets swarming 
 with bearded merchants and ferocious Janizaries, while its 
 female population were immured and invisible was a true 
 type of the empire, rather Asiatic than European, and yet 
 compounded of both. 
 
 The government, too, was far more Oriental than Euro- 
 pean in its character. The Normans had, to be sure, in 
 the eleventh century taken possession of the Russian gov- 
 ernment with the same gentlemanlike effrontery with which, 
 at about the same time, they had seated themselves upon 
 every throne in Europe ; and the crown of Ruric had been 
 transmitted like the other European crowns for many gen- 
 
PETER THE GREAT. I49 
 
 erations, till it descended through a female branch upon the 
 head of the Romanoffs, the ancestors of Peter and the 
 present imperial family. But though there might be said to 
 be an established dynasty, the succession to the throne was 
 controlled by the Strelitzes, the licentious and ungovernable 
 soldiery of the capital, as much as the Turkish or Roman 
 Empire by the Janizaries or pretorians ; and the history of 
 the government was but a series of palace-revolutions, in 
 which the sovereign, the tool alternately of the priesthood 
 and the body-guard, was elevated, deposed, or strangled, 
 according to the prevalence of different factions in the 
 capital. The government was in fact, as it has been epi- 
 grammatically characterized, " a despotism tempered by as- 
 sassination." 
 
 The father of Peter I., Alexis Michaelovitch, had indeed 
 projected reforms in various departments of the govern- 
 ment. He seems to have been, to a certain extent, aware 
 of the capacity of his empire, and to have had some faint 
 glimmerings of the responsibility which weighed upon him, 
 as the inheritor of this vast hereditary estate. He under- 
 took certain revisions of the laws, if the mass of contra- 
 dictory and capricious edicts which formed the code 
 deserve that name; and his attention had particularly 
 directed itself to the condition of the army and the 
 church. Upon his death, in 1677, he left two sons, The- 
 odore and John, and four daughters, by his first wife; 
 besides one son, Peter, born in 1672, and one daughter, 
 Natalia, by the second wife, of the house of Narischkin. 
 The eldest son, Theodore, succeeded, whose administra- 
 tion was directed by his sister, the ambitious and in- 
 triguing Princess Sophia, assisted by her paramour Galitzin. 
 
i S o PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 Theodore died in 1682, having named his half-brother 
 Peter as his successor, to the exclusion of his own 
 brother John, who was almost an idiot. Sophia, who, in 
 the fitful and perilous history of Peter's boyhood, seems 
 like the wicked fairy in so many Eastern fables, whose mis- 
 sion is constantly to perplex, and if possible destroy, the 
 virtuous young prince, who, however, struggles manfully 
 against her enchantments and her hosts of allies, and comes 
 out triumphant at last- Sophia, assisted by Couvanski, gen- 
 eral of the Strelitzes, excited a tumult in the capital. Art- 
 fully inflaming the passions of the soldiery, she directed 
 their violence against all those who stood between her and 
 the power she aimed at ; many of the Narischkin family 
 (the maternal relatives of Peter), with their adherents, were 
 butchered with wholesale ferocity; many crown-officers 
 were put to death; and the Princess at length succeeded 
 in proclaiming the idiot John and the infant Peter as joint 
 Czars, and herself as regent. 
 
 From this time forth Sophia, having the reins of govern- 
 ment securely in her hand, took particular care to surround 
 the youthful Peter with the worst influences. She exposed 
 him systematically to temptation, she placed about him the 
 most depraved and licentious associates, and seems to have 
 encouraged the germination of every vicious propensity 
 with the most fostering care. In 1689, during the absence 
 of Prince Galitzin upon his second unsuccessful invasion of 
 the Crimea, Peter was married, at the age of seventeen, 
 through the influence of a faction hostile to Sophia, to a 
 young lady of the Lapouchin family. After the return of 
 Galitzin a desperate revolt of the Strelitzes was concerted 
 between their general and Sophia and Galitzin, whose ob- 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 151 
 
 ject was to seize and murder Peter. He saved himself for 
 the second time in the Convent of the Trinity the usual 
 place of refuge when the court was beleaguered, as was not 
 unusual, by the Janizaries assembled around him those of 
 the boiars and the soldiers who were attached to him, and 
 with the personal bravery and promptness which have de- 
 scended like an heirloom in his family, defeated the con- 
 spirators at a blow, banished Galitzin to Siberia, and locked 
 up Sophia in a convent, where she remained till her death 
 fifteen years afterward. His brother John remained nomi- 
 nally as joint Czar till his death in 1696. 
 
 In less than a year from this time Peter made the ac- 
 quaintance of a very remarkable man, to whom, more than 
 to any other, Russia seems to have been indebted for the 
 first impulse toward civilization. Happening one day to be 
 dining at the house of the Danish minister, he was pleased 
 with the manners and conversation of his Excellency's pri- 
 vate secretary. This was a certain youthful Genevese ad- 
 venturer named Lefort. He had been educated for the 
 mercantile profession and placed in a counting-house ; but 
 being of an adventurous disposition, with decided military 
 tastes and talents, he had enlisted as a volunteer and served 
 with some distinction in the Low Countries. Still following 
 his campaigning inclinations, he enlisted under a certain 
 Colonel Verstin, who had been commissioned by the Czar 
 Alexis to pick up some German recruits, and followed him 
 to Archangel. Arriving there, he found that the death of 
 Alexis had left no demand for the services either of himself 
 or the Colonel, and after escaping with difficulty transporta- 
 tion to Siberia, with which he seems to have been threat- 
 ened for no particular reason, he followed his destiny to 
 
152 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 Moscow, where he found employment under the Danish 
 envoy De Horn, and soon after was introduced to the Czar. 
 
 It was this young adventurer, a man of no extraordinary 
 acquirements, but one who had had the advantage of a 
 European education, and the genius to know its value and 
 to reap its full benefit a man of wonderful power of ob- 
 servation, in whom intuition took the place of experience, 
 and who possessed the rare faculty of impressing himself 
 upon other minds with that genial warmth and force which 
 render the impression indelible it was this truant Gene- 
 vese clerk who planted the first seeds in the fertile but then 
 utterly fallow mind of the Czar. Geniality and sympathy 
 were striking characteristics of both minds, and they seem 
 to have united by a kind of elective affinity from the first 
 instant they were placed in neighborhood of each other. 
 
 It was from Lefort that the Czar first learned the great 
 superiority of the disciplined troops of western Europe 
 over the licentious and anarchical soldiery of Russia. It 
 was in concert with Lefort that he conceived on the instant 
 the daring plan of annihilating the Strelitzes, the body- 
 guard which had set up and deposed the monarchs a plan 
 that would have inevitably cost a less sagacious and vigor- 
 ous prince his throne and life, and which he silently and 
 cautiously matured, till, as we shall have occasion to relate, 
 it was successfully executed. Almost immediately after his 
 acquaintance with Lefort, he formed a regiment upon the 
 European plan, which was to be the germ of the reformed 
 army which he contemplated. This regiment was called 
 the Preobrazinski body-guard, from the name of the palace, 
 and Lefort was appointed its colonel, while the Czar en- 
 tered himself as drummer. 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 153 
 
 It was to Lefort, also, that the Czar was about this time 
 indebted for the acquaintance of the celebrated Menshikoff. 
 This was another adventurer, who had great influence upon 
 the fortunes of the empire, who sprang from the very hum- 
 blest origin, and who seemed like Lefort to have been 
 guided from afar by the finger of Providence to become a 
 fit instrument to carry out the plans of Peter. The son of 
 miserable parents upon the banks of the Volga, not even 
 taught to read or write, Menshikoff sought his fortune in 
 Moscow, and at the age of fourteen became apprentice to 
 a pastry-cook, and earned his living as an itinerant vender 
 of cakes and pies ; these he offered about the streets, rec- 
 ommending them in ditties of his own composing, which 
 he sang in a very sweet voice. While engaged in this hum- 
 ble occupation he happened one day to attract the attention 
 of Lefort, who entered into some little conversation with 
 him. The Swiss volunteer, who had so lately expanded 
 into the general and admiral of Muscovy, could hardly 
 dream, nor did he live long enough to learn, that in that 
 fair-haired, barefooted, sweet-voiced boy the future prince 
 of the empire, general, governor, regent, and almost auto- 
 crat, stood disguised before him. There really seems some- 
 thing inexpressibly romantic in the accidental and strange 
 manner in which the chief actors in the great drama of 
 Peter's career seem to have been selected and to have re- 
 ceived their several parts from the great hand of Fate. The 
 youthful Menshikoff was presented by Lefort to the Czar, 
 who was pleased with his appearance and vivacity and 
 made him his page, and soon afterward his favorite and 
 confidant. At about the same time' that Peter commenced 
 his model regiment, he had also commenced building some 
 
I54 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 vessels at Voroneje, with which he had already formed the 
 design of sailing down the Don and conquering Azov, the 
 key to the Black Sea, from the Turks. 
 
 Nothing indicated the true instinct of Peter's genius 
 more decidedly than the constancy with which he cultivated 
 a love for maritime affairs. He is said in infancy to have 
 had an almost insane fear of water ; but, as there was never 
 any special reason assigned for it, this was probably invented 
 to make his naval progress appear more remarkable. At all 
 events, he seems very soon to have conquered his hydropho- 
 bia, and in his boyhood appears to have found his chief 
 amusement in paddling about the river Yausa, which passes 
 through Moscow, in a little skiff built by a Dutchman, which 
 had attracted his attention as being capable, unlike the flat- 
 bottomed scows, which were the only boats with which he 
 had been previously familiar, of sailing against the wind. 
 Having solved the mystery of the keel, he became passion- 
 ately fond of the sport, and not satisfied with the navigation 
 of the Yausa, nor of the lake Peipus, upon which he amused 
 himself for a time, he could not rest till he had proceeded 
 to Archangel, where he purchased and manned a vessel, in 
 which he took a cruise or two upon the Frozen Ocean as 
 far as Ponoi, upon the coast of Lapland. 
 
 Peter understood thoroughly the position of his empire, 
 the moment he came to the throne. Previous Czars had 
 issued a multiplicity of edicts, forbidding their subjects to go 
 out of the empire. Peter saw that the great trouble was 
 that they could not get out. Both the natural gates of his 
 realm were locked upon him, and the keys were in the hands 
 of his enemies. When we look at the map of Russia now, 
 we do not sufficiently appreciate the difficulties of Peter's 
 
PETER THE GREAT. ! 55 
 
 position at his accession. To do so is to appreciate his ge- 
 nius and the strength of his will. While paddling in his 
 little skiff on the Yausa, he had already determined that this 
 great inland empire of his, whose inhabitants had never seen 
 or heard of the ocean, should become a maritime power. 
 He saw that, without seaports, it could never be redeemed 
 form its barbarism, and he was resolved to exchange its 
 mongrel Orientalism for European civilization. Accord- 
 ingly, before he had been within five hundred miles of blue 
 water, he made himself a sailor, and at the same time formed 
 the plan, which he pursued with iron pertinacity to its com- 
 pletion, of conquering the Baltic from the Swede, and the 
 Euxine from the Turk. Fully to see and appreciate the 
 necessity of this measure was, in the young, neglected barba- 
 rian prince, a great indication of genius ; but the resolution 
 to set about and accomplish this mighty scheme in the face 
 of ten thousand obstacles constituted him a hero. He was, 
 in fact r one of those few characters whose existence has had 
 a considerable influence upon history. If he had not lived, 
 Russia would very probably have been at the present mo- 
 ment one great Wallachia or Moldavia a vast wilderness, 
 peopled by the same uncouth barbarians who even now con- 
 stitute the mass of its population, and governed by a strug- 
 gling, brawling, confused mob of unlettered boiars, knavish 
 priests, and cut-throat Janizaries. 
 
 It was not so trifling a task as it may now appear, for 
 Russia to conquer Sweden and the Sublime Porte. On the 
 contrary, Sweden was so vastly superior in the scale of civili- 
 zation, and her disciplined troops, trained for a century 
 upon the renowned battle-fields of Europe, with a young 
 monarch at their head who loved war as other youths love a 
 
156 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 mistress, gave her such a decided military preponderance 
 that she looked upon Russia with contempt. The Ottoman 
 Empire, too, was at that time not the rickety, decrepit state 
 which it now is, holding itself up, like the cabman's horse, 
 only by being kept in the shafts, and ready to drop the first 
 moment its foreign master stops whipping ; on the contrary, 
 in the very year in which Peter inherited the empire from 
 his brother Theodore, two hundred thousand Turks besieged 
 Vienna, and drove the Emperor Leopold in dismay from 
 his capital. Although the downfall of the Porte may be 
 dated from the result of that memorable campaign, yet the 
 Sultan was then a vastly more powerful potentate than the 
 Czar, and the project to snatch from him the citadel of 
 Azov, the key of the Black Sea, was one of unparalleled au- 
 dacity. 
 
 But Peter had already matured the project, and was de- 
 termined to execute it. He required seaports, and, having 
 none, he determined to seize those of his neighbors. Like 
 the " King of Bohemia with his seven castles," he was the 
 " most unfortunate man in the world, because, having the 
 greatest passion for navigation and all sorts of sea affairs, he 
 had never a seaport in all his dominions." Without stopping 
 however, like Corporal Trim, to argue the point in casuis- 
 try, whether Russia, like Bohemia, being an inland coun- 
 try it would be consistent with Divine benevolence for the 
 ocean to inundate his neighbor's territory in order to accom- 
 modate him, he took a more expeditious method. Preferring 
 to go to the ocean, rather than wait for the ocean to come to 
 him, in 1695 he sailed down the Don with his vessels, and 
 struck his first blow at Azov. His campaign was unsuccess- 
 ful, through the treachery and desertion of an artillery offi- 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 157 
 
 cer named Jacob ; but, as the Czar through life possessed 
 the happy faculty of never knowing when he was beaten, he 
 renewed his attack the next year, and carried the place with 
 the most brilliant success. The key of the Palus Mseotis 
 was thus in his hands, and he returned in triumph to Mos- 
 cow, where he levied large sums upon the nobility and cler- 
 gy, to build and sustain a fleet upon the waters he had con- 
 quered, to drive the Tartars from the Crimea, and to open 
 and sustain a communication with Persia, through Circassia 
 and Georgia. 
 
 Thus the first point was gained, and his foot at last 
 touched the ocean. Moreover, the Tartars of the Crimea, 
 who had been from time immemorial the pest of Russia a 
 horde of savages, who " said their prayers but once a year, 
 and then to a dead horse," and who had yet compelled the 
 Muscovites to pay them an annual tribute, and had inserted 
 in their last articles of peace the ignominious conditions that 
 " the Czar should hold the stirrup of their Khan, and feed 
 his horse with oats out of his cap, if they should chance at 
 any time to meet " these savages were humbled at a blow, 
 and scourged into insignificance by the master hand of 
 Peter. 
 
 A year or two before the capture of Azov, Peter had re- 
 pudiated his wife. Various pretexts, such as infidelity and 
 jealousy, have been assigned for the step; among others, 
 the enmity of Menshikoff, whom she had incensed by the ac- 
 cusation that he had taken her husband to visit lewd women 
 who had formerly been his customers for pies ; but the real 
 reason was that, like every one else connected with the great 
 reformer, she opposed herself with the most besotted bigotry 
 to all his plans. She was under the influence of the priests, 
 
158 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 and the priests, of course, opposed him. Unfortunately, the 
 Czar left his son Alexis in the charge of the mother, a mis- 
 take which, as we shall see, occasioned infinite disaster. 
 
 Peter, having secured himself a seaport, sent a number 
 of young Russians to study the arts of civilized life in Hol- 
 land, Italy, and Germany ; but, being convinced that he 
 must do everything for himself, and set the example to his 
 subjects, he resolved to descend from his throne and go to 
 Holland to perfect himself in the arts, and particularly to 
 acquire a thorough practical knowledge of maritime affairs. 
 
 Having been hitherto unrepresented in any European 
 court, he fitted out a splendid embassy extraordinary to the 
 States-General of Holland Lefort, Golownin, Voristzin, 
 and Menshikoff being the plenipotentiaries, while the Czar 
 accompanied them incognito, as attache to the mission. The 
 embassy proceeds through Esthonia and Livonia, visits. Riga 
 where the Swedish Governor, D'Alberg, refuses permission 
 to visit the fortifications, an indignity which Peter resolves 
 to punish severely and, proceeding through Prussia, is re- 
 ceived with great pomp by the King at Konigsberg. Here 
 the Germans and Russians, " most potent at pottery," meet 
 each other with exuberant demonstrations of friendship, and 
 there is much carousing and hard drinking. At this place 
 Peter leaves the embassy, travels privately and with great 
 rapidity to Holland, and never rests till he has established 
 himself as a journeyman in the dockyard of Mynheer Calf. 
 From a seafaring man named Kist, whom he had known in 
 Archangel, he hires lodgings, consisting of a small room and 
 kitchen, and a garret above them, and immediately com- 
 mences a laborious and practical devotion to the trade which 
 he had determined to acquire. The Czar soon became a 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 I 59 
 
 most accomplished ship-builder. His first essay was upon 
 a small yacht, which he purchased and refitted upon 
 his arrival, and in which he spent all his leisure moments, 
 sailing about in the harbor, visiting the vessels in port, and 
 astonishing the phlegmatic Dutchmen by the agility with 
 which he flew about among the shipping. Before his de- 
 parture he laid down and built, from his own draught and 
 model, a sixty-gun ship, at much of the carpentry of which 
 he worked with his own hands, and which was declared by 
 many competent judges to be an admirable specimen of na- 
 val architecture. 
 
 But, besides his proficiency so rapidly acquired in all 
 maritime matters, he made considerable progress in civil 
 engineering, mathematics, and the science of fortification, 
 besides completely mastering the Dutch language, and ac- 
 quiring the miscellaneous accomplishments of tooth-drawing, 
 bloodletting, and tapping for the dropsy. He was indefati- 
 gable in visiting every public institution, charitable, literary, 
 or scientific, in examining the manufacturing establishments, 
 the corn-mills, saw-mills, paper-mills, oil-factories, all of 
 which he studied practically, with the view of immediately 
 introducing these branches of industry into his own domin- 
 ions ; and, before leaving Holland, he spent some time at 
 Texel, solely for the purpose of examining the whale-ships, 
 and qualifying himself to instruct his subjects in this pursuit 
 after his return. " Wat is dat? Dat wil ik zien" was his 
 eternal exclamation to the quiet Hollanders, who looked 
 with profound astonishment at this boisterous foreign prince, 
 in carpenter's disguise, flying round like a harlequin, swing- 
 ing his stick over the backs of those who stood in his way, 
 making strange grimaces, and rushing from one object to 
 
160 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 another with a restless activity of body and mind which 
 seemed incomprehensible. He devoured every possible 
 morsel of knowledge with unexampled voracity ; but the se- 
 quel proved that his mind had an ostrich-like digestion as 
 well as appetite. The seeds which he collected in Holland, 
 Germany, and England bore a rich harvest in the Scythian 
 wildernesses, where his hand planted them on his return. 
 Having spent about nine months in the Netherlands, he left 
 that country for England. 
 
 His purpose in visiting England was principally to ex- 
 amine her navy-yards, dockyards, and maritime establish- 
 ments, and to acquire some practical knowledge of English 
 naval architecture. He did not design to work in the dock- 
 yards, but he preserved his incognito^ although received with 
 great attention by King William, who furthered all his plans 
 to the utmost, and deputed the Marquis of Caermarthen, 
 with whom the Czar became very intimate, to minister to 
 all his wants during his residence in England. He was first 
 lodged in York Buildings ; but afterward, in order to be 
 near the sea, he took possession of a house called Sayes 
 Court, belonging to the celebrated John Evelyn, " with a 
 back door into the king's yard, at Deptford " ; there, says 
 an old writer, " he would often take up the carpenters' tools, 
 and work with them ; and he frequently conversed with the 
 builders, who showed him their draughts, and the method 
 of laying down, by proportion, any ship or vessel." 
 
 It is amusing to observe the contempt with which the 
 servant of the gentle, pastoral Evelyn writes to his master 
 concerning his imperial tenant, and the depredations and 
 desecrations committed upon his " most boscaresque 
 grounds." " There is a house full of people," he says, 
 
PETER THE GREAT. ^ 
 
 " right nasty. The Czar lies next your library, and dines 
 in the parlor next your study. He dines at ten o'clock, 
 and six at night ; is very seldom at home a whole day ; very 
 often in the king's yard, or by water, dressed in several 
 dresses. The best parlor is pretty clean for the King to 
 be entertained in." Moreover, in the garden at Sayes 
 Court, there was, to use Evelyn's own language, " a glorious 
 and refreshing object, an impregnable hedge of about four 
 hundred feet in length, nine feet high, and five feet in diam- 
 eter, at any time of the year glittering with its armed and 
 variegated leaves ; the taller standards, at orderly distances, 
 blushing with their natural coral " ; and through this " glo- 
 rious and refreshing object " the Czar amused himself by 
 trundling a wheelbarrow every morning for the sake of the 
 exercise ! 
 
 He visited the hospitals, and examined most of the pub- 
 lic institutions in England ; and particularly directed his 
 attention toward acquiring information in engineering, and 
 collecting a body of skillful engineers and artificers to carry 
 on the great project which he had already matured of open- 
 ing an artificial communication by locks and canals between 
 the Volga, the Don, and the Caspian a design, by the way, 
 which was denounced by the clergy and nobility of his em- 
 pire " as a piece of impiety, being to turn the streams one 
 way which Providence had directed another." His even- 
 ings were generally spent with the Marquis of Caermarthen, 
 with pipes, beer, and brandy, at a tavern near Tower Hill, 
 which is still called the "Czar of Muscovy." 
 
 During his stay in England he went to see the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford, and visited many of the cathedrals and 
 churches, and " had also the curiosity to view the Quakers 
 ii 
 
i6 2 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 and other Dissenters at their meeting-houses in the time of 
 service." In this connection it is impossible not to quote 
 the egregiously foolish remarks of Bishop Burnet in his 
 " History of his own Times " : 
 
 " I waited upon him often," says the Bishop, " and was ordered, 
 both by the King and the Archbishop, to attend upon him and to 
 offer him such information as to our religion and constitution as he 
 might be willing to receive. I had good interpreters, so I had much 
 free discourse with him. He is a man of a very hot temper, soon 
 influenced, and very brutal in his passion , he raises his natural heat 
 by drinking much brandy, which he rectifies himself with great 
 application ; he is subject to convulsive motions all over his body, 
 and his head seems to be affected with these. He wants not capaci- 
 ty, and has a larger measure of knowledge than might be expected 
 from his education, which was very indifferent; a want of judg- 
 ment, with an instability of temper, appears in him but too often 
 and too evidently. He is mechanically turned, and seems designed 
 by nature rather to be a ship-carpenter than a great prince. This 
 was his chief study and exercise while he staid here ; he wrought 
 much with his own hands, and made all about him work at the 
 models of ships. He told me he designed a great fleet at Azov, 
 and with it to attack the Turkish Empire ; but he did not seem 
 capable of conducting so great a design, though his conduct in his 
 wars since this has discovered a greater genius in him than appeared 
 at that time. He was desirous to understand our doctrine, but he 
 did not seem disposed to mend matters in Muscovy. He was, in- 
 deed, resolved to encourage learning and to polish his people by 
 sending some of them to travel in other countries, and to draw 
 strangers to come and live among them. He seemed apprehensive 
 still of his sister's intrigues. There is a mixture both of passion 
 and severity in his temper. He is resolute, but understands little 
 of war, and seemed not at all inquisitive in that way. After I had 
 seen him often, and had conversed much with him, I could not but 
 
PETER THE GREAT, T 6 3 
 
 adore the depth of the providence of God, that had raised up such 
 a furious man to so absolute an authority over so great a part of the 
 world." (" History of his own Times," vol. ii., pp. 221, 222.) 
 
 The complacency with which the prelate speaks of this 
 " furious man," designed by nature rather to be a ship-car- 
 penter than a great prince," who "did not seem disposed 
 to mend matters in Muscovy," is excessively ludicrous. 
 Here was a youth of twenty-five, who had seen with a 
 glance the absolute necessity of opening for his empire a 
 pathway to the ocean, and had secured that pathway by a 
 blow, and who now, revolving in his mind the most daring 
 schemes of conquest over martial neighbors, and vast pro- 
 jects of internal improvement for his domains, had gone 
 forth in mask and domino from his barbarous citadel, not 
 for a holiday pastime, but to acquire the arts of war and 
 peace, and, like a modern Cadmus, to transplant from older 
 regions the seeds of civilization to the barbarous wilderness- 
 es of his realm. Here was a crowned monarch, born in the 
 purple, and in the very heyday of his youth, exchanging 
 his diadem and scepter for the tools of a shipwright, while 
 at the same time in his capacious brain his vast future lay 
 as clearly imaged, and his great projects already to his 
 imagination appeared as palpable as, long years afterward, 
 when completed, they became to the observation of the 
 world ; and yet, upon the whole, the churchman thought 
 him " not disposed to mend matters in Muscovy," and rather 
 fitted by nature " to be a ship-carpenter than a great 
 prince." 
 
 The Czar, before his departure from England, engaged 
 a large number of scientific persons, at the head of whom 
 was Ferguson, the engineer, to accompany him to Russia, 
 
164 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 to be employed upon the various works of internal improve- 
 ment already projected. To all these persons he promised 
 liberal salaries, which were never paid, and perfect liberty 
 to depart when they chose, "with crowns for convoy put 
 into their purse " ; although, in the sequel, the poor devils 
 never got a ruble for their pains, and those who escaped 
 assassination by some jealous Russian or other, and were 
 able to find their way " bootless home, and weather-beaten 
 back," after a few profitless years spent upon the Czar's 
 sluices and bridges, -were to be considered fortunate. 
 
 One of the disadvantages, we suppose, of one man's 
 owning a whole quarter of the globe and all its inhabitants, 
 is a tendency to think lightly of human obligations. It is 
 useless to occupy one's mind with engagements that no 
 human power can enforce. The artificers, being there, 
 might accomplish their part of the Czar's mission to civilize, 
 or at least to Europeanize, Russia. This was matter of 
 consequence to the world; their salaries were of no impor- 
 tance to anybody but themselves. It is odd that these 
 persons were the first to introduce into Russia the science 
 of reckoning by Arabic numerals, accounts having been 
 formerly kept (and, indeed, being still kept by all shop- 
 keepers and retail dealers) by means of balls upon a string, 
 as billiards are marked in America. For the Czar to have 
 introduced an improved method of account-keeping by 
 means of the very men with whom he intended to keep no 
 account at all seems a superfluous piece of irony, but so it 
 was. He had, however, a nicer notion of what was due 
 from one potentate to another ; for, upon taking his depart- 
 ure from England, he took from his breeches-pocket a ruby, 
 wrapped in brown paper, worth about ten thousand pounds, 
 
PETER THE GREAT. ^5 
 
 and presented it to King William. He also, in return for 
 the agreeable hours passed with Lord Caermarthen at the 
 " Czar of Muscovy " upon Tower Hill, presented that noble- 
 man with the right to license every hogshead of tobacco 
 exported to Russia by an English company who had paid 
 him fifteen thousand pounds for the monopoly, and to 
 charge five shillings for each license. 
 
 Upon his return through Vienna, where he was enter- 
 tained with great pomp, he received news of an insurrec- 
 tion which had broken out in Moscow, but which had 
 already been suppressed by the energy of General Patrick 
 Gordon. This news induced him to give up his intended 
 visit to Italy and to hasten back to his capital. He found 
 upon his arrival that the Strelitzes, who, instigated of 
 course by the Princess Sophia, were the authors of the 
 revolt, had been defeated and the ringleaders imprisoned. 
 He immediately hung up three or four of them in front 
 of Sophia's window, had half a dozen more hung and quar- 
 tered, and a few more broken upon the wheel. Under the 
 circumstances, this was quite as little as a Czar who re- 
 spected himself, and who proposed to remain Czar, could 
 have done by way of retaliation upon a body of men as 
 dangerous as these Strelitzes. 
 
 It is not singular, however, that at that day, when the 
 Czar of Muscovy was looked upon by western Europeans 
 as an ogre who habitually breakfasted upon his subjects, 
 these examples of wholesome severity were magnified into 
 the most improbable fables. Korb, the secretary of the 
 Austrian legation at Moscow, entertained his sovereign 
 with minute details of several banquets given by Peter to 
 the nobility and diplomatic corps, at every one of which 
 
166 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 several dozen Strelitzes were decapitated in the dining- 
 room. He tells of one select dinner-party in particular, in 
 which the Czar chopped off the heads of twenty with his 
 own hands, washing down each head with a bumper of 
 brandy, and then obliging Lefort, and several of the 
 judges, and some of the foreign ministers, to try their 
 hand at the sport. In short, if we could believe contem- 
 porary memorialists, the Strelitzes were kept in preserves 
 like pheasants, and a grand battue was given once a week by 
 the Czar to his particular friends, in which he who bagged 
 the most game was sure to recommend himself most to the 
 autocrat. If we were to rely upon the general tone of 
 contemporary history, or to place any credence in circum- 
 stantial and statistical details of persons having facts within 
 their reach, we should believe that there never was so much 
 fun in Moscow as while these Strelitzes lasted. Residents 
 there stated that two thousand of them were executed in 
 all, including those made away with by the Czar and the 
 dilettanti. 
 
 Perhaps our readers may think that we are exaggerating. 
 We can assure them that the flippancy is not ours, but his- 
 tory's. We should have dwelt less upon the topic had not 
 our friend the Marquis de Custine reproduced some of 
 these fables with such imperturbable gravity.* 
 
 * On lit dans M. de Segur les faits suivants : " Pierre, lui-meme a 
 interroge ces criminels (les Strelitz) par la torture ; puis a 1'imitation' 
 d'lwan le Tyran, il se fait leur juge, leur bourreau ; il force ses nobles, 
 restes fideles, a trancher les tetes des nobles coupables, qu'ils viennent 
 de condamner. Le cruel, du haut de son trone assiste d'un ceil sec a ces 
 executions ; il fait plus, il mele aux joies des festins I'horreur des sup- 
 plices. Ivre de vin et de sang, le verre d'une main, la hache de 1'autre, 
 en une seule heure, vingt libations successives marquent la chute de 
 
PETER THE GREAT. !6 7 
 
 At all events, the Strelitzes were entirely crushed by 
 these vigorous measures ; and from cutting off the heads of 
 the Janizaries, the Czar now found leisure to cut off the 
 petticoats and beards of his subjects. The great cause of 
 complaint which De Custine makes against Peter is that he 
 sought to improve his country by importing the seeds of 
 civilization from the older countries of western Europe. 
 He would have preferred to have had the Russians, being 
 a Slavonic race, civilized as it were Slavonically. What 
 this process is, and where it has been successfully put into 
 operation, he does not inform us. As we read the history 
 of the world, it seems to us that the arts have circled the 
 earth, successively implanting themselves in different coun- 
 tries at different epochs, and producing different varieties 
 of intellectual, moral, and physical fruit, corresponding to 
 the myriad influences exercised upon the seed. At all 
 events, if Peter made a mistake in importing the germs of 
 ancient culture from more favored lands, it was a mistake 
 he made in common with Cadmus, and Cecrops, and The- 
 
 vingt tetes de Stre"litz, qu'il abat a ses pieds, en s'enorgueillissant de son 
 horrible adresse. L'anne'e d'apres, le centre coup, soit du soulevement 
 de ses Janissaires, soit de 1'atrocite de leur supplice, retentit au loin dans 
 1'empire, et d'autres revokes eclatent. Quatre-vingt Strelitz, charges de 
 chaines, sont traines d'Azoff a Moscou, et leurs tetes, qu'un boyard tient 
 successivement par les cheveux, tombent encore sous la hache du Czar." 
 (" Histoire de Russie et de Pierre le Grand," par M. le General Comte 
 de Segur. " La Russie en 1839," par le Marquis de Custine, i., 306.) 
 
 " Mais tandis que ce grand precepteur de son peuple enseignait si 
 bien la civilite pue'rile aux boyards et aux marchands de Moscou, il 
 s'abaissait lui meme a la pratique des metiers les plus vils, a commencer 
 par celui de bourreau ; on lui a vu couper vingt tetes de sa main dans 
 une soiree ; et on 1'a entendu se vanter de son adresse a ce metier, qu'il 
 exera avec une rare fe'rocite' lorsqu'il cut triomphe' des coupables, mais 
 encore plus malheureux Str&itz," etc. (De Custine, iii., 330.) 
 
1 68 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 seus, and other semi-fabulous personages with Solon, and 
 Lycurgus, and Pythagoras, in less crepuscular times. 
 
 Right or wrong, however, Peter was determined to Occi- 
 dentalize his empire. The darling wish of his heart was to 
 place himself upon the seashore, in order the more easily to 
 Europeanize his country. In the mean time, and while 
 awaiting a good opportunity for the " reannexation " of 
 Ingria, Esthonia, and Livonia, provinces which had several 
 centuries before belonged to the Russian crown, but had 
 been ceded to and possessed by Sweden for ages, he began 
 to denationalize his subjects by putting a tax upon their 
 beards and their petticoats. Strange to say, his subjects 
 were so much more patriotic than their master, that the tax 
 became very productive. Peter increased his revenue, but 
 could not diminish the beards or petticoats. He was 
 obliged to resort to force, and by " entertaining a score or 
 two of tailors and barbers " at each gate of Moscow, whose 
 business it was to fasten upon every man who entered, and 
 to "cut his petticoats all round about," as well as his whis- 
 kers, he at last succeeded in humanizing their costume a 
 process highly offensive, and which caused the clergy, who 
 naturally favored the Russian nationality upon which they 
 were fattened, to denounce him as Antichrist. At the same 
 time he altered the commencement of the year from the ist 
 of September to the ist of January, much to the astonish- 
 ment of his subjects, who wondered that the Czar could 
 change the course of the sun. He also instituted assem- 
 blies for the encouragement of social intercourse between 
 the sexes. But his most important undertakings were the 
 building, under his immediate superintendence, assisted by 
 the English officers whom he had brought with him, of a 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 169 
 
 large fleet upon the Don, and the junction of that river with 
 the Volga. About this time he met with an irreparable loss 
 in the death of Lefort, who perished at the early age of 
 forty-six. Peter was profoundly afflicted by this event, and 
 honored his remains with magnificent obsequies. 
 
 Both coasts of the Gulf of Finland, together with both 
 banks of the river Neva, up to the lake Ladoga, had been 
 long and were still in possession of the Swedes. These 
 frozen morasses were not a tempting site for a metropolis, 
 certainly; particularly when they happened to be in the 
 possession of the most warlike nation of Europe, governed 
 by the most warlike monarch, as the sequel proved, that had 
 ever sat upon its throne. Still, Peter had determined to 
 take possession of that coast, and already in imagination 
 had built his capital upon those dreary solitudes, peopled 
 only by the elk, the wolf, and the bear. This man, more 
 than any one perhaps that ever lived, was an illustration of 
 the power of volition. He always settled in his own mind 
 exactly what he wanted, and then put on his wishing-cap. 
 With him to will was to have. Obstacles he took as a mat- 
 ter of course. It never seemed to occur to him to doubt 
 the accomplishment of his purpose. For our own part we 
 do not admire the capital which he built, nor the place he 
 selected ; both are mistakes, in our humble opinion, as time 
 will prove and is proving. But it is impossible not to ad- 
 mire such a masterly effort of human volition as the erection 
 of Petersburg. 
 
 In the year 1700 was formed the alliance between Augus- 
 tus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, the 
 King of Denmark, and the Czar Peter, against Charles XII., 
 King of Sweden, then a boy of eighteen, of whose character 
 
i 7 o PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 nothing was known, and who, it was thought probable, 
 might be bullied. The Czar, as we know, desired Ingria 
 and Carelia. Augustus wished to regain Esthonia and Li- 
 vonia, ceded by Poland to Charles XI. of Sweden; and 
 Denmark wished to recover Holstein and Schleswig. It 
 soon appeared that the allied sovereigns had got hold of the 
 wrong man. Charles XII., to the astonishment of his own 
 court no less than of his enemies, in one instant blazed forth 
 a hero. He "smote the sledded Polack," to begin with; 
 then defeated the Danes ; and, having thus dispatched his 
 two most formidable enemies in appearance, he was at 
 leisure to devote his whole attention to the Czar, whom, 
 however, he treated with the contempt which a thorough- 
 bred soldier, at the head of tried and disciplined troops, 
 naturally felt for the barbarous autocrat of barbarous 
 hordes. 
 
 Peter, however, who knew nothing of war but in theory, 
 with the exception of his maiden campaign of Azov, went 
 manfully forward to the encounter. He invaded Ingria at 
 the head of sixty thousand men ; and wishing, like Andrew 
 Aguecheek, to " keep on the windy side of the law," and to 
 save appearances, he defended his invasion by the ludicrous 
 pretext that his ambassadors had been charged exorbitant 
 prices for provisions on their tour through the Swedish 
 provinces to Holland, and that he himself had been denied 
 a sight of the citadel at Riga. Not that he wanted Riga 
 himself, or Ingria, or Livonia u Oh, no, not at all " but the 
 preposterous charges made by the butchers and bakers of 
 Ingria were insults which could only be washed out in 
 blood. On the '2oth of September he laid siege to Narva, a 
 strongly fortified town on the river Narowa. On the 
 
PETER THE GREAT, I?I 
 
 of November, Charles XII. fell upon Peter's army during a 
 tremendous snow-storm, which blew directly in their teeth, 
 and with nine thousand soldiers completely routed and 
 cut to pieces or captured about sixty thousand Russians. 
 Never was a more ignominious defeat. The Russians were 
 slaughtered like sheep, and their long petticoats prevented 
 the survivors from running away half as fast as they wished. 
 The consequence was that, according to the Swedish ac- 
 counts, the prisoners four times outnumbered the whole 
 Swedish army. 
 
 One would have thought that this would have settled 
 the Czar for a little while, and kept him quiet and reason- 
 able. It did so. He preserved the most imperturbable 
 sang fr old after his return to Moscow, and devoted himself 
 with more zeal than ever to the junction of the Baltic and 
 the Euxine, just at the moment when the former seemed 
 farthest from him, and when a common man would have 
 been " qualmish at the name " of Baltic. At the same time, 
 reversing the commonplace doctrine, he continues in war to 
 prepare for peace with one hand importing sheep from 
 Saxony, erecting linen and paper factories, building hospi- 
 tals and founding schools, while with the other he melts all 
 the church and convent bells in Moscow into cannon, and 
 makes every preparation for a vigorous campaign the ensu- 
 ing season. He had not the slightest suspicion that he was 
 beaten. He was, in fact, one of those intellectual Titans 
 who never feel their strength till they have been fairly struck 
 to the earth. " I know very well," he says in his journal, 
 " that the Swedes will have the advantage of us for a con- 
 siderable time ; but they will teach us at length to beat 
 them." And at a later period he says : " If we had ob- 
 
172 
 
 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 tained a victory over the Swedes at Narva, being, as we 
 were, so little instructed in the arts of war and policy, into 
 what an abyss might not this good fortune have sunk us ! 
 On the contrary, the success of the Swedes cost them very 
 dear afterward at Pultowa." 
 
 In the following spring "his troops obtained some trifling 
 successes, and General Scherematoff made the memorable 
 capture of Marienburg, in Livonia, memorable not so much 
 in a military point of view as on account of a young and 
 pretty Livonian girl who was captured with the town. This 
 young woman, whose Christian name was Martha, without 
 any patronymic, or any at least that has been preserved, 
 was born near Dorpt, and had been educated by one Dr. 
 Gluck, a Lutheran minister at Marienburg, who pronounced 
 her a " pattern of virtue, intelligence, and good conduct " ; 
 she had been married the day before the battle of Marien- 
 burg to a Swedish sergeant, who fell in the action, and she 
 now found herself alone, a friendless, helpless widow and 
 orphan of sixteen, exposed without 'any protector to all the 
 horrors of a besieged and captured town. 
 
 If a writer of fiction, with a brain fertile in extravagant 
 and incredible romance, had chosen to describe to us this 
 young peasant - girl, weeping half distracted among the 
 smoking ruins of an obscure provincial town, and then, 
 after rapidly shifting a few brilliant and tumultuous scenes 
 in his phantasmagoria, had presented to us the same orphan 
 girl as a crowned empress, throned upon a quarter of the 
 world, and the sole arbitress and autocrat of thirty millions 
 of human beings, and all this without any discovery of a 
 concealed origin, without crime and without witchcraft, 
 with ^nothing supernatural in the machinery, and nothing 
 
PETER THE GREAT. I73 
 
 intricate in the plot should we not all have smiled at his 
 absurdity ? And yet, this captive girl became the consort 
 of the Czar Peter, and upon his death the Empress of all the 
 Russias. The Russian General Bauer saw her, and rescued 
 her from the dangers of the siege. She afterward became 
 the mistress of Menshikoff, with whom she lived till 1704, 
 when, in the seventeenth year of her age, the Czar saw her, 
 was captivated by her beauty, and took her for his mistress, 
 and afterward privately, and then publicly, married her. 
 
 It is to this epoch that belongs the abolition of the patri- 
 archal dignity in Russia. Peter, having at a blow destroyed 
 the. Strelitzes, had long intended to annihilate the ecclesias- 
 tical power, the only balance which existed in the country 
 to the autocracy of the sovereign. The superstition of the 
 Russians was and is unbounded. Their principal saint was 
 Saint Anthony, who, says a quaint old author, "came all 
 the way from Rome to Novgorod by water on a millstone, 
 sailing down the Tiber to Civita Vecchia, from thence pass- 
 ing through several seas to the mouth of the Neva, then 
 went up that, and, crossing the lake Ladoga into the Vol- 
 khoff, arrived at the city before named. Besides this ex- 
 traordinary voyage, he wrought several other miracles as 
 soon as he landed where the monastery now stands that is 
 dedicated to him ; one was, to order a company of fisher- 
 men to cast their nets into the sea; which having done, 
 they immediately drew up, with a great quantity of fish, a 
 large trunk containing several church ornaments, sacred 
 utensils, and priestly vestments for celebrating the liturgy, 
 which the Russians, as well as the Eastern Greeks, believe 
 was first performed at Rome in the same manner and with 
 the same ceremonies as they themselves use at this time. 
 
I74 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 The people tell you further that he built himself a little cell, 
 in which he ended his days. In this place there now stands 
 a chapel, in which they say he was buried, and that his 
 body remains as uncorrupted as at the instant of his death. 
 Over the door of the cell the monks show a millstone, 
 which they endeavor to make the ignorant people believe 
 is the very same that the saint sailed upon from Rome, and 
 to which great devotions were once paid, and many offerings 
 made till the time Peter the Great made himself sovereign 
 pontiff." 
 
 To this saint, or to Saint Nicholas, we forget which, let- 
 ters of introduction were always addressed by the priests, 
 and placed in the hands of the dead when laid in their 
 coffins. The superstition of the Russians is grosser and 
 more puerile than that of any people purporting to be 
 Christians. They would rather starve than eat pigeons, 
 because the Holy Ghost assumed the form of a dove ; they 
 dip their new-born children into the Neva in January, 
 through holes cut in the ice, directly after the ceremony of 
 blessing the water has been concluded by the Patriarch ; 
 and it would be an easy but endless task to enumerate other 
 similar absurdities. It may be supposed that the patriarch- 
 al dignity, founded upon superstition as solid as this, would 
 be a difficult power to contend with. It was so. The Pa- 
 triarch's power was enormous. He pronounced sentence 
 of life, and death, and torture, without intervention of any 
 tribunal. On Palm Sunday he rode to church upon an ass 
 " caparisoned in white linen," at the head of a long proces- 
 sion of ecclesiastical and civil dignitaries, with a miter upon 
 his head, and "skirts of many colors, three or four ells 
 long," borne by a band of young men, while the Czar walked 
 
PETER THE GREAT. I75 
 
 uncovered by his side, holding the bridle of the beast upon 
 his arm. 
 
 This dignity, which had been established by a sort of 
 accident in the year 1588, up to which time the Russian 
 Church acknowledged the supremacy of the Patriarch of 
 Constantinople, had grown to be very distasteful to Peter. 
 The Church was the greatest possible enemy to his plans of 
 reformation. The bigotry of its opposition to all his pro- 
 jects was insurmountable. Besides, it was very inconveni- 
 ent that any one should have any power or any rights except 
 himself. He determined to annihilate the office of Patri- 
 arch, and to place himself at the head of the Church. We 
 do not find, however, that he thought it necessary to go 
 through an apprenticeship in this profession, as he had done 
 in others ; but, on the contrary, upon the death of the Patri- 
 arch Adrian, which happened about this time, he simply 
 appointed himself pontifex maximus, and declined nominat- 
 ing any other Patriarch. The man who had destroyed the 
 Janizaries, cut off the beards of his subjects, and changed 
 the course of the sun, was also strong enough to trample the 
 prelate's miter in the dust. He was entirely successful in 
 his contest with the Church. The clergy made but a feeble 
 resistance. The printing-press, to be sure, which he had 
 first introduced into Russia, swarmed with libels upon him, 
 and denounced him as Antichrist ; but he was defended 
 by others of the clergy, " because the number six hundred 
 and sixty-six was not found in his name, and he had not 
 the sign of the beast." 
 
 Before the close of the year 1702 the troops of the Czar 
 had driven the Swedes from the Ladoga and the Neva, and 
 had taken possession of all the ports in Carelia and Ingria. 
 
176 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 On the 1 6th of May, without waiting another moment after 
 having possessed himself of the locality, he begins to build 
 his metropolis. One hundred thousand miserable workmen 
 are consumed in the first twelve months, succumbing to the 
 rigorous climate and the unhealthy position. But " il faut 
 casser des ceufs pour faire une omelette" ; in one year's time 
 there are thirty thousand houses in Petersburg. Never was 
 there such a splendid improvisation. Look for a moment at 
 a map of Russia and say if Petersburg was not a magnificent 
 piece of volition a mistake, certainly, and an extensive 
 one but still a magnificent mistake. Upon a delta, formed 
 by the dividing branches of the Neva upon a miserable 
 morass half under water, without stones, without clay, with- 
 out earth, without wood, without building materials of any 
 kind having behind it the outlet of the lake Ladoga and 
 its tributary swamps, and before it the Gulf of Finland con- 
 tracting itself into a narrow compass, and ready to deluge it 
 with all the waters of the Baltic whenever the southwest 
 wind should blow a gale eight and forty hours with a cli- 
 mate of polar severity, and a soil as barren as an iceberg 
 was not Petersburg a bold impromptu? We never could 
 look at this capital, with its imposing though monotonous 
 architecture, its colossal squares, its vast colonnades, its 
 endless vistas, its spires and minarets sheathed in barbaric 
 gold and flashing in the sun, and remember the magical 
 rapidity with which it was built, and the hundred thousand 
 lives that were sacrificed in building it, without recalling 
 Milton's description of the building of Pandemonium : 
 
 " Anon out of the earth a fabric huge 
 . Rose like an exhalation, . . . 
 Built like a temple, where pilasters round 
 
PETER THE GREAT. I77 
 
 Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid 
 
 With golden architrave ; nor did there want 
 
 Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven ; 
 
 The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon 
 
 Nor great Alcairo such magnificence 
 
 Equaled in all their glories, to enshrine 
 
 Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat 
 
 Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove 
 
 In wealth and luxury. The ascending pile 
 
 Stood fixed her stately height ; and straight the doors 
 
 Opening their brazen folds discover, wide 
 
 Within, her ample spaces o'er the smooth 
 
 And level pavement." 
 
 Within a few months after the foundation of Petersburg 
 and Cronstadt, Peter had the pleasure of piloting into his 
 new seaport with his own hands a vessel belonging to his 
 old friend Cornelius Calf, of Saardam. The transfer of the 
 seat of government, by the removal of the Senate from Mos- 
 cow to Petersburg, was effected a few years afterward. Since 
 that time, the repudiated Oriental capital of the ancient 
 Czars, the magnificent Moscow, with her golden tiara and 
 her Eastern robe, has sat, like Hagar in the wilderness, 
 deserted 'and lonely in all her barbarian beauty. Yet even 
 now, in many a backward look and longing sigh she reads 
 plainly enough that she is not forgotten by her sovereign, 
 that she is still at heart preferred, and that she will eventu- 
 ally triumph over her usurping and artificial rival. 
 
 The building of Petersburg in a year was, however, a 
 
 mere aside in the great military drama that was going on. 
 
 Peter founded this city as soon as he had won a place for it; 
 
 but the war still went on. While the Czar was erecting his 
 
 '12 
 
178 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 capital, establishing woolen manufactures, and importing 
 sheep from Saxony, Charles XII. was knocking the Elector 
 of Saxony off the Polish throne, putting Stanislaus Leckzin- 
 sky in his place, and ravaging all Poland and Saxony. The 
 scenes of the great drama which occupied the next few 
 years, but which we have no intention of sketching, opened 
 in Poland, and closed on the confines of Turkey. It is a 
 magnificent, eventful, important drama, a chapter of history 
 which has been often written and is familiar to almost every 
 one, and yet which would well bear handling again. There 
 is no life of Peter which is in all respects satisfactory, which 
 does not partake too much of eulogium or censure in its es- 
 timation of his character ; and there is none which develops 
 with sufficient accuracy and impartiality, and in a sufficiently 
 striking manner, the stirring events of the great Northern 
 war. The brilliant drama enacted in the first fifteen years 
 of the present century forming probably the most splendid 
 chapter in the military history of the world, and which is 
 still so fresh in the minds of men has thrown into compara- 
 tive oblivion the very picturesque and imposing scenes which 
 were displayed in the first fifteen years of the eighteenth. 
 And yet what a magnificent subject for the historical painter, 
 what imposing personages, what dramatic catastrophes, what 
 sudden and bewildering reverses, what wild scenery, what 
 Salvator-like chiaroscuro dark Sarmatian forests enveloping 
 the actors in mystery and obscurity, with flashes of light 
 breaking iipon the anxious suspense of Europe, and reveal- 
 ing portentous battles, sieges, and hair-breadth escapes 
 what " dreadful marches " through the wilderness, what 
 pitched combats, upon whose doubtful result hinged, as al- 
 most never before or since, the weal or woe of millions, and 
 
PETER THE GREAT. I79 
 
 in which kings fought sword in hand in the hottest of the 
 fight, with their crowns staked upon the issue ! 
 
 There was always something very exciting to our imagi- 
 nation in the characters of the three kings who were the 
 principal actors in the Northern war. There seemed to be 
 a strange, fitful, mythical character about the war and the 
 men who waged it. The Elector Augustus of Saxony, King 
 of Poland, with his superhuman and almost fabulous physi- 
 cal strength, his personal bravery, his showy, chivalrous 
 character, his world-renowned adventures in a gentler field, 
 familiar to posterity through the records of " La Saxe ga- 
 lante," is a striking personage. It is astonishing that such 
 a magnificent Lothario should have chosen, for the barren 
 honor of being elected to the Polish throne, to exchange the 
 brilliant and voluptuous gayety of his own court for " the 
 bloody noses and cracked crowns " which were " passing 
 current " in Poland. But it is still more astonishing that, 
 having once engaged in the affair, he should have cut such 
 a miserable figure in it. The splendid Augustus, Augustus 
 the Strong, Augustus the Gallant, became merely the anvil 
 for the sledge-hammers of Charles and Peter. He made a 
 fool of himself; he disgraced himself more than it seemed 
 possible for a human being to disgrace himself; he humili- 
 ated himself more completely, more stupidly, because more 
 unnecessarily, than it seemed possible for the greatest idiot, 
 as well as the most arrant coward, to humiliate himself. He 
 lost his crown at the very start, went down on his knees in 
 the dirt to pick it up again, made a secret treaty with 
 Charles, renouncing his alliance with the Czar, deserted his 
 ally with incredible folly just as the Russians in conjunction 
 with his own troops were gaining a brilliant victory and en- 
 
I8o PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 taring Warsaw in triumph, concealed his shameful negotia- 
 tion from his own generals, while at the same time he wrote 
 a letter to Charles, apologizing for having gained a victory, 
 and assuring him that he had intended to have drawn off his 
 troops and deserted to the enemy, but that his orders had 
 not been obeyed, and then sneaked off to Charles's camp, 
 where, in obedience to that monarch's orders, he capped the 
 climax of his shame by writing a letter of sincere and hum- 
 ble congratulation to Stanislaus Leckzinsky for supplanting 
 him upon his own throne. Peter, in the sequel, put his 
 crown on his head again, to be sure ; but for ever after he 
 
 looked like 
 
 " .... the thief, 
 
 Who from the shelf the precious diadem stole, 
 And put it in his pocket." 
 
 What a pity that this man, who was deficient neither in 
 courage nor, we suppose, in a certain amount of intellect 
 sufficient for all ordinary purposes, should have got himself 
 into such a scrape merely for the sake of carrying an elec- 
 tion over the Prince of Conti and Stanislaus ! The truth 
 was that, the moment he got among giants giants in action, 
 like Charles and Peter he showed himself the pygmy he 
 was in mind, despite his stature, his strength, and his per- 
 sonal bravery. 
 
 And Charles XII., the hero, the crowned gladiator 
 what had he to do with the eighteenth century ? The hero 
 of everybody's boyhood, he remains a puzzle and a mystery 
 to us in our maturer years. He seems an impossibility in 
 the times in which he lived. On the death of Charles XI., 
 and the commencement of the hostile movement by Russia 
 and Denmark, the stripling sovereign seems to dilate into 
 
PETER THE GREAT. !8i 
 
 the vast, shadowy proportions of some ancient hero of Scan- 
 dinavian Sagas. He seems like one of the ancient Norse- 
 men, whose vocation was simply to fight who conquered 
 the whole earth, not because they wanted it, but because 
 they were sent into the world for no other earthly purpose ; 
 a legitimate representative of the old Sea-Kings, or rather 
 an ancient Sea-King himself, reappearing in the eighteenth 
 century, with no specially defined object, and proposing to 
 himself no particular business in the world which he had so 
 suddenly revisited, but to fight as much as possible, and 
 with anybody that came along. Viewed in this light, he can 
 be judged more justly. He was out of place where he was. 
 He would have been a magnificent hero and a useful per- 
 sonage six or seven hundred years earlier. He was a very 
 mischievous character in the eighteenth century. People no 
 longer fought in the same way as before ; they no longer 
 fought for the fun of it ; they now had always an object in 
 their wars. Sovereigns, however belligerent in taste, had 
 always an eye to their interest. This was preeminently the 
 case with his great antagonist, Peter. He never fought ex- 
 cept for an object ; but, sooner than relinquish the object, 
 he would have fought till " sun and moon were in the flat 
 sea sunk." He was a creator, a founder, a lawgiver, as well 
 as a warrior. He was constructive ; Charles merely destruc- 
 tive. The Czar was a great statesman ; Charles only a great 
 gladiator. In war, Peter was always preparing for peace ; 
 as for Charles, after he first started upon his career, he never 
 seemed to have had the faintest suspicion that there was such 
 a thing, such a status, as peace. He came into the world to 
 fight, and he fought ; he lived fighting, he died fighting. He 
 poured himself out, like a fierce torrent from his native 
 
182 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 mountains, in one wild, headlong, devastating flood. There 
 was nothing beneficent, nothing fertilizing, in his career. 
 His kingdom was neglected, his treasury exhausted, his sub- 
 jects impoverished ; while he himself, from the admiration 
 and wonder of Europe, became, or would have become, but 
 for his timely death, its laughing-stock. The hero at Narva 
 was only Bombastes Furioso at Bender. 
 
 While Charles was deposing Augustus and crowning 
 Stanislaus, the troops of Peter were not idle. Keeping 
 his eye ever fixed upon his great object, the Czar was 
 adding to his domain province after province of what 
 was then the Swedish seacoast. Dorpat and Narva are 
 captured, and with them all Ingria, of which Peter makes 
 the pastry-cook's apprentice Governor. Courland soon fol- 
 lows, and now the Czar joins his forces to those of Augus- 
 tus in Poland. While he is called off to quell an insur- 
 rection in Astrakhan (distances are nothing to the Czar), 
 Augustus seizes the opportunity to make the ignominious 
 compact with the Swedish king to which we have referred, 
 and- most shameful and perfidious part of his treason 
 surrenders to the vengeance of the ferocious Charles, to the 
 torture and the wheel, the unfortunate General Patkul, am- 
 bassador of the Czar at the court of Augustus, who had 
 incurred the hatred of the Swedish monarch for heading a 
 deputation of Livonian nobles, and presenting to him a 
 petition concerning the rights and privileges of their prov- 
 ince. The allies of King Augustus take possession of War- 
 saw, while King Augustus himself is writing his congratula- 
 tions to King Stanislaus. 
 
 Peter, having helped himself to almost as many Swedish 
 provinces as he cared for, while Charles has been bullying 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 183 
 
 Augustus and breaking Patkul on the wheel, is now dis- 
 posed to treat for peace. The French envoy at Dresden 
 offers his services, but Charles declines treating except at 
 Moscow. " My brother Charles wishes to act Alexander," 
 says the Czar; "but he shall not find me Darius." 
 
 Peter now conceives almost exactly the same plan by 
 which the conqueror of the nineteenth century was en- 
 trapped and destroyed. He makes his country and climate 
 fight for him, and retreats slowly before his advancing 
 enemy, drawing him on step by step to a barren country, 
 whence he could have no retreat, and where Peter could 
 suddenly advance from his own secure position and over- 
 whelm him at a blow. With masterly generalship he re- 
 treats before his hot-headed adversary, still " tempting him 
 to the desert with his sword," marches to Mohilev and 
 Orsha on the eastern bank of the Dnieper, a position 
 in free communication with Smolensk, sends his Cossacks 
 to lay waste the country for thirty miles round, and then 
 orders them to join him beyond the Borysthenes. The 
 two Northern monarchs now disappear from the eyes of 
 anxious Europe among the wildernesses of ancient Scythia. 
 Peter, with a hundred thousand men well provided and in 
 convenient communication with his own cities and maga- 
 zines, remains quiet. Charles, intent upon dictating terms 
 at Moscow, crosses the Borysthenes with eighty thousand 
 men. A fierce battle without results is fought on the 
 Beresina, Charles pushes on to Smolensk. By order of 
 Peter the country between the Borysthenes and Smolensk 
 had been laid waste. At the approach of winter the 
 Swedish army dwindles and wastes away beneath the 
 horrors of the iron climate. Still Charles advances, when 
 
1 84 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 suddenly, and to the Czar inexplicably, he turns aside 
 from his path, abandons his design upon Moscow, and di- 
 rects his steps to the Ukraine. The mystery is solved by 
 the news of Mazeppa's treason. The old Hetman of the 
 Cossacks deserts to Charles, promising to bring over all his 
 troops: he brings no one but himself; the Cossacks scorn 
 his treachery, and remain faithful to their Czar. 
 
 By this time it was December, the cold intense, and, the 
 Swedish army perishing by thousands, Count Piper implores 
 his master to halt and go into the best winter-quarters 
 they could find in the Ukraine. The King refuses, resolved 
 to reduce the Ukraine, and then march to Moscow. In 
 the month of May, after a winter spent by the Czar's forces 
 in comfortable quarters and by the King's exposed to all 
 kinds of misery, Charles lays siege to Pultowa with eighteen 
 thousand men, the remnant of his eighty thousand. On 
 the i5th of June, 1709, the Czar appears before Pultowa, 
 and, by feint of attack upon the Swedes, succeeds in throw- 
 ing two thousand men into the place, and at length, a few 
 days after, gives him battle and utterly routs and destroys 
 his army. Both the King and the Czar, throughout this 
 
 " . . . . dread Pultowa's day, 
 When fortune left the royal Swede," 
 
 fight in the front of the battle. Several balls pierce the 
 Czar's clothes; while Charles, having been previously 
 wounded in the heel, is carried through the fight upon 
 a litter. After the total overthrow of his army Charles 
 escapes on horseback with a handful of followers, and, 
 entering the confines of Turkey, halts at Bender on the 
 Dniester. 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 185 
 
 The battle of Pultowa and the final overthrow of 
 Charles are followed during the autumn and winter by 
 the complete conquest of Livonia Viborg, Elbing, Riga, 
 and Revel being taken early in 1710. At the same time 
 Peter deposes Stanislaus and restores the illustrious Au- 
 gustus. 
 
 In the mean time Charles remains at Bender, the sti- 
 pendiary of the Sultan, while Poniatowski, his emissary at 
 the Porte, is busily intriguing to bring about a declaration 
 of war from Turkey against the Czar. In conjunction with 
 the Khan of the Crimean Tartars, who appeals to the Sul- 
 tan's jealousy of the increasing power of Russia, and 
 inspires him with a desire to recover Azov and expel his 
 encroaching neighbors from the Black Sea, the envoy suc- 
 ceeds. The Grand Mufti declares that it is necessary for 
 the Sultan to go to war with the Czar; whereupon the 
 Muscovite ambassador is forthwith " clapped into prison" 
 by way of commencement of hostilities, and the war be- 
 gins. Peter immediately makes a levy of one man in four, 
 besides one " valet out of every two belonging to the nobil- 
 ity," makes a solemn declaration of war, and then marches 
 at the head of forty thousand men to the frontier of Tur- 
 key. Previously to his departure he makes a public proc- 
 lamation of his previous marriage to Catharine; and the 
 Empress, despite his earnest remonstrances, accompanies the 
 invading army. 
 
 It is strange that the Czar on this expedition should 
 have committed the same error, and placed himself in al- 
 most the same unfortunate predicament, as his adversary 
 Charles. Trusting to the representations and the friend- 
 ship of the faithless Hospodar of Moldavia, he advances 
 
186 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 rapidly at the head of an insufficient force into a hostile 
 and barren country, relying for men and munitions of war 
 upon his ally. Crossing the Pruth, he finds himself near 
 Jassy, in a hostile country between an army of Turks and 
 another of Tartars, with a deep and rapid river between 
 him and his own dominions. Forty thousand Russians are 
 held at bay by two hundred thousand Turks and Tartars. 
 The situation of the Czar is terrible ; annihilation seems to 
 stare him in the face. His enemy Charles visits the Turkish 
 camp in disguise, urging the Czar's destruction upon the 
 Vizier. A destructive battle is going on unceasingly, which 
 in three days costs him eighteen thousand men. Retreat is 
 impossible ; no ally is near him, no succor expected. What 
 can possibly extricate him ? Shall he dash upon the Turks 
 at the head of his remaining forces and cut his way through 
 them, or die, sword in hand, in the attempt ? Shall he sur- 
 render to the overwhelming power of the Sultan's army, 
 and be paraded at Constantinople as the captive Czar? 
 Tortured and perplexed, he shuts himself up alone in his 
 tent and falls into terrible convulsions. None of his gen- 
 erals dare approach him ; he has forbidden an entrance to 
 all. Suddenly, in spite of the prohibition, the captive of 
 Marienburg stands before him. She who at all times pos- 
 sessed a mysterious power to calm the spasmodic affections, 
 half physical, half mental, to which he was subject, now 
 appears before him like an angel to relieve his agony and to 
 point out an escape from impending ruin. She suggests the 
 idea of negotiation, which had occurred to no one in the 
 desperate situation in which they were placed, and which 
 she instinctively prophesied would still be successful. She 
 strips herself of her jewels, and ransacks the camp for 
 
PETER THE GREAT. jgy 
 
 objects of value to form a suitable present for the Grand 
 Vizier. The Vice-Chancellor Shaffiroff is dispatched to the 
 enemy's camp, and the apparently impossible result is a 
 treaty of peace. Arms are suspended immediately, and 
 soon afterward honorable articles are signed, of which the 
 principal are the surrender of Azov, the exclusion of the 
 Czar from the Black Sea, the demolition of the fortress of 
 Taganrog, the withdrawal of the Russian soldiers from the 
 neighborhood of the Danube, and the promise of free pas- 
 sage to Charles XII. through Russia to his own states. 
 
 It is unnecessary to analyse or to criticize the different 
 motives that actuated the Vizier in acceding to an honorable 
 negotiation, when the Czar seemed to be so completely in 
 his power. It is sufficient that this was the surprising and 
 fortunate result of Catharine's counsel. " Her great merit," 
 says Voltaire, " was that she saw the possibility of negotia- 
 tion at a moment when the generals seem to have seen 
 nothing but an inevitable misfortune." No language can 
 describe the rage and mortification of Charles XII. at this 
 unexpected result at this apparently impossible escape of 
 his hated rival from overwhelming ruin. Hastening to the 
 camp of the Vizier, he upbraids him, as if he had been his 
 master instead of his stipendiary ; he expresses his profound 
 disgust that the Czar has not been carried to Constantinople, 
 instead of being allowed to go home so easily. " And who 
 will govern his empire in his absence ? " asked the Vizier, 
 with bitter irony, adding that " it would never to do have all 
 the sovereigns away from home." In answer to this retort, 
 Charles grins ferociously in his face, turns on his heel, and 
 tears the Vizier's robe with his spurs. After thus insulting 
 the great functionary of the Sultan, he continues three years 
 
1 88 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 longer a pensionary upon his bounty. To the reiterated 
 entreaties of his Senate, that he would return, and attend to 
 the pressing exigencies of his kingdom, he replies, in a style 
 worthy of Bombastes, that he would send one of his boots 
 to govern them, and remains at Bender, still deluded and 
 besotted with the idea that he should yet appear with a 
 Turkish force before Moscow. At last, in 1714, after fight- 
 ing a pitched battle at the head of his valets, grooms, and 
 house-servants, against a considerable Turkish army, sent 
 to dislodge him by force, he is ignominiously expelled from 
 the country whose hospitality he has so long outraged, and 
 returns in the disguise of a courier to Sweden. 
 
 The Czar upon his return to his dominions gains a con- 
 siderable victory over the Swedish fleet in the Baltic, com- 
 manding his own in person in a line-of-battle ship of his 
 own building. On arriving at Petersburg he ordains a great 
 triumphal procession to bring the captured ships with their 
 admirals and officers up the Neva. At this time he trans- 
 fers the Senate from Moscow to Petersburg, establishes as- 
 semblies, at which the penalty for infringement of the rules 
 and regulations is to " empty the great eagle, a huge bowl, 
 filled with wine and brandy," institutes the Academy of 
 Arts and Sciences, founds the public library commenced 
 with the one captured (" conveyed, the wise it call ") from 
 the University at Abo, sends a mission through Siberia to 
 China, and draws up a map of his dominions, much of it 
 with his own hand. 
 
 In 1715, after taking Stralsund, completing the conquest 
 of Finland and Esthonia, and commanding in person the 
 allied fleets of England, Denmark, and Russia, he makes a 
 second tour in Europe, accompanied by Catharine. He 
 
PETER THE GREAT. ^9 
 
 revisits Saardam, where he is received with great enthusiasm, 
 is entertained with great distinction in Paris, and visits the 
 tomb of Cardinal Richelieu, where he exclaims, dropping 
 upon his knees, " Thou great man, I would have given thee 
 half of my dominions to have learned of thee to govern the 
 other half." He drew up with his own hand a treaty of 
 commerce with France, and returned through Berlin to 
 Petersburg. The letters of the Margravine of Baireuth 
 from Berlin present no very flattering picture of the im- 
 perial travelers. She describes Peter as dressed plainly in 
 a naval costume, handsome, but rude, uncouth, and of 
 dreadful aspect; and Catharine as fat, frouzy, and vulgar, 
 needing only to be seen to betray her obscure origin, and 
 bedizened with chains, orders, and holy relics, " making 
 such a Geklinkklank as if an ass with bells were coming 
 along " ; she represents them both as intolerable beggars, 
 plundering the palace of everything they could lay their 
 hands on. 
 
 Peter had long ago constituted himself the head of the 
 Church, and treated with contempt the pretensions of the 
 prelates to temporal power. When at Paris, however, he 
 had received an elaborate petition from the Sorbonne, the 
 object of which was to effect a reunion between the Greek 
 and Latin Churches. But the despot who had constituted 
 himself the head, hand, heart, and conscience of his people 
 who had annihilated throughout his empire every element 
 of power adverse to his own who had crushed the soldiery, 
 the nobility, and the clergy, deposed the Patriarch, and 
 constituted himself the high priest of his empire was not 
 very likely to comply with the Sorbonne's invitation to 
 acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope in his dominions. 
 
i 9 o PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 Nevertheless, he received their petition with great polite- 
 ness. 
 
 On his return to Petersburg, he was vexed by the im- 
 portunity of some of his own clergy, who clamored for the 
 appointment of a Patriarch, on the ground that it was de- 
 manded by the people, and that it was necessary to assert 
 the dignity and independence of the Greek Church. Now 
 there happened to be about Petersburg one Sotoff, a vener- 
 able jester of eighty-four, who had been the Czar's writing- 
 master in his younger years, and at the age of seventy had 
 been advanced to the dignity of buffoon. This venerable 
 individual the Czar fixes upon for the office of Patriarch, 
 previously creating him a prince and a pope. In order to 
 make the office of Patriarch completely ridiculous in the 
 eyes of the people, and to give them a little innocent recre- 
 ation at the same time, he now ordains a solemn marriage 
 between this Patriarch and a " buxom widow of thirty-four." 
 We must ask indulgence while we quote a short description 
 of this funny ceremony from the old author already cited : 
 
 The nuptials of this extraordinary couple were solemnized by 
 the court in masks or mock show. The company consisted of 
 about four hundred persons of both sexes. Every four persons had 
 their proper dress and peculiar musical instruments, so that they 
 represented a hundred different sorts of habits and music, particu- 
 larly of the Asiatic nations. The four persons appointed to invite 
 the guests were the greatest stammerers that could be found in all 
 Russia. Old, decrepit men, who were not able to walk or stand, 
 had been picked out to serve for bridesmen, stewards, and waiters. 
 There were four running footmen, the most unwieldy fellows, who 
 had been troubled with the gout most of their lives, and were so fat 
 and bulky that they wanted others to lead them. The mock Czar 
 
PETER THE GREAT. I9 r 
 
 of Moscow, who represented King David in his dress, instead of a 
 harp, had a lyre with a bear-skin to play upon. He, being the chief 
 of the company, was carried on a sort of a pageant placed on a sled, 
 to the four corners of which were tied as many bears, which, being 
 pricked with goads by fellows purposely appointed for it, made 
 such a frightful roaring as well suited the confused and horrible din 
 raised by the disagreeing instruments of the rest of the company. 
 The Czar himself was dressed like a boor of Friesland, and skillfully 
 beat a drum in company with three generals. In this manner, bells 
 ringing everywhere, the ill-matched couple were attended by the 
 masks to the altar of the great church, where they were joined in 
 matrimony by a priest a hundred years old, who had lost his eye- 
 sight and his memory ; to supply which defect a pair of spectacles 
 were put upon his nose, two candles held before his eyes, and the 
 words sounded into his ears, which he was to pronounce. From 
 church the procession went to the Czar's palace, where the diver- 
 sion lasted some days. Many strange adventures and comical acci- 
 dents happened on their riding-sleds through the streets, too long 
 to be related here. Thus much may suffice to show that the Czar, 
 among all the heavy cares of government, knew how to set apart 
 some days for the relaxation of hi? mind, and how ingenious he was 
 in the contrivance of those diversions. 
 
 \Ve confess that we are unable to agree with the grave 
 conclusion of the author from whom we quote. To us this 
 " ingenious diversion " seems about as sorry a jest as we 
 ever heard of. However, it was considered "most admi- 
 rable fooling " in Moscow, and, at all events, after two or 
 three repetitions, seems to have quite cured the people of 
 their desire for Patriarchs. 
 
 "The Czar," says Voltaire, "thus laughingly avenged 
 twenty Emperors of Germany, ten Kings of France, and a 
 host of sovereigns. This was all the fruit which the Sor- 
 
I 9 2 
 
 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 bonne gathered from their not very politic idea of reuniting 
 the Greek and Latin Churches." 
 
 The darkest chapter in the life of Peter now approaches. 
 After the lapse of a century, no one can read the account 
 of that dreadful tragedy, the trial, condemnation, and 
 death of the Czarevitch Alexis, without a shudder of hor- 
 ror. No one can contemplate the spectacle of a son judi- 
 cially condemned by his father for no crime no one can 
 read the record of the solemn farce which represents the 
 trial of the unfortunate victim without feeling all his admira- 
 tion for the extraordinary qualities of the Czar swallowed 
 up by indignation and abhorrence. Up to this time Peter 
 seems a man a hard-hearted, despotic, inexorable man, 
 perhaps but he is still human. He now seems only a 
 machine, a huge engine of unparalleled power, placed upon 
 the earth to effect a certain task, working its mighty arms 
 night and day with ceaseless and untiring energy, crashing 
 through all obstacles, and annihilating everything in its path 
 with the unfeeling precision of gigantic mechanism. 
 
 It was hardly to be expected, to be sure, that this tre- 
 mendous despot, who had recoiled before no obstacle in the 
 path of his settled purpose, who had strode over everything 
 with the step of a giant, who had given two seas to an 
 inland empire, who had conquered the most warlike nation 
 and sovereign of Europe with barbarians in petticoats, who 
 had crushed the nobility, annihilated the Janizaries, tram- 
 pled the Patriarch in the dust who had repudiated his 
 wife because she was attached to the old customs of Mus- 
 covy, and had married and crowned a pastry-cook's mis- 
 tress because it was his sovereign will and pleasure it was 
 hardly to be expected that such a man would hesitate 
 
PETER THE GREAT. I 93 
 
 about disinheriting his own son if he thought proper to do 
 so. But it might have been hoped that he would content 
 himself with disinheriting him, and that the " Pater Patrise," 
 as by solemn decree he was shortly afterward entitled, would 
 remember that he- was also father of Alexis. 
 
 This unhappy young man, the son of the repudiated 
 wife of the Czar, seems to have been a very miserable crea- 
 ture. We have the fullest sympathy with the natural disap- 
 pointment of Peter at the incorrigible, hopeless stupidity 
 and profligacy of his son. Still, he had himself to blame 
 in a great measure for many of his son's defects. His edu- 
 cation had been neglected, or rather, worse than neglected ; 
 it had been left to the care of monks, to the care of the 
 very order of people most wedded to the ancient state of 
 things, and most desirous of restoring it if possible. The 
 necessary result of such training upon a dull boy might 
 easily have been foreseen. There was, however, not the 
 slightest objection to disinheriting him ; he had no claim to 
 the throne, and he was totally unworthy of it. There was 
 no law of Russia designating the eldest son as successor. 
 On the contrary, the genius of the Russian autocracy seems 
 to vest the fee simple of all the Russias and all the Russians 
 in the actual autocrat, to be disposed of as he sees fit, and 
 devised to whomsoever he deems most eligible. This had 
 been, and was then, the law, if it be worth while to talk 
 about law when the will of the sovereign makes and alters 
 the law at any moment. Alexis seems to have been weak, 
 dissolute, and intriguing a sot, a bigot, a liar, and a cow- 
 ard the tool of " bushy-bearded *' priests and designing 
 women, whose control of the empire had been terminated 
 by Peter's energetic measures. The Czar's predominating 
 13 
 
194 
 
 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 fear was that at his death the empire would relapse into the 
 quagmire of barbarism from which he had reclaimed it. 
 Alexis, priest-ridden and ignorant, was sure to become a 
 tool in the hands of priests as soon as he should ascend the 
 throne, and the old order of things would as surely be rein- 
 stated. 
 
 Peter, soon after the death of his son's wife (a virtuous 
 and intelligent German princess, whose life seems to have 
 been worn out by the neglect, cruelty, and debauchery of 
 her husband), remonstrates with him upon his vil courses, 
 commands him to reform, and threatens else to disinherit 
 him. " Amend your life, or else turn monk," says the Czar. 
 "I intend to embrace the monastic life," replies the son; 
 " I pledge myself to do so, and only ask your gracious per- 
 mission." The Czar, just before his departure for Germany 
 and France, visits Alexis, who was, or pretended to be, con- 
 fined to his bed by sickness. The young man again renews 
 his renunciation of the succession and repeats his pledge to 
 become a monk. Peter bids him take six months to con- 
 sider the matter, takes an affectionate farewell of him, and 
 sets out upon his travels. As soon as his back is turned, 
 Alexis realizes the old distich : 
 
 " The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be ; 
 The devil got well, the devil a monk was he." 
 
 He recovers his health instantaneously, and celebrates his 
 father's departure by getting very drunk with a select party 
 of friends. Seven months afterward the Czar writes to 
 him to join him at Copenhagen, if he had determined to 
 reform his life and make himself fit for the succession ; if 
 not, to execute his monastic plans without delay. Alexis 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 195 
 
 accordingly announces his intention of going to Copenha- 
 gen, draws a heavy bill on Menshikoff for his traveling ex- 
 penses, leaves Moscow, and, instead of Copenhagen, sneaks 
 off to Vienna. The Emperor of Germany, however, turns 
 him off, and he goes to Naples. Two envoys of the Czar, 
 Tolstoy and Romanzoff, proceed to Naples and induce him, 
 by ample promises of forgiveness on the part of his father, 
 to return. The following is a part of his father's letter : 
 
 I write to you for the last time, to tell you that you are to exe- 
 cute my will, which Tolstoy and Romanzoff will announce to you 
 on my part. If you obey me, I assure you and I promise, in the 
 name of God, that I will not punish you, and that, if you return, 
 I will love you more than ever ; but if you do not, I give you as 
 your father, in virtue of the power which I have received from God, 
 my eternal curse ; and as your sovereign, I assure you that I shall 
 find the means of punishing you ; in which I hope that God will 
 assist me, and that he will take my just cause in his hand. 
 
 Upon the faith of this sacred promise Alexis accompa- 
 nies the two emissaries to Moscow, where they arrive on the 
 1 3th of February, 1718. The day after his arrival, the Czar, 
 by way of keeping his promise of pardoning and loving him 
 more than ever, calls a grand council of the Senate and all 
 the dignitaries of the empire, and there, in the most solemn, 
 formal, and authentic manner, disinherits Alexis, deprives 
 him of all claim to the succession, and obliges him, and all 
 those present, to take the oath of future allegiance to his and 
 Catharine's son Peter, then an infant, who, however, shortly 
 afterward died. This was the beginning of the fulfillment 
 of his promise ; but it was only the beginning of the end. 
 Alexis was worthless, ignorant, stupid, and depraved ; but 
 he had committed no crime, and deserved no punishment, 
 
I9 6 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 certainly not the punishment of death. A comfortable state 
 of things there would be in the world, if every man who hap- 
 pened to have a profligate dunce of a son were to be justified 
 in cutting his head off; and for an autocrat and high priest 
 to do so seems to us a thousand times more atrocious. 
 
 However, the Czar seems to have been determined, after 
 his first evasion, to get rid of him, and accordingly produces 
 the charge of a conspiracy. Alexis is formally accused of 
 conspiring against his father's life and throne, and a pack of 
 perfectly contemptible stuff is collected together to make 
 what was called evidence ; it consisted of confessions of his 
 mistress, his pot-companions, and his confessor all upon 
 the rack that he had been known to express wishes for 
 his father's death, and to throw out hints about receiving 
 assistance, in a certain event, from the Emperor of Germany. 
 But in the whole mess of it there is not the faintest shadow 
 of a shade of evidence that he had ever conspired, that he 
 had ever entertained any design against his father ; and the 
 necessary result, upon any candid mind, of a perusal of the 
 evidence is a conviction of his perfect innocence of the 
 crime charged upon him. There is not a country in the 
 world where there is any pretense of administering justice, 
 in which such an accusation, supported by such evidence, 
 would not have been hooted out of court. Still, the accu- 
 sation was made, and something which they called a trial 
 was instituted. The Prince is sworn upon the Holy Evan- 
 gelists to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ; 
 and he immediately begins to utter lies by the wholesale. 
 His weak intellect seems to have been possessed and dis- 
 ordered by one idea that if he should confess a great deal 
 more than was expected, and make himself out much more 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 197 
 
 guilty than he was supposed to be, he should perhaps obtain 
 his pardon. Having, however, done nothing criminal, and 
 having said nothing that could be fairly considered suspicious, 
 he dives into the bottom of his breast, and brings up and 
 displays his most secret thoughts by way of self-accusation. 
 The truth seems to have been that he was bullied to the last 
 degree. We know the Czar to have been a man who emi- 
 nently inspired awe, and Alexis was of an uncommonly 
 sneaking disposition. As the event proved, Peter absolutely 
 frightened his son to death. Certainly, never were the forms 
 of judicial investigation so outraged as in this trial. The 
 details are sickening, and we have already transgressed the 
 indulgence of our readers. Let one or two questions, made 
 by the prosecution, and answered by the criminal in writing, 
 suffice as specimens of the Czar's criminal jurisprudence : 
 
 " When you saw, in the letter of Beyer " (a gossiping en- 
 voy from the German Emperor's court, who wrote to his 
 sovereign all the news, true or false, as fast as he picked it 
 up), " that there was a revolt in the army of Mecklenburg, 
 you were rejoiced ; I believe that you had some view, and 
 that you would have declared for the rebels, even in my 
 lifetime." The answer of Alexis is, " If the rebels had called 
 me in your lifetime, I should probably have joined them, 
 supposing that they had been strong enough." In answer to 
 another question, he avows that " he had accused himself 
 before God, in confession to the priest Jacques, of having 
 wished the death of his father; and that the confessor 
 Jacques had replied : ' God will pardon you for it ; we all 
 wish it as much.' " 
 
 After this farce of a trial had been enacted, the Czar, 
 waiving his prerogative of life and death, determined to sub- 
 
198 
 
 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 mit the case to the judgment of the clergy, judges, and high 
 officers of state. This always seemed to us very paltry. It 
 was an attempt to shift the responsibility of the murder off 
 his own shoulders, where only it belonged. The council of 
 clergy, after recognizing the Czar's power /#.$ vita et necis 
 which nobody ever doubted, and citing several cases from 
 the Old Testament, recommended mercy, relying principally 
 upon Absalom's case. It was plain they washed their hands 
 of it. Meantime, further investigations, it was pretended, 
 had made the matter worse ; and, on the 5th of July, the 
 ministers, senators, and generals unanimously condemn the 
 Prince to death, leaving the sentence, of course, open to the 
 Czar's revision, and prescribing no particular mode of exe- 
 cution. The sentence of death is published, Alexis is in- 
 formed of it, and seems literally to have been frightened to 
 death by it ; for, while the Czar was deliberating what course 
 to take (and the opinion of the most indulgent we confess 
 not ours seems to be that he did not intend the execution 
 of the sentence), the unfortunate young man was carried off 
 by a kind of apoplectic seizure, and, on the 7th of July, died 
 contrite, receiving the sacrament and extreme unction, and 
 imploring his father's pardon. 
 
 This account seems to be now accepted as the true one. 
 But the Marquis de Custine, in his greediness to devour 
 everything that blackens the character of Russia in general, 
 and of Peter the Great in particular, could not, of course, 
 fail to reproduce the stories that have been told and retold, 
 exploded and reexploded and which will continue, we sup- 
 pose, to be told and exploded, believed in and ridiculed, to 
 the end of time. It was not believed by many people in 
 Europe at the time, and it is not believed by the Comte de 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 199 
 
 Se"gur and the Marquis de Custine now, that the Prince died 
 a natural death if the cataleptic convulsive fit, consequent 
 upon extreme and protracted mental agony, which finally 
 ended his life, can be called a natural and not a violent 
 death. All sorts of stories were told at the time, each more 
 incredible than the other, and each disproving the other. 
 The Czar was said to have knouted him to death with his 
 own hands to have poisoned him with a potion which he 
 sent Marshal Weyde to an apothecary's shop in broad day- 
 light to procure to have cut off his head, and then to have 
 had it privately sewed on again by Madame Cramer in 
 short, to have made away with him by a variety of means, all 
 of which could not well have been true, and all of which 
 are, under the circumstances, extremely unlikely. To us it 
 seems ridiculous to add a new horror to this terrible tragedy. 
 We are not sure, either, that the supposed assassination 
 makes the matter any worse. " Murder most foul as at the 
 best it is," we are unable to see that the private murder is a 
 whit more atrocious than the public, solemn, and judicial 
 murder of which the Czar stands accused and condemned 
 to all eternity. 
 
 It certainly does not seem to have been in Peter's nature 
 to have taken his son off by poison, or in any private way. 
 The autocrat was a man who gloried in his own actions, in 
 displaying the tremendous, irresistible power of his own will. 
 He had collected all the dignity of his empire to assist at 
 the spectacle ; he had invoked the attention of all Europe 
 to the tragedy he proposed to enact ; he had determined to 
 execute his son, and he did intend, we have no doubt, to 
 murder him in the most ceremonious manner, and for the 
 good of his country. We have not a doubt of his motives ; 
 
200 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 he thought himself actuated by the purest philanthropy; 
 but these expansive bosoms, which embrace the whole earth, 
 or a third of it, in their colossal affection, are apt to be de- 
 ficient in the humbler virtues of love and charity when it 
 comes to detail. The truth was, Peter loved his country so 
 well that he determined to sacrifice his son to its welfare ; 
 in other words, his heart was as hard as the nether millstone, 
 and he would have sacrificed twenty thousand sons rather 
 than have been thwarted in the cherished projects of his 
 ambitious intellect. But we confess we can conceive of no 
 motive for the alleged assassination. It was not in the char- 
 acter of the Emperor, and it was a piece of stupidity as well 
 as barbarity. " If the assassination had trammeled up the 
 consequence " of all that preceded, " then it were well " ; 
 and the deed might have been possible. But the broken 
 faith to his son, the atrocious trial, the deliberate condem- 
 nation, could in no manner have been obliterated from the 
 minds of men by the " deep damnation " of a secret " taking 
 off." He had announced to the world his intention of exe- 
 cuting his son for alleged disobedience and conspiracy ; he 
 had sent to every court in Europe copies of the judicial pro- 
 ceedings, ending in the condemnation of the victim ; he had 
 been publicly brandishing the sword of justice over his son's 
 neck, and calling upon the world to witness the spectacle ; 
 and why he should have made all this parade for the mere 
 purpose of poisoning him, knouting him, or cutting his head 
 off in secret, seems inexplicable. 
 
 Besides, as Voltaire very strongly urges, the different 
 kinds of assassination alleged disprove each other, and the 
 fact that Alexis was never alone from the moment of the 
 condemnation to the hour of his death makes any secret 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 201 
 
 execution impossible. The knouting story has not found 
 many advocates ; the poisoning and the beheading are sup- 
 ported about equally, and are both about equally probable. 
 It certainly was not probable that the Czar would have sent 
 a high officer of court to fetch the poison, and a few minutes 
 afterward have dispatched another messenger to bid the 
 first make great haste. This is not exactly the way in which 
 poisoning is usually managed. And the other story, that 
 the young man's head was cut off and then sewed on again, 
 is so ludicrous that it would deserve no attention but for 
 the number of writers who have reported it upon the au- 
 thority of contemporaneous gossip. At what moment the 
 Czar found a secret opportunity to cut the head off how 
 Madam Cramer found a secret opportunity to sew it on 
 again how this ingenious lady, who, we suppose, had not 
 practiced this kind of needlework as a profession, was able 
 to fit it on so adroitly as to deceive not only the whole 
 court but even the patient himself, for, as far as we can un- 
 derstand the story, Alexis seems to have received extreme 
 unction and the sacrament, in presence of about a hundred 
 witnesses, after Mrs. Cramer's job was finished are all 
 matters very difficult to explain. Moreover, as we have, 
 already observed, we do not see much greater atrocity in 
 the one case than in the other. Peter's will being the only 
 law of the land, he could do what he chose, execute his son 
 as he chose, and by his own hand if he chose. The only 
 law which could have any binding force over the autocrat 
 was the law of nature, and that, to his soul of granite, was 
 weaker than the spider's web. He was determined to sacri- 
 fice his son to the welfare of his country, and to insure the 
 continuance of his reformation in church and state. Sacri- 
 
202 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 fices of this sort have always found advocates and admirers, 
 and are sure to be repeated on great occasions, and at rare 
 intervals, to the end of time. 
 
 Dismissing this painful subject, we hasten to conclude 
 this imperfect sketch of the principal events in the Czar's 
 history. We will not dwell upon the extraordinary but 
 abortive intrigues of the two arch-plotters of Europe, Car- 
 dinal Alberoni and Baron Gortz, by which the Czar and 
 the Swedish monarch were to be reconciled and combined 
 in a plot against George I. of England, and in favor of the 
 Pretender. A chance bullet from " a petty fortress and a 
 dubious hand " at Frederikshald, in Norway, terminates at 
 once the life of Charles and the intrigues of Gortz. The 
 Baron, instead of taking the crown from George's head, 
 loses his own head at Stockholm ; Alberoni is turned out of 
 Spain ; and the Czar remains in statu quo, having been care- 
 ful throughout the whole intrigue, which was perfectly well 
 known in England, to make the most barefaced promises of 
 eternal friendship to the house of Hanover ; and " to reit- 
 erate," as the diplomatists say, " the assurances of his dis- 
 tinguished consideration " for the English King all the time 
 that he was plotting against his throne. 
 
 The death of Charles alters the complexion of Europe. 
 Peace, which was hardly possible during his lifetime, be- 
 comes the immediate object of all parties. The Prince of 
 Hesse, husband of Queen Ulrica, and, by cession of his 
 wife, King of Sweden, is desirous of peace upon almost any 
 terms which will allow of an honorable repose to his ex- 
 hausted and impoverished country. Peter, having obtained 
 possession of all the provinces he required, is ready to 
 sheathe the sword on receiving proper recognition of his 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 203 
 
 title to the property thus acquired ; and accordingly, after 
 a good deal of bravado upon the Baltic between the English 
 and Russian fleets, and the burning of some fifty or sixty 
 Swedish villages, innumerable chateaux, and fifteen or twen- 
 ty thousand houses, in a descent made by the Russians 
 upon the coasts of Sweden, the war, which continues with 
 ferocity during all the negotiations for peace, is at last 
 brought to a conclusion by the signing of the treaty of Neu- 
 stadt, on September 10, 1721. By this treaty of peace, the 
 Czar is guaranteed in the possession of Livonia, Esthonia, 
 Ingria, Carelia, Viborg, and the many adjacent islands, and 
 thus reaps the reward of twenty years' hard labor ; receiv- 
 ing, moreover, from the Senate and Synod, by solemn de- 
 cree what seems insipid homage for an autocrat the titles 
 of Great, Emperor, and Pater Patrice. 
 
 After an interval of two years, passed in establishing 
 woolen, paper, and glass manufactories, embellishing his 
 capital, and regulating the internal and foreign commerce 
 of Russia, we suddenly find him, accompanied by the faith- 
 ful Catharine, descending the Volga at the head of a large 
 army. A revolution which had broken out in Persia, in the 
 course of which the reigning sovereign, the imbecile Hus- 
 sein, finds himself hard pressed by the Afghan prince, Meer 
 Mahmoud, offers an opportunity to Peter to possess himself 
 of a few maritime provinces on the Caspian, to console him 
 for the loss of Azov consequent upon the disaster of the 
 Pruth. A few hundred Russians, engaged in commerce at 
 the town of Shamakia, having been cut to pieces during 
 some of the hostile movements, he finds therein a pretext 
 for invading Persia, and requiring satisfaction from both 
 sovereign and rebel. Failing in this, of course, he sails 
 
204 
 
 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 from Astrakhan to Derbent, which town he takes possession 
 of, and, soon afterward, being applied to by the unhappy 
 Sophi for protection against the Afghans, he consents to 
 afford it, in consideration of receiving the towns of Baku 
 and Derbent, together with the provinces of Ghilan, Mazan- 
 deran, and Astrabad. " It is not land I want, but water," 
 exclaims the Czar, as he snatches these sunny provinces, the 
 whole southern coast of the Caspian, the original kingdom 
 of Cyrus, from the languid hand of the Persian, without the 
 expenditure of the blood, time, and treasure which it had 
 cost him to wrest the frozen swamps of Finland from the 
 iron grasp of Charles. 
 
 Peter's conquests are now concluded. The Russian 
 colossus now stands astride, from the " thrilling regions of 
 thick-ribbed ice " on the Baltic to the " fragrant bowers of 
 Astrabad " on the Caspian, with a foot upon either sea. 
 The man who had begun to gratify his passion for maritime 
 affairs by paddling a little skiff on the Yausa, and who be- 
 came on his accession only the barbaric sovereign of an in- 
 land and unknown country, now finds himself the lord of 
 two seas, with a considerable navy, built almost by his own 
 hand. It was upon his return to Petersburg from his Per- 
 sian expedition, that he ordered the very skiff in which he 
 commenced navigation to be brought from Moscow, and 
 took occasion to give to his court an entertainment which 
 was called the " consecration of the Little Grandsire," that 
 being the name he had given to the skiff. At the time 
 of this ceremony of the consecration, the progeny of the 
 Little Grandsire numbered already, according to the re- 
 turns of the admiralty, " forty-one ships of the line, in a 
 condition for service at sea, carrying twenty - one hun- 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 205 
 
 dred and six guns, manned with fourteen thousand nine 
 hundred seamen, besides a proportionate number of frigates, 
 galleys, and other smaller craft." The little cabin which 
 was Peter's house while building Petersburg, still stands 
 upon what is now called the Citadel ; it is consecrated as a 
 chapel, filled with votive offerings, and inclosed with a brick 
 wall, and the Little Grandsire is religiously preserved within 
 the building. 
 
 We are certainly not taken in by the colossal puerility 
 of the Russian marine any more than the Marquis de Cus- 
 tine is ; and, although the descendants of the Little Grand- 
 sire are now at least double the number they were at the 
 time of the consecration, we have not heard of any very 
 brilliant exploits on any ocean to justify the very imposing 
 and very Roman rostra which decorate the exchange at 
 Petersburg. To use a vulgar but expressive phrase, the 
 Russian navy has not yet set the Baltic on fire, and we 
 doubt if it ever will. If it could thaw a little, it would be 
 all the better ; for, Cronstadt being blockaded by ice six 
 months in the year, the navy is only paraded during the 
 pleasant weather for the amusement of the autocrat. As 
 long as England stands where it does, and the Russian win- 
 ter remains as it is, we shall hardly fear much from the de- 
 scendants of the Little Grandsire, at least till the capital is 
 shifted to the Bosporus. 
 
 At the same time we are far from agreeing with the Mar- 
 quis de Custine in his sweeping condemnation of Peter's 
 policy in, building Petersburg and establishing a marine. 
 It was a thousand times better to have the Black Sea and 
 the Baltic than nothing; and if his successors had taken 
 half as much pains as himself in fostering the maritime 
 
206 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 trade of the country, and if Russia, instead of all this 
 parade of ships of the line, frigates, and steamers, could 
 create a mercantile marine for itself, and could manage its 
 own considerable foreign trade, now monopolized by for- 
 eign vessels, principally the English, she might still obtain 
 the germ of a maritime population while waiting for Con- 
 stantinople. But till she learns that the strength of a navy 
 consists in sailors and not ships she is not likely to be a very 
 formidable power upon the ocean, let her build as many 
 line-of-battle ships as she chooses. 
 
 The only other interesting incident in Peter's life, which 
 now draws rapidly to its close, was the coronation of Catha- 
 rine as Empress consort. This event was celebrated with 
 extraordinary pomp, and particular stress is laid in the Em- 
 peror's proclamation upon her conduct in the affair of the 
 Pruth, and the salvation of himself and his army is attrib- 
 uted to her heroism and presence of mind. There seems 
 to be little doubt that Peter intended this solemn coro- 
 nation of the Empress during his lifetime a ceremony 
 which was not usual in Russia to be an indication of his 
 intention that she should succeed to the throne upon his 
 death. 
 
 Very soon after this, having exposed himself when in a 
 feeble state of health by standing in the water a long time 
 and over-exerting himself in saving the lives of some sailors 
 and soldiers who were near being wrecked in a storm upon 
 the Gulf of Finland, he was attacked by a painful disorder, 
 to which he had been subject during the latter years of his 
 life, and expired with calmness and resignation on the 28th 
 of January, 1725. His sufferings during his last illness had 
 been so intense that he was unable to make any intelli- 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 207 
 
 gible disposition as to the succession ; and, strange to say, 
 the possessor of this mighty empire, of which the only fun- 
 damental law was the expressed will of the sovereign, died 
 intestate. It is in the highest degree probable that he had 
 intended to appoint his wife as his successor ; at any rate, 
 assisted by the promptness of Menshikoff and her own reso- 
 lution, Catharine ascended the throne without opposition. 
 
 The disorder which thus cut off the Czar in the fifty- 
 fourth year of his age was an acute inflammation of the in- 
 testines and bladder ; but, as a matter of course, his death 
 was attributed to poison. We do not observe that the Mar- 
 quis de Custine has revived this story, which is matter of 
 surprise to us, particularly as we believe that his friend the 
 Comte de Segur has adopted it in his history. The tempta- 
 tion to damage the character of the Empress, and to repre- 
 sent her to posterity as an adulteress and a poisoner, was 
 too strong to be resisted by the contemporary chroniclers. 
 Lamberti gives us a detailed account of an intrigue of 
 Catharine with one of her chamberlains, a melodramatic 
 discovery made by Peter in an arbor, and a consequent de- 
 termination upon his part to shut her up for life in a con- 
 vent. She escaped her fate, according to the same faithful 
 historian, in a singular manner. Peter, it appears, kept a 
 memorandum-book, and was in the habit of making daily 
 minutes of everything he proposed to do; while one of 
 Catharine's pages was in the habit of secretly bringing his 
 Majesty's tablets from his dressing-room for the daily in- 
 spection of the Empress. The intended imprisonment of 
 Catharine, jotted down among other memoranda, was thus 
 revealed to her, whereupon she incontinently poisoned him. 
 This story has been sufficiently disproved. It is hardly 
 
208 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 worth disproving ; for it is not probable that a man who 
 had suddenly made this discovery of the guilt of a woman 
 who had just been crowned as empress, and whom he had 
 now determined to imprison for life, instead of designating 
 her as his successor, would require to make any memoran- 
 dum of the matter. And yet we are expected to believe 
 that an entry was found upon Peter's tablets almost literally 
 to this effect : " Mem. To repudiate my wife, shave her head, 
 and lock her up in a convent " ; as if otherwise the matter 
 would have slipped his memory. How is it possible that 
 our friend De Custine has allowed this story to escape him ? 
 
 In the vast square of the Admiralty at St. Petersburg 
 stands the celebrated colossal statue of Peter the Great. 
 Around him are palaces, academies, arsenals, gorgeous tem- 
 ples with their light and starry cupolas floating up like 
 painted balloons, and tall spires sheathed in gold, and flash- 
 ing like pillars of fire. This place, which is large enough 
 for half the Russian army to encamp in, is bounded upon 
 one side by the Admiralty building, the Winter Palace, and 
 the Hermitage, the facades of the three extending more 
 than a mile ; in front of the Winter Palace rises the red, 
 polished granite column of Alexander, the largest monolith 
 in the world ; from the side opposite the palace radiate 
 three great streets lined with stately and imposing buildings, 
 thronged with population, and intersected by canals which 
 are all bridged with iron; across the square, on the side 
 opposite the statue, stands the Isaac's Church, built of mar- 
 ble, bronze, granite, and gold, and standing upon a subter- 
 ranean forest, more than a million large trees having been 
 driven into the earth to form its foundation. The Emperor 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 2O9 
 
 faces the Neva, which pours its limpid waters through quays 
 of solid granite, which for twenty-five miles line its length 
 and that of its branches ; and beyond the river rise in full 
 view the Bourse, the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and 
 other imposing public edifices. 
 
 This equestrian statue has been much admired; we 
 think justly so. The action of the horse is uncommonly 
 spirited and striking, and the position of the Emperor digni- 
 fied and natural. He waves his hand, as if, like a Scythian 
 wizard as he was, he had just caused this mighty, swarming 
 city, with all its palaces and temples, to rise like a vapor 
 from the frozen morasses of the Neva with one stroke of his 
 wand. In winter, by moonlight, when the whole scene is 
 lighted by the still, cold radiance of a polar midnight, we 
 defy any one to pause and gaze upon that statue without a 
 vague sensation of awe. The Czar seems to be still pre- 
 siding in sculptured silence over the colossal work of his 
 hand ; to be still protecting his capital from the inundations 
 of the ocean, and his empire from the flood of barbarism, 
 which he always feared would sweep over it upon his death. 
 
 " How shall we rank him upon glory's page ? " 
 
 It is impossible not to admire his genius, his indomitable 
 energy, his unconquerable will. He proposed to himself, 
 while yet a youth, the mighty task of civilizing his country, 
 and of converting a mongrel Asiatic empire into a powerful 
 European state. It is difficult to place one's self in the 
 right position to judge him correctly. We are very far from 
 agreeing with the Marquis de Custine, that his mistake was 
 in importing his civilization. Russia had waited in vain 
 quite long enough for the spontaneous and indigenous ger- 
 14 
 
 I 
 
210 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 mination of the arts and sciences. Besides, in these days 
 when steam is so rapidly approximating and assimilating the 
 different parts of the earth to each other, when railroads are 
 opened to the Red Sea, and steamers paddle by the Garden 
 of Eden, it is difficult to say what nation will long retain a 
 peculiar and appropriate civilization of its own. That the 
 Czar opened the door to Europe and the ocean, that he 
 erected a granite portal, a triumphal arch, upon his western 
 frontier, is to us his greatest merit. If Russia is to be 
 civilized, it must be through the influence of the West ; if 
 Russia is to be free, the hymn of liberty will never be wafted 
 to her ears from the silent deserts of Asia, or the sepulchral 
 stillness of China. The Emperor did right to descend from 
 his Slavonic throne, and to go abroad to light the torch of 
 civilization in more favored lands. 
 
 But while we admire the concentration of purpose which 
 sustained him throughout his labors, we can not help deplor- 
 ing the great and fundamental mistake which made them all 
 comparatively worthless. A despot by birth, education, and 
 temperament, he had never the most glimmering notion of 
 the existence of a people. In Russia, then and at this day, 
 there is not even the fiction of a people. Peter had a cor- 
 rect idea of the proper sources of civilization : he knew 
 where and how to collect the seeds ; but he forgot that there 
 was nobody to civilize. A people may be humanized, cul- 
 tivated, brought to any degree of perfection in arts, and 
 arms, and sciences ; but he undertook to civilize a state in 
 which there was but one man, and that man himself. The 
 root must grow before the branches and the foliage. Of 
 this the autocrat had no idea. He had already annihilated 
 the only class which was not composed of slaves. With one 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 211 
 
 stroke of his scepter he had demolished the feudal nobility, 
 or what corresponded in a degree to the feudal nobility of 
 Europe, and had made all social rank throughout his empire 
 to depend upon service to himself. What was accomplished 
 at a later day in western Europe, in the midst of long convul- 
 sions and struggles, by the upheaving of the democracy, was 
 effected by the autocrat at a blow. This was a fatal error. 
 There were slaves enough before. It was unnecessary to 
 degrade the nobles. But, the more closely we analyze Peter's 
 character, the more cogently we are compelled to conclude 
 that his actuating motive was rather his own fame than the 
 good of his country. A great peculiarity of his ambition 
 was that, though possessed of eminent military talents and 
 highly successful in his campaigns, he seems to have cared 
 but little for the certaminis gaudia / to have taken but small 
 delight in battles and victories for themselves ; to have 
 cared little for conquest, beyond what he required for his 
 settled purpose. Conquering, he never aspires to be a con- 
 queror; victorious over the greatest general of the age, he 
 is ready to sheathe his sword as soon as the object of the 
 contest is attained. His ambition was to be a founder, and 
 he never, in victory or defeat, was once turned aside from 
 his purpose. He was determined to advance his empire to 
 the ocean, to create a new capital, and to implant there and 
 throughout his empire the elements of European civilization. 
 If his ambition had flown a little higher, had he determined 
 to regenerate his people, the real civilization of his empire 
 would have followed sooner than it is now likely to do. Of 
 this he probably never dreamed. He was a despot through- 
 out. He might have found other matters in England wor- 
 thy of his attention, other institutions as intimately con- 
 
212 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 nected with civilization as the English naval architecture; 
 but he appears to have been completely indifferent to the 
 great spectacle presented to an autocrat by a constitutional 
 kingdom. " Are these all lawyers ? " said he, one day, when 
 visiting the courts at Westminster. " What can be the use 
 of so many lawyers ? I have but two in my empire, and I 
 mean to hang one of them as soon as I get back." He cer- 
 tainly might as well have hung them both ; a country with- 
 out law has very little need of lawyers. 
 
 It was because his country was inhabited by slaves, and 
 not by a people, that it was necessary, in every branch of 
 his great undertaking, to go into such infinitesimal details. 
 Our admiration of the man's power is, to be sure, increased 
 by a contemplation of the extraordinary versatility of his 
 genius, its wide grasp, and its minute perception ; but we re- 
 gret to see so much elephantine labor thrown away. As he 
 felt himself to be the only man in the empire, so in his power 
 of labor he rises to a demigod, a Hercules. He felt that he 
 must do everything himself, and he did everything. He fills 
 every military post, from drummer to general, from cabin- 
 boy to admiral ; with his own hand he builds ships of the 
 line, and navigates them himself in storm and battle ; he 
 superintends every manufactory, every academy, every hos- 
 pital, every prison ; with his own hand he pulls teeth and 
 draws up commercial treaties wins all his battles with his 
 own sword, at the head of his army, and sings in the choir 
 as chief bishop and head of his church models all his forts, 
 sounds all his harbors, draws maps of his own dominions, 
 all with his own hand regulates the treasury of his empire 
 and the account-books of his shopkeepers, teaches his sub- 
 jects how to behave themselves in assemblies, prescribes the 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 213 
 
 length of their coat-skirts, and dictates their religious creed. 
 If, instead of contenting himself with slaves who only aped 
 civilization, he had striven to create a people capable and 
 worthy of culture, he might have spared himself all these mi- 
 nute details ; he would have produced less striking, instan- 
 taneous effects, but his work would have been more durable, 
 and his fame more elevated. His was one of the monarch 
 minds, who coin their age and stamp it with their image and 
 superscription ; but his glory would have been greater if he 
 had thought less of himself, and more of the real interests of 
 his country. If he had attempted to convert his subjects 
 from cattle into men, he need not have been so eternally 
 haunted by the phantom of returning barbarism, destroying 
 after his death all the labor of his lifetime, and which he 
 could exorcise only by shedding the blood of his son. 
 Viewed from this position, his colossal grandeur dwindles. 
 It seems to us that he might have been so much more, that 
 his possible seem to dwarf his actual achievements. He 
 might have been the creator and the lawgiver of a people. 
 He was, after all, only a tyrant and a city-builder. Even 
 now, his successors avert their eyes from the West. The 
 city of his love is already in danger from more potent ele- 
 ments than water. New and dangerous ideas fly through 
 that magnificent western gateway. When the portal is closed, 
 the keys thrown into the Baltic, and the discarded Moscow 
 again embraced, how much fruit will be left from the foreign 
 seeds transplanted ? When the Byzantine Empire is re- 
 stored, perhaps we shall see their ripened development ; the 
 Russians of the Lower Empire will be a match for the Greeks 
 who preceded them. 
 
 Still, we repeat, it is difficult to judge him justly. He 
 
2i 4 PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 seems to have felt a certain mission confided to him by a 
 superior power. His object he accomplished without wa- 
 vering, without precipitation, without delay. We look up to 
 him as to a giant, as we see him striding over every adver- 
 sary, over every obstacle in his path. He seems in advance 
 of his country, of his age, of himself. In his exterior he is 
 the great prince, conqueror, reformer; in his interior, the 
 Muscovite, the barbarian. He was conscious of it himself. 
 " I wish to reform my empire," he exclaimed, upon one oc- 
 casion, " and I can not reform myself." In early life his plea- 
 sures were of the grossest character ; he was a hard drinker, 
 and was quarrelsome in his cups. He kicked and cuffed his 
 ministers, on one occasion was near cutting the throat of 
 Lefort in a paroxysm of drunken anger, and was habitually 
 caning Prince Menshikoff. But, after all, he did reform 
 himself, and, in the latter years of his life, his habits were 
 abstemious and simple, and his days and nights were passed 
 in labors for his country and his fame. 
 
 It is difficult to judge him justly. Perhaps it would have 
 been impossible to have planted even the germ of civil or 
 even social liberty in such a wilderness as Russia was at his 
 accession. It was something to lift her ever so little above 
 the waves of barbarism, where he found her " many fathoms 
 deep." He accomplished a great deal. He made Russia a 
 maritime country, gave her a navy and a commercial capital, 
 and quadrupled her revenue ; he destroyed the Strelitzes, 
 he crushed the Patriarch, he abolished the monastic institu- 
 tions of his empire. If he had done nothing else, he would, 
 for these great achievements, deserve the eternal gratitude 
 of his country. 
 
THE NORTHMEN* 
 
 WE are misers in knowledge as in wealth. Open inex- 
 haustible mines to us on every hand, yet we return to grope 
 in the exhausted stream of past opulence, and sift its sands 
 for ore ; place us in an age when history pours in upon 
 us like an inundation, and the events of a century are 
 crowded into a luster; yet we tenaciously hold on to the 
 scanty records of foregone times, and often neglect the all- 
 important present to discuss the possibility of the almost 
 forgotten past. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that this passion for the antiquated 
 and the obsolete appears to be felt with increasing force in 
 this country. It may be asked, What sympathies can the 
 native of a land where everything is in its youth and fresh- 
 ness have with the antiquities of the ancient hemisphere ? 
 What inducement can he have to turn from the animated 
 scene around him, and the brilliant perspective that breaks 
 upon his imagination, to wander among the moldering 
 monuments of the olden world, and to call up its shadowy 
 lines of kings and warriors from the dim twilight of tradi- 
 tion ? 
 
 * History of the Northmen, or Danes and Normans. By Henry 
 Wheaton. London. 8vo. 1831. 
 
2I 6 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 " Why seeks he, with unwearied toil, 
 
 Through death's dark walls to urge his way, 
 Reclaim his long-asserted spoil, 
 And lead oblivion into day ? " 
 
 We answer that he is captivated by the powerful charm 
 of contrast. Accustomed to a land where everything is 
 bursting into life, and history itself but in its dawning, an- 
 tiquity has, in fact, for him the effect of novelty ; and the 
 fading but mellow glories of the past, which linger in the 
 horizon of the Old World, relieve the eye, after being daz- 
 zled with the rising rays which sparkle up the firmament of 
 the New. 
 
 It is a mistake, too, that the political faith of a repub- 
 lican requires him on all occasions to declaim with bigot 
 heat against the stately and traditional ceremonials, the 
 storied pomps and pageants of other forms of government ; 
 or even prevents him from at times viewing them with inter- 
 est, as matters worthy of curious investigation. Indepen- 
 dently of the themes they present for historical and philo- 
 sophical inquiry, he may regard them with a picturesque 
 and poetical eye, as he regards the Gothic edifices rich with 
 the elaborate ornaments of a gorgeous and intricate style 
 of architecture, without wishing to exchange therefor the 
 stern but proud simplicity of his own habitation ; or, as he 
 admires the romantic keeps and castles of chivalrous and 
 feudal times, without desiring to revive the dangerous cus- 
 toms and warlike days in which they originated. To him 
 the whole pageantry of emperors and kings, and nobles and 
 titled knights, is, as it were, a species of poetical machinery, 
 addressing itself to his imagination, but no more affecting 
 his faith than does the machinery of the heathen mythology 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 2IJ 
 
 affect the orthodoxy of the scholar who delights in the 
 strains of Homer and Virgil, and wanders with enthusiasm 
 among the crumbling temples and sculptured deities of 
 Greece and Rome ; or do the fairy mythology of the East 
 and the demonology of the North impair the Christian faith 
 of the poet or the novelist who interweaves them in his 
 fictions. 
 
 We have been betrayed into these remarks, in consider- 
 ing the work before us, where we find one of our country- 
 men, and a thorough republican, investigating with minute 
 attention some of the most antiquated and dubious tracts 
 of European history, and treating of some of its exhausted 
 and almost forgotten dynasties ; yet .evincing throughout 
 the enthusiasm of an antiquarian, the liberality of a scholar, 
 and the enlightened toleration of a citizen of the world. 
 
 The author of the work before us, Mr. Henry Wheaton, 
 has for some years filled the situation of charge d'affaires 
 at the court of Denmark. Since he has resided at Copen- 
 hagen, he has been led into a course of literary and historic 
 research, which has ended in the production of the present 
 history of those Gothic and Teutonic people who, inhabit- 
 ing the northern regions of Europe, have so often and so 
 successfully made inroads into other countries more genial 
 in climate and abundant in wealth. A considerable part of 
 his book consists of what may be called conjectural or criti- 
 cal history, relating to remote and obscure periods of time 
 previous to the introduction of Christianity, historiography, 
 and the use of Roman letters among those northern nations. 
 At the outset, therefore, it assumes something of an austere 
 and antiquarian air, which may daunt and discourage that 
 class of readers who are accustomed to find history carefully 
 
2i8 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 laid out in easy, rambling walks through agreeable land' 
 scapes, where just enough of the original roughness is left 
 to produce the picturesque and romantic. Those, however, 
 who have the courage to penetrate the dark and shadowy 
 boundary of our author's work, grimly beset with hyperbo- 
 rean horrors, will find it resembling one of those enchanted 
 forests described in northern poetry embosoming regions 
 of wonder and delight for such as have the hardihood to 
 achieve the adventure. For our own part, we have been 
 struck with the variety of adventurous incidents crowded 
 into these pages, and with the abundance of that poetical 
 material which is chiefly found in early history ; while many 
 of the rude traditions of the Normans, the Saxons, and the 
 Danes have come to us with the captivating charms of early 
 association, recalling the marvelous tales and legends that 
 have delighted us in childhood. 
 
 The first seven chapters may be regarded as preliminary 
 to the narrative, or, more strictly, historical part of the 
 book. They trace the scanty knowledge possessed by Greek 
 and Roman antiquity of the Scandinavian north ; the earli- 
 est migrations from that quarter to the west, and south, and 
 east of Europe; the discovery of Iceland by the Norwe- 
 gians; with the singular circumstances which rendered that 
 barren and volcanic isle, where ice and fire contend for 
 mastery, the last asylum of pagan faith and Scandinavian 
 literature. In this wild region they lingered until the Latin 
 alphabet superseded the Runic character, when the tradi- 
 tionary poetry and oral history of the north were consigned 
 to written records, and rescued from that indiscriminate de- 
 struction which overwhelmed them on the Scandinavian 
 continent. 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 2 ig 
 
 The government of Iceland is described by our author 
 as being more properly a patriarchal aristocracy than a re- 
 public ; and he observes that the Icelanders, in consequence 
 of their adherence to their ancient religion, cherished and 
 cultivated the language and literature of their ancestors, 
 and brought them to a degree of beauty and perfection 
 which they never reached in the Christianized countries of 
 the North, where the introduction of the learned languages 
 produced feeble and awkward though classical imitation, 
 instead of graceful and national originality. 
 
 When, at the end of the tenth century, Christianity was 
 at length introduced into the island, the national literature, 
 though existing only in oral tradition, was full blown, and 
 had attained too strong and deep a root in the affections of 
 the people to be eradicated, and had given a charm and 
 value to the language with which it was identified. The 
 Latin letters, therefore, which accompanied the introduction 
 of the Romish religion, were merely adapted to designate 
 the sounds heretofore expressed by Runic characters, and 
 thus contributed to preserve in Iceland the ancient language 
 of the North when exiled from its parent countries of Scan- 
 dinavia. To this fidelity to its ancient tongue the rude and 
 inhospitable shores of Iceland owe that charm which gives 
 them an inexhaustible interest in the eyes of the antiquary, 
 and endears them to the imagination of the poet. " The 
 popular superstitions," observes our author, "with which the 
 mythology and poetry of the North are interwoven, con- 
 tinued still to linger in the sequestered glens of this remote 
 island." 
 
 The language in itself appears to have been worthy of 
 this preservation, since we are told that "it bears in its 
 
220 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 internal structure a strong resemblance to the Latin and 
 Greek, and even to the ancient Persian and Sanskrit, and 
 rivals in copiousness, flexibility, and energy every modern 
 tongue." 
 
 Before the introduction of letters all Scandinavian knowl- 
 edge was perpetuated in oral tradition by their Skalds, who, 
 like the rhapsodists of ancient Greece and the bards of the 
 Celtic tribes, were at once poets and historians. We boast 
 of the encouragement of letters and literary men in these 
 days of refinement; but where are they more honored and 
 rewarded than they were among these barbarians of the 
 North ? The Skalds, we are told, were the companions and 
 chroniclers of kings, who entertained them in their trains, 
 enriched them with rewards, and sometimes entered the lists 
 with them in trials of skill in their art. They in a manner 
 bound country to country, and people to people, by a de- 
 lightful link of union, traveling about as wandering min- 
 strels from land to land, and often performing the office of 
 ambassadors between hostile tribes. While thus applying 
 the gifts of genius to their divine and legitimate ends, by 
 calming the passions of men and harmonizing their feelings 
 into kindly sympathy, they were looked up to with mingled 
 reverence and affection, and a sacred character was attached 
 to their calling. Nay, in such estimation were they held 
 that they occasionally married the daughters of princes, and 
 one of them was actually raised to a throne in the fourth 
 century of the Christian era. 
 
 It is true the Skalds were not always treated with equal 
 deference, but were sometimes doomed to experience the 
 usual caprice that attends upon royal patronage. We are 
 told that Canute the Great retained several at his court, 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 221 
 
 who were munificently rewarded for their encomiastic lays. 
 One of them having composed a short poem in praise of 
 his sovereign, hastened to recite it to him, but found him 
 just rising from table and surrounded by suitors : 
 
 The impatient poet craved an audience of the King for his lay, 
 assuring him it was " very short." The wrath of Canute was kin- 
 dled, and he answered the Skald with a stern look : " Are you not 
 ashamed to do what none but yourself has dared to write a short 
 poem upon me ? Unless by the hour of dinner to-morrow you pro- 
 duce a drapa above thirty strophes long on the same subject, your 
 life shall pay the penalty." The inventive genius of the poet did 
 not desert him ; he produced the required poem, which was of the 
 kind called Tog-drapa, and the King liberally rewarded him with 
 fifty marks of silver. 
 
 Thus we perceive how the flowers of poetry sprung up and 
 bloomed amid eternal ice and snows. The arts of peace were suc- 
 cessfully cultivated by the free and independent Icelanders. Their 
 Arctic isle was not warmed by a Grecian sun, but their hearts 
 glowed with the fire of freedom. The natural divisions of the 
 country by icebergs and lava-streams insulated the people from each 
 other, and the inhabitants of each valley and each hamlet formed, 
 as it were, an independent community. These were again reunited 
 in the general national assembly of the Althing, which might not 
 be unaptly likened to the Amphictyonic Council or Olympic games, 
 where all the tribes of the nation convened to offer the common 
 rites of their religion, to decide their mutual differences, and to 
 listen to the lays of the Skald, which commemorated the exploits of 
 their ancestors. Their pastoral life was diversified by the occupa- 
 tion of fishing. Like the Greeks, too, the sea was their element, but 
 even their shortest voyages bore them much farther from their 
 native shores than the boasted expedition of the Argonauts. Their 
 familiarity with the perils of the ocean, and with the diversified 
 manners and customs of foreign lands, stamped their national char- 
 
2 2 2 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 acter with bold and original features, which distinguished them from 
 every other people. 
 
 The power of oral tradition, in thus transmitting, through a 
 succession of ages, poetical or prose compositions of considerable 
 length, may appear almost incredible to civilized nations accustomed 
 to the art of writing. But it is well known that even after the Ho- 
 meric poems had been reduced to writing the rhapsodists who had 
 been accustomed to recite them could readily repeat any passage 
 desired. And we have, in our own times, among the Servians, Cal- 
 mucks, and other barbarous and semi-barbarous nations, examples 
 of heroic and popular poems of great length thus preserved and 
 handed down to posterity. This is more especially the case where 
 there is a perpetual order of men, whose exclusive employment it is 
 to learn and repeat, whose faculty of the memory is thus improved 
 and carried to the highest pitch of perfection, and who are relied 
 upon as historiographers to preserve the national annals. The in- 
 teresting scene presented this day in every Icelandic family, in the 
 long nights of winter, is a living proof of the existence of this an- 
 cient custom. No sooner does the day close than the whole patri- 
 archal family, domestics and all, are seated on their couches in the 
 principal apartment, from the ceiling of which the reading and 
 working lamp is suspended ; and one of the family, selected for that 
 purpose, takes his seat near the lamp, and begins to read some fa- 
 vorite Saga, or it may be the works of Klopstock and Milton (for 
 these have been translated into Icelandic), while all the rest atten- 
 tively listen, and are at the same time engaged in their respective 
 occupations. From the scarcity of printed books in this poor and 
 sequestered country, in some families the Sagas are recited by those 
 who have committed them to memory, and there are still instances 
 of itinerant orators of this sort, who gain a livelihood during the 
 winter by going about from house to house repeating the stories 
 they have thus learned by heart. 
 
 The most prominent feature of Icelandic verse, accord- 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 223 
 
 ing to our author, is its alliteration. In this respect it re- 
 sembles the poetry of all rude periods of society. That of 
 the Eastern nations, the Hebrews and the Persians, is full of 
 this ornament ; and it is found even among the classic poets 
 of Greece and Rome. These observations of Mr. Wheaton 
 are supported by those of Dr. Henderson,* who states that 
 the fundamental rule in Icelandic poetry required that there 
 should be three words in every couplet having the same 
 initial letter, two of which should be in the former hemistich, 
 and one in the latter. The following translation from Mil- 
 ton is furnished as a specimen : 
 
 " Fid that Fillu diup 
 Fard annum slaega, 
 .tfdloerk ^idleikat 
 .Z?armi vitis a." 
 
 " Into this wild abyss the wary fiend 
 Stood on the brink of hell and looked 
 
 As a specimen of the tales related by the Skalds we may 
 cite that of Sigurd and the beauteous Brynhilda, a royal 
 virgin, who is described as living in a lonely castle, encircled 
 by magic flames. 
 
 In the Teutonic lay, Brynhilda is a mere mortal virgin ; 
 but in the Icelandic poem she becomes a Valkyria, one of 
 those demi-divinities, servants of Odin or Woden in the 
 Gothic mythology, who were appointed to watch over the 
 fate of battle, and were, as their name betokens, selectors of 
 the slain. They were clothed in armor, and mounted on 
 fleet horses, with drawn swords, and mingled in the shock 
 
 * Henderson's Iceland, Edinburgh, 1819, Appendix III. 
 
224 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 of battle, choosing the warrior - victims, and conducting 
 them to Valhalla, the hall of Odin, where they joined the 
 banquet of departed heroes, in carousals of mead and 
 beer. 
 
 The first interview of the hero and heroine is wildly 
 romantic. Sigurd, journeying toward Franconia, sees a 
 flaming light upon a lofty mountain : he approaches it, and 
 beholds a warrior in full armor asleep upon the ground. On 
 removing the helmet of the slumberer, he discovers the sup- 
 posed knight to be an Amazon. Her armor clings to her 
 body, so that he is obliged to separate it with his sword. 
 She then arises from her death-like sleep, and apprizes him 
 that he has broken the spell by which she lay entranced. She 
 had been thrown into this lethargic state by Odin, in pun- 
 ishment for having disobeyed his orders. In a combat be- 
 tween two knights she had caused the death of him who 
 should have had the victory. 
 
 This romantic tale has been agreeably versified by Wil- 
 liam Spencer, an elegant and accomplished genius, who has 
 just furnished the world with sufficient proofs of his talents 
 to cause regret that they did not fall to the lot of a more in- 
 dustrious man. .We subjoin the fragments of his poem cited 
 by our author : 
 
 " Oh, strange is the bower where Brynhilda reclines, 
 Around it the watch-fire high bickering shines ! 
 Her couch is of iron, her pillow a shield, 
 And the maiden's chaste eyes are in deep slumber sealed ; 
 Thy charm, dreadful Odin, around her is spread, 
 From thy wand the dread slumber was poured on her head. 
 Oh, whilom in battle so bold and so free, 
 Like a Vikingr victorious she roved o'er the sea. 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 225 
 
 The love-lighting eyes, which are fettered by sleep, 
 Have seen the sea-fight raging fierce o'er the deep ; 
 And 'mid the dread wounds of the dying and slain, 
 The tide of destruction poured wide o'er the plain. 
 
 " Who is it that spurs his dark steed at the fire ? 
 Who is it whose wishes thus boldly aspire 
 To the chamber of shields, where the beautiful maid 
 By the spell of the mighty All-Father is laid ? 
 It is Sigurd the valiant, the slayer of kings, 
 With the spoils of the Dragon, his gold and his rings." 
 
 BRYNHILDA. 
 
 " Like a Virgin of the Shield I roved o'er the sea, 
 My arm was victorious, my valor was free. 
 By prowess, by Runic enchantment and song, 
 I raised up the weak, and I beat down the strong ; 
 I held the young prince 'mid the hurly of war, 
 My arm waved around him the charmed scimetar ; 
 I saved him in battle, I crowned him in hall, 
 Though Odin and Fate had foredoomed him to fall : 
 Hence Odin's dread curses were poured on my head ; 
 He doomed the undaunted Brynhilda to wed. 
 But I vowed the high vow which gods dare not gainsay, 
 That the boldest in warfare should bear me away : 
 And full well I knew that thou, Sigurd, alone 
 Of mortals the boldest in battle hast shone ; 
 I knew that none other the furnace could stem 
 (So wrought was the spell, and so fierce was the flame), 
 Save Sigurd the glorious, the slayer of kings, 
 With the spoils of the Dragon, his gold and his rings." 
 
 The story in the original runs through several cantos, com- 
 prising varied specimens of those antique Gothic compo- 
 sitions which, to use the words of our author 
 15 
 
226 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 are not only full of singularly wild and beautiful poetry, and lively 
 pictures of the manners and customs of the heroic age of the ancient 
 North, its patriarchal simplicity, its deadly feuds, and its fanciful su- 
 perstition, peopling the earth, air, and waters with deities, giants, 
 genii, nymphs, and dwarfs, but there are many exquisite touches 
 of the deepest pathos, to which the human heart beats in unison in 
 every age and in every land. 
 
 Many of these hyperborean poems, he remarks, have an 
 Oriental character and coloring in their subjects and im- 
 agery, their mythology and their style, bearing internal evi- 
 dence of their having been composed in remote antiquity, 
 and in regions less removed from the cradle of the human 
 race than the Scandinavian North. " The oldest of this 
 fragmentary poetry," as he finely observes, " may be com- 
 pared to the gigantic remains, the wrecks of a more ancient 
 world, or to the ruins of Egypt and Hindostan, speaking a 
 more perfect civilization, the glories of which have long 
 since departed. 
 
 Our author gives us many curious glances at the popular 
 superstitions of the North, and those poetic and- mythic 
 fictions which pervaded the great Scandinavian family of 
 nations. The charmed armor of the warrior; the dragon 
 who keeps a sleepless watch over buried treasure ; the spirits 
 or genii that haunt the rocky tops of mountains, or the 
 depths of quiet lakes; and the elves or vagrant demons 
 which wander through forests or by lonely hills ; these are 
 found in all the popular superstitions of the North. Dit- 
 marus Blefkenius tells us that the Icelanders believed in 
 domestic spirits, which woke them at night to go and fish ; 
 and that all expeditions to which they were thus summoned 
 were eminently fortunate. The water-sprites, originating in 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 227 
 
 Icelandic poetry, may be traced throughout the north of 
 Europe. The Swedes delight to tell of the Stromkerl, or 
 boy of the stream, who haunts the glassy brooks that steal 
 gently through green meadows, and sits on the silver waves 
 at moonlight, playing his harp to the elves who dance on 
 the flowery margin. Scarcely a rivulet in Germany also but 
 has its Nixen, or water-witches, all evidently members of 
 the great Northern family. 
 
 Before we leave this enchanted ground, we must make a 
 few observations on the Runic characters, which were re- 
 garded with so much awe in days of yore, as locking up 
 darker mysteries and more potent spells than the once 
 redoubtable hieroglyphics of the Egyptians. The Runic 
 alphabet, according to our author, consists properly of six- 
 teen letters. Northern tradition attributes them to Odin, 
 who perhaps brought them into Scandinavia, but they have 
 no resemblance to any of the alphabets of Central Asia. 
 Inscriptions in these characters are still to be seen on rocks 
 and stone monuments in Sweden, and other countries of the 
 North, containing Scandinavian verses in praise of their an- 
 cient heroes. They were also engraven on arms, trinkets, 
 amulets, and utensils, and sometimes on the bark of trees, 
 and on wooden tablets, for the purpose of memorials or of 
 epistolary correspondence. In one of the Eddaic poems, 
 Odin is represented as boasting the magic power of the Ru- 
 nic rhymes to heal diseases and counteract poison ; to spell- 
 bind the arms of an enemy, to lull the tempest, to stop the 
 career of witches through the air, to raise the dead, and 
 extort from them the secrets of the world of spirits. The 
 reader who may desire to see the letters of this all-potent 
 alphabet, will find them in Mallet's " Northern Antiquities." 
 
22 8 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 In his sixth chapter, Mr. Wheaton gives an account of 
 the religion of Odin, and his migration, with a colony of 
 Scythian Goths, from the banks of the Tanais, in Asia, to 
 the peninsula of Scandinavia, to escape the Roman legions. 
 Without emulating his minute and interesting detail, we will 
 merely and briefly state some of the leading particulars, and 
 refer the curious reader to the pages of his book. 
 
 The expedition of this mythological hero is stated to 
 have taken place about seventy years before the Christian 
 era, when Pompey the Great, then Consul of Rome, finished 
 the war with Tigranes and Mithridates, and carried his vic- 
 torious arms throughout the most important parts of Asia. 
 We quote a description of the wonderful vessel Skidblad- 
 ner, the ship of the gods, in which he made the voyage : 
 
 " Skidbladner," said one of the genii, when interrogated by 
 Gangler, " is one of the best ships, and most curiously constructed. 
 It was built by certain dwarfs, who made a present of it to Freyn. 
 It is so vast that there is room to hold all the deities with their 
 armor. As soon as the sails are spread, it directs its course, with a 
 favorable breeze, wherever they desire to navigate ; and when they 
 wish to land, such is its marvelous construction, that it can be taken 
 to pieces, rolled up, and put in the pocket." " That is an excellent 
 ship, indeed," replied Gangler, " and must have required much 
 science and magic art to construct" (p. 118). 
 
 With this very convenient, portable, and pocketable ship, 
 and a crew of Goths of the race of Sviar, called by Tacitus 
 Suiones, the intrepid Odin departed from Scythia, to escape 
 the domination of the Romans, who were spreading them- 
 selves over the world. He took with him also his twelve 
 pontiffs, who were at once priests of religion and judges of 
 the law. Whenever sea or river intervened, he launched his 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 22 g 
 
 good ship Skidbladner, embarked with his band, and sailed 
 merrily over; then landing, and pocketing the transport, he 
 again put himself at the head of his crew, and marched 
 steadily forward. To add to the facilities of these primi- 
 tive emigrants, Odin was himself a seer and a magician. 
 He could look into futurity; could strike his enemies with 
 deafness, blindness, and sudden panic; could blunt the 
 edge of their weapons, and render his own warriors invisible. 
 He could transform himself into bird, beast, fish, or serpent, 
 and fly to the most distant regions, while his body remained 
 in a trance. He could, with a single word, extinguish fire, 
 control the winds, and bring the dead to life. He carried 
 about with him an embalmed and charmed head, which 
 would reply to his questions, and give him information of 
 what was passing in the remotest lands. He had, moreover, 
 two most gifted and confidential ravens, who had the gift of 
 speech, and would fly, on his behests, to the uttermost parts 
 of the earth. We have only to believe in the supernatural 
 powers of such a leader, provided with such a ship, and 
 such an oracular head, attended by two such marvelously 
 gifted birds, and backed by a throng of stanch and stal- 
 wart Gothic followers, and we shall not wonder that he 
 found but little difficulty in making his way to the peninsula 
 of Scandinavia, and in expelling the aboriginal inhabitants, 
 who seem to have been but a diminutive and stunted race ; 
 although there are not wanting fabulous narrators who 
 would fain persuade us there were giants among them. 
 They were gradually subdued and reduced to servitude, or 
 driven to the mountains, and subsequently to the desert 
 wilds and fastnesses of Norrland, Lapland, and Finland, 
 where they continued to adhere to that form of polytheism 
 
230 
 
 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 called fetichism, or the adoration of birds and beasts, stocks 
 and stones, and all the animate and inanimate works of cre- 
 ation. 
 
 As to Odin, he introduced into his new dominions the 
 religion he had brought with him from the banks of the 
 Tanais ; but, like the early heroes of most barbarous nations, 
 he was destined to become himself an object of adoration ; 
 for, though to all appearance he died, and was consumed on 
 
 a funeral pile, it was said that he was translated to the bliss- 
 
 
 
 ful abode of Godheim, there to enjoy eternal life. In pro- 
 cess of time it was declared that, though a mere prophet on 
 earth, he had been an incarnation of the Supreme Deity, and 
 had returned to the sacred hall of Valhalla, the paradise of 
 the brave, where, surrounded by his late companions in 
 arms, he watched over the deeds and destinies of the chil- 
 dren of men. 
 
 The primitive people who had been conquered by Odin 
 and his followers seem to have been as diminutive in spirit 
 as in form, and withal a rancorous race of little vermin, 
 whose expulsion from their native land awakens but faint 
 sympathy; yet candor compels us to add that their con- 
 querors are not much more entitled to our esteem although 
 their hardy deeds command our admiration. The author 
 gives a slight sketch of the personal peculiarities which 
 discriminated both, extracted from an Eddaic poem, and 
 which is worthy of notice, as accounting, as far as the 
 authority is respected, for some of the diversities in feature 
 and complexion of the Scandinavian races : 
 
 The slave cast, descended from the aboriginal Finns, were dis- 
 tinguished from their conquerors by black hair and complexion. . . . 
 The caste of freemen and freeholders, lords of the soil whicl? they 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 231 
 
 cultivated, and descended from the Gothic conquerors, had reddish 
 hair, fair complexion, and all the traits which peculiarly mark that 
 famous race .... while the caste of the illustrious Jarls and the 
 Hersen, earls and barons, were distinguished by still fairer hair and 
 skin, and by noble employments and manners ; from these descended 
 the kingly race, skilled in Runic science, in manly exercises, and the 
 military art. 
 
 The manners, customs, and superstitions of these North- 
 ern people, which afterward, with various modifications, per- 
 vaded and stamped an indelible character on so great a 
 part of Europe, deserve to be more particularly mentioned ; 
 and we give a brief view of them, chiefly taken from the 
 work of our author, and partly from other sources. The 
 religion of the early Scandinavians taught the existence of a 
 Supreme Being, called Thor, who ruled over the elements, 
 purified the air with refreshing showers, dispensed health 
 and sickness, wielded the thunder and lightning, and with 
 his celestial weapon, the rainbow, launched unerring arrows 
 at the evil demons. He was worshiped in a primitive but 
 striking manner, amid the solemn majesty of nature, on the 
 tops of mountains, in the depths of primeval forests, or in 
 those groves which rose like natural temples on islands sur- 
 rounded by the dark waters of lonely and silent lakes. They 
 had, likewise, their minor deities, or genii, whom we have 
 already mentioned, who were supposed to inhabit the sun, 
 the moon, and stars the regions of the air, the trees, the 
 rocks, the brooks, and mountains of the earth, and to super- 
 intend the phenomena of their respective elements. They 
 believed, also, in a future state of torment for the guilty, and 
 of voluptuous and sensual enjoyment for the virtuous. 
 
 This primitive religion gave place to more complicated 
 
23 2 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 beliefs. Odin, elevated, as we have shown, into a divinity, 
 was worshiped as the Supreme Deity, and with him was 
 associated his wife Freya ; from these are derived our Odens- 
 day Wodensday or Wednesday and our Freytag, or Fri- 
 day. Thor, from whom comes Thursday, was now more lim- 
 ited in his sway, though he still bent the rainbow, launched 
 the thunderbolt, and controlled the seasons. These three 
 were the principal deities, and held assemblies of those of 
 inferior rank and power. The mythology had also its devil, 
 called Loke, a most potent and malignant spirit, and sup- 
 posed to be the cause of all evil. 
 
 By degrees the religious rites of the Northern people be- 
 came more artificial and ostentatious ; they were performed 
 in temples with something of Asiatic pomp. Festivals were 
 introduced of symbolical and mystic import, at the summer 
 and the winter solstice, and at various other periods, in 
 which were typified not merely the decline and renovation 
 of nature and the. changes of the seasons, but the epochs in 
 the moral history of man. As the ceremonials of religion 
 became more dark and mysterious, they assumed a cruel 
 and sanguinary character; prisoners taken in battle were 
 sacrificed by the victors, subjects by their kings, and some- 
 times even children by their parents. Superstition gradually 
 spread its illusions over all the phenomena of nature, and 
 gave each some occult meaning ; oracles, lots, auguries, and 
 divination gained implicit faith ; and soothsayers read the 
 decrees of fate in the flight of birds, the sound of thunder, 
 and the entrails of the victim. Every man was supposed to 
 have his attendant spirit, his destiny which it was out of his 
 power to avert, and his appointed hour to die ; Odin, how- 
 ever, could control or alter the destiny of a mortal, and 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 2 33 
 
 defer the fatal hour. It was believed, also, that a man's life 
 might be prolonged if another would devote himself to death 
 in his stead. 
 
 The belief in magic was the natural attendant upon 
 these superstitions. Charms and spells were practiced, and 
 the Runic rhymes, known but to the gifted few, acquired 
 their reputation among the ignorant multitude for an all- 
 potent and terrific influence over the secrets of nature and 
 the actions and destinies of man. 
 
 As war was the principal and the only noble occupation 
 of these people, their moral code was suitably brief and stern. 
 After profound devotion to the gods, valor in war was incul- 
 cated as the supreme virtue, cowardice as the deadly sin. 
 Those who fell gloriously in war were at once transported to 
 Valhalla, the airy hall of Odin, there to partake of the 
 eternal felicities of the brave. Fighting and feasting, which 
 had constituted their fierce joys on earth, were lavished 
 upon them in this supernal abode. Every day they had 
 combats in the listed field the rush of steeds, the flash of 
 swords, the shining of lances, and all the maddening tumult 
 and din of battle ; helmets and bucklers were riven, horses 
 and riders overthrown, and ghastly wounds exchanged ; but 
 at the setting of the sun all was over; victors and van- 
 quished met unscathed in glorious companionship around 
 the festive board of Odin in Valhalla's hall, where they par- 
 took of the ample banquet and quaffed full horns of beer 
 and fragrant mead. For the just who did not die in fight a 
 more peaceful but less glorious elysium was provided a 
 resplendent golden palace, surrounded by verdant meads 
 and shady groves and fields of spontaneous fertility. 
 
 The early training of their youth was suited to the 
 
234 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 creed of this warlike people. In the tender days of child- 
 hood they were gradually hardened by athletic exercises, 
 and nurtured through boyhood in difficult and daring feats. 
 At the age of fifteen they were produced before some pub- 
 lic assemblage and presented with a sword, a buckler, and 
 a lance ; from that time forth they mingled among men, and 
 were expected to support themselves by hunting or warfare. 
 But though thus early initiated in the rough and dangerous 
 concerns of men, they were prohibited all indulgence with 
 the softer sex until matured in years and vigor. 
 
 The weapons of offense were bow and arrow, battle-axe 
 and sword ; and the latter was often engraved with some 
 mystic characters, and bore a formidable and vaunting 
 name. 
 
 The helmets of the common soldiery were of leather, 
 and their bucklers leather and wood ; but warriors of rank 
 had helmets and shields of iron and brass, sometimes richly 
 gilt and decorated ; and they wore coats of mail, and occa- 
 sionally plated armor. 
 
 A young chieftain of generous birth received higher en- 
 dowments than the common class. Besides the hardy exer- 
 cise of the chase and the other exercises connected with 
 the use of arms, he was initiated betimes into the sacred 
 science of the Runic writing and instructed in the ancient 
 lay, especially if destined for sovereignty, as every king was 
 the pontiff of his people. When a prince had attained the 
 age of eighteen his father usually gave him a small fleet and 
 a band of warriors, and sent him on some marauding voy- 
 age, from which it was disgraceful to return with empty 
 hands. 
 
 Such was the moral and physical training of the North- 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 235 
 
 men, which prepared them for that wide and wild career of 
 enterprise and conquest which has left its traces all along the 
 coasts of Europe, and thrown communities and colonies, in 
 the most distant regions, to remain themes of wonder and 
 speculation in after-ages. Actuated by the same roving and 
 predatory spirit which had brought their Scythian ancestors 
 from the banks of the Tanais, and rendered daring navi- 
 gators by their experience along the stormy coasts of the 
 North, they soon extended their warlike roamings over the 
 ocean and became complete maritime marauders, with 
 whom piracy at sea was equivalent to chivalry on shore 
 and a freebooting cruise to an heroic enterprise. 
 
 For a time the barks in which they braved the dangers 
 of the sea and infested the coasts of England and France 
 were mere canoes formed from the trunks of trees, and so 
 light as readily to be carried on men's shoulders or dragged 
 along the land. With these they suddenly swarmed upon a 
 devoted coast, sailing up the rivers, shifting from stream to 
 stream, and often making their way back to the sea by some 
 different river from that which they had ascended. Their 
 chiefs obtained the appellation of sea-kings, because, to the 
 astonished inhabitants of the invaded coasts, they seemed 
 to emerge suddenly from the ocean, and, when they had fin- 
 ished their ravages, to retire again into its bosom as to their 
 native home ; and they were rightly named, in the opinion 
 of the author of a northern Saga, seeing that their lives 
 were passed upon the waves, and " they never sought shel- 
 ter under a roof or drained their drinking-horn at a cottage 
 fire." 
 
 Though plunder seemed to be the main object of this 
 wild ocean chivalry, they had still that passion for martial 
 
236 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 renown which grows up with the exercise of arms, however 
 rude and lawless, and which in them was stimulated by the 
 songs of the Skalds. 
 
 We are told that they were " sometimes seized with a 
 sort of frenzy, a furor Martis, produced by their excited 
 imaginations dwelling upon the images of war and glory, 
 and perhaps increased by those potations of stimulating 
 liquors in which the people of the North, like other unciv- 
 ilized tribes, indulged to great excess. When this madness 
 was upon them they committed the wildest extravagances, 
 attacked indiscriminately friends and foes, and even waged 
 war against the rocks and trees. At other times they defied 
 each other to mortal combat in some lonely and desert isle." 
 
 Among the most renowned of these early sea-kings was 
 Ragnar Lodbrok, famous for his invasion of Northumbria, 
 in England, and no less famous in ancient Sagas for his 
 strange and cruel death. According to those poetic legends, 
 he was a King of Denmark, who ruled his realms in peace, 
 without being troubled with any dreams of conquest. His 
 sons, however, were roving the seas with their warlike fol- 
 lowers, and after a time tidings of their heroic exploits 
 reached his court. The jealousy of Ragnar was excited, 
 and he determined on an expedition that should rival their 
 achievements. He accordingly ordered "the Arrow," the 
 signal of war, to be sent through his dominions, summoning 
 his " champions " to arms. He had ordered two ships of 
 immense size to be built, and in them he embarked with his 
 followers. His faithful and discreet Queen, Aslauga, warned 
 him of the perils to which he was exposing himself, but in 
 vain. He set sail for the north of England, which had for- 
 merly been invaded by his predecessors. The expedition 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 237 
 
 was driven back to port by a tempest. The Queen repeated 
 her warnings and entreaties, but, finding them unavailing, 
 she gave him a magical garment that had the virtue to ren- 
 der the wearer invulnerable. 
 
 Ragnar again put to sea, and was at last shipwrecked on the 
 English coast. In this emergency his courage did not desert him, 
 but he pushed forward with his small band to ravage and plunder. 
 Ella collected his forces to repel the invader. Ragnar, clothed with 
 the enchanted garment he had received from his beloved Aslauga, 
 and armed with the spear with which he had slain the guardian 
 serpent of Thora, four times pierced the Saxon ranks, dealing death 
 on every side, while his own body was invulnerable to the blows of 
 his enemies. His friends and champions fell one by one around 
 him, and he was at last taken prisoner alive. Being asked who he 
 was, he preserved an indignant silence. Then King Ella said, " If 
 this man will not speak, he shall endure so much the heavier pun- 
 ishment for his obduracy and contempt." So he ordered him to be 
 thrown into the dungeon full of serpents, where he should remain 
 till he told his name. Ragnar, being thrown into the dungeon, sat 
 there a long time before the serpents attacked him ; which, being 
 noticed by the spectators, they said he must be a brave man indeed 
 whom neither arms nor vipers could hurt. Ella, hearing this, 
 ordered his enchanted vest to be stripped off, and soon afterward 
 the serpents clung to him on all sides. Then Ragnar said, " How 
 the young cubs would roar if they knew what the old boar suffers ! " 
 and expired with a laugh of defiance (pp. 152, 153). 
 
 The death-song of Ragnar Lodbrok will be found in an 
 appendix to Henderson's " Iceland," both in the original 
 and in a translation. The version, however, which is in 
 prose, conveys but faintly the poetic spirit of the original. 
 It consists of twenty-nine stanzas, most of them of nine 
 lines, and contains, like the death-song of a warrior among 
 
238 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 the American Indians, a boastful narrative of his expedi- 
 tions and exploits. Each stanza bears the same burden : 
 
 " Hiuggom ver med hiarvi " 
 
 " We hewed them with our swords." 
 
 Lodbrok exults that his achievements entitle him to ad- 
 mission among the gods ; predicts that his children shall 
 avenge his death ; and glories that no sigh shall disgrace his 
 exit. In the last stanza he hails the arrival of celestial vir- 
 gins sent to invite him to the hall of Odin, where he shall 
 join the assembly of heroes, sit upon a lofty throne, and 
 quaff the mellow beverage of barley. The last strophe of 
 this death-song is thus rendered by Mr. Wheaton : 
 
 " Cease my strain ! I hear them call 
 Who bid me hence to Odin's hall ! 
 High seated in their blest abodes, % 
 
 I soon shall quaff the drink of gods. 
 The hours of life have glided by 
 I fall ! but laughing will I die ! 
 The hours of life have glided by 
 I fall ! but laughing will I die ! " 
 
 The sons of Ragnar, if the Sagas may be believed, were 
 not slow in revenging the death of their parent. They were 
 absent from home on warlike expeditions at the time, and 
 did not hear of the catastrophe until after their return to 
 Denmark. Their first tidings of it were from the messen- 
 gers of Ella, sent to propitiate their hostility. When the 
 messengers entered the royal hall they found the sons of 
 Ragnar variously employed. Sigurdr Snakeseye was play- 
 ing at chess with his brother Huitserk the Brave, while 
 Bjorn Ironside was polishing the handle of his spear in the 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 2 39 
 
 middle pavement of the hall. The messengers approached 
 to where Ivar the other brother was sitting, and, saluting 
 him with due reverence, told him they were sent by King 
 Ella to announce the death of his royal father. 
 
 As they began to unfold their tale Sigurdr and Huitserk dropped 
 their game, carefully weighing what was said. Bjorn stood in the 
 midst of the hall, leaning on his spear ; but Ivar diligently inquired 
 by what means and by what kind of death his father had perished, 
 which the messengers related, from his first arrival in England till 
 his death. When, in the course of their narrative, they came to the 
 words of the dying King, " How the young whelps would roar if 
 they knew their father's fate ! " Bjorn grasped the handle of his spear 
 so fast that the prints of his fingers remained ; and, when the tale 
 was done, dashed the spear in pieces. Huitserk pressed the chess- 
 board so hard with his hands that they bled. 
 
 Ivar changed color continually, now red, now black, now pale, 
 while he struggled to suppress his kindling wrath. 
 
 Huitserk the Brave, who first broke silence, proposed to begin 
 their revenge by the death of the messengers, which Ivar forbade, 
 commanding them to go in peace wherever they would, and if they 
 wanted anything they should be supplied. 
 
 Their mission being fulfilled, the delegates, passing through the 
 hall, went down to their ships, and the wind being favorable, re- 
 turned safely to their King. Ella, hearing from them how his mes- 
 sage had been received by the princes, said that he foresaw that of 
 all the brothers Ivar or none was to be feared (pp. 188, 189). 
 
 The princes summoned their followers, launched their 
 fleets, and attacked King Ella in the spring of 867 : 
 
 The battle took place at York, and the Anglo-Saxons were en- 
 tirely routed. The sons of Ragnar inflicted a cruel and savage 
 retaliation on Ella for his barbarous treatment of their father. 
 
240 
 
 THE NORTHMEN, 
 
 After this battle Northumbria appears fto more as a Saxon king- 
 dom, and Ivar was made King over that part of England which his 
 ancestors had possessed, or into which they had made repeated in- 
 cursions (pp. 189, 190). 
 
 Encouraged by the success that attended their enter- 
 prises in the northern seas, the Northmen now urged their 
 adventurous prows into more distant regions, besetting the 
 southern coasts of France with their fleets of light and di- 
 minutive barks. Charlemagne is said to have witnessed the 
 inroad of one of their fleets from the windows of his palace 
 in the harbor of Narbonne, upon which he lamented the 
 fate of his successors, who would have to contend with such 
 audacious invaders. They entered the Loire, sacked the 
 city of Nantes, and carried their victorious arms up to 
 Tours. They ascended the Garonne, pillaged Bordeaux, and 
 extended their incursion even to Toulouse. They also en- 
 tered the Seine in 845, ravaging its banks, and, pushing their 
 enterprise to the very gates of Paris, compelled the monarch 
 Charles to take refuge in the monastery of St. Denis, where 
 he was fain to receive the piratical chieftain Regnier, and to 
 pay him a tribute of seven thousand pounds of silver on 
 condition of his evacuating his capital and kingdom. Re- 
 gnier, besides immense booty, carried back to Denmark as 
 trophies of his triumph a beam from the abbey of St. Ger- 
 main and a nail from the gate of Paris ; but his followers 
 spread over their native country a contagious disease which 
 they had contracted in France. 
 
 Spain was in like manner subject to their invasions. 
 They ascended the Guadalquivir, attacked the great city of 
 Seville, and demolished its fortifications after severe battles 
 with the Moors, who were then sovereigns of that country, 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 241 
 
 and who regarded these unknown invaders from the sea as 
 magicians, on account of their wonderful daring and still 
 more wonderful success. As the author well observes, " the 
 contrast between these two races of fanatic barbarians, the 
 one issuing forth from the frozen regions of the North, the 
 other from the burning sands of Asia and Africa, forms one 
 of the most striking pictures presented by history." 
 
 The straits of Gibraltar being passed by these rovers of 
 the North, the Mediterranean became another region for 
 their exploits. Hastings, one of their boldest chieftains, 
 and father of that Hastings who afterward battled with King 
 Alfred for the sovereignty of England, accompanied by 
 Bjorn Ironside and Sydroc, two sons of Ragnar Lodbrok, 
 undertook an expedition against Rome, the capital of the 
 world, tempted by accounts of its opulence and splendor, 
 but not precisely acquainted with its site. They penetrated 
 the Mediterranean with a fleet of one hundred barks, and 
 entered the port of Luna in Tuscany, an ancient city, whose 
 high walls and towers and stately edifices made them mis- 
 take it for imperial Rome : 
 
 The inhabitants were celebrating the festival of Christmas in 
 the cathedral, when the news was spread among them of the arrival 
 of a fleet of unknown strangers. The church was instantly de- 
 serted, and the citizens ran to shut the gates, and prepared to defend 
 their town. Hastings sent a herald to inform the Count and Bishop 
 of Luna that he and his band were Northmen, conquerors of the 
 Franks, who designed no harm to the inhabitants of Italy, but merely 
 sought to repair their shattered barks. In order to inspire more 
 confidence, Hastings pretended to be weary of the wandering life 
 he had so long led, and desired to find repose in the bosom of the 
 Christian Church. The Bishop and the Count furnished the fleet 
 16 
 
242 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 with the needful succor ; Hastings was baptized ; but still his Nor- 
 man followers were not admitted within the city walls. Their chief 
 was then obliged to resort to another stratagem : he feigned to be 
 dangerously ill ; his camp resounded with the lamentations of his 
 followers ; he declared his intention of leaving the rich booty he had 
 acquired to the Church, provided they would grant him sepulture in 
 holy ground. The wild howl of the Normans soon announced the 
 death of their chieftain. The inhabitants followed the funeral pro- 
 cession to the church, but, at the moment they were about to deposit 
 his apparently lifeless body, Hastings started up from his coffin, and, 
 seizing his sword, struck down the officiating Bishop. His followers 
 instantly obeyed this signal of treachery ; they drew from under their 
 garments their concealed weapons, massacred the clergy and others 
 who assisted at the ceremony, and spread havoc and consternation 
 throughout the town. Having thus become master of Luna, the 
 Norman chieftain discovered his error, and found that he was still 
 far from Rome, which was not likely to fall so easy a prey. After 
 having transported on board his barks the wealth of the city, as well 
 as the most beautiful women, and the young men capable of bear- 
 ing arms or of rowing, he put to sea, intending to return to the North. 
 The Italian traditions as to the destruction of this city resem- 
 ble more nearly the romance of Romeo and Juliet than the history 
 of the Scandinavian adventurer. According to these accounts, the 
 Prince of Luna was inflamed with the beauty of a certain young 
 Empress, then traveling in company with the Emperor her husband. 
 Their passion was mutual, and the two lovers had recourse to the 
 following stratagem, in order to accomplish their union : The Em- 
 press feigned to be grievously sick ; she was believed to be dead ; 
 her funeral obsequies were duly celebrated, but she escaped from 
 the sepulchre, and secretly rejoined her lover. The Emperor had 
 no sooner heard of their crime than he marched to attack the resi- 
 dence of the ravisher, and avenged himself by the entire destruction 
 of the once flourishing city of Luna. The only point of resemblance 
 between these two stories consists in the romantic incident of the 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 243 
 
 destruction of the city by means of a feigned death, a legend which 
 spread abroad over Italy and France. 
 
 The last and greatest of the sea-kings, or pirates of the 
 North, was Rollo, surnamed Ferus Fortis, the Lusty Boar or 
 Hardy Beast, from whom William the Conqueror comes in 
 lineal though not legitimate descent. Our limits do not per- 
 mit us to detail the early history of this warrior, as selected 
 by our author from among the fables of the Norman chroni- 
 cles, and the more simple and, he thinks, more veritable 
 narratives in the Icelandic Sagas. We shall merely state 
 that Rollo arrived with a band of Northmen, all fugitive ad- 
 venturers, like himself, upon the coast of France ; ascended 
 the Seine to Rouen, subjugated the fertile province then 
 called Neustria, named it Normandy from the Northmen, 
 his followers, and crowned himself first duke. 
 
 Under his firm and vigorous rule, the blessings of order and 
 peace were restored to a country which had so long and so cruelly 
 suffered from the incursions of the northern adventurers. He tol- 
 erated the Christians in their worship, and they flocked in crowds 
 to live under the dominion of a pagan and barbarian, in preference 
 to their own native and Christian prince (Charles the Simple) who 
 was unwilling or incapable to protect them. 
 
 Rollo established in his duchy of Normandy a feudal 
 aristocracy, or rather it grew out of the circumstances of the 
 country. His followers elected him duke, and he made 
 them counts and barons and knights. The clergy also 
 pressed themselves into his great council or Parliament. 
 The laws were reduced to a system by men of acute intel- 
 lect, and this system of feudal law was subsequently trans- 
 
244 
 
 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 planted by William the Conqueror into England, as a means 
 of consolidating his power and establishing his monarchy. 
 
 Rollo is said also to have established the Court of Exchequer 
 as the supreme tribunal of justice ; and the perfect security afforded 
 by the admirable system of police established in England by King 
 Alfred is likewise attributed to the legislation of the first Duke of 
 Normandy (p. 252). 
 
 Trial by battle, or judicial combat, was a favorite appeal 
 to God by the warlike nations of Scandinavia, as by most of 
 the barbarous tribes who established themselves on the ruin 
 of the Roman Empire. It had fallen into disuse in France, 
 but was revived by Rollo in Normandy, although the clergy 
 were solicitous to substitute the ordeal of fire and water, 
 which brought controversies within their control. The fierce 
 Norman warriors disdained this clerical mode of decision, 
 and strenuously insisted on the appeal to the sword. They 
 afterward, at the Conquest, introduced the trial by combat 
 into England, where it became a part of the common law.* 
 
 * A statue or effigy of Rollo, over a sarcophagus, is still to be seen in 
 the cathedral at Rouen, with a Latin inscription stating that he was con- 
 verted to Christianity in 913, and died in 917, and that his bones were 
 removed to this spot from their place of original sepulture in A. D. 1068. 
 The ancient epitaph, in rhyming monkish Latin, has been lost, except the 
 following lines : 
 
 " Dux Normanorum 
 
 Cunctorum, 
 Norma Bonorum, 
 Rollo, Ferus fortis, 
 Quern gens Normanica mortis 
 Invocat articulo, 
 Clauditur hoc tumulo." 
 
 Imitation. 
 
 " Rollo, that hardy Boar 
 Renowned of yore, 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 245 
 
 A spirit of chivalry and love of daring adventure, a ro- 
 mantic gallantry toward the sex, and a zealous devotion 
 were blended in the character of the Norman knights. These 
 high and generous feelings they brought with them into 
 England, and bore with them in their crusades into the Holy 
 Land. Poetry also continued to be cherished and cultivated 
 among them, and the Norman troubadour succeeded to the 
 Scandinavian skald. The Dukes of Normandy and Anglo- 
 Norman Kings were practicers as well as patrons of this de- 
 lightful art ; and Henry I., surnamed Beauclerc, and Richard 
 Cceur de Lion, were distinguished among the poetical com- 
 posers of their day. 
 
 The Norman minstrels (to quote the words of our author) ap- 
 propriated the fictions they found already accredited among the 
 people for whom they versified the British King Arthur, his 
 fabled knights of the Round Table, and the enchanter Merlin with 
 his wonderful prophecies ; the Frankish monarch Charlemagne and 
 his paladins ; and the rich inventions of Oriental fancy borrowed 
 from the Arabs and the Moors (p. 262). 
 
 We have thus cursorily accompanied our author in his 
 details of the origin and character, the laws and superstitions, 
 and primitive religion, and also of the roving expeditions 
 and conquests of the Northmen ; and we give him credit 
 for the judgment, and candor, and careful research with 
 which he has gleaned and collated his interesting facts from 
 
 Of all the Normans Duke ; 
 Whose name with dying breath 
 
 In article of death, 
 All Norman knights invoke ; 
 
 That mirror of the bold, 
 
 This tomb doth hold." 
 
246 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 the rubbish of fables and fictions with which they were be- 
 wildered and obscured. 
 
 Another leading feature in his work is the conversion of 
 the Northmen, and the countries from which they came, to 
 the Christian faith. An attempt to condense or analyze this 
 part of his work would lead us too far, and do injustice to 
 the minuteness and accuracy of his details. We must, for 
 like reasons, refer the reader to the work itself for the resi- 
 due of its contents. We shall merely remark that he goes 
 over the same ground with the English historians, Hume, 
 Turner, Lingard, and Palgrave, gleaning from the original 
 authorities whatever may have been omitted by them. He 
 has also occasionally corrected some errors into which they 
 have fallen, through want of more complete access or more 
 critical attention to the Icelandic Sagas and the Danish and 
 Swedish historians, who narrated the successful invasion of 
 England by the Danes under Canute, and its final conquest 
 by William of Normandy. 
 
 We shall take leave of our author with some extracts 
 from the triumphant invasion of William, premising a few 
 words concerning his origin and early history. Robert, 
 Duke of Normandy, called Robert the Magnificent by his 
 flatterers, but more commonly known as Robert the Devil, 
 from his wild and savage nature, had an amour with Arlette, 
 the daughter of a tanner, or currier, of Falaise, in Normandy. 
 The damsel gave birth to a male child, who was called 
 William. While the boy was yet in childhood, Robert the 
 Devil resolved to expiate his sins by a pilgrimage to the 
 Holy Land, and compelled his counts and barons to swear 
 fealty to his son. "Par ma foi," said Robert, "je ne vous 
 laisserai point sans seigneur. J'ai un petit batard qui gran- 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 247 
 
 dira s'il plait a Dieu. Choisissez-le des ce present, et je le 
 saiserai devant vous de ce duche comme mon successeur." 
 The Norman lords placed their hands between the hands 
 of the child, and swore fidelity to him according to feudal 
 usage. Robert the Devil set out on his pious pilgrimage, 
 and died at Nice. The right of the boy William was con- 
 tested by Guy, Count of Burgundy, and other claimants, 
 but he made it good with his sword, and then confirmed it 
 by espousing Matilda, daughter of the Count of Flanders. 
 
 On the death of Edward the Confessor, King of Eng- 
 land, Harold, from his fleetness surnamed Harefoot, one of 
 the bravest nobles of the realm, assumed the crown, to the 
 exclusion of Edgar Atheling, the lawful heir. It was said 
 that Edward had named Harold to succeed him. William, 
 Duke of Normandy, laid claim to the English throne. We 
 have not room in this review to investigate his title, which 
 was little more than bare pretension. He alleged that Ed- 
 ward the Confessor had promised to bequeath to him the 
 crown, but his chief reliance was upon his sword. Harold, 
 while yet a subject, had fallen by accident within the power 
 of William, who had obtained from him by cajolery and 
 extortion an oath, sworn on certain sacred relics, not to 
 impede him in his plans to gain the English crown. 
 
 William prepared an expedition in Normandy, and pub- 
 lished a war ban, inviting adventurers of all countries to 
 join him in the invasion of England, and partake the pil- 
 lage. He procured a consecrated banner from the Pope 
 under the promise of a portion of the spoil, and embarked 
 a force of nearly sixty thousand men on board four hundred 
 vessels and above a thousand boats. 
 
 The ship which bore William preceded the rest of the fleet, 
 
248 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 with the consecrated banner of the Pope displayed at the mast-head, 
 its many-colored sails embellished with the lions of Normandy, and 
 its prow adorned with the figure of an infant archer bending his 
 bow and ready to let fly his arrow. 
 
 William landed his force at Pevensey, near Hastings, on 
 the coast of Sussex, on September 28, 1066 ; and we shall 
 state from the Norman chronicles some few particulars of 
 this interesting event, not included in the volume under 
 review. The archers disembarked first they had short 
 vestments and cropped hair; then the horsemen, armed 
 with coats of mail, caps of iron, straight two-edged swords, 
 and long, powerful lances ; then the pioneers and artificers, 
 who disembarked, piece by piece, the materials for three 
 wooden towers, all ready to be put together. The Duke 
 was the last to land, for, says the chronicle, " there was no 
 opposing enemy." King Harold was in Northumbria, re- 
 pelling an army of Norwegian invaders. 
 
 As William leaped on shore, he stumbled and fell upon 
 his face. Exclamations of foreboding were heard among 
 his followers ; but he grasped the earth with his hands, and, 
 raising them filled with it toward the heavens, " Thus," cried 
 he, " do I seize upon this land, and, by the splendor of God, 
 as far as it extends it shall be mine." His ready wit thus 
 converted a sinister accident into a favorable omen. Hav- 
 ing pitched his camp and reared his wooden towers near to 
 the town of Hastings, he sent forth his troops to forage and 
 lay waste the country ; nor were even the churches and 
 cemeteries held sacred to which the English had fled for 
 refuge. 
 
 Harold was at York, reposing after a victory over the 
 Norwegians, in which he had been wounded, when he heard 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 2 49 
 
 of this new invasion. Undervaluing the foe, he set forth 
 instantly with such force as he could muster, though a few 
 days' delay would have brought great reinforcements. On 
 his way he met a Norman monk, sent to him by William, 
 with three alternatives: i. To abdicate in his favor; 2. To 
 refer their claims to the decision of the Pope ; 3. To deter- 
 mine them by single combat. Harold refused all three, and 
 quickened his march ; but finding, as he drew nearer, that 
 the Norman army was thrice the number of his own, he in- 
 trenched his host seven miles from their camp, upon a range 
 of hills, behind a rampart of palisades and osier hurdles. 
 
 The impending night of the battle was passed by the 
 Normans in warlike preparations, or in confessing their sins 
 and receiving the sacrament, and the camp resounded with 
 the prayers and chantings of priests and friars. As to the 
 Saxon warriors, they sat round their camp-fires, carousing 
 horns of beer and wine, and singing old national war-songs. 
 
 At an early hour in the morning of the i4th of October, 
 Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and bastard brother of the Duke, 
 being the son of his mother Arlette by a burgher of Falaise, 
 celebrated mass, and gave his benediction to the Norman 
 army. He then put a hauberk under his cassock, mounted 
 a powerful white charger, and led forth a brigade of cavalry ; 
 for he was as ready with the spear as with the crosier, and 
 for his fighting and other turbulent propensities well merited 
 his surname of Odo the Unruly. 
 
 The army was formed into three columns : one composed 
 of mercenaries from the countries of Boulogne and Pon- 
 thieu ; the second of auxiliaries from Brittany and else- 
 where ; the third of Norman troops, led by William in per- 
 son. Each column was preceded by archers in light, quilted 
 
2 5 
 
 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 coats instead of armor, some with long-bows, and others 
 with cross-bows of steel. Their mode of fighting was to 
 discharge a flight of arrows, and then retreat behind the 
 heavy-armed troops. The Duke was mounted on a Spanish 
 steed, around his neck were suspended some of the relics 
 on which Harold had made oath, and the consecrated stand- 
 ard was borne at his side. 
 
 William harangued his soldiers, reminding them of the 
 exploits of their ancestors, the massacre of the Northmen in 
 England, and, in particular, the murder of their brethren 
 the Danes. But he added another and a stronger excite- 
 ment to their valor : " Fight manfully, and put all to the 
 sword ; and, if we conquer, we shall all be rich. What I 
 gain, you gain; what I conquer, you conquer; if I gain the 
 land, it is yours." We shall give, in our author's own 
 words, the further particulars of this decisive battle which 
 placed a Norman sovereign on the English throne : 
 
 The spot which Harold had selected for this ever-memorable 
 contest was a high ground, then called Senlac, nine miles from 
 Hastings, opening to the south, and covered in the rear by an ex- 
 tensive wood. He posted his troops on the declivity of the hill in 
 one compact mass, covered with their shields, and wielding their 
 enormous battle-axes. In the center the royal standard, or gon- 
 falon, was fixed in the ground, with the figure of an armed warrior, 
 worked in thread of gold, and ornamented with precious stones. 
 Here stood Harold, and his brothers Gurth and Leofwin, and around 
 them the rest of the Saxon army, every man on foot. 
 
 As the Normans approached the Saxon intrenchments, the 
 monks and priests who accompanied their army retired to a neigh- 
 boring hill to pray and observe the issue of the battle. A Norman 
 warrior named Taillefer, spurred his horse in front of the line, and, 
 tossing up in the air his sword, which he caught again in his hand, 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 25 1 
 
 sang the national song of Charlemagne and Roland ; the Normans 
 joined in the chorus, and shouted, " Dieu aide ! Dieu aide ! " They 
 were answered by the Saxons, with the adverse cry of "Christ's 
 rood ! the holy rood ! " 
 
 The Norman archers let fly a shower of arrows into the Saxon 
 ranks. Their infantry and cavalry advanced to the gates of the 
 redoubts, which they vainly endeavored to force. The Saxons thun- 
 dered upon their armor, and broke their lances with the heavy 
 battle-axe, and the Normans retreated to the division commanded 
 by William. The Duke then caused his archers again to advance, 
 and to direct their arrows obliquely in the air, so that they might 
 fall beyond and over the enemy's rampart. The Saxons were se- 
 verely galled by the Norman missiles, and Harold himself was 
 wounded in the eye. The attack of the infantry and men-at-arms 
 again commenced with the cries of " Notre-Dame ! Dieu aide ! 
 Dieu aide ! " But the Normans were repulsed and pursued by the 
 Saxons to a deep ravine, where their horses plunged and threw the 
 riders. The m$le was here dreadful, and a sudden panic seized 
 the invaders, who fled from the field, exclaiming that their duke 
 was slain. William rushed before the fugitives, with his helmet in 
 hand, menacing and even striking them with his lance, and shout- 
 ing with a loud voice, " I am still alive, and, with the help of God, 
 I still shall conquer ! " The men-at-arms once more returned to 
 attack the redoubts, but they were again repelled by the impreg- 
 nable phalanx of the Saxons. The Duke now resorted to the 
 stratagem of ordering a thousand horse to advance and then sud- 
 denly retreat, in the hope of drawing the enemy from his intrench- 
 ments. The Saxons fell into the snare, and rushed out with their 
 battle-axes slung about their necks, to pursue the flying foe. The 
 Normans were joined by another body of their own army, and both 
 turned upon the Saxons, who were assailed on every side with 
 swords and lances, while their hands were employed in wielding 
 their enormous battle-axes. The invaders now rushed through the 
 broken ranks of their opponents into the intrenchments, pulled 
 
2 5 2 
 
 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 down the royal standard, and erected in its place the papal banner. 
 Harold was slain, with his brothers Gurth and Leofwin. The sun 
 declined in the western horizon, and with his retiring beams sunk 
 the glory of the Saxon name. 
 
 The rest of the companions of Harold fled from the fatal field, 
 where the Normans passed the night, exulting over their hard- 
 earned victory. The next morning William ranged his troops under 
 arms, and every man who passed the sea was called by name, ac- 
 cording to the muster-roll drawn up before their embarkation at 
 St. Valery. Many were deaf to that call. The invading army con- 
 sisted originally of nearly sixty thousand men, and of these one- 
 fourth lay dead on the field. To the fortunate survivors was allotted 
 the spoil of the vanquished Saxons, as the first fruits of their vic- 
 tory ; and the bodies of the slain, after being stripped, were hastily 
 buried by their trembling friends. According to one narrative, the 
 body of Harold was begged by his mother as a boon from William, 
 to whom she offered as a ransom its weight in gold. But the stern 
 and pitiless conqueror ordered the corpse of the Saxon King to be 
 buried on the beach, adding with a sneer : "He guarded the coast 
 while he lived ; let him continue to guard it now he is dead." An- 
 other account represents that two monks of the monastery of Wal- 
 tham, which had been founded by the son of Godwin, humbly 
 approached the Norman and offered him ten marks of gold for per- 
 mission to bury their king and benefactor. They were unable to 
 distinguish his body among the heaps of slain, and sent for Harold's 
 mistress Editha, surnamed " The Fair " and " The Swan's Neck," 
 to assist them in the search. The features of the Saxon monarch 
 were recognized by her whom he had loved, and his body was in- 
 terred at Waltham, with regal honors, in the presence of several 
 Norman earls and knights. 
 
 We have reached the conclusion of Mr. Wheaton's inter- 
 esting volume, yet we are tempted to add a few words more 
 from other sources. We would observe that there are not 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 253 
 
 wanting historians who dispute the whole story of Harold 
 having fallen on the field of battle. " Years afterward," we 
 are told by one of the most curiously learned of English 
 scholars, " when the Norman yoke pressed heavily upon the 
 English, and the battle of Hastings had become a tale of 
 sorrow, which old men narrated by the light of the embers 
 until warned to silence by the sullen tolling of the curfew," 
 there was an ancient anchorite, maimed, and scarred, and 
 blind of an eye, who led a life of penitence and seclusion in 
 a cell near the Abbey of St. John at Chester. This holy 
 man was once visited by Henry I., who held a long and se- 
 cret discourse with him, and on his death-bed he declared 
 to the attendant monks that he was Harold.* According to 
 this account, he had been secretly conveyed from the field 
 of battle to a castle, and thence to this sanctuary ; and the 
 finding and burying of his corpse by the tender Editha is 
 supposed to have been a pious fraud. The monks of Wal- 
 tham, however, stood up stoutly for the authenticity of their 
 royal relics. They showed a tomb inclosing a moldering 
 skeleton, the bones of which still bore the marks of wounds 
 received in battle, while the sepulchre bore the effigies of 
 the monarch, and this brief but pathetic epitaph, " Hie jacet 
 Harold infelix." 
 
 For a long time after the eventful battle of the Conquest 
 it is said that traces of blood might be seen upon the field, 
 and, in particular, upon the hills to the southwest of Hast- 
 ings, whenever a light rain moistened the soil. It is prob- 
 able they were discolorations of the soil, where heaps of 
 the slain had been buried. We have ourselves seen broad 
 
 * Palgrave, " History of England," cap. xv. 
 
254 
 
 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 and dark patches on the hillside of Waterloo, where thou- 
 sands of the dead lay moldering in one common grave, and 
 where, for several years after the. battle, the rank green corn 
 refused to ripen, though all the other part of the hill was 
 covered with a golden harvest. 
 
 William the Conqueror, in fulfillment of a vow, caused a 
 monastic pile to be erected on the field, which, in com- 
 memoration of the event, was called the "Abbey of Battle." 
 The architects complained that there were no springs of 
 water on the site. " Work on ! work on ! " replied he jovi- 
 ally ; " if God but grant me life, there shall flow more good 
 wine among the holy friars of this convent than there does 
 clear water in the best monastery of Christendom." 
 
 The abbey was richly endowed, and invested with archi- 
 episcopal jurisdiction. In its archives was deposited a roll 
 bearing the names of the followers of William, among whom 
 he had shared the conquered land. The grand altar was 
 placed on the very spot where the banner of the hapless 
 Harold had been unfurled, and here prayers were perpetu- 
 ally to be offered up for the repose of all who had fallen in 
 the contest. " All this pomp and solemnity," adds Mr. Pal- 
 grave, "has passed away like a dream! The perpetual 
 prayer has ceased for ever ; the roll of battle is rent ; the 
 escutcheons of the Norman lineages are trodden in the 
 dust. A dark and reedy pool marks where the abbey once 
 reared its stately towers, and nothing but the foundations 
 of the choir remain for the gaze of the idle visitor, and the 
 instruction of the moping antiquary." * 
 
 * Palgrave, " History of England," cap. xv. 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD* 
 
 A CENTURY has rolled away since Lord Chesterfield 
 reached his highest point of worldly elevation, and now 
 comes a republication of his letters, in a collective form, to 
 press upon us the question, how his reputation stands the 
 wear of time. It is not often that a nobleman born leaves 
 much trace of his existence, out of the pages of a peerage- 
 book. Still more rarely is it that he exerts a decided influ- 
 ence over the generations that come after him. Chesterfield 
 is, then, an exception to the general rule. Although one of 
 the genuine aristocracy, owing his title to no modern cre- 
 ation, he made himself a reputation which few of his coun- 
 trymen equaled in his own day ; and, which is perhaps more 
 remarkable, he left his mark upon the mind and manners 
 of the English race so deep, that it will be long before it is 
 entirely effaced. No man ever put into more attractive 
 shape the maxims of a worldly, epicurean philosophy. No 
 man ever furnished, in his own person, a more dazzling 
 specimen of the theory which he recommended. If Cicero 
 came more nearly than any person ever did to the image of 
 
 * The Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield ; in- 
 cluding numerous Letters now first published from the Original Manu- 
 scripts. Edited, with Notes, by Lord Mahon. London : Richard Bent- 
 ley. 1845. 4 vols. 8vo. 
 
256 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 the perfect orator which he described, Chesterfield is uni- 
 versally considered as having equally sustained his own idea 
 of the perfect gentleman. Notwithstanding his character 
 has been often discussed, and not long ago in this journal, 
 we will not omit the present opportunity of noticing it once 
 more. Lord Mahon has done for us what has never been 
 done before, in placing the whole man most distinctly in 
 our view. The applause of an admiring circle, and the cen- 
 sure of malignant enemies, of his own day, will now pass for 
 exactly what they are worth. It has been the lot of few dis- 
 tinguished persons to be stripped so bare to the public gaze 
 aft.er death. And, strangely enough, this has happened to 
 him, of all others, who spent his life in labors to appear 
 other than he was. The man who systematically wore a 
 mask better than his natural face while on earth, has been 
 doomed by the avarice of an ungrateful woman to hold up a 
 glass magnifying every deformity of his mind to the observa- 
 tion of the most distant posterity. Such is the first moral 
 which we draw from the history of the Earl of Chesterfield. 
 Let us, then, proceed to look at this figure more in de- 
 tail. Here is a man who, without being ambitious in the 
 highest sense of that term, was nevertheless an eager aspir- 
 ant for distinction in more than one field of exertion. He 
 aimed to be a statesman, an orator, a scholar, and a gentle- 
 man in brief, a sort of model man, yet " hackneyed in the 
 ways of the world." And it must be conceded, too, that if 
 his success was not entirely equal to his own expectations, 
 it was nevertheless very far beyond the average of that of 
 men in general. The reasons why it was not greater we 
 intend to try to explain in the present article. If we can 
 make it appear that they come directly from the theory of 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 257 
 
 conduct which he maintained, we hope to be not without 
 success in checking the tendency of some minds to be mis- 
 led by his example. If we can show by the example of 
 Lord Chesterfield himself that the foundation upon which 
 he built his own edifice, which he also earnestly recommends 
 to be adopted by his son, is, in itself, so insecure as not to 
 be worthy of reliance ; and, still more, if we can prove that 
 it creates the difficulties which beyond a certain point ren- 
 der further progress next to impracticable, it may be that 
 we shall turn the direction of some aspirants for distinction 
 to other and better sources of knowledge of the paths of 
 life, 
 
 To illustrate our idea, it will be necessary to assume that 
 the lessons which he taught in his letters to his son were 
 those upon which he practiced himself. That this is not in 
 itself an unreasonable inference can be shown by many pas- 
 sages in which the writer refers directly to his own case as 
 a practical illustration of the value of his maxims. The 
 spirit of his teaching is all conveyed in this tone : " See 
 what I did. Go thou and do likewise ; better, if possible 
 but still after my model." In this there was no undue vanity 
 or self-conceit. Lord Chesterfield knew that he possessed 
 qualities which entitled him to claim a good share of worldly 
 applause, and he also knew the labor it had cost him to 
 make all those qualities as effective as possible. He had a 
 right, from what he found he could do, to infer that others 
 could succeed even better than he, if they would only take 
 the pains which he had done. No other course than his 
 seems to have occurred to his mind as likely to insure suc- 
 cess. It is, then, proper to review his life by the light which 
 he himself has furnished, and to trace the causes of his suc- 
 
258 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 cess or failure, so far as he may be judged to have succeeded 
 or failed, to the rules which he lays down. 
 
 The first point to which we direct our attention is, to 
 ascertain the leading motive to exertion that is held out by 
 his lordship. We find but one, and that is worldly success ; 
 in other words, the exaltation of the individual himself to 
 rank, and power, and consideration among his fellow men. 
 This is the great end, to compass which merits that every 
 faculty should be taxed to its utmost. In order to reach 
 this, knowledge is to be acquired, the common every-day 
 morality of men is to be mastered, the manners are to be 
 molded, and even religion is to be respected. To reach 
 this, we are to make ourselves all things to all men, that we 
 may gain them all, not to their good, but to ours. Yet in this 
 laborious process it does not seem absolutely required, how- 
 ever desirable it might be, that we should really be exactly 
 what we appear. It is sufficient if we can succeed in making 
 everybody else believe that we are what we profess. Lord 
 Chesterfield expressly tells his son that his great object, when 
 setting out in life, was " to make every man he met like him, 
 and every woman love him." He says, moreover, that " he 
 often succeeded; but why? By taking great pains." Yet 
 he did not mean to be understood that these pains were 
 taken in an endeavor really to merit such affection, but 
 rather only to appear to merit it, which would answer the 
 purpose quite as well, and be more easily compassed. To 
 cultivate very high qualities of character must be the labor 
 of a life, among even the best natural temperaments. To 
 acquire the power of assuming the appearance of them for 
 the moment may be gained in much less time " by taking 
 proper pains." Although Lord Chesterfield doubtless would 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 2 59 
 
 have valued the genuine coin far the most, he was yet too 
 " hackneyed in the ways of life " to require more than that 
 the counterfeit should escape detection. According to his 
 theory, considered apart from his own practice, it is not 
 essential, provided only that a man appear learned and 
 wise, whether he really be so or not ; nor does it matter that 
 he should be amiable, or just, or even honest, if he can suc- 
 ceed in concealing the evidence of his ill-temper, or his in- 
 justice, or his fraud, from the condemnation of the public. 
 His morality thus proves to be but skin-deep, in fact, though 
 he occasionally claims to show much more. We see it in 
 the summary manner in which he dispatches his orders 
 about all the more serious parts of education. It always 
 sounds as if he spoke thus : " As to religion and morals, a 
 respect for the church catechism and the ten commandments, 
 you, my son, must take it for granted that I advise all that, 
 even though I never mention them, since my whole strength 
 I reserve to enjoin upon you, over and over again, line upon 
 line, and precept upon precept, the necessity of always 
 keeping in mind ' the graces.' " 
 
 We understand, then, by the cultivation of " the graces," 
 the adoption of a code of morals which makes the approba- 
 tion of others the standard of all merit, and the advance- 
 ment of one's self the end of all exertion. A man is to learn 
 to treat his neighbor well, not because it is due to him that 
 he should, but rather because he may himself lose something 
 by it if he do not. His civility is the result of a calculation 
 of profit and loss in his own mind, by which he has arrived 
 at the conclusion, that the balance will show a net gain to 
 himself in not being rude. Neither is it essential that this 
 civility to others should be carried one step further than is 
 
260 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 needful-to secure the proposed object. It has its ascending 
 scale, which is regulated by the estimation in which per- 
 sons are respectively held, and consequently by the power 
 they can wield, either to advance or retard him. To the 
 pauper, for example, it may .be allowed to behave as roughly 
 as possible, provided nobody is looking on, because he 
 can not resent it, and, even if he does, his resentment will 
 avail nothing : while to the prince no reasonable amount of 
 exertion is to be spared to manifest a degree of devotion 
 that may earn a substantial recompense from his good-will. 
 All intermediate positions have their share of regard regu- 
 lated, as the custom-house would say, by a tariff ad valorem. 
 Neither is indulgence in all the vices forbidden by the deca- 
 logue denied by this system, provided they be not practiced 
 in a manner offensive to those who are able to compel the 
 payment of penalty for so doing. The fault of every action 
 will be estimated, not by the nature of the act itself, so much 
 as by the want of skill manifested in concealing it from the 
 public. To be maladroit, as it is fatal to one's reputation 
 becomes here, as it was in Sparta, the highest crime. 
 
 Now, in making such an exposition of the Chesterfield 
 code, we do not pretend to the merit of saying anything 
 new ; much less do we mean to find fault with it at this time. 
 From the day when it was first published, down to the pref- 
 ace of Lord Mahon to this edition, the objection has been 
 perpetually repeated that it converts hypocrisy into the first 
 of virtues. How that may be is aside from the present pur- 
 pose. The difficulties attending the system, as one of mor- 
 als, all lie upon the surface. We propose to go a little around 
 them, and maintain that even for the great end proposed to 
 be gained by the adoption of it, worldly success, it is alto- 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 2 6i 
 
 gether unsafe, and not to be relied on. Even in the hands 
 of a master like Chesterfield himself, the instruments it fur- 
 nishes are not always sure in their operation. Sometimes 
 they even turn injuriously upon him who uses them most 
 skillfully ; and when otherwise used, as they are more than 
 half the time by those who undertake to practice with them, 
 they are apt to be attended with an effect upon their own 
 prospects of advancement as well as of happiness the very 
 opposite of what they had so sanguinely anticipated. If we 
 are in any way successful in showing this to be the case in 
 the history of his lordship himself, as it is now given us from 
 his own lips, our main purpose will be fully answered. 
 
 Philip Dormer Stanhope does not seem ever to have been 
 a young man. His letters written from Cambridge betray 
 the acuteness and discretion of an old head. Those ad- 
 dressed to his tutor, before he was of age, show that the 
 artificial bent of his nature was even then already fixed. He 
 devoted himself to his studies, not because he had any pas- 
 sion for knowledge, or any adequate idea of its uses, but be- 
 cause he aspired to shine by the possession of it. The 
 consequence was early pedantry, which he got rid of only 
 by changing the object of his aspirations. He left off quot- 
 ing the classics, which he never either loved or understood, 
 as soon as he found himself at the shrine of fashion in its 
 citadel of Paris. The faults of the French character then 
 became the objects of his new admiration, and so much did 
 they find that was akin to them in his own nature, that this 
 attachment went with him to his grave. He studied to make 
 himself a Frenchman with as much deliberate earnestness as 
 he had done at college to become a pedant ; and his later 
 labors were crowned with even greater success than the 
 
262 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 former ones. For the fact that he imitated the French so 
 exactly in his outward manners as to be often taken by them- 
 selves for one of them, we must rely upon his affirmation 
 alone. But there is before us another indirect proof of his 
 proficiency, which is more convincing even than this. We 
 see under his own hand how he had learned to overwhelm 
 his tutor, M. Joubeau, with professions of attachment which 
 he did not feel, and to promise him many future letters in 
 that which he meant to be his last. 
 
 Let us, however, be exactly just to Lord Chesterfield. 
 He was not insensible to the merits of the English national 
 character, however highly he might value that of the French. 
 His favorite idea, and that which he endeavored to embody 
 in the person of his son, was the union of what he deemed 
 most valuable in each nation. This was a union which he 
 admits he never met with anywhere in life. After such an 
 admission, the idea ought to have occurred to him that there 
 might be, and probably was, an incongruity at bottom, which 
 made the process he desired to effect impracticable. That 
 he did not succeed with his son is well known. Probably 
 the best example ever brought forth was himself. And what 
 was the result ? Certainly not such as to make it expedient 
 to repeat the experiment. Lord Chesterfield had wit, and 
 knowledge, and good-breeding, and tact, and eloquence, and 
 spirit ; and yet, with the possession of all these qualities, he 
 never secured a hundredth part of the confidence of his king 
 or country that was enjoyed by rivals who possessed few of 
 his accomplishments and nothing of his polish. Sir Robert 
 Walpole was proverbially coarse. The Duke of Newcastle 
 was almost ridiculous. Pitt was cold and haughty and over- 
 bearing. Yet they successively controlled the government, 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 2 6? 
 
 \j 
 
 while he wasted his time and pains in futile efforts to obtain 
 it ; and even at last, when it appeared within his reach, the 
 event only proved to him most convincingly that it was his 
 fate to clutch at the mere shadow of power while the reality 
 rested in other hands. 
 
 National character is the result of so many concurring 
 causes, that it is difficult precisely to define how it grows up. 
 The circumstances which immediately surround a people 
 demand of the flexibility of the human species a certain de- 
 gree of adaptation to them. To the French people, who are 
 constitutionally ardent, impulsive, and susceptible of rapid 
 emotions, an artificial system of manners is not without its 
 advantages. With them, strong habits of restraint are essen- 
 tial to the peace and safety, not to say the happiness of so- 
 ciety. If we knew that a passionate individual had forced 
 himself to cultivate the minor graces of life because he be- 
 lieved that otherwise he might be liable, occasionally, to fall 
 into extremes of treatment of those around him which would 
 breed nothing but quarrels, and perhaps bloodshed, we 
 should be apt to praise his resolution, even though sensible 
 that an evil consequence might follow in his learning to be 
 insincere. Such insincerity may be palliated so long as it is 
 associated with the notion of regulating human passion. But 
 when it becomes allied with coldness, when we know that 
 the person practicing it has no occasion to do so for self- 
 control, and that he resorts to it solely for the purpose of 
 concealing the icy condition of his own heart, making it ap- 
 pear warmer than it really is only to deceive us, the vice 
 becomes in the highest degree revolting. The great body 
 of the English race are, relatively to their Continental neigh- 
 bors, sluggish in their temperament, and moderate in their 
 
264 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 passions. With them, therefore, the endeavor to cultivate 
 the graces leads to a vitiation of moral principle attended 
 by no compensating benefit. If there be one thing for which 
 that race is distinguished above most others, it is for its con- 
 tempt of the arts of dissimulation, and its steady admiration 
 of examples of truth and sincerity. This virtue goes a good 
 way to compensate for the want of quick susceptibility. 
 And so long as the experience of the world tends to show 
 the impracticability of uniting these qualities of the respec- 
 tive nations, it will be better for each not to run the risk of 
 spoiling what it has, in the vain quest of what it has not. 
 
 We have said that, at the age of twenty, the young Lord 
 Stanhope had already acquired the peculiar character which 
 ever after marked him when he was known as Lord Ches- 
 terfield. His leading trait was then, as afterward, want of 
 a heart. From this source flowed his merits as well as his 
 fauks. Hence sprang the coolness of his judgment and the 
 absence of generosity. Hence arose his aversion to intem- 
 perance in drinking the vice of warm and convivial na- 
 tures and his passion for gaming, the tendency of the selfish 
 and the cold. The same cause that polished his exterior 
 effectually completed the perversion of the springs of action 
 that were working within. It made him brilliant but super- 
 ficial, extravagant and yet not generous, captivating and yet 
 treacherous. It secured him hosts of admirers but very 
 few supporters crowds of flatterers and no devoted friends. 
 
 It has not often happened to a young man to start in life 
 under fairer auspices than his lordship. Descended from 
 some of the best families in the United Kingdom, heir ap- 
 parent to an earldom, he came forward at the very moment 
 when the crown had devolved upon the Brunswick family 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 265 
 
 and George I. was manifesting his gratitude to General 
 Stanhope, the kinsman of the young nobleman, for his emi- 
 nent services in bringing about that result, by placing him at 
 the head of the government. Before the youth was of age 
 the doors of the House of Commons were opened to receive 
 him, and a place in the household of the heir to the throne 
 was secured for his acceptance. The road to power seemed 
 invitingly open to him. That which others toil through 
 long years of pain to acquire, and which they gain, if at all, 
 at so late a period in life as to make it scarce worth the 
 struggle it has cost, appeared almost to throw itself into his 
 hands at once. Little remained for him to do but to con- 
 firm the favorable impressions toward himself which his first 
 address might create, and to convince the public, through 
 his position in Parliament, of the extent of his capacity to 
 be at the head of affairs should the time arrive that might 
 require his services. Surely, if the cultivation of the graces, 
 the elegance of high breeding, the fascination of external 
 manner, were ever likely to avail for the benefit of their 
 possessor so much as his lordship would have had his son 
 believe that they do, no opportunity could be more favorable 
 to prove their efficacy than this which had arisen in his own 
 case. 
 
 Now let us observe what the result was. Young Lord 
 Stanhope rushed into the House of Commons, eager to exer- 
 cise his carefully trained powers in the arena of debate, and 
 to mark his devotion to the house of Hanover by support- 
 ing the strong measures devised in order to establish it upon 
 the throne. Here, however, he soon discovered that the 
 graces, a finished manner of delivery, and polished diction 
 were not all that was essential to secure the affection of a 
 
266 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 popular body. While the gladiator was studying his atti- 
 tudes, a much inferior combatant was at work effectually to 
 shake his standing before the House. There was a member 
 of the party to which Chesterfield was opposed who was 
 gifted in a high degree with the dangerous power of mim- 
 icry. The oratory of his lordship, depending in a great 
 degree upon manner, if we may judge of it by his own esti- 
 mate of its power, was exactly of that kind which lies most 
 open to imitation and caricature. While, therefore, we are 
 nowhere informed that the faculty of the mimic had any ef- 
 fect whatsoever in weakening the almost despotic power of 
 Walpole, of William Pitt, or Pulteney, we learn on the other 
 hand that it almost sealed the lips of the courtly Stanhope. 
 His graces only availed to expose him to the withering shaft 
 of ridicule, while they furnished him no adequate shield for 
 his defense. Had he remained for the rest of his life in 
 the lower branch, he would in all probability have been 
 set down among dumb legislators, the pedarii of whom he so 
 often and so contemptuously speaks. That and every pop- 
 ular body requires a more nervous and masculine mode of 
 address than he was found to possess. It is the place for 
 earnest contention, and not for the make-believe sports of a 
 tournament. Here, then, is the first example which his his- 
 tory furnishes, that mere manner is not so sure of success as 
 he himself appears to imagine. For even when fortified, as 
 in his case, by a greater coincidence of personal qualities 
 than usually falls to the lot of public speakers, it did not 
 enable him to overcome the most trivial obstacle that for- 
 tune could well throw in his path. 
 
 Neither was the success of the young lord greater from 
 the opportunities of private access which he enjoyed to the 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 267 
 
 members of the royal family, than from his exertions on a 
 more public field. The first event that happened to mar his 
 prospects, one indeed for which no address can be in any 
 manner prepared, was a quarrel between the King, George I., 
 and the Prince of Wales, in whose immediate service Lord 
 Stanhope had been placed. This quarrel grew out of the 
 circumstance that the Duke of Newcastle had been ap- 
 pointed to stand godfather to the Prince's child which the 
 Prince thought proper to resent. The King, on his part, 
 became violently offended. From words he proceeded to 
 acts ; he banished his son from the palace, forbade any 
 public honors to be paid to his rank, and separated him 
 from his children. Neither was this all. The friends of 
 the son were compelled to make their election between ad- 
 herence to him and a reception at St. James's. As one of 
 his immediate household, Lord Stanhope was thus driven to 
 take a side. On the one hand was the power in the ascend- 
 ant, to offend which would necessarily cut off all prospect 
 of present promotion. On the other was the rising sun, to 
 neglect which might lead in no very long time to conse- 
 quences far more serious and lasting. Disagreeable as the 
 choice might be, his lordship decided on the right side. 
 Whatever may have been his motives for so doing, and his 
 own theory forbids us from believing that they were disin- 
 terested, he determined to hold to the heir apparent, in 
 spite of every solicitation to the contrary. It is even said 
 that, in order to detach him from his connection, an offer 
 was made to create his father a duke, and that by rejecting 
 it he not only cut himself off for the time from office, but 
 offended his parent, who would have been gratified by the 
 title. The merit of this self-denial must be estimated, ac- 
 
268 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 cording to Chesterfield's philosophy, by the age of the sov- 
 ereign, which was then only fifty-seven. And, as his consti- 
 tution gave no signs of decline, it must be admitted that 
 the sacrifice which he made was one of no ordinary charac- 
 ter. And, if done generously and without qualification, it 
 should, upon every principle of gratitude, have secured the 
 lasting attachment of the person in whose behalf it was 
 made. 
 
 Such was not, however, the result. Lord Stanhope be- 
 came Earl of Chesterfield not very long before the Prince of 
 Wales succeeded to his father's throne. A new field seemed 
 to open before him, and one in which he was much better 
 fitted to succeed. There was no malicious mocker in the 
 House of Lords to mar the effect of his elegant playfulness. 
 Here was no sharp encounter of masculine minds to be ap- 
 prehended. Their lordships rather courted that state of 
 repose which delights in gentle, as it is unfriendly to violent, 
 emotions. Lord Chesterfield commanded their attention 
 not merely by his positive qualifications to please, but by 
 his relative superiority over most of them. The oratorical 
 ability of that body has always mainly depended upon those 
 newly created peers who have received their titles as a re- 
 ward for service rendered as commoners. The very novelty 
 of an eloquent lord whose family had been ennobled for 
 more than two centuries was a recommendation. Chester- 
 field knew how to avail himself of this advantage. He, who 
 as a member of the lower House had made little impression 
 as a speaker, was listened to as a peer with the most pro- 
 found attention and delight. Yet, although his altered po- 
 sition in this regard had thus materially contributed to 
 enlarge the sphere of his influence, the accession of George 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 269 
 
 II. was not attended with the results which perhaps he had 
 a right to expect. The reasons for this must in a degree be 
 left to conjecture. So far from there being any manifesta- 
 tion of gratitude for past sacrifices, on the part of the sov- 
 ereign, it is very certain that Chesterfield was a marked 
 object of dislike, while the Duke of Newcastle, the very 
 person about whom the original quarrel arose, managed to 
 establish himself as a favorite during the king's life. And 
 here again we find an opportunity to observe the fallacy of 
 the theory that a cultivation of external graces and an elab- 
 orate effort to please everybody is the surest road to worldly 
 elevation. His lordship had probably not been wanting in 
 his efforts to conciliate the good will of those whom he con- 
 sidered most likely to produce an effect upon his success ; 
 but he doubtless overshot his mark, as worldly people are 
 apt to do. One of his maxims, which he most earnestly 
 presses upon his son, is that every person, whatever may be 
 his situation about a court, may have some means of influ- 
 ence upon one's fortune, and is therefore worth pleasing : 
 
 Merit at courts, without favor (he says), will do little or no- 
 thing ; favor without merit will do a good deal ; but favor and merit 
 together will do everything. Favor at courts depends upon so many, 
 such trifling, such unexpected and unforeseen events, that a good 
 courtier must attend to every circumstance, however little, that either 
 does or can happen ; he must have no absences, no distractions ; he 
 must not say, "I did not mind it! who would have thought it?" 
 He ought both to have minded and to have thought it. A chamber- 
 maid has sometimes caused revolutions in courts, which have pro- 
 duced others in kingdoms. Were I to make my way to favor in a 
 court, I would neither willfully nor by negligence give a dog or a cat 
 there reason to dislike me (vol. ii., p. 267). 
 
270 
 
 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, the converse of the proposition 
 is sometimes true that there is quite as much risk of injury 
 from a mistake in paying court to the wrong persons as in 
 not paying it to the right ones. Without having any posi- 
 tive authority for affirming it to be true, we are yet strongly 
 inclined to the opinion that this was the rock upon which 
 Chesterfield found himself wrecked. It was in his character 
 to suppose that the mistress must have some influence over 
 the King's actions. Such is the lesson uniformly taught in 
 the experience of the French monarchy, a history that had 
 not been lost upon the observing nobleman. The idea that 
 the mistress should have none and the Queen all power was 
 an anomaly reserved for the age of George II. It is very 
 certain that Chesterfield did take pains always to maintain a 
 friendly and intimate relation with Lady Suffolk, even before 
 the accession of the King. And his own sketch of that lady 
 long afterward written, while it admits her want of influence, 
 betrays the fact that he was himself privy to some of the in- 
 stances in which her endeavors to exercise it had proved 
 vain. Is it, then, unreasonable to infer, from our general 
 knowledge of the man and the ordinary springs of his ac- 
 tion, that he bought his own experience of its extent ? Sir 
 Robert Walpole was a coarse and ill-bred, person in com- 
 parison, and yet he gained a complete victory over his rival, 
 by neglecting the wrong and going at once to the right 
 source of power. When the question was in agitation, at 
 the commencement of the reign, what the provision in the 
 civil list for the Queen should be, and Sir Spencer Compton, 
 the locum tenens of first minister, proposed only fifty thousand 
 pounds, it is said that Walpole came forward with an offer 
 to double it. From that moment to the end of Caroline's 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 271 
 
 life, vehement as was the opposition against him, no person, 
 and least of all Chesterfield, was able to shake this minister 
 in the possession of the royal confidence. Such was the re- 
 sult of the second effort to curry favor by the cultivation of 
 superior graces. 
 
 Still another illustration of the insecurity of the Chester- 
 field theory to obtain the end proposed is to be found in 
 different portions of his history relating to this same period. 
 George I. came over from Hanover without his wife, and 
 with two or three mistresses, a sketch of whom is now 
 printed for the first time among the, characters which his 
 lordship has admirably described. Of these mistresses the 
 most noted was the Duchess of Kendall, with whom the 
 monarch is described as passing most of his time, and who 
 had all influence over him, though she was very little above 
 an idiot. Such is Chesterfield's own account of a person 
 with whom he nevertheless preferred above all others to 
 form intimate relations. This lady brought with her to Eng- 
 land a young female, whom she chose to call her niece, Melu- 
 sina de Schulemburg, but whom the ill-natured world, and 
 Chesterfield doubtless among the rest, presumed to regard as 
 her daughter by the King. Not long after her migration, this 
 young lady was created Countess of Walsingham in her own 
 right, and the belief was general that she would prove the 
 heiress of a large property. To her, then, Lord Chesterfield 
 decided to pay his addresses, and solicit her hand in mar- 
 riage. Was his motive love ? Who that reads any of his 
 productions could ever suspect such a thing ? Was it pride, 
 to seek to connect his ancient line with a person of suspected 
 legitimacy? But if not love nor pride, what could have 
 been his reason but the hope of securing the ear of the sov- 
 
272 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 ereign through the person described by him as almost an 
 idiot namely, the Duchess of Kendall ? If such were his 
 object, it is easy to comprehend the cause of the feeble 
 gratitude manifested by George II. upon his accession. 
 For all the expectations of Melusina de Schulemburg, which 
 may justly be supposed to have also weighed in the balance 
 with Chesterfield, were unquestionably regarded by the 
 heir apparent as likely to deduct just so much money from 
 his own legitimate patrimony. In point of fact, the very 
 first act of the new sovereign was to destroy that will of his 
 father upon which the lady's hopes depended. 
 
 Yet so little did these courtly arts avail in favor of his 
 lordship, that even George I. refused to consent to this mar- 
 riage. The reason assigned was his addiction to the vice of 
 gaming, a vice of which the King probably foresaw the effect 
 upon any provision which he might be likely to make for 
 his daughter. Yet Lord Chesterfield did not on this account 
 relax in his suit. The lady, captivated by his manners and 
 his reputation, persisted in adhering to the object of her 
 choice. But the marriage did not take place until some 
 time after the death of the old King, and when, as a con- 
 nection, it had become of little value. In the interval, 
 Chesterfield, being too important a person to be entirely 
 neglected, had been removed from the stage of domestic 
 contention by an appointment as envoy to Holland, receiv- 
 ing soon afterward the office of high steward of the King's 
 household. The policy of Walpole was to put him out of 
 sight and out of reach. Chesterfield, flattering himself upon 
 his possession of peculiar qualifications for diplomacy, eager- 
 ly embraced the offer thus made, and acquitted himself, it 
 must be admitted, with great credit. But while doing so 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 273 
 
 he let slip the best opportunity he ever had of gaining the 
 supreme power at home. The four years spent by him in 
 Holland had been sedulously employed by Walpole to con- 
 firm his master's habits of dependence upon himself. So 
 fixed had they become that a desperate push made by 
 Townshend to unseat him, most probably with the conni- 
 vance of Chesterfield, ended only in the disgrace of the con- 
 trivers. Townshend resigned, and no avenue remained 
 open for his friend but to join in opposition, in which, 
 upon his return home, his lordship accordingly embarked. 
 
 It can not, then, be denied that up to this time reliance 
 upon courtiers' arts had been productive to his lordship of 
 little beyond successive disappointments. He had not only 
 failed to be first, but he had seen those preferred to him 
 who were weak in the points in which he was strong and 
 upon which he most relied. In despair, he now for the first 
 time changed his course, and determined to trust to his 
 general abilities more than to his address. He came back 
 from Holland only to throw his weight into the scale against 
 a favorite measure, and one severely testing the popularity 
 of the minister. Sir Robert Walpole was not a man to for- 
 give opposition, so he punished the votes of Chesterfield 
 and of his connections upon the excise bill by immediate 
 removal from their posts. From this date until the minister 
 fell, an open and active war was carried on between them. 
 Chesterfield proved an active and efficient party leader, not 
 merely as a speaker in the House of Lords, but as a writer 
 and the contriver of political combinations. Most particu- 
 larly was there one topic, not often touched in vain with 
 the British public, upon which he lavished his ample stores 
 
 of wit, as the elder Pitt exhausted upon it the whole artil- 
 18 
 
274 
 
 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 lery of invective. This topic was the royal predilection for 
 Hanover, and its effects upon the foreign policy of the min- 
 ister. Ridicule is, of all modes of attack, that least readily 
 forgiven, particularly when directed by an inferior. George 
 II., incapable of wit himself, relished it little in others, but 
 least of all in Chesterfield. Probably no man in the king- 
 dom was so cordially hated by him at this time; and, to 
 crown all, the marriage long talked of with Melusina de 
 Schulemburg was just then decided upon, with intimations 
 that not even royalty itself should be a protection against 
 a scrutinizing inquiry after the suppressed will. George is 
 said to have prudently compromised that matter by the pay- 
 ment of twenty thousand pounds, though he could scarcely 
 have felt much softened by receiving this additional evi- 
 dence of his lordship's goodwill. It betrayed something 
 of the cat disposition, after long courting the monarch, thus 
 to threaten him with his claws. Yet, after all, we very much 
 doubt whether the hostility did not advance his prospects 
 much faster than the smooth and fair seeming. There was 
 manliness about it, and manliness is of all qualities the most 
 indispensable to the success of a politician. When Sir Rob- 
 ert Walpole was at last hunted down, and arrangements were 
 entered into for the purpose of reconstructing an adminis- 
 tration out of the heterogeneous materials which had only 
 coalesced to effect his overthrow, there were but two persons 
 designated by the monarch as utterly inadmissible to his 
 cabinet. Those two were William Pitt and Lord Chester- 
 field. Yet so far was this exclusion from proving an insur- 
 mountable barrier to either, that the former actually forced 
 his way into it soon after, on his own terms, and the latter 
 obtained, by his steady opposition, a degree of public con- 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 275 
 
 sideration which ultimately secured to him all the posts of 
 influence which he ever acquired. 
 
 In the mean time, however, the political career of his 
 lordship, if it kept him out of office, was not without some 
 solid compensation. Sarah, the old Duchess of Marlbor- 
 ough, had not ceased to take an active interest in public 
 affairs, though she no longer wielded the power of her ear- 
 lier days. Her hatred of Sir Robert Walpole had been 
 intense, and proportionate was her gratitude to those who 
 distinguished themselves in violent opposition to him. To 
 William Pitt she left by her will the sum of ten thousand 
 pounds sterling ; while to Lord Chesterfield she gave, in the 
 same instrument, her best and largest diamond ring, twenty 
 thousand pounds in cash, and the reversion of her Wimble- 
 don estate in failure of the Spencer family. With this sup- 
 port he could well spare two years more in opposition to the 
 ill-assorted combination, which, at the expense of the popu- 
 lar favor, had succeeded to Walpole's power. But when at 
 last this fell to pieces, and a new arrangement took place, 
 which ended in what was then called " the broad bottom," 
 Lord Chesterfield owed his admission into it to almost any 
 cause more than to his manners and address. His audience 
 of leave-taking upon going the second time to Holland, 
 granted to him by the King most reluctantly, was only one 
 continued insult. It seemed as if the occasion presented 
 itself only to manifest the royal resentment of the peer's 
 courtly good breeding. Dr. Maty tells us that, in return for 
 the elaborate civility and offers of service which the Earl 
 made, the King vouchsafed no other answer than the cold 
 words, "You have your instructions, my lord." 
 
 It rarely happens to politicians to be perfectly consistent. 
 
276 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 The man who had distinguished himself above all others by 
 his opposition to that system of foreign alliances which drew 
 the country into Continental wars, was now to reopen his 
 path to court favor by his efforts " to bring the Dutch roundly 
 into the war " against France. He succeeded in obtaining 
 the appointment of the Duke of Cumberland to be chief of 
 the confederate army, which, if it cost his country the defeat 
 of Fontenoy, at any rate earned for himself some title to his 
 sovereign's regard. Yet, even after his return from his mis- 
 sion, and before he went over to assume the post of Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland, he obtained no personal interview 
 with the King. It was not until the rebellion of 1745 took 
 place, in the midst of which George found himself deserted 
 by his ministers, when they knew he must submit to their 
 dictation of their own terms, as he could not do without 
 them, that his lordship's disapprobation of their course seems 
 to have entirely removed the burden of prejudice that had 
 weighed against him in the royal mind. His services had 
 also been of no slight value in keeping Ireland tranquil 
 throughout the period of commotion in the neighboring 
 kingdom, and they were appreciated. After the lapse of a 
 few months, his lordship found himself at last in the King's 
 closet, at the King's desire, acting in the capacity of ,one of 
 the Secretaries of State. The avenue to power seemed once 
 more perfectly open to him. He had regained it by services, 
 and not by his address ; yet here seemed another chance by 
 which to show how much the cultivation of insinuating man- 
 ners might avail to fix a growing impression. Once more 
 did his lordship resort to his favorite theory to sustain him. 
 The Queen was no longer living to embarrass him, so that 
 he felt safe in devoting his attention to the Countess of Yar- 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 277 
 
 mouth. Yet, little as he spared exertion, the expected effect 
 did not follow. His lordship continued in office long enough 
 to be convinced that he was overruled in everything, down 
 to the smallest appointment, by his colleague, the Duke of 
 Newcastle, the man who made no pretension to " the graces " ; 
 and he then resigned. The result of this last experiment 
 seems to have been so decisive with him that he never at- 
 tempted another. At the early age of fifty-four he retired 
 from public life in disgust. He had failed to be first, and 
 he wished to be nothing less. And in his want of success 
 he gave to posterity the most convincing proof that, after all, 
 polished manners can not be relied on as the basis of a 
 political career, even though they be connected with wit, 
 eloquence, and knowledge of the world. 
 
 It will be perceived that, even upon the mere utilitarian 
 view of the system of his lordship, we maintain, from a re- 
 view of his own history, that it is good for nothing. We 
 have thrown all higher arguments out of consideration, with 
 much the same coolness that he does himself. Yet we would 
 not be understood to affirm that refined breeding and man- 
 ners are of no use in forwarding a man's success ; on the 
 contrary, we are willing to believe them to be of the greatest 
 use, provided only there be a heart beneath. This little 
 element is the important omission in his lordship's doctrine. 
 He seems to have thought it unessential what the inside 
 might be, if only the surface was sufficiently polished to 
 conceal it. But, by a compensating process of nature, men 
 are rendered penetrating in proportion to the efforts made 
 to deceive them. The suspicion of art destroys confidence 
 in professions. Accordingly, we find in Lord Chesterfield's 
 case that, though he was much admired, he was little liked. 
 
278 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 In his assiduous court to all whom he believed to possess 
 influence, even his sagacity could not save him from betray- 
 ing himself to the most inexperienced eyes. When one of 
 the pages about the court found himself more than once 
 made the object of unusual attention by the Earl, the boy 
 could not help, at last, intimating to him his suspicion that 
 he had been mistaken for M. Louis, a youth who passed for 
 the King's son by Lady Yarmouth. His suspicion was well 
 founded, and the misdirected civility, thus known to be hol- 
 low, had done his lordship harm instead of good. Thus we 
 may see that he who learns to be civil to his neighbor solely 
 for the use he may make of his friendship can never become 
 less than a selfish hypocrite, whom the first accident that 
 unmasks him will render contemptible. 
 
 The cultivation of a general spirit of benevolence and 
 charity is a far better foundation for refinement of manners, 
 because it imposes no task of insincerity. It is rather un- 
 usual, we know, to go to the Scriptures for any rule of fash- 
 ionable life, and it may from some expose us to the charge 
 of writing sermon-fashion ; but we must say that we have 
 never understood the reason why it was necessary to go fur- 
 ther for the very highest theory of good breeding than the 
 broad principle laid down in the Holy Book, of doing unto 
 others as you would they should do unto you. To be sure, 
 we should be prevented by it from saying flattering false- 
 hoods, merely for the sake of deluding our neighbor's vani- 
 ty ; yet, on the other hand, we might be allowed the pleasure 
 of using the truth to encourage and sustain his virtuous 
 exertion. How much may be done in this way few people 
 entirely understand ; or how many young hearts yearn for a 
 word of judicious consolation, under the inevitable morti- 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 279 
 
 fications and chill produced on first entering into the con- 
 flicts of the world. To them, flattery is rank poison, while 
 discriminating praise serves as the breath of life. But there 
 is a higher reason why the Christian precept is a more per- 
 fect rule of manners. It forbids one from committing wrong 
 or injustice of any kind. Had his lordship followed it he 
 would have been saved from many mortifications, the con- 
 sequence of such injustice. It would have held him back 
 from the cold-blooded undertaking of seducing a weak wo- 
 man, merely because it had come to his ears that she ex- 
 pressed a very natural indignation at his licentious habits, 
 and from the equally cruel endeavor to train up the offspring 
 of that connection to a place it was impossible for him to 
 reach, except through the possession of a character and 
 abilities as much above those of his father as that father's 
 were above the level of the generality of men of his time. 
 
 Lord Chesterfield has much to answer for on many ac- 
 counts, but most especially on this, -that he formed a school, 
 the members of which, while committing the most immoral 
 acts, have kept each other in countenance by quoting his 
 specious maxims in their defense. We do not mean to say 
 that vicious and plausible men of fashion did not exist be- 
 fore his day. Such persons have always been found in 
 every cultivated society. What we do mean is, that he laid 
 down a code of rules which gained immediate currency in 
 that society, whereby great latitude was, almost by consent, 
 conceded to certain kinds of vice. According to him, it is 
 a perfectly gentlemanly proceeding to corrupt another man's 
 wife, and much more advisable, as it saves the personal risk 
 attending general licentiousness. Yet no consideration is 
 given to the inevitable effects that follow upon the happiness 
 
2 8o THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD, 
 
 of families and the peace of society itself. And generally it 
 is, according to him, perfectly allowable to disregard the 
 rights or feelings of the rest of the world, provided appear- 
 ances be preserved, and a smile be kept upon the face which 
 meditates a wrong. 
 
 Let us now consider one of the cases in which, as it ap- 
 pears to us, his lordship fully exemplified the tendencies of 
 his nature. He had married a woman whom he did not 
 love, and he was not so fortunate as to have children by her, 
 which might have awakened some interest in her welfare. 
 On the other hand, it happened that he had a son by one 
 Mrs. Du Bouchet, a Frenchwoman, already alluded to, and 
 this son he determined to make the subject of a grand ex- 
 periment. His own theory was that differences of character 
 depend more upon education than upon nature ; so he re- 
 solved to spare no pains in making at all hazards this unfor- 
 tunate subject fill up his beau-icttal of a man. In order to 
 do this, he willfully overlooked the enormous difficulty be- 
 fore him, at the very outset, of making an illegitimate son 
 play a first part in the history of such a country as Great 
 Britain. Nor was this all. He neglected to consider the 
 extent of the trial he was preparing for the poor young man. 
 Who shall say how much of the awkwardness and bashful- 
 ness for which his father perpetually reproached him might 
 have been owing to an impression, early received, of in- 
 equality with those immediately around him? Who that 
 knows boys, and especially English boys, can fail to under- 
 stand how soon the smallest difference of condition makes 
 itself felt among them, to the depression of those who are 
 suspected of laboring under a disadvantage ? How Mr. 
 Stanhope was made to feel this in later life, both at Brussels 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 2 8i 
 
 and in the fruitless effort to get the appointment of minister 
 at Venice, we see and know, from the letters before us. It 
 may be very well for his lordship to glide over such mortifi- 
 cations lightly, and call them inevitable evils, to be remedied 
 only by greater exertions; but his duty was not the less 
 plain to reflect, before he forced a young man into such a 
 situation, how apt it is to break down the spirit and disable 
 it from ever entering upon the exertions required. How 
 few men in Great Britain have made head against such an 
 early disadvantage! Is it, then, to be wondered at, that 
 Stanhope, who had not elements of character strong enough 
 to succeed, even without it, should have failed so entirely 
 while under its influence? The fault surely was not so 
 much in him as in his father's heartless error of judgment in 
 educating him. Neither is this all the penalty which the 
 poor young man has been compelled to pay. Not only has 
 the record of his failure to be a great man been made up 
 against him on the book of history, but his memory is des- 
 tined for ever to be associated with the evidence of the 
 labor and pains expended in vain upon him to produce any 
 extraordinary result whatever. As a matter of common jus- 
 tice, the readers of the present collection should have seen 
 a few of Mr. Stanhope's own letters, at least sufficient to 
 give them an opportunity to judge him fairly. As it is now, 
 his reputation fluctuates between those who call him a stupid 
 booby and those who describe him as a dull pedant, while 
 still a third party do not let him off even so easily as that. 
 Yet, admitting all that may be said against him, who is most 
 in fault for it ? Is it to be supposed that the young man 
 was worse, in any respect, than ten thousand people of his 
 own or of any age, who live out their appointed number of 
 
282 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 days, respectable citizens, and who go to their graves deeply 
 regretted by the usual circle of afflicted relations ? Why is 
 it, then, that he should be singled out for everlasting infamy, 
 as a dunce and a cub, or as 
 
 " Base, degenerate, meanly bad," 
 
 because his father chose in his person to immortalize his 
 own crime, and his unfeeling ambition of making an experi- 
 ment, against the success of which the chances were as a 
 thousand to one ? 
 
 A common remark is also that, if Lord Chesterfield 
 found his son a dull scholar in the " graces," he proved 
 rather too apt in the acquisition of hypocrisy. Mr. Stan- 
 hope died, leaving his father no legacy but a wife and two 
 children, of whose very existence he had not had the slight- 
 est hint. That under these circumstances he did not at 
 once renounce them, thus visiting upon the third generation 
 the sins of the second and the first, has been in some quar- 
 ters regarded as praiseworthy. But let us examine this act 
 a little more narrowly. These children were at least legiti- 
 mate. They had no share in the failure of their father to 
 be what he was never made for. That father had been put 
 by no act of his own into a situation to which he was not 
 adequate, and had been deprived of all opportunity to gain 
 any other. How could his lordship have done less than he 
 did ? How could he avoid giving to the victims of his de- 
 lusion at least the means of escaping from its worst conse- 
 quences ? We do not perceive that he attempted anything 
 more than this. The boys were taken care of and put to 
 school, and, for aught we know of them, acted in life about 
 as well as the average of their neighbors ; but the dream of 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 283 
 
 making finished gentlemen statesmen, luckily for them, was 
 entirely over. The Earl reserved his last words of advice 
 more suitably for the heir of his title, a distant connection 
 by a collateral branch, whom he also made, to the exclusion 
 of these grandchildren, heir to his estates. 
 
 Lord Chesterfield's system made him neither a good, a 
 happy, nor a successful man. Such being the result in his 
 own person, we see no reason why it should be further held 
 up to the imitation of posterity. Yet there is something in 
 the man, invested as he appears to us with all the authority 
 of wealth, dignity, rank, and title, calculated to impose upon 
 the multitude. There is still more in the elegance of his 
 style, conveying as it does just thoughts in a most clear and 
 forcible way. There was a strange union about him, too, 
 of the loosest general notions, formed from his experience 
 of the corruption of his times, and the most strict adherence 
 in his own case to personal integrity. Early in his career, 
 when he was appointed to succeed Lord Townshend as 
 Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, that nobleman advised 
 him to make the place more profitable than he himself had 
 done, by disposing of the places in his gift. " I rather, for 
 this time," adroitly and properly replied Chesterfield, "wish 
 to follow your lordship's example than your advice." He 
 never sold a commission. The same spirit appears to have 
 followed him throughout in the administration of official 
 power. He had a thorough detestation of the jobbing tem- 
 per so common in England, and not by any means unknown 
 in the United States, among political men. There is another 
 point in his history which is highly creditable to him. He 
 took no presents from any one, nor did he approve of them 
 when taken by others. There is a passage in his parting 
 
284 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 letter to his godson upon this subject, which, both as illus- 
 trative of his own character and as full of sound doctrine, 
 we can not resist the temptation to transcribe : 
 
 If you should ever fill a great station at court, take care above 
 all things to keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice 
 of corruption, a vice so infamous that it degrades even the other 
 vices that may accompany it. Accept no present whatever; let 
 your character in that respect be transparent and without the least 
 speck ; for, as avarice is the vilest and dirtiest vice in private, corrup- 
 tion is so in public life. I call corruption the taking of a sixpence 
 more than the just and known salary of your employment, under 
 any pretense whatsoever. Use what power and credit you may 
 have at court in the service of merit rather than of kindred, and 
 not to get pensions and reversions for yourself or your family ; for 
 I call that also, what it really is, scandalous pollution, though of 
 late it has been so frequent that it has almost lost its name (vol. iv., 
 P- 430- 
 
 Yet strange indeed are the inconsistencies of man. The 
 same mind which in this passage seems to catch a glimpse 
 of something above the cold and mercenary level of ordi- 
 nary life, in another part of these letters treats of one of the 
 most sacred of human relations in the following thoroughly 
 business-like manner : 
 
 Do not be in haste to marry, but look about you first, for the 
 affair is important. There are but two objects in marriage, love or 
 money. If you marry for love, you will certainly have some very 
 happy days, and probably many very uneasy ones. If for money, 
 you will have no happy days, and probably no uneasy ones ; in this 
 latter case, let the woman at least be such a one that you can live 
 decently and amicably with, otherwise it is a robbery; in either 
 case, let her be of an unblemished and unsuspected character, and 
 of a rank not indecently below your own (vol. ii., p. 427). 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 285 
 
 Very surely it could not have been the love of moral ex- 
 cellence which prompted the sentiment in the first extract, 
 or even any very refined estimate of human duty. We much 
 fear that we must resolve it into temperament. Avarice was 
 not one of his lordship's vices. He was above the low arts 
 to which it naturally resorts, and the dirty crimes to which 
 it leads. But he was above them, not because he scorned 
 them as wrong, but as mean ; not because he admired purity 
 of purpose and singleness of heart, but because he deemed 
 it unbecoming in a gentleman to put himself in the power 
 of people that were beneath him. With him it was scandal- 
 ous pollution to trade in pensions and reversions for him- 
 self at court, but it was right enough to trade with a woman 
 for money in the article of marriage. Yet, if we closely 
 analyze the moral principle involved in the two operations, 
 it will be scarcely practicable to lay down a rule of action 
 which would justify his lordship's discrimination. 
 
 Passing from this subject, let us bring the present article 
 to a close by a brief review of the various claims which his 
 lordship has made upon the attention of posterity, whether 
 as an orator, a scholar, a patron of letters, a statesman, a 
 writer, or a gentleman. Few of England's nobility have 
 tried to shine so variously ; and, if he did not equally suc- 
 ceed in everything, it is surely creditable in him that he 
 made the attempt. 
 
 We have already mentioned the circumstances attending 
 his first appearance upon the floor of the House of Com- 
 mons ; how carefully he had prepared himself, and how all 
 his preparation was defeated by the inopportune ridicule of 
 a member who was a mimic. This incident is deserving of 
 notice, because it lets us into a pretty accurate idea of his 
 
286 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 level as a speaker. With a highly artificial manner it is 
 probable that his lordship united the amount of wit and 
 practical good sense which we see in the productions he left 
 behind him. These qualifications made him an agreeable 
 and an elegant speaker, but they did not raise him above the 
 reach of vulgar efforts at imitation. There was wanting in 
 him either great intellectual, or that moral superiority, based 
 upon solid and noble views of man's duties, which com- 
 mands the respect and fastens the attention even of the 
 most scornful. We have never heard that the elder or the 
 younger Pitt, Burke, or even Fox, in spite of defects of 
 manner, was in any degree embarrassed by the attacks that 
 were made upon him. Some of these, and most particu- 
 larly Lord Chatham, were remarkable for peculiarities not a 
 little striking and easy to be taken off. Yet they continued 
 to exercise their powers with effect, placing ridicule at defi- 
 ance. From this we are unavoidably led to infer that Lord 
 Chesterfield's own account of his oratory is not an under- 
 estimate, and that he owed the greater part of his success in 
 it to his polish. That success was established after he had 
 reached a congenial spot for the exercise of his faculty in 
 the House of Lords. Yet very few of his speeches have 
 been handed down to us to give us the means of judging of 
 his style. Horace Walpole, no very friendly critic by the 
 way, speaks of one of them as the finest speech he ever lis- 
 tened to, which is saying a good deal for a man who wit- 
 nessed the Parliamentary struggles of half a century from 
 the great Walpolean battle downward. It not infrequently 
 happens, however, that this remark is made by a person just 
 fresh from hearing a well-delivered address, the greatest 
 merit of which, after all, comes from the effect it momen- 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 287 
 
 tarily produces. Very certainly the specimens which Dr. 
 Maty furnishes, in his edition of his lordship's works, will 
 not sustain any similar rate of commendation. They are in 
 no respect above the level of middling performances, and 
 sometimes sink even below it. For example, in the second 
 speech upon the gin act, a species of temperance question, 
 almost the same with that which agitated Massachusetts a 
 few years since, what sort of force is there in the following 
 extract, if considered as a piece of invective ? 
 
 This bill, therefore, appears to be designed only to thin the ranks 
 of mankind, and to disburden the world of the multitudes that in- 
 habit it, and is perhaps the strongest proof of political sagacity that 
 our ministers have yet exhibited. They well know, my Lords, that 
 they are universally detested, and that, whenever a Briton is de- 
 stroyed, they are freed from an enemy ; they have therefore opened 
 the flood-gates of gin upon the nation, that, when it is less numerous, 
 it may be more easily governed. 
 
 Surely this is not the tone which would overthrow a min- 
 istry. It wants force and sincerity. We can see at once 
 that it was only a pleasant literary exercise for the amuse- 
 ment of the auditors. It would do to make even the Duke 
 of Newcastle himself, at whom it was directed, laugh very 
 heartily. But, as to any effect which it was likely to produce 
 in staying the passage of the bill itself, he might as well have 
 hoped to get it by talking in an unknown tongue. Yet his 
 lordship was doubtless in earnest in his speech. Temper- 
 ance in drinking was one of his leading virtues. He detested 
 drunkenness because it was a coarse and vulgar vice. He 
 constantly laments, in his correspondence, the extent to 
 which his Irish friends were addicted to it. Yet, instead of 
 treating it in the broad and noble way by which its evils can 
 
288 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 always be made palpable to the hearer, he sacrifices the 
 truth to frivolous conceits. This we take to be the true 
 reason and the whole reason why his lordship did not in his 
 lifetime obtain the influence and why he has not since mer- 
 ited the reputation that belong to the highest species of ora- 
 torical power. 
 
 Of his lordship's merit as a scholar and a patron of schol- 
 ars we have little evidence beyond the scattered opinions 
 upon books to be gathered from the letters before us, and 
 the memorable adventure with Dr. Johnson. To scholar- 
 ship, in the extended sense of the term, he had no claim 
 while his taste, even in the limited regions of belles-lettres, 
 was far from being accurate or pure. It is very clear that 
 he did not relish even those of the ancient classics which he 
 had studied. If he had, surely he would not have preferred 
 the " Henriade " to the " Iliad " or " ^Eneid," to " Paradise 
 Lost," or even to the "Jerusalem Delivered." The criti- 
 cisms which he makes upon the works of his favorite Vol- 
 taire appear sometimes difficult to account for. At this day, 
 we prefer the wit of " Micromegas," even though not al- 
 together original, to the " History of the Crusades," or 
 " L'Esprit Humain " ; yet his lordship considers the latter 
 as excellent, and the former as wholly unworthy of the au- 
 thor. Through all these opinions, we think we can see pre- 
 vailing the same cold, worldly way of viewing things which 
 we find predominating on other subjects. To his mind, the 
 cut bono seems to have been perpetually present, whatever 
 the topic in hand might be. He complains of Milton that, 
 "not having the honor to be acquainted with any of the 
 parties in his poem except the man and the woman, the 
 characters and speeches of a dozen or two of angels, and of 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 289 
 
 as many devils, were as much above his reach as his enter- 
 tainment. Keep this secret for me," he adds ; " for, if it 
 should be known, I should be abused by every tasteless 
 pedant and every solid divine in England." Which means 
 to say, we presume, that to admire Milton is characteristic 
 of bad taste an opinion which we venture to say his lord- 
 ship will not have a great many at this day to join him in, 
 while it gives us a pretty fair opportunity of estimating the 
 extent of his own taste. 
 
 But, if his lordship was not himself a scholar, he certainly 
 assumed to himself to be the patron of scholarship in others. 
 It was to him, as such, that Dr. Johnson ventured to address 
 his project of an English Dictionary, and not merely because 
 his lordship happened at the moment to be high in office. 
 We allude to this subject the more willingly because we have 
 lately seen some effort made to deny this, and to excuse the 
 coldness and neglect which brought upon his lordship the 
 celebrated reply of the Doctor. It is pleaded in his defense 
 that, in 1747, the date of the dedication, the Doctor was 
 comparatively unknown ; that he was himself then high in 
 office, on which account alone the address was made to him ; 
 and that he could scarcely be expected, merely because he 
 was an Earl and Secretary of State, to patronize every clever 
 Grub Street author who might think it expedient to try to 
 raise money out of him by a complimentary dedication. 
 Such is the argument of one of our leading contemporary 
 journals upon the other side of the water. It appears to us 
 ill supported by the facts. Lord Chesterfield was not re- 
 garded as a common lord or as a common Secretary of State. 
 He had a reputation of his own for taste and discrimination 
 upon which he piqued himself. It was upon this reputation 
 19 
 
290 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 that Dr. Johnson rested his application, without pretending 
 to claim a knowledge of the man. It unquestionably gave 
 him a right to hope, not that he would be made an intimate 
 companion, but that the specimen furnished of his capacity 
 to perform his task would from its own merit attract the 
 great man's favorable attention and earn his patronage. It 
 is the peculiar province of a Maecenas to distinguish by his 
 own sagacity the proper objects in whose favor to exert his 
 influence, from those who are not so. Had his lordship 
 pretended to no reputation in this way, his neglect of John- 
 son would scarcely have been deemed an error. But he 
 must be judged by the standard which he furnishes for him- 
 self. There can now be little doubt that he did not appre- 
 ciate the merit of the Doctor's proposal as he ought to have 
 done ; that he gave him ten guineas rather to get rid of him 
 than from any idea of encouraging the prosecution of the 
 great literary undertaking ; and that it was not until after 
 the Doctor's reputation was firmly established, when the aid 
 of a patron was no longer so essential as it had been, that 
 he saw his mistake, and endeavored to make a tardy repara- 
 tion for it by publishing a couple of rather frivolous papers 
 recommending the " Dictionary " in the periodical called 
 " The World." Surely, under these circumstances, the ven- 
 geance which the Doctor took was not uncalled for. He 
 felt that his lordship had only meted out to him the same 
 measure which he did to every one, the same which every 
 mere worldly man who forms himself upon his .model will 
 always do to those about him that is, he had neglected 
 merit while nobody else had found it out, and only then ac- 
 knowledged it when it was no longer a secret. Dr. Johnson 
 expressed his sense of this in a noble and dignified manner. 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 291 
 
 Chesterfield felt the rebuke to be too just ever to indulge in 
 such hollow excuses as have been lately set up in his de- 
 fense. It was one of many legitimate consequences of that 
 system of morals which makes appearances and not the re- 
 ality the great object to be cared for. 
 
 We now come to the consideration of his lordship's career 
 as a statesman and here we find very little to object to and 
 something positively to commend. Without possessing any 
 great and commanding views of public policy, he neverthe- 
 less held solid and judicious ones. He was, probably more 
 than any one of his age, the exact representative of the com- 
 mon sense of the people of Great Britain, which strongly 
 relucted against the whole of the Hanoverian policy, without 
 being able to extricate itself from it. On that subject there 
 have always been opposite opinions, and time must yet show 
 which of them is abstractly correct. On the one hand, it 
 must be conceded that, had England kept herself wholly 
 clear from Continental alliances, she would never have ar- 
 rived at the high point of power and glory upon which she 
 now stands. On the other, it is equally undeniable that she 
 would not have so rapidly developed the seeds of internal 
 disorganization, under the forming process of a monstrous 
 public debt. Lord Chesterfield had little or no adequate 
 conception of the resources of his country, when he pro- 
 nounced it on the brink of ruin in 1757, a moment at which 
 it was just shooting up to the highest state of prosperity. 
 " We are no longer a nation," says he ; " I never yet saw so 
 dreadful a prospect. . . . Ruin is so near," he writes in an- 
 other place, " that, were Machiavel at the head of affairs, he 
 could not retrieve them." Such was the state of despond- 
 ency of his lordship, and he was by no means alone in it. 
 
292 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 at the instant when the elder Pitt was called to the helm of 
 state, and when he proved what all this croaking was good 
 for. But it is the nature of timid politicians to be con- 
 stantly looking at the dark side of things while they are 
 in active life, and to predict irretrievable destruction after 
 they retire. We have had many such on this side of the 
 Atlantic, the non-fulfillment of whose gloomy prophecies 
 has sadly disappointed themselves and their friends. From 
 all which experience it is safe to arrive at the conclusion 
 that great bodies move slowly, and that it takes a good 
 while and a great many disasters, as well as long years 
 of misgovernment, to crush the energies of a prosperous 
 nation. 
 
 But it is in the administration of Irish affairs during the 
 time his lordship filled the post of Viceroy that he has gained 
 his greatest reputation. So sadly had that country suffered 
 from its connection with the neighboring kingdom, that it 
 hailed the accession of a man who did nothing more than 
 abstain from wrong-doing, as if he were a savior. Even 
 this negative species of excellence required on his part the 
 exercise of no small skill and discretion, as well as much 
 firmness. These were qualities strictly within the compass 
 of his lordship's character. Of greatness or goodness we 
 expect to find little. But all that worldly prudence and 
 calm, shrewd, good sense could dictate, may very naturally 
 be inferred. The moment at which he was called to the 
 post was a critical one. It was in the midst of the great 
 success of the Pretender in the year 1745. Yet not one of 
 the many Papists who unquestionably wished well to that 
 enterprise bestirred himself in any manner to advance it. 
 Ireland has seidom been more tranquil than during this else- 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 293 
 
 where turbulent year. It is due to Chesterfield that he 
 should receive praise for having contributed to this great 
 result. He was, besides, a steady patron of temperance, at 
 a time when and among a people by whom that virtue was 
 not regarded with the same favor that it now is. He was 
 also a decided opponent to the corruptions which long pre- 
 vailed in that country in the form of government jobs. All 
 this, joined with the fascinations of his address, excited the 
 admiration and enthusiasm of that impulsive people. But 
 it may reasonably be doubted whether he does not owe the 
 greater part of his apparent success to the fact that he re- 
 mained in office so short a time. Experience teaches us 
 that it is seldom in the first, or even the second, year of a 
 popular administration that it is most likely to have its 
 strength put to the test. There must be time for discontent 
 to find channels by which to vent itself, time for combina- 
 tions to be formed, time for affecting' the public mind. 
 Those interested in deep settled abuses do not take much 
 alarm, so long as remedies are only talked of. Nothing 
 more was attempted by Chesterfield. It can not, therefore, 
 be said that the intricate problem of Irish government has 
 been solved in opposition to the conjoined experience of all 
 other lords lieutenant, solely because his lordship succeeded 
 in carrying it on acceptably for the space of eight months. 
 Even in the midst of the praise which we would willingly 
 accord to him for what he did or intended to do in this situ- 
 ation, some qualification must be made, as we now and then 
 catch a glimpse of the principles upon which he acted. For 
 an illustration, we must cite his reliance upon the gavel act 
 to effect the decline of the Catholic faith. Now, the gavel 
 act proposed neither more nor less than to bribe the mem- 
 
294 
 
 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 bers of a family, with their own money, to sacrifice one an- 
 other by betraying their religious faith. If the estate of a 
 Papist was to be divided among his nearest relations, this 
 law prescribed that they should share and share alike, unless 
 some one of them would declare himself a convert to Prot- 
 estantism, in which case he might take the whole. Such 
 was the law which Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to a bishop 
 of the Church, recommended should be strictly adhered to. 
 And the most remarkable circumstance about it is, that it 
 does not seem to have entered into his conception what 
 kind of public and private morality he was encouraging. 
 To him religion was merely a respectable and conservative 
 civil institution. A conversion from one mode of faith to 
 another was of little moment to him, who viewed them all 
 with equal indifference. ^ 
 
 It remains to us only to consider his lordship's character 
 as a writer. This will rest in the main upon those letters to 
 his son which he wrote in confidence and without any ex- 
 pectation of their ever coming before the public. Besides 
 these, there are, however, a considerable number of essays, 
 furnished for political and literary journals, from which we 
 can gather a correct idea of his polished, as the others give 
 one of his unguarded, style. The essays are remarkable for 
 grace and a species of gentlemanly humor very much in 
 keeping with the idea we have of their author. We might 
 point out as examples the papers on dueling, on pride of 
 birth, and ladies' fashions. Although it is difficult by an 
 extract to give a full idea of them, yet we will venture upon 
 the close of the " Essay on Dueling," not only on account 
 of its irony, but of the more valuable truth which lies con- 
 cealed beneath it : 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 295 
 
 There is one reason, indeed, which makes me suspect that a 
 DUEL may not always be the infallible criterion of veracity ; and that 
 is, that the combatants very rarely meet upon equal terms. I beg 
 leave to state a case, which may very probably and not even un- 
 frequently happen, and which is yet not provided for nor even men- 
 tioned in the INSTITUTES of HONOR. 
 
 A very lean, slender, active young fellow of great HONOR, weigh- 
 ing perhaps not quite twelve stone, and who has, from his youth, 
 taken lessons of HOMICIDE from a murder-master, has, or thinks he 
 has, a point of honor to discuss with an unwieldy, fat, middle-aged 
 gentleman of nice HONOR likewise, weighing four-and-twenty stone, 
 and who in his youth may not possibly have had the same commen- 
 dable application to the noble science of HOMICIDE. The lean gentle- 
 man sends a very civil letter to the fat one, inviting him to come and 
 be killed by him the next morning in Hyde Park. Should the fat 
 gentleman accept this invitation, and waddle to the place appointed, 
 he goes to inevitable slaughter. Now, upon this state of the case, 
 might not the fat gentleman, consistent with the rules of HONOR, re- 
 turn the following answer to the invitation of the lean one ? 
 
 SIR : I find by your letter that you do me the justice to believe 
 that I have the true notions of honor that become a gentleman ; and 
 I hope I shall never give you reason to change your opinion. As I 
 entertain the same opinion of you, I must suppose that you will not 
 desire that we should meet upon unequal terms, which must be the 
 case were we to meet to-morrow. At present I unfortunately weigh 
 four-and-twenty stone, and I guess that you do not exceed twelve. 
 From this circumstance singly, I am doubly the mark that you are ; 
 but, besides this, you are active, and I am unwieldy. I therefore 
 propose to you that, from this day forward, we severally endeavor, 
 by all possible means, you to fatten and I to waste, till we can meet 
 at the medium of eighteen stone. I will lose no time on my part, 
 being impatient to prove to you that I am not quite unworthy of the 
 good opinion which you are pleased to express of, 
 
 Sir, your very humble servant. 
 
296 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 P. S. I believe it may not be amiss for us to communicate to 
 each other, from time to time, our gradations of increase or decrease 
 toward the desired medium, in which, I presume, two or three 
 pounds more or less, on either side, ought not to be considered. 
 
 Yet, though his essays are all of them pleasing specimens 
 of delicate humor, they would not of themselves have re- 
 deemed his memory from oblivion. For this he is indebted 
 entirely to the letters to his son, which, as specimens of a 
 particular style of writing, though not always perfectly cor- 
 rect, are not exceeded in their way by anything in the lan- 
 guage. Their principal merits are their perspicuity and 
 elegance, without a shadow of affectation. In them will be 
 found a great sum of worldly wisdom upon the minor morals, 
 conveyed in the most direct and intelligible shape. Even 
 Dr. Johnson admitted their merit, although he very justly 
 put his seal of reprobation on their tendency. We can not, 
 for instance, too highly approve of a passage like the follow- 
 ing upon the employment of time : 
 
 You have, it is true, a great deal of time before you ; but, in this 
 period of your life, one hour usefully employed may be worth more 
 than four-and-twenty hereafter ; a minute is precious to you now, 
 whole days may possibly not be so forty years hence. Whatever 
 time you allow, or can snatch, for serious reading (I say snatch, be- 
 cause company and a knowledge of the world is now your chief ob- 
 ject), employ it in the reading of some one book, and that a good 
 one, till you have finished it ; and do not distract your mind with 
 various matters at the same time. In this light I would recommend 
 to you to read tout de suite " Grotius de Jure Belli et Pads," trans- 
 lated by Barbeyrac, and Puffendorf's " Jus Gentium," translated by 
 the same hand. For accidental quarters of hours, read works of 
 invention, wit, and humor of the best, and not of trivial authors, 
 either ancient or modern. 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 297 
 
 Whatever business you have, do it the first moment you can ; 
 never by halves, but finish it without interruption, if possible. Busi- 
 ness must not be sauntered and trifled with ; and you must not say 
 to it as Felix did to Paul, " At a more convenient season I will 
 speak to thee." The most convenient season for business is the 
 first ; but study and business, in some measure, point out their own 
 times to a man of sense ; time is much oftener squandered away 
 in the wrong choice and improper methods of amusement and 
 pleasures. 
 
 Many people think that they are in pleasures provided they are 
 neither in study nor in business. Nothing like it ; they are doing 
 nothing, and might just as well be asleep. They contract habitudes 
 from laziness, and they only frequent those places where they are 
 free from all restraints and attentions. Be upon your guard against 
 this idle profusion of time ; and let every place you go to be either 
 the scene of quick and lively pleasures or the school of your im- 
 provements ; let every company you go into either gratify your 
 senses, extend your knowledge, or refine your manners. Have some 
 decent object of gallantry in view at some places ; frequent others 
 where people of wit and taste assemble ; get into others where 
 people of superior rank and dignity command respect and attention 
 from the rest of the company ; but pray frequent no neutral places 
 from mere idleness and indolence. Nothing forms a young man so 
 much as being used to keep respectable and superior company, 
 where a constant regard and attention is necessaiy. It is true this 
 is at first a disagreeable state of restraint ; but it soon grows habit- 
 ual, and consequently easy ; and you are amply paid for it by the 
 improvement you make, and the credit it gives you. What you said 
 some time ago was very true concerning le Palais Royal ; to one of 
 your age the situation is disagreeable enough ; you can not expect to 
 be much taken notice of; but all that time you can take notice 
 of others; observe their manners, decipher their characters, and 
 insensibly you will become one of the company (vol. ii., pp. 227, 
 228). 
 
298 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 There is not in this extract, it 'is true, any intimation of 
 the higher purposes for which time should be improved. 
 The idea, as usual with his lordship, is limited within narrow 
 and selfish bounds ; yet, so far as it goes, it is sound and 
 well conveyed. No man had a greater contempt than he for 
 the vagabond fops who have since affected to quote him as 
 authority for their idleness and their indifference. He un- 
 derstood the truth of the maxim that a man, in order to 
 make himself respectable, must try to be employed. Neither 
 did he imagine, like many of his rank in England, that a 
 title and wealth excused him from the duty of exertion in 
 something more respectable than the mere search after plea- 
 sure. His great defect was that he did not rest his notions 
 of that duty upon a basis sufficiently broad. They all come 
 back to the benefit to be gained in some form or other of 
 personal advantage. They looked forth neither upon soci- 
 ety, nor upon one's country, nor upon one's God. They 
 were of a kind which wither under the approach of age. 
 Thus it happened to himself that at fifty-four he retreated 
 from the public service, not again to return to it, though in- 
 vited more than once. He retired to cultivate cabbages and 
 pine-apples, and to wear out the patience of both medical 
 men and quacks in unavailing experiments to remedy the 
 infirmities of his constitution. There is no cheerfulness 
 nor dignity in the scene of his old age. His views of life 
 are narrow, cold, and gloomy. So early as 1755, or nearly 
 twenty years before his end, he indulges in the following 
 strain of reflection, when addressing his friend the Bishop 
 of Waterford : 
 
 My deafness grows gradually worse, which in my mind implies 
 a total one before it be long. In this unhappy situation, which I 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 2 g 9 
 
 have reason to suppose will every day grow worse, I still keep up 
 my spirits tolerably ; that is, I am free from melancholy, which, I 
 think, is all that can be expected. This I impute to that degree of 
 philosophy which I have acquired by long experience of the world. 
 I have enjoyed all its pleasures, and consequently know their futil- 
 ity, and do not regret their loss. I appraise them at their real value, 
 which in truth is very low ; whereas those who have not experienced 
 always overrate them. They only see their gay outside, and are 
 dazzled with their glare ; but I have been behind the scenes. It is a 
 common notion, and like many common ones a very false one, that 
 those who have led a life of pleasure and business can never be 
 easy in retirement ; whereas I am persuaded that they are the only 
 people who can, if they have any sense and reflection. They can 
 look back, oculo irretorto, upon what they from knowledge despise ; 
 others have always a hankering after what they are not acquainted 
 with. I look upon all that has passed as one of those romantic 
 dreams that opium commonly occasions, and I do by no means de- 
 sire to repeat the nauseous dose for the sake of the fugitive dream. 
 When I say that I have no regret, I do not mean that I have no re- 
 morse ; for a life of either business, or, still more, pleasure, never 
 was nor never will be a state of innocence. But God, who knows 
 the strength of human passions and the weakness of human reason, 
 will, it is to be hoped, rather mercifully pardon than justly punish 
 acknowledged errors (vol. iv., pp. 149, 150). 
 
 This letter was written to one of those whom his lord- 
 ship somewhere else is pleased to designate as a species of 
 constables " appointed by the sovereign power of a country 
 to keep up decency and decorum in the Church." This 
 may account for the unusual approximation to a religious 
 feeling which we find in the extract. Yet what does this 
 amount to ? His lordship, satiated with the pleasures of 
 life, looks back upon them with much the same feeling that 
 a man in the morning has about his last night's debauch. 
 
300 
 
 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 He has no warming sense of services rendered to others ; 
 of duty performed, perhaps imperfectly, but yet with an ear- 
 nest and hearty will ; of mutual kindness cultivated between 
 himself and others; of humble resignation to the will of 
 God ! No ! the scene, as he looks back upon it, is cold and 
 wintry, showing marks only of scorching desolation from the 
 heat of summer passions. And the present enjoyment, such 
 as it is, proceeds from vacuity. Nor yet does he make it 
 very clear that his own history disproves the correctness of 
 the common notion which he condemns. His retirement 
 will scarcely furnish encouragement to any who may be anx- 
 ious to leave the busy world in quest of ease. His letters 
 form one continued lament, partly owing to his increasing 
 deafness, partly to disappointment as to his son's success, 
 but most of all to the absence of all the nobler motives of 
 action in life. This is the grand defect of his whole theory. 
 The man is liable to outlive the system, and then the world 
 becomes a dreary blank. Cut off from society, from public 
 life, from the domestic affections, and from the consolations 
 of a religious faith, Chesterfield was as much isolated at 
 sixty as the blasted oak in the center of a barren heath. 
 Yet over all this wretchedness there still remained, like a 
 coat of steel upon a skeleton, the glazed and polished sur- 
 face of good breeding which his lordship had laid on thick 
 to conceal the deep defects of his early years. Even upon 
 the bed of death, " Give Dayrolles a chair " were the last 
 expressed thoughts of this worldly Earl. Not a single ex- 
 alted sentiment fell from him, at that moment, to counter- 
 act the chill of a long career. He was indeed what he 
 describes himself, one hackneyed in the ways of life. We 
 have endeavored to show in his history the nature and the 
 
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 301 
 
 advantages of such a training. Let those who are inclined 
 to be fascinated by his example take warning by his fate. 
 
 In the view which we have taken, it will be seen that we 
 have not dwelt upon the moral tendency of the advice to be 
 found in the present work. This has already been so much 
 descanted upon in many former publications, as well as in 
 the pages of this journal, that little can be added. We shall 
 therefore, avoiding the grosser passages, simply content our- 
 selves with extracting from the maxims addressed by his 
 lordship to his son such of them as seem most briefly to em- 
 body the character of the author : 
 
 In your friendships and in your enmities let your confidence and 
 your hostilities have certain bounds ; make not the former danger- 
 ous, nor the latter irreconcilable. There are strange vicissitudes in 
 business. 
 
 It is always right to detect a fraud, and to perceive a folly ; but 
 it is often very wrong to expose either. A man of business should 
 always have his eyes open, but must often seem to have them shut. 
 
 If you would be a favorite of your King, address yourself to his 
 weaknesses. An application to his reason will seldom prove very 
 successful. 
 
 A cheerful, easy countenance and behavior are very useful at 
 court ; they make fools think you a good-natured man ; and they 
 make designing men think you an undesigning one. 
 
 Flattery, though a base coin, is the necessary pocket-money at 
 court ; where, by custom and consent, it has obtained such a cur- 
 rency that it is no longer a fraudulent but a legal payment. 
 
 The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap ; it 
 does not depend so much upon a man's general expense as it does 
 upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all (vol. ii., 
 pp. 322-326). 
 
 It would seem, by the care which his lordship bestowed 
 
3 02 THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 upon the sketches of the principal persons of his time, as if 
 he must have meditated some extensive work of an histori- 
 cal kind, in which they would naturally have found a place. 
 Had the whole been executed with any portion of the spirit 
 to be found in these fragments, the author would have 
 earned a still higher reputation than he is likely now to 
 hold. Among them, one of the most curious is the article 
 relating to Lord Bute, which Dr. Maty, or his successor, 
 thought proper to suppress, while he published in his edi- 
 tion most of the rest. The portraits of Sir Robert Walpole, 
 of Lord Hardwicke, of the elder Pitt, of the Duke of New- 
 castle, and of Lord Bolingbroke, will continue for ever valu- 
 able to those who wish to understand the history of the 
 early Brunswick princes. Chesterfield's habits made him a 
 keen observer of the virtues and vices, the merits and the 
 follies of other men; while his judgment was not warped, as 
 that of many is apt to be, by any excess of sympathy with 
 or of hostility to them. In this, as in all things else, he 
 shows his great want to have been the want of a heart. We 
 scarcely know how better to close this view of his character 
 than, without meaning to excuse him, to apply his own re- 
 mark upon a much bolder person than he in both extremes ; 
 we mean his friend Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, when 
 he says of him, " Upon the whole of this extraordinary char- 
 acter, where good and ill were perpetually jostling each 
 other, what can we say but, ' Alas ! poor human nature ! ' ' 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY* 
 
 " GENTLE Sir Philip Sidney, thou knewest what belonged 
 to a scholar ; thou knewest what pains, what toil, what 
 travel, conduct to perfection ; well couldest thou give every 
 virtue his encouragement, every art his due, every writer 
 his desert, 'cause none more virtuous, witty, or learned than 
 thyself."! This eulogium was bestowed upon one of the 
 most learned and illustrious men that adorned the last half 
 of the sixteenth century. Literary history is full of his 
 praises. He is spoken of as the ripe scholar, the able states- 
 man " the soldier's, scholar's, courtier's eye, tongue, sword " 
 the man "whose whole life was poetry put into action." 
 He and the Chevalier Bayard were the connecting links be- 
 .tween the ages of chivalry and our own. 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney was born at Penshurst, in West Kent, 
 on the 29th of November, 1554, and died on the i6th day 
 of October, 1586, from the wound of a musket-shot received 
 under the walls of Zutphen, a town in Guelderland, on the 
 banks of the Issel. When he was retiring from the field of 
 battle an incident occurred which well illustrates his chiv- 
 alrous spirit, and that goodness of heart which gained him 
 
 * The Defence of Poesy. By Sir Philip Sidney. Republished in the 
 Library of the Old English Prose Writers. Vol. II. 
 f Nash's Pierce Penniless. 
 
3 o 4 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 the appellation of the " Gentle Sir Philip Sidney." The cir- 
 cumstance has been made the subject of an historical paint- 
 ing by West. It is thus related by Lord Brooke : 
 
 The horse he rode upon was rather furiously choleric than 
 bravely proud, and so forced him to forsake the field, but not his 
 back, as. the noblest and fittest bier to carry a martial commander 
 to his grave. In which sad progress, passing along by the rest of 
 the army where his uncle the General was, and being thirsty with 
 excess of bleeding, he called for drink, which was presently brought 
 him ; but, as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a poor 
 soldier carried along, who had eaten his last at the same feast, 
 ghastly casting up his eyes at the bottle. Which Sir Philip per- 
 ceiving, took it from his head, before he drank, and delivered it to the 
 poor man, with these words, " Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." 
 
 The most celebrated productions of Sidney's pen are the 
 " Arcadia " and the " Defence of Poesy." The former was 
 written during the author's retirement at Wilton, the resi- 
 dence of his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. Though so 
 much celebrated in its day,* it is now little known, and still 
 less read. Its very subject prevents it from being popular 
 at present ; for now the pastoral reed seems entirely thrown 
 aside. The muses no longer haunt the groves of Arcadia. 
 The shepherd's song the sound of oaten pipe, and the 
 scenes of pastoral loves and jealousies, are no becoming 
 
 * Many of our readers will recollect the high-wrought eulogium of 
 Harvey Pierce, when he consigned the work to immortality : " Live ever 
 sweete, sweete booke : the simple image of his gentle witt ; and the 
 golden pillar of his noble courage ; and ever notify unto the world that 
 thy writer was the secretary of eloquence, the breath of the muses, the 
 honey-bee of the daintyest flowers of witt and arte ; the pith of morale 
 and intellectual virtues, the arme of Bellona in the field, the tongue of 
 Suada in the chamber, the sprite of Practice in esse, and the paragon of 
 excellency in print." 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 305 
 
 themes for the spirit of the age. Few at present take for 
 their motto, " flumina amo silvasque inglorius" and, conse- 
 quently, few read the " Arcadia." 
 
 The "Defence of Poesy " is a work of rare merit. It is 
 a golden little volume, which the scholar may lay beneath 
 his pillow, as Chrysostom did the works of Aristophanes. 
 We do not, however, mean to analyze it in this place ; but 
 recommend to our readers to purchase this " sweet food of 
 sweetly uttered knowledge." It will be read with delight 
 by all who have a taste for the true beauties of poetry ; and 
 may go far to remove the prejudices of those who have not. 
 To this latter class we address the concluding remarks of 
 the author : 
 
 So that since the ever-praiseworthy poesy is full of virtue, breed- 
 ing delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought to be in the noble 
 name of learning ; since the blames laid against it are either false or 
 feeble ; since the cause why it is not esteemed in England is the 
 fault of poet-apes, not poets ; since, lastly, our tongue is most fit to 
 honor poesy, and to be honored by poesy ; I conjure you all that 
 have had the evil luck to read this ink-wasting toy of mine, even in 
 the name of the nine muses, no more to scorn the sacred mysteries 
 of poesy ; no more to laugh at the name of poets, as though they 
 were next inheritors to fools ; no more to jest at the reverend title 
 of " a rhymer " ; but to believe, with Aristotle, that they were the an- 
 cient treasurers of the Grecians' divinity ; to believe, with Bembus, that 
 they were the first bringers in of all civility ; to believe, with Scaliger, 
 that no philosopher's precepts can sooner make you an honest man, 
 than the reading of Virgil ; to believe, with Clauserus, the translator 
 of Cornutus, that it pleased the heavenly Deity by Hesiod and Ho- 
 mer, under the veil of fables, to give us all knowledge, logic, rheto- 
 ric, philosophy, natural and moral, and " quid non ? " to believe, 
 with me, that there are many mysteries contained in poetry, which 
 20 
 
3 o6 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 of purpose were written darkly, lest by profane wits it should be 
 abused ; to believe, with Landin, that they are so beloved of the 
 gods, that whatsoever they write proceeds of a divine fury ; lastly, 
 to believe themselves, when they tell you they will make you immor- 
 tal by their verses. 
 
 Thus doing, your names shall flourish in the printers' shops ; 
 thus doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical preface ; thus 
 doing, you shall be most fair, most rich, most wise, most all ; you 
 shall dwell upon superlatives ; thus doing, though you be " libertino 
 patre natus," you shall suddenly grow " Herculea proles " 
 
 " Si quid mea carmina possunt " : 
 
 thus doing, your soul shall be placed with Dante's Beatrix, or Vir- 
 gil's Anchises. 
 
 But if (fie of such a but !) you be born so near the dull-making 
 cataract of Nilus, that you can not hear the planet-like music of 
 poetry ; if you have so earth-creeping a mind that it can not lift 
 itself up to look to the sky of poetry, or rather, by a certain rustical 
 disdain, will become such a mome as to be a Momus of poetry ; 
 then, though I will not wish unto you the ass's ears of Midas, nor 
 to be driven by a poet's verses, as Bubonax was, to hang himself ; 
 nor to be rhymed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland , yet 
 thus much curse I must send you in the behalf of all poets , that 
 while you live, you live in love, and never get favor, for lacking skill 
 of a sonnet ; and when you die, your memory die from the earth for 
 want of an epitaph. 
 
 As no " Apologia for Poetrie " has appeared among us, 
 we hope that Sir Philip Sidney's " Defence " will be widely 
 read and long remembered. O that in our country it might be 
 the harbinger of as bright an intellectual day as it was in his 
 own ! With us, the spirit of the age is clamorous for utility 
 for visible, tangible utility for bare, brawny, muscular 
 utility. We would be roused to action by the voice of the 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 307 
 
 populace, and the sounds of the crowded mart, and not 
 " lulled asleep in shady idleness with poet's pastimes." We 
 are swallowed up in schemes for gain, and engrossed with 
 contrivances for bodily enjoyments, as if this particle of dust 
 were immortal as if the soul needed no aliment, and the 
 mind no raiment. We glory in the extent of our territory, 
 in our rapidly increasing population, in our agricultural 
 privileges, and our commercial advantages. We boast of 
 the magnificence and beauty of our natural scenery of the 
 various climates of our sky the summers of our Northern 
 regions the salubrious winters of the South, and of the va- 
 rious products of our soil, from the pines of our Northern 
 highlands to the palm-tree and aloes of our Southern fron- 
 tier. We boast of the increase and extent of our physical 
 strength, the sound of populous cities, breaking the silence 
 and solitude of our Western Territories plantations con- 
 quered from the forest, and gardens springing up in the 
 wilderness. Yet the true glory of a nation consists not in 
 the extent of its territory, the pomp of its forests, the majesty 
 of its rivers, the height of its mountains, and the beauty of 
 its sky, but in the extent of its mental power the majesty 
 of its intellect the height, and depth, and purity of its 
 moral nature. It consists not in what nature has given to 
 the body, but in what nature and education have given to 
 the mind not in the world around us, but in the world 
 within us not in the circumstances of fortune, but in the 
 attributes of the soul not in the corruptible, transitory, and 
 perishable forms of matter, but in the incorruptible, the per- 
 manent, the imperishable mind. True greatness is the great- 
 ness of the mind the true glory of a nation is moral and 
 intellectual preeminence. 
 
3 o8 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 But still the main current of education runs in the wide 
 and not well-defined channel of immediate and practical 
 utility. The main point is how to make the greatest prog- 
 ress in worldly prosperity how to advance most rapidly in 
 the career of gain. This, perhaps, is necessarily the case to 
 a certain extent in a country where every man is taught to 
 rely upon his own exertions for a livelihood, and is the ar- 
 tificer of his own fortune and estate. But it ought not to be 
 exclusively so. We ought not, in the pursuit of wealth and 
 worldly honor, to forget those embellishments of the mind 
 and the heart which sweeten social intercourse and improve 
 the condition of society. And yet, in the language of Dr. 
 Paley, " Many of us are brought up with this world set be- 
 fore us, and nothing else. Whatever promotes this world's 
 prosperity is praised ; whatever hurts and obstructs this 
 world's prosperity is blamed ; and there all praise and cen- 
 sure end. We see mankind about us in motion and action, 
 but all these motions and actions directed to worldly objects. 
 We hear their conversation, but it is all the same way. And 
 this is what we see and hear from the first : The views which 
 are continually placed before our eyes regard this life alone 
 and its interests. Can it then be wondered at that an early 
 worldly-mindedness is bred in our hearts so strong as to 
 shut out heavenly-mindedness entirely ? " And this, though 
 not in so many words, yet in fact and in its practical ten- 
 dency, is the popular doctrine of utility. 
 
 Now, under correction be it said, we are much led astray 
 by this word utility. There is hardly a word in our language 
 whose meaning is so vague, and so often misunderstood and 
 misapplied. We too often limit its application to those ac- 
 quisitions and pursuits which are of immediate and visible 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 39 
 
 profit to ourselves and the community ; regarding as com- 
 paratively or utterly useless many others which, though more 
 remote in their effects and more imperceptible in their op- 
 eration, are, notwithstanding, higher in their aim, wider in 
 their influence, more certain in their results, and more inti- 
 mately connected with the common weal. We are too apt 
 to think that nothing can be useful but what is done with a 
 noise, at noonday, and at the corners of the streets ; as if 
 action and utility were synonymous, and it were not as use- 
 less to act without thinking as it is to think without acting. 
 But the truth is, the word utility has a wider signification 
 than this. It embraces in its proper definition whatever 
 contributes to our happiness ; and thus includes many of 
 those arts and sciences, many of those secret studies and 
 solitary avocations which are generally regarded either as 
 useless or as absolutely injurious to society. Not he alone 
 does service to the state whose wisdom guides her councils 
 at home, nor he whose voice asserts her dignity abroad. A 
 thousand little rills, springing up in the retired walks of life, 
 go to swell the rushing tide of national glory and prosperity ; 
 and whoever in the solitude of his chamber, and by even a sin- 
 gle effort of his mind, has added to the intellectual preemi- 
 nence of his country, has not lived in vain, nor to himself alone. 
 Does not the pen of the historian perpetuate the fame of the 
 hero and the statesman ? Do not their names live in the 
 song of the bard ? Do not the pencil and the chisel touch 
 the soul while they delight the eye ? Does not the spirit of 
 the patriot and the sage, looking from the painted canvas, 
 or eloquent from the marble lip, fill our hearts with venera- 
 tion for all that is great in intellect and godlike in virtue ? 
 If this be true, then are the ornamental arts of life not 
 
3io 
 
 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 merely ornamental, but at the same time highly useful ; and 
 poetry and the fine arts become the instruction as well as 
 the amusement of mankind. They will not till our lands, 
 nor freight our ships, nor fill our granaries and our coffers ; 
 but they will enrich the heart, freight the understanding, 
 and make up the garnered fullness of the mind. And this 
 we hold to be the true view of the subject. 
 
 Among the barbarous nations, which in the early cen- 
 turies of our era overran the south of Europe, the most con- 
 tumelious epithet which could be applied to a man was to 
 call him a Roman. All the corruption and degeneracy of 
 the Western Empire were associated, in the minds of the 
 Gothic tribes, with a love of letters and the fine arts. So 
 far did this belief influence their practice that they would 
 not suffer their children to be instructed in the learning of 
 the south. " Instruction in the sciences," said they, " tends 
 to corrupt, enervate, and depress the mind ; and he who has 
 been accustomed to tremble under the rod of a pedagogue, 
 will never look on a sword or a spear with an undaunted 
 eye."* We apprehend that there are some, and indeed not 
 a few in our active community, who hold the appellation of 
 scholar and man of letters in as little repute as did our 
 Gothic ancestors that of Roman ; associating with it about 
 the same ideas of effeminacy and inefficiency. They think 
 that the learning of books is not wisdom ; that study unfits 
 a man for action ; that poetry and nonsense are convertible 
 terms; that literature begets an effeminate and craven spirit; 
 in a word, that the dust and cobwebs of a library are a kind 
 of armor, which will not stand long against the hard knocks 
 
 * Procop. de bello Gothor. ap. Robertson, History of Charles V., vol. 
 p. 234. 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 311 
 
 of the " bone and muscle of the state " and the " huge two- 
 fisted sway " of the stump orator. Whenever intellect is 
 called into action, they would have the mind display a rough 
 and natural energy strength, straightforward strength, un- 
 tutored in the rules of art, and unadorned by elegant and 
 courtly erudition. They want the stirring voice of Demos- 
 thenes, accustomed to the roar of the tempest and the dash- 
 ing of the sea upon its hollow-sounding shore, rather than 
 the winning eloquence of Phalereus, coming into the sun 
 and dust of the battle, not from the martial tent of the sol- 
 dier, but from the philosophic shades of Theophrastus. 
 
 But against no branch of scholarship is the cry so loud 
 as against poetry, " the quintessence, or rather the luxury of 
 all learning." Its enemies pretend that it is injurious both 
 to the mind and the heart ; that it incapacitates us for the 
 severer discipline of professional study ; and that, by excit- 
 ing the feelings and misdirecting the imagination, it unfits us 
 for the common duties of life and the intercourse of this 
 matter-of-fact world. And yet such men have lived, as Ho- 
 mer, and Dante, and Milton poets and scholars whose 
 minds were bathed in song, and yet not weakened ; men 
 who severally carried forward the spirit of their age, who 
 soared upward on the wings of poetry, and yet were not un- 
 fitted to penetrate the deepest recesses of the human soul 
 and search out the hidden treasures of wisdom and the 
 secret springs of thought, feeling, and action. None fought 
 more bravely at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea than did the 
 poet ^Eschylus. Richard Cceur-de-Lion was a poet ; but 
 his boast was in his very song : 
 
 " Bon guerrier a 1'estendart 
 Trouvaretz le Roi Richard." 
 
3 I2 
 
 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 Ercilla and Garcilaso were poets; but the great epic of 
 Spain was written in the soldier's tent and on the field of 
 battle, and the descendant of the Incas was slain in the as- 
 sault of a castle in the south of France. Cervantes lost an 
 arm at the battle of Lepanto, and Sir Philip Sidney was the 
 breathing reality of the poet's dream, a living and glorious 
 proof that poetry neither enervates the mind nor unfits us 
 for the practical duties of life. 
 
 Nor is it less true that the legitimate tendency of poetry 
 is to exalt rather than to debase to purify rather than to 
 corrupt. Read the inspired pages of the Hebrew prophets ; 
 the eloquent aspirations of the Psalmist ! Where did ever 
 the spirit of devotion bear up the soul more steadily and 
 loftily than in the language of their poetry ? And where 
 has poetry been more exalted, more spirit-stirring, more ad- 
 mirable, or more beautiful, than when thus soaring upward 
 on the wings of sublime devotion, the darkness and shadows 
 of earth beneath it, and from above the brightness of an 
 opened heaven pouring around it? It is true the poetic 
 talent may be, for it has been, most lamentably perverted. 
 But when poetry is thus perverted when it thus for- 
 gets its native sky to grovel in what is base, sensual, 
 and depraved though it may not have lost all its origi- 
 nal brightness, nor appear less than " the excess of glory 
 obscured," yet its birthright has been sold, its strength 
 has been blasted, and its spirit wears " deep scars of thun- 
 der." 
 
 It does not, then, appear to be the necessary nor the 
 natural tendency of poetry to enervate the mind, corrupt 
 the heart, or incapacitate us for performing the private and 
 public duties of life. On the contrary, it may be made, and 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 313 
 
 should be made, an instrument for improving the condition 
 of society, and advancing the great purpose of human hap- 
 piness. Man must have his hours of meditation as well as 
 of action. The unities of time are not so well preserved in 
 the great drama, but that moments will occur when the 
 stage must be left vacant, and even the busiest actors pass 
 behind the scenes. There will be eddies in the stream of 
 life, though the main current sweeps steadily onward, till 
 " it pours in full cataract over the grave." There are times 
 when both mind and body are worn down by the severity 
 of daily toil ; when the grasshopper is a burden, and, thirsty 
 with the heat of labor, the spirit longs for the waters of 
 Shiloah that go softly. m At such seasons both mind and 
 body should unbend themselves ; they should be set free 
 from the yoke of their customary service, and thought take 
 some other direction than that of the beaten, dusty thorough- 
 fare of business. And there are times, too, when the divinity 
 stirs within us; when the soul abstracts herself from the 
 world, and the slow and regular motions of earthly business 
 do not keep pace with the heaven-directed mind. Then 
 earth lets go her hold ; the soul feels herself more akin to 
 heaven ; and soaring upward, the denizen of her native sky, 
 she " begins to reason like herself, and to discourse in a 
 strain above mortality." Call, if you will, such thoughts 
 and feelings the dreams of the imagination ; yet they are no 
 unprofitable dreams. Such moments of silence and medita- 
 tion are often those of the greatest utility to ourselves and 
 others. Yes, we would dream awhile, that the spirit is not 
 always the bondman of the flesh ; that there is something 
 immortal in us, something which, amid the din of life, urges 
 us to aspire after the attributes of a more spiritual nature. 
 
3 1 4 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 Let the cares and business of the world sometimes sleep, for 
 this sleep is the awakening of the soul. 
 
 To fill up these interludes of life with a song, that shall 
 soothe our worldly passions and inspire us with a love of 
 heaven and virtue, seems to be the peculiar province of 
 poetry. On this moral influence of the poetic art, there is a 
 beautifully written passage in the " Defence of Poesy " : 
 
 The philosopher showeth you the way, he informeth you of the 
 particularities, as well of the tediousness of the way and of the pleas- 
 ant lodging you shall have when your journey is ended, as of the 
 many by-turnings that may divert you from your way ; but this is 
 to no man, but to him that will read him, and read him with atten- 
 tive, studious painfulness ; which constant desire whosoever hath in 
 him hath already passed half the hardness of the way, and there- 
 fore is beholden to the philosopher but for the other half. Nay, 
 truly, learned men have learnedly thought that, where once reason 
 hath so much overmastered passion as that the mind hath a free 
 desire to do well, the inward light each mind hath in itself is as 
 good as a philosopher's book ; since in nature we know it is 
 well to do well, and what is well and what is evil, although not in 
 the words of art which philosophers bestow upon us ; for out of 
 natural conceit the philosophers drew it ; but to be moved to do 
 that which we know, or to be moved with desire to know, " hoc 
 opus, hie labor est." 
 
 Now, therein, of all sciences (I speak still of human, and accord- 
 ing to the human conceit) is our poet the monarch. For he doth 
 not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way 
 as will entice any man to enter into it ; nay, he doth, as if your journey 
 should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster 
 of grapes, that full of that taste you may long to pass farther. He 
 beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margin 
 with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness, but he 
 cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accom- 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 3 ! 5 
 
 panied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of music ; and 
 with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth 
 children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner ; and, 
 pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from 
 wickedness to virtue. 
 
 In fine, we think that all the popular objections against 
 poetry may be not only satisfactorily but triumphantly an- 
 swered. They are all founded upon its abuse, and not up- 
 on its natural and legitimate tendencies. Indeed, popular 
 judgment has seldom fallen into a greater error than that of 
 supposing that poetry must necessarily, and from its very 
 nature, convey false and therefore injurious impressions. 
 The error lies in not discriminating between what is true to 
 nature and what is true to fact. From the very nature of 
 things, neither poetry nor any one of the imitative arts can 
 in itself be false. They can be false no further than, by the 
 imperfection of human skill, they convey to our minds im- 
 perfect and garbled views of what they represent. Hence a 
 painting or poetical description may be true to nature, and 
 yet false in point of fact. The canvas before you may rep- 
 resent a scene in which every individual feature of the 
 landscape shall be true to nature the tree, the waterfall, 
 the distant mountain every object there shall be an exact 
 copy of an original that has a real existence, and yet the 
 scene itself may be absolutely false in point of fact. Such 
 a scene, with the features of the landscape combined pre- 
 cisely in the way represented, may exist nowhere but in the 
 imagination of the artist. The statue of the Venus de' Me- 
 dici is the perfection of female beauty ; and every indi- 
 vidual feature had its living original. Still, the statue itself 
 had no living archetype. It is true to nature, but it is not 
 
316 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 true to fact. So with the stage. The scene represented, 
 the characters introduced, the plot of the piece, and the ac- 
 tion of the performers may all be conformable to nature, 
 and yet not be conformable to any preexisting reality. The 
 characters there personified may never have existed ; the 
 events represented may never have transpired. And so, too, 
 with poetry. The scenes and events it describes, the char- 
 acters and passions it portrays, may all be natural though 
 not real. Thus, in a certain sense, fiction itself may be true 
 true to the nature of things, and consequently true in the 
 impressions it conveys. And hence the reason why fiction 
 has always been made so subservient to the cause of truth. 
 
 Allowing, then, that poetry is nothing but fiction, that all 
 it describes is false in point of fact, still its elements have a 
 real existence, and the impressions we receive can be erro- 
 neous so far only as the views presented to the mind are 
 garbled and false to nature. And this is a fault incident to 
 the artist, and not inherent in the art itself. So that we 
 may fairly conclude, from these considerations, that the nat- 
 ural tendency of poetry is to give us correct moral impres- 
 sions, and thereby advance the cause of truth and the im- 
 provement of society. 
 
 There is another very important view of the subject 
 arising out of the origin and nature of poetry, and its inti- 
 mate connection with individual character and the character 
 of society. 
 
 The origin of poetry loses itself in the shades of a re- 
 mote and fabulous age, of which we have only vague and 
 uncertain traditions. Its fountain, like that of the river of 
 the desert, springs up in a distant and unknown region, the 
 theme of visionary story and the subject of curious specu- 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 3 ! 7 
 
 lation. Doubtless, however, it originated amid the scenes of 
 pastoral life and in the quiet and repose of a golden age. 
 There is something in the soft melancholy of the groves 
 which pervades the heart and kindles the imagination. 
 Their retirement is favorable to the musings of the poetic 
 mind. The trees that waved their leafy branches to the 
 summer wind or heaved and groaned beneath the passing 
 storm, the shadow moving on the grass, the bubbling brook, 
 the insect skimming on its surface, the receding valley and 
 the distant mountain these would be some of the elements 
 of pastoral song. Its subject would naturally be the com- 
 plaint of a shepherd and the charms of some gentle shep- 
 herdess 
 
 " A happy soul, that all the way 
 To heaven hath a summer's day." 
 
 It is natural, too, that the imagination, familiar with the 
 outward world, and connecting the idea of the changing 
 seasons and the spontaneous fruits of the earth with the 
 agency of some unknown power that regulated and pro- 
 duced them, should suggest the thought of presiding deities, 
 propitious in the smiling sky and adverse in the storm. The 
 fountain that gushed up as if to meet the thirsty lip was 
 made the dwelling of a nymph ; the grove that lent its shel- 
 ter and repose from the heat of noon became the abode of 
 dryads ; a god presided over shepherds and their flocks, and 
 a goddess shook the yellow harvest from her lap. These 
 deities were propitiated by songs and festive rites. And 
 thus poetry added new charms to the simplicity and repose 
 of bucolic life, and the poet mingled in his verse the de- 
 lights of rural ease and the praise of the rural deities which 
 bestowed them. 
 
3 i8 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 Such was poetry in those happy ages, when, camps and 
 courts unknown, life was itself an eclogue. But in later 
 days it sang the achievements of Grecian and Roman he- 
 roes, and pealed in the war-song of the Gothic Skald. These 
 early essays were rude and unpolished. As nations advanced 
 in civilization and refinement poetry advanced with them. 
 In each successive age, it became the image of their thoughts 
 and feelings, of their manners, customs, and characters ; for 
 poetry is but the warm expression of the thoughts and feel- 
 ings of a people, and we speak of it as being national 
 when the character of a nation shines visibly and distinctly 
 through it. 
 
 Thus, for example, Castilian poetry is characterized by 
 sounding expressions, and that pomp and majesty so pecu- 
 liar to Spanish manners and character. On the other hand, 
 English poetry possesses in a high degree the charms of 
 rural and moral feeling; it flows onward like a woodland 
 stream, in which we see the reflection of the sylvan land- 
 scape and of the heaven above us. 
 
 It is from this intimate connection of poetry with the 
 manners, customs, and characters of nations, that one of its 
 highest uses is drawn. The impressions produced by poetry 
 upon national character, at any period, are again reproduced, 
 and give a more pronounced and individual character to the 
 poetry of a subsequent period. And hence it is that the 
 poetry of a nation sometimes throws so strong a light upon 
 the page of its history, and renders luminous those obscure 
 passages which often baffle the long-searching eye of stu- 
 dious erudition. In this view, poetry assumes new impor- 
 tance with all who search for historic truth. Besides, the 
 .view of the various fluctuations of the human mind, as 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 319 
 
 exhibited, not in history, but in the poetry of successive 
 epochs, is more interesting, and less liable to convey erro- 
 neous impressions, than any record of mere events. The 
 great advantage drawn from the study of history is not to 
 treasure up in the mind a multitude of disconnected facts, 
 but from these facts to derive some conclusions, tending to 
 illustrate the movements of the general mind, the progress 
 of society, the manners, customs, and institutions, the moral 
 and intellectual character of mankind in different nations, at 
 different times, and under the operation of different circum- 
 stances. Historic facts are chiefly valuable as exhibiting 
 intellectual phenomena. And, so far as poetry exhibits 
 these phenomena more perfectly and distinctly than history 
 does, so far is it superior to history. The history of a nation 
 is the external symbol of its character ; from it we reason 
 back to the spirit of the age that fashioned its shadowy out- 
 line. But poetry is the spirit of the age itself embodied in 
 the forms of language, and speaking in a voice that is au- 
 dible to the external as well as the internal sense. The one 
 makes known the impulses of the popular mind, through 
 certain events resulting from them ; the other displays the 
 more immediate presence of that mind, visible in its action, 
 and presaging those events. The one is like the marks left 
 by the thunderstorm the blasted tree the purified atmos- 
 phere ; the other like the flash from the bosom of the cloud, 
 or the voice of the tempest, announcing its approach. The 
 one is the track of the ocean on its shore ; the other the 
 continual movement and murmur of the sea. 
 
 Besides, there are epochs which have no contempora- 
 neous history ; but have left in their popular poetry pretty 
 ample materials for estimating the character of the times. 
 
3 20 
 
 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 The events, indeed, therein recorded may be exaggerated 
 facts, or vague traditions, or inventions entirely apocryphal ; 
 yet they faithfully represent the spirit of the ages which pro- 
 duced them ; they contain direct allusions and incidental 
 circumstances, too insignificant in themselves to have been 
 fictitious, and yet on that very account the most important 
 parts of the poem in an historical point of view. Such, for ex- 
 ample, are the " Nibelungen Lied " in Germany ; the " Poema 
 del Cid " in Spain ; and the " Songs of the Troubadours " in 
 France. Hence poetry comes in for a large share in that 
 high eulogy which, in the true spirit of the scholar, a cele- 
 brated German critic has bestowed upon letters : " If we con- 
 sider literature in its widest sense, as the voice which gives ex- 
 pression to human intellect as the aggregate mass of sym- 
 bols, in which the spirit of an age or the character of a na- 
 tion is shadowed forth, then indeed a great and various 
 literature is, without doubt, the most valuable possession of 
 which any nation can boast.* 
 
 From all these considerations, we are forced to the con- 
 clusion that poetry is a subject of far greater importance in 
 itself, and in its bearing upon the condition of society, than the 
 majority of mankind would be willing to allow. We heartily 
 regret that this opinion is not a more prevailing one in our 
 land. We give too little encouragement to works of imagi- 
 nation and taste. The vocation of the poet does not stand 
 high enough in our esteem ; we are too cold in admiration, 
 too timid in praise. The poetic lute and the high-sounding 
 lyre are much too often and too generally looked upon as 
 the baubles of effeminate minds, or bells and rattles to please 
 
 * Schlegel, Lectures on the History of Literature, vol. i., lee. vii. 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 321 
 
 the ears of children. The prospect, however, brightens. But 
 a short time ago, not a poet " moved the wing, or opened 
 the mouth, or peeped " ; and now we have a host of them 
 three or four good ones, and three or four hundred poor 
 ones. This, however, we will not stop to cavil about at 
 present. To those of them who may honor us by reading 
 our article we would whisper this request that they should 
 be more original, and withal more national. It seems every 
 way important that now, while we are forming our literature, 
 we should make it as original, characteristic, and national as 
 possible. To effect this, it is not necessary that the war-whoop 
 should ring in every line, and every page be rife with scalps, 
 tomahawks, and wampum. Shade of Tecumseh forbid ' 
 The whole secret lies in Sidney's maxim " Look in thy 
 heart and write." For 
 
 " Cantars non pot gaire valer. 
 Si d'inz del cor no mov lo chang."* 
 
 Of this anon. We will first make a few remarks upon the 
 word national, as applied to the literature of a country ; for 
 when we speak of a national poetry we do not employ the term 
 in that vague and indefinite way in which many writers use it. 
 A national literature, then, in the widest signification of 
 the words, embraces every mental effort made by the inhabi- 
 tants of a country, through the medium of the press. Every 
 book written by a citizen of a country belongs to its national 
 literature. But the term has also a more peculiar and ap- 
 propriate definition ; for, when we say that the literature of 
 a country is national, we mean that it bears upon it the stamp 
 of national character. We refer to those distinguishing 
 
 * " The poet's song is little worth, 
 
 If it moveth not from within the heart." 
 21 
 
3 22 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 features which literature receives from the spirit of a na- 
 tion from its scenery and climate, its historic recollections, 
 its government, its various institutions from all those na- 
 tional peculiarities which are the result of no positive insti- 
 tutions ; and, in a^ word, from the thousand external circum- 
 stances, which either directly or indirectly exert an influence 
 upon the literature of a nation, and give it a marked and 
 individual character, distinct from that of the literature of 
 other nations. 
 
 In order to be more definite and more easily understood 
 in these remarks, we will here offer a few illustrations of the 
 influence of external causes upon the character of the mind, 
 the peculiar habits of thought and feeling, and consequently 
 the general complexion of literary performances. From the 
 causes enumerated above, we select natural scenery and 
 climate as being among the most obvious in their influence 
 upon the prevailing tenor of poetic composition. Every one 
 who is acquainted with the works of the English poets must 
 have noted that a moral feeling and a certain rural quiet 
 and repose are among their most prominent characteristics. 
 The features of their native landscape are transferred to the 
 printed page, and as we read we hear the warble of the sky- 
 lark the "hollow murmuring wind, or silver rain." The 
 shadow of the woodland scene lends a pensive shadow to 
 the ideal world of poetry : 
 
 " Why lure me from these pale retreats ? 
 Why rob me of these pensive sweets ? 
 Can Music's voice, can Beauty's eye, 
 Can Painting's glowing hand supply, 
 A charm so suited to my mind, 
 As blows this hollow gust of wind, 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY, 323 
 
 As drops this little weeping rill, 
 Soft tinkling down the moss-grown hill, 
 While through the west, where sinks the crimson day, 
 Meek Twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners gray ? " * 
 
 In the same richly poetic vein are the following lines 
 from Collins's " Ode to Evening " : 
 
 " Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, 
 Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut, 
 That from the mountain's side, 
 Views wilds and swelling floods, 
 
 " And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires, 
 And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all 
 The dewy fingers draw 
 The gradual dusky veil." 
 
 In connection with the concluding lines of these two 
 extracts, and as an illustration of the influence of climate on 
 the character of poetry, it is worthy of remark that the 
 English poets excel those of the south of Europe in their 
 descriptions of morning and evening. They dwell with 
 long delight and frequent repetition upon the brightening 
 glory of the hour, when " the northern wagoner has set his 
 sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre " ; and upon the 
 milder beauty of departing day, when "the bright-haired 
 sun sits in yon western tent." What, for example, can be 
 more descriptive of the vernal freshness of a morning in 
 May than the often quoted song in " Cymbeline " ? 
 " Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings, 
 
 And Phoebus 'gins arise 
 His steeds to water at those springs 
 
 On chaliced flowers that lies ; 
 
 * Mason's Ode to a Friend. 
 
3 2 4 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 And winking Mary-buds begin 
 
 To ope their golden eyes ; 
 With everything that pretty bin ; 
 
 My lady sweet, arise ; 
 Arise, arise ! " 
 
 How full of poetic feeling and imagery is the following 
 description of the dawn of day, taken from Fletcher's 
 " Faithful Shepherdess " ! 
 
 " See, the day begins to break, 
 And the light shoots like a streak 
 Of subtle fire, the wind blows cold, 
 While the morning doth unfold ; 
 Now the birds begin to rouse, 
 And the squirrel from the boughs 
 Leaps, to get him nuts and fruit ; 
 The early lark that erst was mute, 
 Carols to the rising day 
 Many a note and many a lay." 
 
 Still more remarkable than either of these extracts, as 
 a graphic description of morning, is the following from 
 Seattle's " Minstrel " : 
 
 " But who the melodies of morn can tell ? 
 The wild brook babbling down the mountain's side ; 
 The lowing herd ; the sheepfold's simple bell ; 
 The pipe of early shepherd dim descried 
 In the lonely valley ; echoing far and wide, 
 The clamorous horn along the cliffs above ; 
 The hollow murmur of the ocean-tide ; 
 The hum of bees, and linnet's lay of love, 
 And the full choir that wakes the universal grove. 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 335 
 
 " The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark ; 
 Crowned with her pail, the tripping milkmaid sings ; 
 The whistling plowman stalks afield ; and hark ! 
 Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings ; 
 Through rustling corn the hare astonished springs ; 
 Slow tolls the village clock the drowsy hour ; 
 The partridge bursts away on whirring wings ; 
 Deep mourns the turtle in sequestered bower ; 
 And shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tower." 
 
 Extracts, of this kind we might multiply almost without 
 number. The same may be said of similar ones, descriptive 
 of the gradual approach of evening and the close of day. 
 But we have already quoted enough for our present purpose. 
 Now, to what peculiarities of natural scenery and climate 
 may we trace these manifold and beautiful descriptions, 
 which in their truth, delicacy, and poetic coloring surpass 
 all the pictures of the kind in Tasso, Guarini, Boscan, Gar- 
 cilaso, and, in a word, all the most celebrated poets of the 
 south of Europe? Doubtless, to the rural beauty which 
 pervades the English landscape, and to the long morning 
 and evening twilight of a northern climate. 
 
 Still, with all this taste for the charms of rural descrip- 
 tion and sylvan song, pastoral poetry has never been much 
 cultivated nor much admired in England. The " Arcadia " 
 of Sir Philip Sidney, it is true, enjoyed a temporary celebrity, 
 but this was, doubtless, owing in a great measure to the 
 rank of its author ; and though the pastorals of Pope are still 
 read and praised, their reputation belongs in part to their 
 author's youth at the time of their composition. Nor is this 
 remarkable. For though the love of rural ease is character- 
 istic of the English, yet the rigors of their climate render 
 
326 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 their habits of pastoral life anything but delightful. In the 
 mind of an Englishman, the snowy fleece is more intimately 
 associated with the weaver's shuttle than with the shepherd's 
 crook. Horace Walpole has a humorous passage in one of 
 his letters on the affectation of pastoral habits in England. 
 " In short," says he, " every summer one lives in a state of 
 mutiny and murmur, and I have found the reason ; it is be- 
 cause we will affect to have a summer, and we have no title 
 to any such thing. Our poets learned their trade of the 
 Romans, and so adopted the terms of their masters. They 
 talk of shady groves, purling streams, and cooling breezes, 
 and we get sore throats and agues by attempting to realize 
 these visions. Master Damon writes a song, and invites 
 Miss Chloe to enjoy the cool of the evening, and the deuce 
 a bit have we of any such thing as a cool evening. Zephyr 
 is a northeast wind, that makes Damon button up to the 
 chin, and pinches Chloe's nose till it is red and blue ; and 
 they cry, This is a bad sttmmer ; as if we ever had any other. 
 The best sun we have is made of Newcastle coal, and I am 
 determined never to reckon upon any other." On the con- 
 trary, the poetry of the Italians, the Spaniards, and the Por- 
 tuguese is redolent of the charms of pastoral indolence and 
 enjoyment ; for they inhabit countries in which pastoral life 
 is a reality and not a fiction, where the winter's sun will al- 
 most make you seek the shade, and the summer nights are 
 mild and beautiful in the open air. The babbling brook and 
 cooling breeze are luxuries in a southern clime, where you 
 
 " See the sun set, sure he'll rise to-morrow, 
 Not through a misty morning twinkling, weak as 
 
 A drunken man's dead eye, in maudlin sorrow, 
 But with all heaven t' himself." 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 327 
 
 A love of indolence and a warm imagination are charac- 
 teristic of the inhabitants of the South. These are natural 
 effects of a soft, voluptuous climate. It is there a luxury to 
 let the body lie at ease, stretched by a fountain in the lazy 
 stillness of a summer noon, and suffer the dreamy fancy to 
 lose itself in idle reverie and give a form to the wind and a 
 spirit to the shadow and the leaf. Hence the prevalence of 
 personification and the exaggerations of figurative language, 
 so characteristic of the poetry of southern nations. As an 
 illustration, take the following beautiful sonnet from the 
 Spanish. It is addressed to a mountain brook : 
 
 " Laugh of the mountain ! lyre of bird and tree ! 
 Mirror of morn, and garniture of fields ! 
 The soul of April, that so gently yields 
 The rose and jasmine bloom, leaps wild in thee ! 
 
 " Although, where'er thy devious current strays, 
 The lap of earth with gold and silver teems,' 
 To me thy clear proceeding brighter seems 
 Than golden sands, that charm each shepherd's gaze. 
 
 " How without guile thy bosom, all transparent 
 As the pure crystal, lets the curious eye 
 Thy secrets scan, thy smooth round pebbles count ! 
 How, .without malice murmuring, glides thy current ! 
 O sweet simplicity of days gone by ! 
 Thou shunnest the haunts of man, to dwell in limpid fount ! " * 
 
 * " Risa del monte, de las aves lira ! 
 
 pompa del prado, espejo de la aurora ! 
 alma de Abril, espiritu de Flora 
 por quien la rosa y el jazmin espira ! 
 
328 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 We will pursue these considerations no longer, for fear 
 of digressing too far. What we have already said will illus- 
 trate, perhaps superficially, but sufficiently for our present 
 purpose, the influence of natural scenery and climate upon 
 the character of poetical composition. It will at least show 
 that in speaking of this influence we did not speak at ran- 
 dom and without a distinct meaning. Similar and much 
 more copious illustrations of the influence of various other 
 external circumstances on national literature might here be 
 given. But it is not our intention to go into details. They 
 will naturally suggest themselves to the mind of every re- 
 flecting reader. 
 
 We repeat, then, that we wish our native poets would 
 give a more national character to their writings. In order 
 to effect this they have only to write more naturally, to write 
 from their own feelings and impressions, from the influence 
 of what they see around them, and not from any precon- 
 ceived notions of what poetry ought to be, caught by read- 
 ing many books and imitating many models. This is pecu- 
 liarly true in descriptions of natural scenery. In these let 
 us have no more skylarks and nightingales. For us they 
 only warble in books. A painter might as well introduce 
 
 " Aunque tu curso en cuantos pasos gira 
 tanta jurisdiccion argenta y dora, 
 tu claro proceder mas me enamora 
 que lo que en ti todo pastor admira. 
 
 " Cuan sin engano tus entranas puras 
 dejan por transparente vidriera 
 las guijuelas al numero patentes ! 
 
 " Cuan sin malicia Candida murmuras ! 
 O sencillez de aquella edad prim era, 
 huyes del hombre y vives en las fuentes." 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 339 
 
 an elephant or a rhinoceros into a New England landscape. 
 We would not restrict our poets in the choice of their sub- 
 jects or the scenes of their story ; but, when they sing under 
 an American sky and describe a native landscape, let the 
 description be graphic, as if it had been seen and not im- 
 agined. We wish, too, to see the figures and imagery of 
 poetry a little more characteristic, as if drawn from nature 
 and not from books. Of this we have constantly recurring 
 examples in the language of our North American Indians. 
 Our readers will all recollect the last words of Pushmataha, 
 the Choctaw chief, who died at Washington in the year 
 1824 : " I shall die, but you will return to your brethren. 
 As you go along the paths you will see the flowers and hear 
 the birds ; but Pushmataha will see them and hear them no 
 more. When you come to your home they will ask you, 
 1 Where is Pushmataha ? ' and you will say to them, ' He is 
 no more.' They will hear the tidings like the sound of the 
 fall of a mighty oak in the stillness of the wood." More at- 
 tention on the part of our writers to these particulars would 
 give a new and delightful expression to the face of our 
 poetry. But the difficulty is, that instead of coming forward 
 as bold, original thinkers, they have imbibed the degenerate 
 spirit of modern English poetry. They have hitherto been 
 imitators either of decidedly bad, or of at best very indiffer- 
 ent models. It has been the fashion to write strong lines to 
 aim at point and antithesis. This has made writers turgid 
 and extravagant. Instead of ideas they give us merely the 
 signs of ideas. They erect a great bridge of words, pom- 
 pous and imposing, where there is hardly a drop of thought 
 to trickle beneath. Is not he who thus apostrophizes the 
 clouds, " Ye posters of the wakeless air ! " quite as extrava- 
 
33 o DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 gant as the Spanish poet who calls a star a "burning doub- 
 loon of the celestial bank " ? (" Doblon ardiente del celeste 
 banco ! ") 
 
 This spirit of imitation has spread far and wide. But a 
 few years ago what an aping of Lord Byron exhibited itself 
 throughout the country ! It was not an imitation of the 
 brighter characteristics of his intellect, but a mimicry of his 
 sullen misanthropy and irreligious gloom. We do not wish 
 to make a bugbear of Lord Byron's name, nor figuratively 
 to disturb his bones ; still we can not but express our belief 
 that no writer has done half so much to corrupt the literary 
 taste as well as the moral principle of our country as the 
 author of " Childe Harold." * Minds that could not under- 
 stand his beauties could imitate his great and glaring de- 
 fects. Souls that could not fathom his depths could grasp 
 the straw and bubbles that floated upon the agitated sur- 
 face, until at length every city, town, and village had its little 
 Byron, its self-tormenting scoffer at morality, its gloomy 
 
 * We here subjoin Lord Byron's own opinion of the poetical taste of 
 the present age. It is from a letter in the second volume of Moore's 
 "Life of Byron" : "With regard to poetry in general, I am convinced, 
 the more I think of it, that he and all of us Scott, Southey, Words- 
 worth, Moore, Campbell, I are all in the wrong, one as much as an- 
 other ; that we are upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system, or sys- 
 tems, and from which none but Rogers and Crabbe are free ; and that 
 the present and next generations will finally be of this opinion. I am 
 the more confirmed in this by having lately gone over some of our 
 classics, particularly Pope, whom I tried in this way : I took Moore's 
 poems and my own and some others, and went over them side by side 
 with Pope's, and I was really astonished (I ought not to have been so) 
 and mortified at the ineffable distance in point of sense, learning, effect, 
 and even imagination, passion, and invention between the Queen Anne's 
 man and us of the Lower Empire. Depend upon it, it is all Horace 
 then, and Claudian now, among us ; and if I had to begin again, I would 
 mold myself accordingly." 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 33I 
 
 misanthropist in song. Happily, this noxious influence has 
 been in some measure checked and counteracted by the 
 writings of Wordsworth, whose pure and gentle philosophy 
 has been gradually gaining the ascendancy over the bold 
 and visionary speculations of an unhealthy imagination. 
 The sobriety, and if we may use the expression, the repub- 
 lican simplicity of his poetry, are in unison with our moral 
 and political doctrines. But even Wordsworth, with all his 
 simplicity of diction and exquisite moral feeling, is a very 
 unsafe model for imitation ; and it is worth while to observe 
 how invariably those who have imitated him have fallen into 
 tedious mannerism. As the human mind is so constituted 
 that all men receive to a greater or less degree a complexion 
 from those with whom they are conversant, the writer who 
 means to school himself to poetic composition we mean so 
 far as regards style and diction should be very careful 
 what authors he studies. He should leave the present age 
 and go back to the olden time. He should make, not the 
 writings of an individual, but the whole body of English 
 classical literature his study. There is a strength of expres- 
 sion, a clearness, and force and raciness of thought in the 
 elder English poets which we may look for in vain among 
 those who flourish in these days of verbiage. Truly, the de- 
 generacy of modern poetry is no schoolboy declamation! 
 The stream, whose fabled fountain gushes from the Grecian 
 mount, flowed brightly through those ages, when the souls 
 of men stood forth in the rugged freedom of nature and 
 gave a wild and romantic character to the ideal landscape. 
 But in these practical days, whose spirit has so unsparingly 
 leveled to the even surface of utility the bold irregularities 
 of human genius, and lopped off the luxuriance of poetic 
 
332 
 
 DEFENSE OF POETRY. 
 
 feeling which once lent its grateful shade to the haunts of 
 song, that stream has spread itself into stagnant pools which 
 exhale an unhealthy atmosphere, while the party-colored 
 bubbles that glitter on its surface show the corruption from 
 which they spring. 
 
 Another circumstance which tends to give an effeminate 
 and unmanly character to our literature is the precocity of 
 our writers. Premature exhibitions of talent are an unstable 
 foundation to build a national literature upon. Roger As- 
 cham, the schoolmaster of princes, and for the sake of an- 
 tithesis, we suppose, called the Prince of Schoolmasters, has 
 well said of precocious minds : " They be like trees that 
 showe forth faire blossoms and broad leaves in spring-time, 
 but bring out small and not long-lasting fruit in harvest- 
 time ; and that only such as fall and rott before they be ripe, 
 and so never or seldome come to any good at all." It is 
 natural that the young should be enticed by the wreaths of 
 literary fame, whose hues are so passing beautiful even to 
 the more sober-sighted, and whose flowers breathe around 
 them such exquisite perfumes. Many are deceived into a 
 misconception of their talents by the indiscreet and indis- 
 criminate praise of friends. They think themselves destined 
 to redeem the glory of their age and country ; to shine as 
 " bright particular stars " ; but in reality their genius 
 
 " Is like the glow-worm's light the apes so wondered at, 
 Which, when they gathered sticks and laid upon't, 
 And blew and blew turned tail and went out presently." 
 
 We have set forth the portrait of modern poetry in rather 
 gloomy colors ; for we really think that the greater part of 
 what is published in this book-writing age ought in justice 
 
DEFENSE OF POETRY. 333 
 
 to suffer the fate of the children of Thetis, whose immortality 
 was tried by fire. We hope, however, that ere long some 
 one of our most gifted bards will throw his fetters off, and, 
 relying on himself alone, fathom the recesses of his own mind, 
 and bring up rich pearls from the secret depths of thought. 
 
 We will conclude these suggestions to our native poets 
 by quoting Ben Jonson's " Ode to Himself," which we ad- 
 dress to each of them individually : 
 
 " Where do'st thou careless lie 
 
 Buried in ease and sloth ? 
 Knowledge, that sleeps, doth die ; 
 And this securitie 
 
 It is the common moth 
 That eats on wits, and arts, and quite destroys them both. 
 
 " Are all th' Aonian springs 
 
 Dri'd up ? lies Thespia waste ? 
 Doth Clarius' harp want strings, 
 That not a nymph now sings ! 
 
 Or droop they as disgrac't, 
 To see their seats and bowers by chatt'ring pies defac't ? 
 
 " If hence thy silence be, 
 
 As 'tis too just a cause, 
 Let this thought quicken thee, 
 Minds that are great and free 
 
 Should not on fortune pause ; 
 'Tis crowne enough to virtue still, her owne applause. 
 
 " What though the greedy frie 
 Be taken with false baytes 
 Of worded balladrie, 
 And thinke it poesie ? 
 
 They die with their conceits, 
 And only pitious scorne upon their folly waites." 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE* 
 
 THE traveler by the Eastern Railroad, from Boston, 
 reaches in less than an hour the old town of Salem, Massa- 
 chusetts. It is chiefly composed of plain wooden houses, 
 but it has a quaint air of past provincial grandeur, and has 
 indeed been an important commercial town. The first 
 American ship for Calcutta and China sailed from this port ; 
 and Salem ships opened our trade with New Holland and 
 the South Seas. But its glory has long since departed, with 
 that of its stately and respectable neighbors, Newburyport 
 and Portsmouth. There is still, however, a custom-house 
 in Salem, there are wharves, and chandlers' shops, and a 
 faint show of shipping, and an air of marine capacity which 
 no apparent result justifies. It sits upon the shore like an 
 antiquated sea-captain, grave and silent, in tarpaulin and 
 duck trousers, idly watching the ocean upon which he will 
 never sail again. 
 
 But this touching aspect of age and lost prosperity merely 
 serves to deepen the peculiar impression of the old city, 
 which is not derived from its former commercial importance, 
 but from other associations. Salem village was a famous 
 
 * The Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston : Ticknor & Fields. 
 16 vols. I2mo. 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 335 
 
 place in the Puritan annals. The tragedy of the witchcraft 
 tortures and murders has cast upon it a ghostly spell, from 
 which it seems never to have escaped ; and even the so- 
 journer of to-day, as he loiters along the shore in the sun- 
 niest morning of June, will sometimes feel an icy breath in 
 the air, chilling the very marrow of his bones. Nor is he 
 consoled by being told that it is only the east wind ; for he 
 can not help believing that an invisible host of Puritan 
 specters have breathed upon him, revengeful, as he poached 
 upon their ancient haunts. 
 
 The Puritan spirit was neither gracious nor lovely, but 
 nothing softer than its iron hand could have done its neces- 
 sary work. The Puritan character was narrow, intolerant, 
 and exasperating. The forefathers were very " sour " in 
 the estimation of Morton and his merry company at Mount 
 Wollaston. But, for all that, Bradstreet, and Carver, and 
 Winthrop, were better forefathers than the gay Morton, and 
 the Puritan spirit is doubtless the moral influence of modern 
 civilization, both in Old and New England. By the fruit 
 let the seed be judged. The State to whose rough coast 
 the Mayflower came, and in which the Pilgrim spirit has 
 been most active, is to-day the chief of all human societies, 
 politically, morally, and socially. It is the community in 
 which the average of well-being is higher than in any state 
 we know in history. Puritan though it be, it is more truly 
 liberal and free than any large community in the world. 
 But it had bleak beginnings. The icy shore, the somber 
 pines, the stealthy savages, the hard soil, the unbending 
 religious austerity, the Scriptural severity, the arrogant vir- 
 tues, the angry intolerance of contradiction they all made 
 a narrow strip of sad civilization between the pitiless sea 
 
336 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 and the remorseless forests. The moral and physical te- 
 nacity which is wrestling with the rebellion was toughened 
 among these flinty and forbidding rocks. The fig, the 
 pomegranate, and the almond would not grow there, nor 
 the nightingale sing ; but nobler men than its children the 
 sun never shone upon, nor has the heart of man heard 
 sweeter music than the voices of James Otis and Samuel 
 Adams. Think of Plymouth in 1620, and of Massachusetts 
 to-day ! Out of strength came forth sweetness. 
 
 With some of the darkest passages in Puritan history 
 this old town of Salem, which dozes apparently with the 
 most peaceful conscience in the world, is identified, and 
 while its Fourth of July bells were joyfully ringing sixty 
 years ago Nathaniel Hathorne was born. He subsequently 
 chose to write the name Hawthorne, because he thought he 
 had discovered that it was the original spelling. In the 
 introduction to "The Scarlet Letter," Hawthorne speaks of 
 his ancestors as coming from Europe in the seventeenth 
 century, and establishing themselves in Salem, where they 
 served the state and propitiated Heaven by joining in the 
 persecution of Quakers and witches. The house known 
 as the Witch House is still standing on the corner of Sum- 
 mer and Essex Streets. It was built in 1642 by Captain 
 George Corwin, and here in 1692 many of the unfortu- 
 nates who were palpably guilty of age and ugliness were 
 examined by the Honorable Jonathan Curwin, Major 
 Gedney, Captain John Higginson, and John Hathorn, Es- 
 quire. 
 
 The name of this last worthy occurs in one of the first 
 and most famous of the witch trials that of " Goodwife 
 Cory," in March, 1692, only a month after the beginning of 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 337 
 
 the delusion at the house of the minister Parris. Goodwife 
 Cory was accused by ten children, of whom Elizabeth Parris 
 was one ; they declared that they were pinched by her, and 
 strangled, and that she brought them a book to sign. " Mr. 
 Hathorn, a magistrate of Salem," says Robert Calef, in 
 " More Wonders of the Invisible World," " asked her why 
 she afflicted these children. She said she did not afflict 
 them. He asked her who did then. She said, e I do not 
 know ; how should I know ? ' She said they were poor, 
 distracted creatures, and no heed ought to be given to what 
 they said. Mr. Hathorn and Mr. Noyes replied that it was 
 the judgment of all that were there present that they were 
 bewitched, and only she (the accused) said they were dis- 
 tracted. She was accused by them that the black man 
 whispered to her in her ear now (while she was upon exami- 
 nation), and that she had a yellow bird that did use to suck 
 between her fingers, and that the said bird did suck now in 
 the assembly." John Hathorn and Jonathan Curwin were 
 " the assistants " of Salem village, and held most of the ex- 
 aminations and issued the warrants. Justice Hathorn was 
 very swift in judgment, holding every accused person guilty 
 in every particular. When poor Jonathan Gary, of Charles- 
 town, attended his wife charged with witchcraft before Jus- 
 tice Hathorn, he requested that he might hold one of her 
 hands, " but it was denied me. Then she desired me to 
 wipe the tears from her eyes and the sweat from her face, 
 which I did ; then she desired that she might lean herself 
 on me, saying she should faint. Justice Hathorn replied 
 she had strength enough to torment these persons, and she 
 should have strength enough to stand. I speaking some- 
 thing against their cruel proceedings, they commanded me 
 
 22 
 
338 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 to be silent, or else I should be turned out of the room." 
 What a piteous picture of the awful Colonial Inquisition 
 and the village Torquemada ! What a grim portrait of an 
 ancestor to hang in your memory, and to trace your kin- 
 dred to ! 
 
 Hawthorne's description of his ancestors in the Intro- 
 duction to " The Scarlet Letter " is very delightful. As 
 their representative, he declares that he takes shame to him- 
 self for their sake, on account of these relentless persecu- 
 tions ; but he thinks them earnest and energetic. " From 
 father to son, for above a hundred years, they followed the 
 sea ; a gray-headed shipmaster, in each generation, retiring 
 from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of 
 fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, con- 
 fronting the salt spray and the gale which had blustered 
 against his sire and grandsire. The boy also, in due time, 
 passed from the forecastle to the cabin, spent a tempestuous 
 manhood, and returned from his world-wanderings, to grow 
 old, and die, and mingle his dust with the natal earth." 
 Not all, however, for the last of the line of sailors, Captain 
 Nathaniel Hathorne, who married Elizabeth Clarke Man- 
 ning, died at Calcutta after the birth of three children, a boy 
 and two girls. The house in which the boy was born is still 
 standing upon Union Street, which leads to the Long Wharf, 
 the chief seat of the old foreign trade of Salem. The next 
 house, with a back entrance on Union Street, is the Manning 
 house, where many years of the young Hawthorne's life 
 were spent in the care of his uncle Robert Manning. He 
 lived often upon an estate belonging to his mother's family, 
 in the town of Raymond, near Sebago Lake, in Maine. The 
 huge house there was called Manning's Folly, and is now 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 339 
 
 said to be used as a meeting-house. His uncle sent Haw- 
 thorne to Bowdoin College, where he graduated in 1825. 
 A correspondent of the " Boston Daily Advertiser," writing 
 from Bowdoin at the late Commencement, says that he 
 had recently found " in an old drawer " some papers which 
 proved to be the manuscript " parts " of the students at the 
 Junior exhibition of 1824; among them was Hawthorne's 
 " De Patribus Conscriptis Romanorum." " It is quite brief," 
 writes the correspondent, " but it is really curious as per- 
 haps the only college exercise in existence of the great tragic 
 writer of our day (has there been a greater since Shake- 
 speare ?). The last sentence is as follows ; note the words 
 which I put in italics : ' Augustus equidem antiquam mag- 
 nificentiam patribus reddidit, sed fulgor tantum fuit sine fer- 
 vore. Nunquam in republica senatoribus potestas recuperata, 
 postremum species etiam amissa est.' On the same occa- 
 sion Longfellow had the salutatory oration in Latin ' Oratio 
 Latina Anglici Poetae.'" 
 
 Hawthorne has given us a charming glimpse of himself 
 as a college boy in the letter to his fellow student, Horatio 
 Bridge, of the Navy, whose " Journal of an African Cruiser " 
 he afterward edited : " I know not whence your faith came ; 
 but while we were lads together at a country college gath- 
 ering blueberries, in study-hours, under those tall academic 
 pines ; or watching the great logs as they tumbled along the 
 current of the Androscoggin ; or shooting pigeons and gray- 
 squirrels in the woods ; or bat-fowling in the summer twi- 
 light ; or catching trouts in that shadowy little stream which, 
 I suppose, is still wandering riverward through the forest 
 though you and I will never cast a line in it again two idle 
 lads, in short (as we need not fear to acknowledge now), 
 
34 o NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 doing a hundred things that the Faculty never heard of, or 
 else it had been the worse for us still it was your prognos- 
 tic of your friend's destiny, that he was to be a writer of 
 fiction." From this sylvan university Hawthorne came 
 home to Salem ; " as if," he wrote later, " Salem were for 
 me the inevitable center of the universe." 
 
 The old witch-hanging city had no weirder product than 
 this dark-haired son. He has certainly given it an interest 
 which it must otherwise have lacked ; but he speaks of it 
 with small affection, considering that his family had lived 
 there for two centuries. " An unjoyous attachment," he 
 calls it. And, to tell the truth, there was evidently little 
 love lost between the little city and its most famous citizen. 
 Stories still float in the social gossip of the town, which 
 represent the shy author as inaccessible to all invitations to 
 dinner and tea ; and while the pleasant circle awaited his 
 coming in the drawing-room, the impracticable man was at 
 least so runs the tale quietly hobnobbing with companions 
 to whom his fame was unknown. Those who coveted him 
 as a phoenix could never get him, while he gave himself 
 freely to those who saw in him only a placid barn-door fowl. 
 The sensitive youth was a recluse, upon whose imagination 
 had fallen the gloomy mystery of Puritan life and character. 
 Salem was the inevitable center of his universe more truly 
 than he thought. The mind of Justice Hathorn's descend- 
 ant was bewitched by the fascination of a certain devil- 
 ish subtlety working under the comeliest aspects in human 
 affairs. It overcame him with strange sympathy. It colored 
 and controlled his intellectual life. 
 
 Devoted all day to lonely reverie and musing upon the 
 obscurer spiritual passages of the life whose monuments he 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 34I 
 
 constantly encountered, that musing became inevitably mor- 
 bid. With the creative instinct of the artist, he wrote the 
 wild fancies into form as stories, many of which, when written, 
 he threw into the fire. Then, after nightfall, stealing out 
 from his room into the silent streets of Salem, and shadowy 
 as the ghosts with which to his susceptible imagination the 
 dusky town was thronged, he glided beneath the house in 
 which the witch-trials were held, or across the moonlight hill 
 upon which the witches were hung, until the spell was com- 
 plete. Nor can we help fancying that, after the murder of 
 old Mr. White in Salem, which happened within a few years 
 after his return from college, which drew from Mr. Webster 
 his most famous criminal plea, and filled a shadowy corner 
 of every museum in New England, as every shivering little 
 man of that time remembers, with an awful reproduction of 
 the scene in wax-figures, with real sheets on the bed, and 
 the murderer in a glazed cap stooping over to deal the fatal 
 blow we can not help fancying that the young recluse who 
 walked by night, the wizard whom as yet none knew, hov- 
 ered about the house, gazing at the windows of the fatal 
 chamber, and listening in horror for the faint whistle of the 
 confederate in another street. 
 
 Three years after he graduated in 1828 he published 
 anonymously a slight romance with the motto from Southey, 
 " Wilt thou go with me ? " Hawthorne never acknowledged 
 the book, and it is now seldom found ; but it shows plainly 
 the natural bent of his mind. It is a dim, dreamy tale, such 
 as a Byron-struck youth of the time might have written, ex- 
 cept for that startling self-possession of style and cold anal- 
 ysis of passion, rather than sympathy with it, which showed 
 no imitation, but remarkable original power. The same 
 
342 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 lurid gloom overhangs it that shadows all his works. It is un- 
 canny ; the figures of the romance are not persons, they are 
 passions, emotions, spiritual speculations. So the " Twice- 
 told Tales," that seem at first but the pleasant fancies of a 
 mild recluse, gradually hold the mind with a Lamia-like fas- 
 cination ; and the author says truly of them, in the preface 
 of 1851 : "Even in what purport to be pictures of actual 
 life, we have allegory not always so warmly dressed in its 
 habiliments of flesh and blood as to be taken into the read- 
 er's mind without a shiver." There are sunny gleams upon 
 the pages, but a strange, melancholy chill pervades the book. 
 In "The Wedding Knell," "The Minister's Black Veil," 
 "The Gentle Boy," " Wakefield," "The Prophetic Pictures," 
 " The Hollow of the Three Hills," " Dr. Heidegger's Ex- 
 periment," " The Ambitious Guest," " The White Old Maid," 
 " Edward Fane's Rosebud," " The Lily's Quest "or in the 
 " Legends of the Province House," where the courtly pro- 
 vincial state of governors and ladies glitters across the small, 
 sad New England world, whose very baldness jeers it to 
 scorn there is the same fateful atmosphere in which Goody 
 Cloyse might at any moment whisk by upon her broomstick, 
 and in which the startled heart stands still with unspeakable 
 terror. 
 
 The spell of mysterious horror which kindled Haw- 
 thorne's imagination was a test of the character of his 
 genius. The mind of this child of witch-haunted Salem 
 loved to hover between the natural and the supernatural, 
 and sought to tread the almost imperceptible and doubtful 
 line of contact. He instinctively sketched the phantoms 
 that have the figures of men, but are not human ; the elu- 
 sive, shadowy scenery which, like that of Gustave Dora's 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 343 
 
 pictures, is Nature sympathizing in her forms and aspects 
 with the emotions of terror or awe which the tale excites. 
 His genius broods entranced over the evanescent phantas- 
 magoria of the vague debatable land in which the realities 
 of experience blend with ghostly doubts and wonders. 
 
 But from its poisonous flowers what a wondrous perfume 
 he distilled ! Through his magic reed into what penetrating 
 melody he blew that deathly air ! His relentless fancy 
 seemed to seek a sin that was hopeless, a cruel despair that 
 no faith could throw off. Yet his naive and well-poised 
 genius hung over the gulf of blackness and peered into the 
 pit with the steady nerve and simple face of a boy. The 
 mind of the reader follows him with an aching wonder and 
 admiration, as the bewildered old mother forester watched 
 Undine's gambols. As Hawthorne describes Miriam in 
 " The Marble Faun," so may the character of his genius be 
 most truly indicated. Miriam, the reader will remember, 
 turns to Hilda and Kenyon for sympathy. " Yet it was to 
 little purpose that she approached the edge of the voiceless 
 gulf between herself and them. Standing on the utmost 
 verge of that dark chasm, she might stretch out her hand 
 and never clasp a hand of theirs ; she might strive to call 
 out, ' Help, friends ! help ! ' but, as with dreamers when 
 they shout, her voice would perish inaudibly in the remote- 
 ness that seemed such a little way. This perception of an 
 infinite, shivering solitude, amid which we can not come 
 close enough to human beings to be warmed by them, and 
 where they turn to cold, chilly shapes of mist, is one of the 
 most forlorn results of any accident, misfortune, crime, or 
 peculiarity of character that puts an individual ajar with the 
 world." 
 
344 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 Thus it was because the early New England life made so 
 much larger account of the supernatural element than any 
 other modern civilized society, that the man whose blood 
 had run in its veins instinctively turned to it. But beyond 
 this alluring spell of its darker and obscurer individual ex- 
 perience, it seems neither to have touched his imagination 
 nor even to have aroused his interest. To Walter Scott the 
 romance of feudalism was precious, for the sake of feudal- 
 ism itself, in which he believed with all his soul, and for 
 that of the heroic old feudal figures which he honored. He 
 was a Tory in every particle of his frame, and his genius 
 made him the poet of Toryism. But Hawthorne had appar- 
 ently no especial political, religious, or patriotic affinity with 
 the spirit which inspired him. It was solely a fascination 
 of the intellect. And although he is distinctively the poet 
 of the Puritans, although it is to his genius that we shall 
 always owe that image of them which the power of " The 
 Scarlet Letter " has imprinted upon literature, and doubtless 
 henceforth upon historical interpretation, yet what an im- 
 perfect picture of that life it is ! All its stern and melan- 
 choly romance is there its picturesque gloom and intense 
 passion ; but upon those quivering pages, as in every pas- 
 sage of his stories drawn from that spirit, there seems to be 
 wanting a deep, complete, sympathetic appreciation of the 
 fine moral heroism, the spiritual grandeur, which overhung 
 that gloomy life, as a delicate purple mist suffuses in summer 
 twilights the bald crags of the crystal hills. It is the glare 
 of "The Scarlet Letter" itself, and all that it luridly re- 
 veals and weirdly implies, which produced the tale. It was 
 not beauty in itself, nor deformity, not virtue nor vice, 
 which engaged the author's deepest sympathy. It was the 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 345 
 
 occult relation between the two. Thus while the Puritans 
 were of all men pious, it was the instinct of Hawthorne's 
 genius to search out and trace with terrible tenacity the 
 dark and devious thread of sin in their lives. 
 
 Human life and character, whether in New England two 
 hundred years ago or in Italy to-day, interested him only as 
 they were touched by this glamour of somber spiritual mys- 
 tery ; and the attraction pursued him in every form in which 
 it appeared. It is as apparent in the most perfect of his 
 smaller tales, " Rappaccini's Daughter," as in " The Scarlet 
 Letter," " The Blithedale Romance," " The House of the 
 Seven Gables," and " The Marble Faun." You may open 
 almost at random, and you are as sure to find it as to hear 
 the ripple in Mozart's music or the pathetic minor in a Nea- 
 politan melody. Take, for instance, "The Birth-Mark," 
 which we might call the best of the smaller stories if we had 
 not just said the same thing of " Rappaccini's Daughter " 
 for so even and complete is Hawthorne's power that, with 
 few exceptions, each work of his, like Benvenuto's, seems 
 the most characteristic and felicitous. In this story a 
 scholar marries a beautiful woman upon whose face is a 
 mark which has hitherto seemed to be only a greater charm. 
 Yet in one so lovely the husband declares that, although it 
 is the slightest possible defect, it is yet the mark of earthly 
 imperfection, and he proceeds to lavish all the resources of 
 science to procure its removal. But it will not disappear; 
 and at last he tells her that the crimson hand " has clutched 
 its grasp " into her very being, and that there is mortal dan- 
 ger in trying the only means of removal that remains. She 
 insists that it shall be tried. It succeeds ; but it removes 
 the stain and her life together. So in " Rappaccini's Daugh- 
 
346 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 ter." The old philosopher nourishes his beautiful child 
 upon the poisonous breath of a flower. She loves, and her 
 lover is likewise bewitched. In trying to break the spell, 
 she drinks an antidote which kills her. The point of inter- 
 est in both stories is the subtile connection, in the first, be- 
 tween the beauty of Georgiana and the taint of the birth- 
 mark ; and, in the second, the loveliness of Beatrice and the 
 poison of the blossom. 
 
 This, also, is the key of his last romance, " The Marble 
 Faun," one of the most perfect works of art in literature, 
 whose marvelous spell begins with the very opening words : 
 " Four individuals, in whose fortunes we should be glad to 
 interest the reader, happened to be standing in one of the 
 saloons of the sculpture gallery in the Capitol at Rome." 
 When these words are read, the mind familiar with Haw- 
 thorne is already enthralled. What a journey is beginning, 
 not a step of which is trodden, and yet the heart palpitates 
 with apprehension ! Through what delicate, rosy lights of 
 love, and soft, shimmering humor, and hopes and doubts 
 and vanishing delights, that journey will proceed, on and on 
 into utter gloom ! And it does so, although " Hilda had a 
 hopeful soul, and saw sunlight on the mountain-tops." It 
 does so, because Miriam and Donatello are the figures 
 which interest us most profoundly, and they are both lost in 
 the shadow. Donatello, indeed, is the true center of inter- 
 est, as he is one of the most striking creations of genius. 
 But the perplexing charm of Donatello, what is it but the 
 doubt that does not dare to breathe itself, the appalled won- 
 der whether, if the breeze should lift those clustering locks 
 a little higher, he would prove to be faun or man ? It never 
 does lift them ; the doubt is never solved, but it is always 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 347 
 
 suggested. The mystery of a partial humanity, morally irre- 
 sponsible but humanly conscious, haunts the entrancing 
 page. It draws us irresistibly on. But as the cloud closes 
 around the lithe figure of Donatello, we hear again from its 
 hidden folds the words of " The Birth-Mark " : " Thus ever 
 does the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable tri- 
 umph over the immortal essence, which, in this dim sphere 
 of half-development, demands the completeness of a higher 
 state." Or still more sadly, the mysterious youth, half van- 
 ishing from our sympathy, seems to murmur, with Beatrice 
 Rappaccini, "And still as she spoke, she kept her hand 
 upon her heart ' Wherefore didst thou inflict this miserable 
 doom upon my child ? ' ' 
 
 We have left the story of Hawthorne's life sadly behind. 
 But his life had no more remarkable events than holding of- 
 fice in the Boston Custom-House under Mr. Bancroft as col- 
 lector ; working for some time with the Brook Farmers, 
 from whom he soon separated, not altogether amicably; 
 marrying and living in the old manse at Concord ; returning 
 to the Custom-House in Salem as surveyor ; then going to 
 Lenox, in Berkshire, where he lived in what he called " the 
 ugliest little old red farmhouse that you ever saw," and 
 where the story is told of his shyness, that, if he saw anybody 
 coming along the road whom he must probably pass, he 
 would jump over the wall into the pasture, and so give the 
 stranger a wide berth ; back again to Concord ; then to 
 Liverpool as consul ; traveling in Europe afterward, and 
 home at last and for ever, to " The Wayside," under the 
 Concord hill. " The hillside," he wrote to a friend in 1852, 
 " is covered chiefly with locust-trees, which come into luxu- 
 riant blossom in the month of June, and look and smell very 
 
34 8 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 sweetly, intermixed with a few young elms and some white- 
 pines and infant oaks, the whole forming rather a thicket 
 than a wood. Nevertheless, there is some very good shade 
 to be found there ; I spend delectable hours there in the 
 hottest part of the day, stretched out at my lazy length with 
 a book in my hand or an unwritten book in my thoughts. 
 There is almost always a breeze stirring along the side or 
 brow of the hill." 
 
 It is not strange, certainly, that a man such as has been 
 described, of a morbid shyness, the path of whose genius 
 diverged always out of the sun into the darkest shade, and 
 to whom human beings were merely psychological phe- 
 nomena, should have been accounted ungenial, and some- 
 times even hard, cold, and perverse. From the bent of his 
 intellectual temperament it happens that in his simplest and 
 sweetest passages he still seems to be studying and curiously 
 observing, rather than sympathizing. You can not help feel- 
 ing constantly that the author is looking askance both at his 
 characters and you, the reader ; and many a young and fresh 
 mind is troubled strangely by his books, as if it were aware 
 of a half-Mephistophelean smile upon the page. Nor is this 
 impression altogether removed by the remarkable familiarity 
 of his personal disclosures. There was never a man more 
 shrinkingly retiring, yet surely never was an author more 
 naively frank. He is willing that you should know all that 
 a man may fairly reveal of himself. The great interior story 
 he does not tell, of course, but the introduction to the 
 " Mosses from an Old Manse," the opening chapter of " The 
 Scarlet Letter," and the " Consular Experiences," with much 
 of the rest of " Our Old Home," are as intimate and explicit 
 chapters of autobiography as can be found. Nor would it 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 349 
 
 be easy to find anywhere a more perfect idyl than that intro- 
 ductory chapter of the " Mosses." Its charm is perennial 
 and indescribable ; and why should it not fye, since it was 
 written at a time in which, as he says, " I was happy " ? It 
 is, perhaps, the most softly- hued and exquisite work of his 
 pen. So the sketch of " The Custom-House," although pref- 
 atory to that most tragically powerful of romances, " The 
 Scarlet Letter," is an incessant play of the shyest and most 
 airy humor. It is like the warbling of bobolinks before a 
 thunder-burst. How many other men, however unreserved 
 with the pen, would be likely to dare to paint, with the fidel- 
 ity of Teniers and the simplicity of Fra Angelico, a picture 
 of the office and the companions in which and with whom 
 they did their daily work ? The Surveyor of Customs in the 
 port of Salem treated the town of Salem, in which he lived 
 and discharged his daily task, as if it had been, with all its 
 people, as vague and remote a spot as the town of which he 
 was about to treat in the story. He commented upon the 
 place and the people as modern travelers in Pompeii discuss 
 the ancient town. It made a great scandal. He was ac- 
 cused of depicting with unpardonable severity worthy folks, 
 whose friends were sorely pained and indignant. But he 
 wrote such sketches as he wrote his stories. He treated his 
 companions as he treated himself and all the personages in 
 history or experience with which he dealt, merely as phe- 
 nomena to be analyzed and described, with no more private 
 malice or personal emotion than the sun, which would have 
 photographed them, warts and all. 
 
 Thus it was that the great currents of human sympathy 
 never swept him away. The character of his genius isolated 
 him, and he stood aloof from the common interests. Intent 
 
350 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 upon studying men in certain aspects, he cared little for 
 man ; and the high tides of collective emotion among his 
 fellows left him dry and untouched. So he beholds and de- 
 scribes the generous impulse of humanity with skeptical 
 courtesy rather than with hopeful cordiality. 
 
 He does not chide you if you spend effort and life itself 
 in the ardent van of progress, but he asks simply, " Is six so 
 much better than half a dozen ? " He will not quarrel with 
 you if you expect the millennium to-morrow. He only says, 
 with that glimmering smile, " So soon ? " Yet in all this 
 there was no shadow of spiritual pride. Nay, so far from 
 this, that the tranquil and pervasive sadness of all Haw- 
 thorne's writings, the kind of heart-ache that they leave be- 
 hind, seems to spring from the fact that his nature was related 
 to the moral world, as his own Donatello was to the human. 
 " So alert, so alluring, so noble," muses the heart as we climb 
 the Apennines toward the tower of Monte Beni " alas ! is 
 he human ? " it whispers, with a pang of doubt. 
 
 How this directed his choice of subjects, and affected 
 his treatment of them, when drawn from early history, we 
 have already seen. It is not, therefore, surprising that the 
 history into which he was born interested him only in the 
 same way. 
 
 When he went to Europe as consul, " Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin " was already published, and the country shook with 
 the fierce debate which involved its life. Yet eight years 
 later Hawthorne wrote with calm ennui : " No author, 
 without a trial, can conceive of the difficulty of writing a 
 romance about a country where there is no shadow, no an- 
 tiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor 
 anything but a commonplace prosperity, in broad and simple 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 351 
 
 daylight, as is happily the case with my dear native land." 
 Is crime never romantic, then, until distance ennobles it ? 
 Or were the tragedies of Puritan life so terrible that the im- 
 agination could not help kindling, while the pangs of the 
 plantation are superficial and commonplace ? Charlotte 
 Bronte, Dickens, and Thackeray were able to find a shadow 
 even in "merrie England." But our great romancer looked 
 at the American life of his time with these marvelous eyes, 
 and could see only monotonous sunshine. That the devil, 
 in the form of an elderly man clad in grave and decent at- 
 tire, should lead astray the saints of Salem village, two cen- 
 turies ago, and confuse right and wrong in the mind of 
 Goodman Brown, was something that excited his imagina- 
 tion, and produced one of his weirdest stories. But that the 
 same devil, clad in a somber sophism, was confusing the 
 sentiment of right and wrong in the mind of his own coun- 
 trymen he did not even guess. The monotonous sunshine 
 disappeared in the blackest storm. The commonplace pros- 
 perity ended in tremendous war. What other man of equal 
 power, who was not intellectually constituted precisely as 
 Hawthorne was, could have stood merely perplexed and be- 
 wildered, harassed by the inability of positive sympathy, in 
 the vast conflict which tosses us all in its terrible vortex ? 
 
 In political theories and in an abstract view of war men 
 may differ. But this war is not to be dismissed as a political 
 difference. Here is an attempt to destroy the government 
 of a country, not because it oppressed any man, but because 
 its evident tendency was to secure universal justice under 
 law. It is therefore a conspiracy against human nature. 
 Civilization itself is at stake ; and the warm blood of the 
 noblest youth is everywhere flowing in as sacred a cause as 
 
352 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 history records flowing not merely to maintain a certain 
 form of government, but to vindicate the rights of human 
 nature. Shall there not be sorrow and pain, if a friend is 
 merely impatient or confounded by it if he sees in it only 
 danger or doubt, and not hope for the right or if he seem to 
 insinuate that it would have been better if the war had been 
 avoided, even at that countless cost to human welfare by 
 which alone the avoidance was possible ? 
 
 Yet, if the view of Hawthorne's mental constitution 
 which has been ' suggested be correct, this attitude of his, 
 however deeply it may be regretted, can hardly deserve 
 moral condemnation. He knew perfectly well that if a man 
 has no ear for music he had better not try to sing. But the 
 danger with such men is, that they are apt to doubt if music 
 itself be not a vain delusion. This danger Hawthorne es- 
 caped. There is none of the shallow persiflage of the 
 skeptic in his tone, nor any affectation of cosmopolitan su- 
 periority. Mr. Edward Dicey, in his interesting reminis- 
 cences of Hawthorne, published in " Macmillan's Maga- 
 zine," illustrates this very happily : 
 
 To make his position intelligible, let me repeat an anecdote 
 which was told me by a very near friend of his and mine, who had 
 heard it from President Pierce himself. Frank Pierce had been, and 
 was to the day of Hawthorne's death, one of the oldest of his 
 friends. At the time of the Presidential election of 1856, Haw- 
 thorne, for once, took part in politics, wrote a pamphlet in favor of 
 his friend, and took a most unusual interest in his success. When 
 the result of the nomination was known, and Pierce was President- 
 elect, Hawthorne was among the first to come and wish him joy. 
 He sat down in the room moodily and silently, as he was wont when 
 anything troubled him ; then, without speaking a word, he shook 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 353 
 
 Pierce warmly by the hand, and at last remarked, " Ah, Frank, what 
 a pity ! " The moment the victory was won that timid, hesitating 
 mind saw the evils of the successful course the advantages of the 
 one which had not been followed. So it was always. Of two lines 
 of action, he was perpetually in doubt which was the best ; and so, be- 
 tween the two, he always inclined to letting things remain as they are. 
 Nobody disliked slavery more cordially than he did ; and yet the 
 difficulty of what was to be done with the slaves weighed constantly 
 upon his mind. He told me once, that, while he had been consul 
 at Liverpool, a vessel arrived there with a number of negro sailors, 
 who had been brought from slave States, and would, of course, be 
 enslaved again on their return. He fancied that he ought to inform 
 the men of the fact, but then he was stopped by the reflection 
 who was to provide for them if they became free ? and, as he said 
 with a sigh, "while I was thinking, the vessel sailed." So, I recol- 
 lect, on the old battle-field of Manassas, in which I strolled in com- 
 pany with Hawthorne, meeting a batch of runaway slaves weary, 
 footsore, wretched, and helpless beyond conception ; we gave them 
 food and wine, some small sums of money, and got them a lift upon 
 a train going northward ; but not long afterward Hawthorne turned 
 to me with the remark : " I am not sure we were doing right, after 
 all. How can those poor beings find food and shelter away from 
 home ? " Thus this ingrained and inherent doubt incapacitated him 
 from following any course vigorously. He thought, on the whole, 
 that Wendell Phillips and Lloyd Garrison and the abolitionists were 
 in the right, but then he was never quite certain that they were not 
 in the wrong, after all ; so that his advocacy of their cause was of a 
 very uncertain character. He saw the best, to alter slightly the 
 famous Horatian line, but he never could quite make up his mind 
 whether he altogether approved of its wisdom, and therefore fol- 
 lowed it but falteringly. 
 
 " Better to bear those ills we have, 
 
 Than fly to others that we know not of," 
 23 
 
3S4 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 expressed the philosophy to which Hawthorne was thus borne im- 
 perceptibly. Unjustly, but yet not unreasonably, he was looked 
 upon as a pro-slavery man, and suspected of Southern sympathies. 
 In politics he was always halting between two opinions ; or, rather, 
 holding one opinion, he could never summon up his courage to ad- 
 here to it and it only. 
 
 The truth is, that his own times and their people and 
 their affairs were just as shadowy to him as those of any of 
 his stories, and his mind held the same curious, half-wistful 
 poise among all the conflicts of principle and passion around 
 him, as among those of which he read and mused. If you 
 ask why this was so how it was that the tragedy of an old 
 Italian garden, or the sin of a lonely Puritan parish, or the 
 crime of a provincial judge, should so stimulate his imagina- 
 tion with romantic appeals and harrowing allegories, while 
 either it did not see a Carolina slave-pen, or found in it only 
 a tame prosperity you must take your answer in the other 
 question, why he did not weave into any of his stories the 
 black and bloody thread of the Inquisition. His genius 
 obeyed its law. When he wrote like a disembodied intelli- 
 gence of events with which his neighbors' hearts were quiv- 
 ering when the same half smile flutters upon his lips in the 
 essay "About War Matters," sketched as it were upon the 
 battle-field, as in that upon " Fire-Worship, " written in the 
 rural seclusion of the mossy Manse ah, me ! it is Dona- 
 tello in his tower of Monte Beni, contemplating with doubt- 
 ful interest the field upon which the flower of men are dying 
 for an idea. Do you wonder, as you see him and hear him, 
 that your heart, bewildered, asks and asks again, " Is he hu- 
 man ? Is he a man ? " 
 
 Now that Hawthorne sleeps by the tranquil Concord, 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 355 
 
 upon whose shores the old Manse was his bridal bower, 
 those who knew him chiefly there revert beyond the angry 
 hour to those peaceful days. How dear the old Manse was 
 to him he has himself recorded ; and in the opening of the 
 " Tanglewood Tales " he pays his tribute to that placid 
 landscape, which will always be recalled with pensive ten- 
 derness by those who, like him, became familiar with it in 
 happy hours. "To me," he writes, " there is a peculiar, 
 quiet charm in these broad meadows and gentle eminences. 
 They are better than mountains, because they do not stamp 
 and stereotype themselves into the brain, and thus grow 
 wearisome with the same strong impression repeated day 
 after day. A few summer weeks among mountains, a life- 
 time among green meadows and placid slopes, with outlines 
 for ever new, because continually fading out of the memory 
 such would be my sober choice." He used to say, in 
 those days when, as he was fond of insisting, he was the 
 obscurest author in the world, because, although he had 
 told his tales twice, nobody cared to listen that he never 
 knew exactly how he contrived to live. But he was then 
 married, and the dullest eye could not fail to detect the 
 feminine grace and taste that ordered the dwelling, and 
 perceive the tender sagacity that made all things possible. 
 
 Such was his simplicity and frugality that, when he was 
 left alone for a little time in his new Arcadia, he would dis- 
 miss " the help," and, with some friend of other days who 
 came to share his loneliness, he cooked the easy meal and 
 washed up the dishes. No picture is clearer in the memory 
 of a certain writer than that of the magician, in whose pres- 
 ence he almost lost his breath, looking at him over a dinner- 
 plate which he was gravely wiping in the kitchen, while the 
 
356 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 handy friend, who had been a Western settler, scoured the 
 kettle at the door. Blithedale, where their acquaintance had 
 begun, had not allowed either of them to forget how to help 
 himself. It was amusing to one who knew this native inde- 
 pendence of Hawthorne, to hear, some years afterward, that 
 he wrote the " campaign " " Life of Franklin Pierce " for the 
 sake of getting an office. That such a man should do such 
 a work was possibly incomprehensible, to those who did not 
 know him, upon any other supposition, until the fact was 
 known that Mr. Pierce was an old and constant friend. 
 Then it was explained. Hawthorne asked simply how he 
 could help his friend ; and he did the only thing he could 
 do for that purpose. But although he passed some years in 
 public office, he had neither taste nor talent for political life. 
 He owed his offices to works quite other than political. His 
 first and second appointments were virtually made by his 
 friend Mr. Bancroft, and the third by his friend Mr. Pierce. 
 His claims were perceptible enough to friendship, but would 
 hardly have, been so to a caucus. 
 
 In this brief essay we have aimed only to indicate the 
 general character of the genius of Hawthorne, and to sug- 
 gest a key to his peculiar relation to his time. The reader 
 will at once see that it is rather the man than the author 
 who has been described ; but this has been designedly done, 
 for we confess a personal solicitude, shared, we are very 
 sure, by many friends of Nathaniel Hawthorne, that there 
 shall not be wanting to the future student of his works such 
 light as acquaintance with the man may throw upon them, 
 as well as some picture of the impression his personality 
 made upon his contemporaries. 
 
 Strongly formed, of dark, poetic gravity of aspect, lighted 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 357 
 
 by the deep, gleaming eye that recoiled with girlish coyness 
 from -contact with your gaze ; of rare courtesy and kindli- 
 ness in personal intercourse, yet so sensitive that his look 
 and manner can be suggested by the word glimmering ; giv- 
 ing you a sense of restrained impatience to be away; mostly 
 silent in society, and speaking always with an appearance of 
 effort, but with a lambent light of delicate humor playing 
 over all he said in the confidence of familiarity, and firm 
 self-possession under all, as if the glimmering manner were 
 only the tremulous surface of the sea Hawthorne was per- 
 sonally known to few, and intimately to very few. But no 
 one knew him without loving him, or saw him without re- 
 membering him; and the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
 which when it was first written was supposed to be ficti- 
 tious, is now one of the most enduring facts of English lit- 
 erature. 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 No American writer has been so extensively read as 
 James Fenimore Cooper. His novels have been translated 
 into nearly every European language. Nay, we are told 
 but hardly know how to believe it that they may be had 
 duly rendered into Persian at the bazaars of Ispahan. We 
 have seen some of them well thumbed and worn at a little 
 village in a remote mountainous district of Sicily ; and in 
 Naples and Milan the bookstalls bear witness that " L'Ultimo 
 dei Mohecanni " is still a popular work. In England, these 
 American novels have been eagerly read and transformed 
 into popular dramas ; while cheap and often stupidly muti- 
 lated editions of them have been circulated through all her 
 colonies, garrisons, and naval stations, from New Zealand 
 to Canada. 
 
 Nor is this widely-spread popularity undeserved. Of 
 all American writers Cooper is the most original, the most 
 thoroughly national. His genius drew aliment from the soil 
 where God had planted it, and rose to a vigorous growth, 
 rough and gnarled, but strong as a mountain cedar. His 
 volumes are a faithful mirror of that rude transatlantic 
 
 * The Works of James Fenimore Cooper. Author's revised edition. 
 New York : G. P. Putnam. 1851. I2mo. 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 359 
 
 nature which to European eyes appears so strange and 
 new. The sea and the forest have been the scenes of his 
 countrymen's most conspicuous achievements ; and it is on 
 the sea and in the forest that Cooper is most thoroughly at 
 home. Their spirit inspired him, their images were graven 
 on his heart; and the men whom their embrace has nur- 
 tured, the sailor, the hunter, the pioneer, move and act upon 
 his pages with all the truth and energy of real life. . 
 
 There is one great writer with whom Cooper has been 
 often compared, and the comparison is not void of justice ; 
 for though, on the whole, far inferior, there are certain high 
 points of literary excellence in regard to which he may con- 
 test the palm with Sir Walter Scott. It is true that he has 
 no claim to share the humor and pathos, the fine perception 
 of beauty and delicacy in character, which add such charms 
 to the romances of Scott. Nor can he boast that compass 
 and variety ot power which could deal alike with forms of 
 humanity so diverse ; which could portray with equal mas- 
 tery the Templar Bois Guilbert, and the Jewess Rebecca ; 
 the manly heart of Henry Morton, and the gentle heroism 
 of Jeanie Deans. But notwithstanding this unquestioned 
 inferiority on the part of Cooper, there were marked affinities 
 between him and his great contemporary. Both were prac- 
 tical men, able and willing to grapple with the hard realities 
 of life. Either might have learned with ease to lead a regi- 
 ment, or command a line-of-battle ship. Their conceptions 
 of character were no mere abstract ideas, or unsubstantial 
 images, but solid embodiments in living flesh and blood. 
 Bulwer and Hawthorne the conjunction may excite a smile 
 are writers of a different stamp. Their conceptions are 
 often exhibited with consummate skill, and, in one of these 
 
360 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 examples at least, with admirable truthfulness; but they 
 never cheat us into a belief in their reality. We may mar- 
 vel at the skill of the- artist, but we are prone to regard his 
 creations rather as figments of art than as reproductions of 
 nature as a series of vivified and animate pictures, rather 
 than as breathing men and women. With Scott and with 
 Cooper it is far otherwise. Dominie Sampson and the anti- 
 quary are as distinct and familiar to our minds as some 
 eccentric acquaintance of our childhood. If we met Long 
 Tom Coffin on the wharf at New Bedford, we should wonder 
 where we had before seen that familiar face and figure. 
 The tall, gaunt form of Leatherstocking, the weather-beaten 
 face, the bony hand, the cap of fox-skin, and the old hunt- 
 ing-frock, polished with long service, seem so palpable and 
 real, that in some moods of mind one may easily confound 
 them with the memories of his own experiences. Others 
 have been gifted to conceive the elements of far loftier char- 
 acter, and even to combine these in a manner equally truth- 
 ful ; but few have rivaled Cooper in the power of breathing 
 into his creations the breath of life, and turning the phan- 
 toms of his brain into seeming realities. It is to this, in no 
 small measure, that he owes his widely spread popularity. 
 His most successful portraitures are drawn, it is true, from 
 humble walks and rude associations ; yet they are instinct 
 with life, and stamped with the impress of a masculine and 
 original genius. 
 
 The descriptions of external nature with which Cooper's 
 works abound bear a certain analogy to his portraitures of 
 character. There is no glow upon his pictures, no warm 
 and varied coloring, no studied contrast of light and shade. 
 Their virtue consists in their fidelity, in the strength with 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 361 
 
 which they impress themselves upon the mind, and the 
 strange tenacity with which they cling to the memory. For 
 our own part, it was many years since we had turned the 
 pages of Cooper, but still we were haunted by the images 
 which his spell had evoked the dark gleaming of hill- 
 embosomed lakes, the tracery of forest boughs against the 
 red evening sky, and the raven flapping his black wings 
 above the carnage-field near the Horicon. These descrip- 
 tions have often, it must be confessed, the grave fault of 
 being overloaded with detail ; but they are utterly mistaken 
 who affirm, as some have done, that they are but a catalogue 
 of commonplaces mountains and woods, rivers and tor- 
 rents, thrown together as a matter of course. A genuine 
 love of nature inspired the artist's pen ; and they who can 
 not feel the efficacy of its strong picturing have neither heart 
 nor mind for the grandeur of the outer world. 
 
 Before proceeding, however, we must observe that, in 
 speaking of Cooper's writings, we have reference only to 
 those happier offsprings of his genius which form the basis of 
 his reputation ; for, of that numerous progeny which have of 
 late years swarmed from his pen, we have never read one, 
 and therefore, notwithstanding the ancient usage of review- 
 ers, do rot think ourselves entitled to comment upon them. 
 
 The style of Cooper is, as style must always be, in no 
 small measure the exponent of the author's mind. It is not 
 elastic or varied, and is certainly far from elegant. Its best 
 characteristics are a manly directness, and a freedom from 
 those prettinesses, studied turns of expression, and petty 
 tricks of rhetoric, which are the pride of less masculine 
 writers. Cooper is no favorite with dilettanti critics. In 
 truth, such criticism does not suit his case. He should be 
 
362 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 measured on deeper principles, not by his manner, but by 
 his pith and substance. A rough diamond and he is one 
 of the roughest is worth more than a jewel of paste, though 
 its facets may not shine so clearly. 
 
 And yet, try Cooper by what test we may, we shall dis- 
 cover in him grave defects. The field of his success is, after 
 all, a narrow one ; and even in his best works he often over- 
 steps its limits. His attempts at sentiment are notoriously 
 unsuccessful. Above all, when he aspires to portray a hero- 
 ine, no words can express the remarkable character of the 
 product. With simple country girls he succeeds somewhat 
 better ; but, when he essays a higher flight, his failure is ca- 
 lamitous. The most rabid asserter of the rights of woman 
 is scarcely more ignorant of woman's true power and dig- 
 nity. This is the more singular, as his novels are very far 
 from being void of feeling. They seldom, however and 
 who can wonder at it ? find much favor with women, who 
 for the most part can see little in them but ghastly stories 
 of shipwrecks, ambuscades, and bush-fights, mingled with 
 prolix descriptions and stupid dialogues. Their most appre- 
 ciating readers may perhaps be found, not among persons 
 of sedentary and studious habits, but among those of a more 
 active turn, military officers and the like, whose tastes have 
 not been trained into fastidiousness, and who are often bet- 
 ter qualified than literary men to feel the freshness and truth 
 of the author's descriptions. 
 
 The merit of a novelist is usually measured less by his 
 mere power of description than by his skill in delineating 
 character. The permanency of Cooper's reputation must, 
 as it seems to us, rest upon three or four finely conceived 
 and admirably executed portraits. We do not allude to his 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 363 
 
 Indian characters, which, it must be granted, are for the 
 most part either superficially or falsely drawn ; while the 
 long conversations which he puts into their mouths are as 
 truthless as they are tiresome. Such as they are, however, 
 they have been eagerly copied by a legion of the smaller 
 poets and novel writers ; so that, jointly with Thomas Camp- 
 bell, Cooper is responsible for the fathering of those aborigi- 
 nal heroes, lovers, and sages, who have long formed a petty 
 nuisance in our literature. The portraits of which we have 
 spoken are all those of white men, from humble ranks of 
 society, yet not of a mean or vulgar stamp. Conspicuous 
 before them all stands the well-known figure of Leather- 
 stocking. The life and character of this personage are con- 
 tained in a series of five independent novels, entitled, in 
 honor of him, the " Leatherstocking Tales." Cooper has 
 been censured, and even ridiculed, for this frequent re- 
 production of his favorite hero, which, it is affirmed, ar- 
 gues poverty of invention ; and yet there is not one of the 
 tales in question with which we would willingly part. To 
 have drawn such a character is in itself sufficient honor ; 
 and, had Cooper achieved nothing else, this alone must have 
 insured him a wide and merited renown. There is some- 
 thing admirably felicitous in the conception of this hybrid 
 offspring of civilization and barbarism, in whom uprightness, 
 kindliness, innate philosophy, and the truest moral percep- 
 tions are joined with the wandering instincts and the hatred 
 of restraints which stamp the Indian or the Bedouin. Nor is 
 the character in the least unnatural. The white denizens 
 of the forest and the prairie are often among the worst 
 though never among the meanest of mankind ; but it is 
 equally true that where the moral instincts are originally 
 
364 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 strong, they may find nutriment and growth among the rude 
 scenes and grand associations of the wilderness. Men as 
 true, generous, and kindly as Leatherstocking may still be 
 found among the perilous solitudes of the West. The quiet, 
 unostentatious courage of Cooper's hero had its counterpart 
 in the character of Daniel Boone ; and the latter had the 
 same unaffected love of nature which forms so pleasing a 
 feature in the mind of Leatherstocking. 
 
 Civilization has a destroying as well as a creating power. 
 It is exterminating the buffalo and the Indian, over whose 
 fate too many lamentations, real or affected, have been 
 sounded for us to renew them here. It must, moreover, 
 sweep from before it a class of men, its own precursors and 
 pioneers, so remarkable both in their virtues and their faults, 
 that few will see their extinction without regret. Of these 
 men Leatherstocking is the representative ; and though in 
 him the traits of the individual are quite as prominent as 
 those of the class, yet his character is not on this account 
 less interesting, or less worthy of permanent remembrance. 
 His life conveys in some sort an epitome of American his- 
 tory, during one of its most busy and decisive periods. At 
 first we find him a lonely young hunter in what was then the 
 wilderness of New York. Ten or twelve years later he is 
 playing his part manfully in the old French war. After the 
 close of the Revolution, we meet him again on the same spot 
 where he was first introduced to us ; but now everything is 
 changed. The solitary margin of the Otsego Lake is trans- 
 formed into the seat of a growing settlement, and the hunter, 
 oppressed by the restraints of society, turns his aged foot- 
 steps westward in search of his congenial solitude. At 
 length we discover him, for the last time, an octogenarian 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 365 
 
 trapper, far out on the prairies of the West. It is clear that 
 the successive stages of his retreat from society could not 
 weir be presented in a single story, and that the repetition 
 which has been charged against Cooper as a fault was in- 
 dispensable to the development of his design. 
 
 " The Deerslayer," the first novel in the series of Leath- 
 erstocking Tales, seems to us one of the most interesting of 
 Cooper's productions. He has chosen for the scene of his 
 story the Otsego Lake, on whose banks he lived and died, 
 and whose scenery he has introduced into three, if not 
 more, of his novels. The Deerslayer, or Leatherstocking, 
 here makes his first appearance as a young man, in fact 
 scarcely emerged from boyhood, yet with all the simplicity, 
 candor, feeling, and penetration which mark his riper years. 
 The old buccaneer in his aquatic habitation, and the con- 
 trasted characters of his two daughters, add a human inter- 
 est to the scene, for the want of which the highest skill in 
 mere landscape painting can not compensate. The charac- 
 ter of Judith seems to us the best drawn, and by far the 
 most interesting, female portrait in any of Cooper's novels 
 with which we are acquainted. The story, however, is not 
 free from the characteristic faults of its author. Above all, 
 it contains, in one instance at least, a glaring exhibition of 
 his aptitude for describing horrors. When he compels his 
 marvelously graphic pen to depict scenes which would dis- 
 grace the shambles or the dissecting-table, none can wonder 
 that ladies and young clergymen regard his pages with ab- 
 horrence. These, however, are but casual defects in a work 
 which bears the unmistakable impress of genius. 
 
 " The Pathfinder " forms the second volume of the 
 series, and is remarkable, even among its companions, for 
 
366 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 the force and distinctness of its pictures. For ourselves 
 though we diligently perused the dispatches the battle of 
 Palo Alto and the storming of Monterey are not more real 
 and present to our mind than some of the scenes and char- 
 acters of " The Pathfinder," though we have not read it for 
 nine years the little fort on the margin of Lake Ontario, 
 the surrounding woods and waters, the veteran major in 
 command, the treacherous Scotchman, the dogmatic old 
 sailor, and the Pathfinder himself. Several of these scenes 
 are borrowed in part from Mrs. Grant's "Memoirs of an 
 American Lady " ; but, in borrowing, Cooper has trans- 
 muted shadows into substance. Mrs. Grant's facts for as 
 such we are to take them have an air of fiction ; while 
 Cooper's fiction wears the aspect of solid fact. His peculiar 
 powers could not be better illustrated than by a comparison 
 of the passages alluded to in the two books. 
 
 One of the most widely known of Cooper's novels is 
 " The Last of the Mohicans," which forms the third volume 
 of the series, and which, with all the elements of a vulgar 
 popularity, combines excellences of a far higher order. It 
 has, nevertheless, its great and obtrusive faults. It takes 
 needless liberties with history ; and, though it would be 
 folly to demand that an historical novelist should always 
 conform to received authorities, yet it is certainly desirable 
 that he should not unnecessarily set them at defiance ; since 
 the incidents of the novel are apt to remain longer in the 
 memory than those of the less palatable history. But what- 
 ever may be the extent of the novelist's license, it is at all 
 events essential that his story should have some semblance 
 of probability, and not run counter to nature and common 
 sense. In " The Last of the Mohicans " the machinery of 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 367 
 
 the plot falls little short of absurdity. Why a veteran offi- 
 cer, pent up in a little fort, and hourly expecting to be be- 
 leaguered by a vastly superior force, consisting in great part 
 of bloodthirsty savages, should at that particular time desire 
 or permit a visit from his two daughters, is a question not 
 easy to answer. Nor is the difficulty lessened when it is 
 remembered that the young ladies are to make the journey 
 through a wilderness full of Indian scalping-parties. It is 
 equally difficult to see why the lover of Alice should choose, 
 merely for the sake of a romantic ride, to conduct her and 
 her sister by a circuitous and most perilous by-path through 
 the forests, when they might more easily have gone by a 
 good road under the safe escort of a column of troops who 
 marched for the fort that very morning. The story founded 
 on these gross inventions is sustained by various minor im- 
 probabilities, which can not escape the reader unless his 
 attention is absorbed by the powerful interest of the nar- 
 rative. 
 
 It seems to us a defect in a novel or a poem when the 
 heroine is compelled to undergo bodily hardship, to sleep 
 out at night in the woods, drenched by rain, stung by mos- 
 quitoes, and scratched by briers to forego all appliances of 
 the toilet, and above all, to lodge in an Indian wigwam. 
 Women have sometimes endured such privation, and en- 
 dured it with fortitude ; but it may be safely affirmed that, 
 for the time, all grace and romance were banished from their 
 presence. We read Longfellow's " Evangeline " with much 
 sympathy in the fortunes of the errant heroine, until, as we 
 approached the end of the poem, every other sentiment was 
 lost in admiration of the unparalleled extent of her wander- 
 ings, at the dexterity with which she contrived to elude at 
 
368 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 least a dozen tribes of savages at that time in a state of war, 
 at the strength of her constitution, and at her marvelous 
 proficiency in woodcraft. When, however, we had followed 
 her for about two thousand miles on her forest pilgrimage, 
 and reflected on the figure she must have made, so tattered 
 and bepatched, bedrenched and bedraggled, we could not 
 but esteem it a happy circumstance that she failed, as she 
 did, to meet her lover ; since, had he seen her in such 
 plight, every spark of sentiment must have vanished from 
 his breast, and all the romance of the poem been inglori- 
 ously extinguished. With Cooper's heroines, Cora and Alice, 
 the case is not so hard. Yet, as it does not appear that, on 
 a journey of several weeks, they were permitted to carry so 
 much as a valise or a carpet-bag, and as we are expressly 
 told that, on several occasions, they dropped by the wayside 
 their gloves, veils, and other useful articles of apparel, it is 
 certain that at the journey's end they must have presented 
 an appearance more calculated to call forth a Christian sym- 
 pathy than any emotion of a more romantic nature. 
 
 In respect to the delineation of character, " The Last of 
 the Mohicans " is surpassed by several other works of the 
 author. Its distinguishing merit lies in its descriptions of 
 scenery and action. Of the personages who figure in it, one 
 of the most interesting is the young Mohican, Uncas, who, 
 however, does not at all resemble a genuine Indian. Magua, 
 the villain of the story, is a less untruthful portrait. Cooper 
 has been criticised for representing him as falling in love 
 with Cora ; and the criticism is based on the alleged ground 
 that passions of this kind are not characteristic of the In- 
 dian. This may, in some qualified sense, be true ; but it is 
 well known that Indians, in real life as well as in novels, 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 369 
 
 display a peculiar partiality for white women, on the same 
 principle by which Italians are prone to admire a light com- 
 plexion, while the Swedes regard a brunette with highest es- 
 teem. Cora was the very person to fascinate an Indian. 
 The coldest warrior would gladly have received her into his 
 lodge, and promoted her to be his favorite wife, wholly dis- 
 pensing, in honor of her charms, with flagellation or any of 
 the severer marks of conjugal displeasure. 
 
 The character of Hawkeye or Leatherstocking is, in 
 " The Last of the Mohicans " as elsewhere, clearly and ad- 
 mirably drawn. He often displays, however, a weakness 
 which excites the impatience of the reader an excessive 
 and ill-timed loquacity. When, for example, in the fight at 
 Glenn's Falls, he and Major Heywood are crouching in the 
 thicket, watching the motions of four Indians, whose heads 
 are visible above a log at a little distance, and who, in the 
 expression of Hawkeye himself, are gathering for a rush, the 
 scout employs the time in dilating upon the properties of 
 the "long-barreled, soft-metaled rifle." The design is, no 
 doubt, to convey an impression of his coolness in moments 
 of extreme danger ; but, under such circumstances, the 
 bravest man would judge it the part of good sense to use 
 his eyes rather than his tongue. Men of Hawkeye's class, 
 however talkative they may be at the camp-fire, are remark- 
 able for preserving a close silence while engaged in the 
 active labors of their calling. 
 
 It is easy to find fault with " The Last of the Mohicans," 
 but it is far from easy to rival or even approach its excel- 
 lences. The book has the genuine game flavor ; it exhales 
 the odors of the pine-woods and the freshness of the moun- 
 tain wind. Its dark and rugged scenery rises as distinctly 
 24 
 
37 o JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 on the eye as the images of the painter's canvas, or rather 
 as the reflection of Nature herself. But it is not as the mere 
 rendering of material forms that these wood-paintings are 
 most highly to be esteemed ; they breathe the somber poetry 
 of solitude and danger. In these achievements of his art, 
 Cooper, we think, has no equal, unless it may be the author 
 of that striking romance, "Wacousta; or, The Prophecy," 
 whose fine powers of imagination are, however, even less 
 under the guidance of a just taste than those of the Ameri- 
 can novelist. 
 
 The most obvious merit of " The Last of the Mohicans " 
 consists in its descriptions of action, in the power with which 
 the author absorbs the reader's sympathies, and leads him, 
 as it were, to play a part in the scene. One reads the ac- 
 counts of a great battle aside from any cause or principle 
 at issue with the same kind of interest with which he be- 
 holds the grand destructive phenomena of nature, a tempest 
 at sea, or a tornado in the tropics ; yet with a feeling far 
 more intense, since the conflict is not a mere striving of in- 
 sensate elements, but of living tides of human wrath and 
 valor. With descriptions of petty skirmishes or single com- 
 bats the feeling is of a different kind. The reader is enlisted 
 in the fray a partaker, as it were, in every thought and 
 movement of the combatants, in the alternations of fear and 
 triumph, the prompt expedient, the desperate resort, the pal- 
 pitations of human weakness, or the courage that faces 
 death. Of this species of description, the scene of the con- 
 flict at Glenn's Falls is an admirable example, unsurpassed, 
 we think, even by the combat of Balfour and Bothwell, or 
 by any other passage of the kind in the novels of Scott. 
 The scenery of the fight, the foaming cataract, the little islet 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 37 1 
 
 with its stout-hearted defenders, the precipices and the dark 
 pine-woods, add greatly to the effect. The scene is conjured 
 before the reader's eye, not as a vision or a picture, but like 
 the tangible presence of rock, river, and forest. His very 
 senses seem conspiring to deceive him. He seems to feel 
 against his cheek the wind and spray of the cataract, and 
 hear its sullen roar, amid the yells of the assailants and the 
 sharp crack of the answering rifle. The scene of the strife 
 is pointed out to travelers as if this fictitious combat were a 
 real event of history. Mills, factories, and bridges have 
 marred the native wildness of the spot, and a village has 
 usurped the domain of the forest ; yet still those foaming 
 waters and black sheets of limestone rock are clothed with 
 all the interest of an historic memory ; and the cicerone of 
 the place can show the caves where the affrighted sisters 
 took refuge, the point where the Indians landed, and the 
 rock whence the despairing Huron was flung into the abyss. 
 Nay, if the lapse of a few years has not enlightened his un- 
 derstanding, the guide would as soon doubt the reality of 
 the battle of Saratoga as that of Hawkeye's fight with the 
 Mingoes. 
 
 " The Pioneers," the fourth volume of the series, is, in 
 several respects, the best of Cooper's works. Unlike some 
 of its companions, it bears every mark of having been writ- 
 ten from the results of personal experience ; and, indeed, 
 Cooper is well known to have drawn largely on the recollec- 
 tions of his earlier years in the composition of this novel. 
 The characters are full of vitality and truth, though, in one 
 or two instances, the excellence of the delineation is im- 
 paired by a certain taint of vulgarity. Leatherstocking, as 
 he appears in " The Pioneers," must certainly have had his 
 
372 JAMES FEN I MO RE COOPER. 
 
 living original in some gaunt, gray-haired old woodsman, to 
 whose stories of hunts and Indian fights the author may 
 perhaps have listened in his boyhood with rapt ears, uncon- 
 sciously garnering up in memory the germs which time was 
 to develop into a rich harvest. The scenes of the Christmas 
 turkey-shooting, the fish-spearing by firelight on Otsego 
 Lake, the rescue from the panther, and the burning of the 
 woods, are all inimitable in their way. Of all Cooper's 
 works, " The Pioneers " seems to us most likely to hold a 
 permanent place in literature, for it preserves a vivid reflec- 
 tion of scenes and characters which will soon have passed 
 away. 
 
 "The Prairie," the last of the " Leatherstocking Tales," 
 is a novel of far inferior merit. The story is very improb- 
 able, and not very interesting. The pictures of scenery are 
 less true to nature than in the previous volumes, and seem to 
 indicate that Cooper had little or no personal acquaintance 
 with the remoter parts of the West. The book, however, 
 has several passages of much interest, one of the best of 
 which is the scene in which the aged trapper discovers, in 
 the person of a young officer, the grandson of Duncan Hey- 
 wood and Alice Munro, whom, half a century before, he 
 had protected in such imminent jeopardy on the rocks of 
 Glenn's Falls and among the mountains of Lake George. 
 The death of Abiram White is very striking, though remind- 
 ing one of a similar scene in "The Spy." The grand de- 
 formity in the story is the wretched attempt at humor in the 
 person of Dr. Obed Battius. David Gamut, in " The Mo- 
 hicans," is bad enough ; but Battius out-Herods Herod, and 
 great must be the merit of the book which one such incubus 
 would not sink beyond redemption. 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 373 
 
 The novel which first brought the name of Cooper into 
 distinguished notice was " The Spy " ; and this book, which 
 gave him his earliest reputation, will contribute largely to 
 preserve it. The story is full of interest, and the character 
 of Harvey Birch is drawn with singular skill. 
 
 " The Pilot " is usually considered the best of Cooper's 
 sea-tales. It is in truth a masterpiece of his genius ; and 
 although the reader is apt to pass with impatience over the 
 long conversations among the ladies at Saint Ruth's, and 
 between Alice Dunscombe and the disguised Paul Jones, 
 yet he is amply repaid when he follows the author to his 
 congenial element. The description of the wreck of the 
 Ariel, and the death of Long Tom Coffin, can scarcely be 
 spoken of in terms of too much admiration. Long Tom is 
 to Cooper's sea-tales what Leatherstocking is to the novels 
 of the forest a conception so original and forcible that 
 posterity will hardly suffer it to escape from remembrance. 
 " The Red Rover," " The Water-Witch," and the remainder 
 of the sea-tales, are marked with the same excellences and 
 defects with the novels already mentioned, and further com- 
 ments would therefore be useless. 
 
 The recent death of the man who had achieved so much 
 in the cause of American literature has called forth, as it 
 should have done, a general expression of regret ; and the 
 outcries, not unprovoked, which of late have been raised 
 against him, are drowned in the voice of sorrow. The most 
 marked and original of American writers has passed from 
 among us. It was an auspicious moment when his earlier 
 works first saw the light ; for there was promise in their rude 
 vigor a good hope that from such rough beginnings the 
 country might develop a literary progeny which, taking les- 
 
374 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 sons in the graces, and refining with the lapse of years, 
 might one day do honor to its parentage ; and when the 
 chastened genius of Bryant arose it seemed that the fulfill- 
 ment of such a hope was not far remote. But this fair prom- 
 ise has failed, and to this hour the purpose, the energy, the 
 passion of America have never found their adequate ex- 
 pression on the printed page. The number of good writers 
 truly American, by which we mean all those who are not 
 imitators of foreign modes, might be counted on the fingers 
 of the two hands ; nor are the writers of this small class, not 
 excepting even Bryant himself, in any eminent degree the 
 favorites of those among their countrymen who make pre- 
 tensions to taste and refinement. As in life and manners 
 the American people seem bent on aping the polished luxury 
 of another hemisphere, so likewise they reserve their enthu- 
 siasm and their purses for the honeyed verse and sugared 
 prose of an emasculate and supposititious literature. 
 
 Some French writer Chateaubriand, we believe ob- 
 serves that the only portion of the American people who 
 exhibit any distinctive national character are the backwoods- 
 men of the West. The remark is not strictly true. The 
 whole merchant marine, from captains to cabin-boys, the 
 lumbermen of Maine, the farmers of New England, and 
 indeed all the laboring population of the country, not of 
 foreign origin, are marked with strong and peculiar traits. 
 But when we ascend into the educated and polished classes 
 these peculiarities are smoothed away, until, in many cases, 
 they are invisible. An educated Englishman is an English- 
 man still ; an educated Frenchman is often intensely French; 
 but an educated American is apt to have no national char- 
 acter at all. The condition of the literature of the country 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 375 
 
 is, as might be expected, in close accordance with these pe- 
 culiarities of its society. With but few exceptions, the only 
 books which reflect the national mind are those which ema- 
 nate from, or are adapted to, the unschooled classes of the 
 people such, for example, as Dr. Bird's "Nick of the 
 Woods," " The Life of David Crockett," " The Big Bear of 
 Arkansas," with its kindred legends, and, we may add, the 
 earlier novels of Cooper. In the politer walks of literature 
 we find much grace of style, but very little originality of 
 thought productions which might as readily be taken for 
 the work of an Englishman as of an American. 
 
 This lack of originality has been loudly complained of, 
 but it seems to us inevitable under the circumstances. The 
 healthful growth of the intellect, whether national or indi- 
 vidual, like healthful growth of every other kind, must pro- 
 ceed from the action of internal energies, not from foreign 
 aid. Too much assistance, too many stimulants, weaken 
 instead of increasing it. The cravings of the American 
 mind, eager as they are, are amply supplied by the copious 
 stream of English current literature. Thousands, nay, mil- 
 lions of readers and writers drink from this bounteous 
 source, and feed on this foreign aliment, till the whole com- 
 plexion of their thoughts is tinged with it, and by a sort of 
 necessity they think and write at second hand. If this trans- 
 atlantic supply were completely cut off, and the nation aban- 
 doned to its own resources, it would eventually promote, in 
 a high degree, the development of the national intellect. 
 The vitality and force, which are abundantly displayed in 
 every department of active life, would soon find their way 
 into a higher channel, to meet the new and clamorous ne- 
 cessity for mental food ; and, in the space of a generation, 
 
376 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 the oft-repeated demand for an original literature would be 
 fully satisfied. 
 
 In respect to every department of active life, the United 
 States are fully emancipated from their ancient colonial sub- 
 jection. They can plan, invent,, and achieve for themselves, 
 and this, too, with a commanding success. But in all the 
 finer functions of thought, in all matters of literature and 
 taste, we are essentially provincial. England once held us 
 in a state of political dependency. That day is past; but 
 she still holds us in an intellectual dependency far more 
 complete. Her thoughts become our thoughts, by a process 
 unconscious but inevitable. She caters for our mind and 
 fancy with a liberal hand. We are spared the labor of self- 
 support ; but by the universal law, applicable to nations no 
 less than to individuals, we are weakened by the want of 
 independent exercise. It is a matter of common remark 
 that the most highly educated classes among us are far from 
 being the most efficient either in thought or action. The 
 vigorous life of the nation springs from the deep rich soil at 
 the bottom of society. Its men of greatest influence are 
 those who have studied men before they studied books, and 
 who, by hard battling with the world, and boldly following 
 out the bent of their native genius, have hewed their own 
 way to wealth, station, or knowledge from the plowshare or 
 the forecastle. The comparative shortcomings of the best 
 educated among us may be traced to several causes ; but, 
 as we are constrained to think, they are mainly owing to 
 the fact that the highest civilization of America is commu- 
 nicated from without instead of being developed from within, 
 and is therefore nerveless and unproductive. 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 MANY years ago, while yet Fancy claimed that right in 
 me which Fact has since, to my no small loss, so successfully 
 disputed, I pleased myself with imagining the play of " Ham- 
 let " published under some alias, and as the work of a new 
 candidate in literature. Then I played, as the children say, 
 that it came in regular course before some well-meaning 
 doer of criticisms, who had never read the original (no very 
 wild assumption, as things go), and endeavored to conceive 
 the kind of way in which he would be likely to take it. I 
 put myself in his place, and tried to write such a perfunctory 
 notice as I thought would be likely, in filling his column, to 
 satisfy his conscience. But it was a tour de force quite be- 
 yond my power to execute without grimace. I could not 
 arrive at that artistic absorption in my own conception 
 which would enable me to be natural, and found myself, like 
 a bad actor, continually betraying my self-consciousness by 
 my very endeavor to hide it under caricature. The path 
 of nature is indeed a narrow one, and it is only the immor- 
 tals that seek it, and, when they find it, do not find them- 
 selves cramped therein. My result was a dead failure 
 satire instead of comedy. I could not shake off that strange 
 
378 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 accumulation which we call self, and report honestly what I 
 saw and felt even to myself, much less to others. 
 
 Yet I have often thought that, unless we can so far free 
 ourselves from our own prepossessions as to be capable of 
 bringing to a work of art some freshness of sensation, and 
 receiving from it in turn some new surprise of sympathy and 
 admiration some shock even, it may be, of instinctive dis- 
 taste and repulsion though we may praise or blame, weigh- 
 ing our pros and cons in the nicest balances, sealed by proper 
 authority, yet we shall not criticise in the highest sense. 
 On the other hand, unless we admit certain principles as 
 fixed beyond question, we shall be able to render no ade- 
 quate judgment, but only to record our impressions, which 
 may be valuable or not, according to the greater or less duc- 
 tility of the senses on which they are made. Charles Lamb, 
 for example, came to the old English dramatists with the 
 feeling of a discoverer. He brought with him an alert curi- 
 osity, and everything was delightful simply because it was 
 strange. Like other early adventurers, he sometimes mis- 
 takes shining sand for gold ; but he had the great advantage 
 of not feeling himself responsible for the manners of the 
 inhabitants he found there, and not thinking it needful 
 to make them square with any Westminster Catechism of 
 aesthetics. Best of all, he does not feel compelled to com- 
 pare them with the Greeks, about whom he knew little, and 
 cared less. He takes them as he finds them, describes them 
 in a few pregnant sentences, and displays his specimens of 
 their growth and manufacture. When he arrives at the 
 dramatists of the Restoration, so far from being shocked, 
 he is charmed with their pretty and unmoral ways; and 
 what he says of them reminds us of blunt Captain Dampier, 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 379 
 
 who, in his account of the island of Timor, remarks as a 
 matter of no consequence that the natives " take as many 
 wives as they can maintain, and as for religion they have 
 none." 
 
 Lamb had the great advantage of seeing the elder drama- 
 tists as they were ; it did not lie within his province to 
 point out what they were not. Himself a fragmentary 
 writer, he had more sympathy with imagination where it 
 gathers into the intense focus of passionate phrase than with 
 that higher form of it where it is the faculty that shapes, 
 gives unity of design, and balanced gravitation of parts. 
 And yet it is only this higher form of it which can unim- 
 peachably assure to any work the dignity and permanence 
 of a classic ; for it results in that exquisite something called 
 style, which, like the grace of perfect breeding, everywhere 
 pervasive and nowhere emphatic, makes itself felt by the 
 skill with which it effaces itself, and masters us at last with 
 a sense of indefinable completeness. On a lower plane we 
 may detect it in the structure of a sentence, in the limpid 
 expression that implies sincerity of thought ; but it is only 
 where it combines and organizes, where it eludes observation 
 in particulars to give the rarer delight of perfection as a 
 whole, that it belongs to art. Then it is truly ideal, the 
 forma mentis ceterna, not as a passive mold into which the 
 thought is poured, but as the conceptive energy which finds 
 all material plastic to its preconceived design. Mere vivid- 
 ness of expression, such as makes quotable passages, comes 
 of the complete surrender of self to the impression, whether 
 spiritual or sensual, of the moment. It is a quality, perhaps, 
 in which the young poet is richer than the mature, his very 
 inexperience making him more venturesome in those leaps 
 
3 8o SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 of language that startle us with their rashness only to be- 
 witch us the more with the happy ease of their accomplish- 
 ment. For this there are no existing laws of rhetoric, for it 
 is from such felicities that the rhetoricians deduce and codify 
 their statutes. It is something which can not be improved 
 upon or cultivated, for it is immediate and intuitive. But 
 this power of expression is subsidiary, and goes only a little 
 way toward the making of a great poet. Imagination, where 
 it is truly creative, is a faculty, and not a quality ; it looks 
 before and after, it gives the form that makes all the parts 
 work together harmoniously toward a given end, its seat is 
 in the higher reason, and it is efficient only as a servant of 
 the will. Imagination, as it is too often misunderstood, 
 is mere phantasy, the image-making power, common to all 
 who have the gift of dreams, or who can afford to buy it in 
 a vulgar drug as De Quincey bought it. 
 
 The true poetic imagination is of one quality, whether 
 it be ancient or modern, and equally subject to those laws 
 of grace, of proportion, of design, in whose free service, and 
 in that alone,'it can become art. Those laws are something 
 which do not 
 
 " . . . . alter when they alteration find, 
 And bend with the remover to remove." 
 
 And they are more clearly to be deduced from the eminent 
 examples of Greek literature than from any other source. 
 It is the advantage of this select company of ancients that 
 their works are defecated of all turbid mixture of contem- 
 poraneousness, and have become to us pure literature, our 
 judgment and enjoyment of which can not be vulgarized by 
 any prejudices of time or place. This is why the study of 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 381 
 
 them is fitly called a liberal education, because it emanci- 
 pates the mind from every narrow provincialism whether of 
 egoism or tradition, and is the apprenticeship that every 
 one must serve before becoming a free brother of the guild 
 which passes the torch of life from age to age. There 
 would be no dispute about the advantages of that Greek 
 culture which Schiller advocated with such generous elo- 
 quence, if the great authors of antiquity had not been de- 
 graded from teachers of thinking to drillers in grammar, 
 and made the ruthless pedagogues of root and inflection, 
 instead of companions for whose society the mind must put 
 on her highest mood. The discouraged youth too naturally 
 transfers the epithet of dead from the languages to the 
 authors that wrote in them. What concern have we with 
 the shades of dialect in Homer or Theocritus, provided 
 they speak the spiritual lingua franca that abolishes all 
 alienage of race, and makes whatever shore of time we land 
 on hospitable and homelike ? There is much that is decid- 
 uous in books, but all that gives them a title to rank as 
 literature in the highest sense is perennial. Their vitality 
 is the vitality not of one or another blood or tongue, but of 
 human nature ; their truth is not topical and transitory, but 
 of universal acceptation; and thus all great authors seem 
 the coevals not only of each other, but of whoever reads 
 them, growing wiser with him as he grows wise, and unlock- 
 ing to him one secret after another as his own life and 
 experience give him the key, but on no other condition. 
 Their meaning is absolute, not conditional ; it is a property 
 of theirs, quite irrespective of manners or creed ; for the 
 highest culture, the development of the individual by obser- 
 vation, reflection, and study, leads to one result, whether in 
 
382 . SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 Athens or in London. The more we know of ancient litera- 
 ture, the more we are struck with its modernness, just as 
 the more we study the maturer dramas of Shakespeare, the 
 more we feel his nearness in certain primary qualities to 
 the antique and classical. Yet even in saying this I tacitly 
 make the admission that it is the Greeks who must furnish 
 us with our standard of comparison. Their stamp is upon 
 all the allowed measures and weights of aesthetic criticism. 
 Nor does a consciousness of this, nor a constant reference 
 to it, in any sense reduce us to the mere copying of a by- 
 gone excellence ; for it is the test of excellence in any de- 
 partment of art that it can never be bygone, and it is not 
 mere difference from antique models, but the way in which 
 that difference is shown, the direction it takes, that we are 
 to consider in our judgment of a modern work. The model 
 is not there to be copied merely, but that the study of it 
 may lead us insensibly to the same processes of thought by 
 which its purity of outline and harmony of parts were at- 
 tained, and enable us to feel that strength is consistent with 
 repose, that multiplicity is not abundance, that grace is but 
 a more refined form of power, and that a thought is none 
 the less profound that the limpidity of its expression allows 
 us to measure it at a glance. To be possessed with this 
 conviction gives us at least a determinate point of view, 
 and enables us to appeal a case of taste to a court of final 
 judicature, whose decisions are guided by immutable prin- 
 ciples. When we hear of certain productions that they are 
 feeble in design, but masterly in parts, that they are inco- 
 herent, to be sure, but have great merits of style, we know 
 that it can not be true; for, in the highest examples we 
 have, the master is revealed by his plan, by his power of 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 383 
 
 making all accessories, each in its due relation, subordinate 
 to it, and that to limit style to the rounding of a period or 
 a distich is wholly to misapprehend its truest and highest 
 function. Donne is full of salient verses that would take 
 the rudest March winds of criticism with their beauty, of 
 thoughts that first tease us like charades and then delight 
 us with the felicity of their solution ; but these have not 
 saved him. He is exiled to the limbo of the formless and 
 the fragmentary. To take a more recent instance : Words- 
 worth had, in some respects, a deeper insight, and a more 
 adequate utterance of it, than any man of his generation. 
 But it was a piecemeal insight and utterance ; his imagina- 
 tion was feminine, not masculine, receptive, and not crea- 
 tive. His longer poems are Egyptian sand-wastes, with 
 here and there an oasis of exquisite scenery, a grand image, 
 Sphinx-like, half buried in drifting commonplaces, or the 
 solitary Pompey's Pillar of some towering thought. But 
 what is the fate of a poet who owns the quarry, but can not 
 build the poem ? Ere the century is out he will be nine 
 parts dead, and immortal only in that tenth part of him 
 which is included in a thin volume of "beauties." Already 
 Moxon has felt the need of extracting this essential oil of 
 him; and his memory will be kept alive, if at all, by the 
 precious material rather than the workmanship of the vase 
 that contains his heart. And what shall we forebode of so 
 many modern poems, full of splendid passages, beginning 
 everywhere and leading nowhere, reminding us of nothing 
 so much as the amateur architect who planned his own 
 house, and forgot the staircase that should connect one floor 
 with another, putting it as an afterthought on the outside ? 
 Lichtenberg says somewhere that it was the advantage 
 
384 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 of the ancients to write before the great art of writing ill 
 had been invented ; and Shakespeare may be said to have 
 had the good luck of coming after Spenser (to whom the 
 debt of English poetry is incalculable) had reinvented the 
 art of writing well. But Shakespeare arrived at a mastery 
 in this respect which sets him above all other poets. He is 
 not only superior in degree, but he is also different in kind. 
 In that less purely artistic sphere of style which concerns 
 the matter rather than the form his charm is often unspeak- 
 able. How perfect his style is may be judged from the fact 
 that it never curdles into mannerism, and thus absolutely 
 eludes imitation. Though here, if anywhere, the style is 
 the man, yet it is noticeable only, like the images of Brutus, 
 by its absence, so thoroughly is he absorbed in his work, 
 while he fuses thought and word indissolubly together, till 
 all the particles cohere by the best virtue of each. With 
 perfect truth he has said of himself that he writes 
 
 " .... all one, ever the same, 
 Putting invention in a noted weed, 
 That every word doth almost tell his name." 
 
 And yet who has so succeeded in imitating him as to remind 
 us of him by even so much as the gait of a single verse ? 
 Those magnificent crystallizations of feeling and phrase, 
 basaltic masses, molten and interfused by the primal fires of 
 passion, are not to be reproduced by the slow experiments 
 of the laboratory striving to parody creation with artifice. 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold seems to think that Shakespeare has 
 damaged English poetry. I wish he had ! It is true he 
 lifted Dryden above himself in " All for Love " ; but it was 
 Dryden who said of him, by instinctive conviction rather 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 385 
 
 than judgment, that within his magic circle none dare tread 
 but he. Is he to blame for the extravagances of modern 
 diction, which are but the reaction of the brazen age against 
 the degeneracy of art into artifice, that has characterized the 
 silver period in every literature ? The quality in him which 
 makes him at once so thoroughly English and so thoroughly 
 cosmopolitan is that aeration of the understanding by the 
 imagination which he has in common with all the greater 
 poets, and which is the privilege of genius. The modern 
 school, which mistakes violence for intensity, seems to catch 
 its breath when it finds itself on the verge of natural ex- 
 pression, and to say to itself, " Good Heavens ! I had almost 
 forgotten I was inspired ! " But of Shakespeare we do not 
 even suspect that he ever remembered it. He does not al- 
 ways speak in that intense way that flames up in " Lear " and 
 " Macbeth " through the rifts of a soil volcanic with passion. 
 He allows us here and there the repose of a commonplace 
 character, the consoling distraction of a humorous one. He 
 knows how to be equable and grand without effort, so that 
 we forget the altitude of thought to which he has led us, be- 
 cause the slowly receding slope of a mountain stretching 
 downward by ample gradations gives a less startling impres- 
 sion of height than to look over the edge of a ravine that 
 makes but a wrinkle in its flank. 
 
 Shakespeare has been sometimes taxed with the barbar- 
 ism of profuseness and exaggeration. But this is to measure 
 him by a Sophoclean scale. The simplicity of the antique 
 tragedy is by no means that of expression, but is of form 
 merely. In the utterance of great passions, something must 
 be indulged to the extravagance of nature ; the subdued 
 tones to which pathos and sentiment are limited can not ex- 
 2 5 
 
386 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 press a tempest of the soul. The range between the piteous 
 "no more but so," in which Ophelia compresses the heart- 
 break whose compression was to make her mad, and that 
 sublime appeal of Lear to the elements of nature, only to 
 be matched, if matched at all, in the "Prometheus," is a wide 
 one, and Shakespeare is as truly simple in the one as in the 
 other. The simplicity of poetry is not that of prose, nor its 
 clearness that of ready apprehension merely. To a subtile 
 sense, a sense heightened by sympathy, those sudden fervors 
 of phrase, gone ere one can say it lightens, that show us 
 Macbeth groping among the perplexities of thought in his 
 conscience-clouded mind, and reveal the intricacy rather 
 than enlighten it, while they leave the eye darkened to the 
 literal meaning of the words, yet make their logical se- 
 quence, the grandeur of the conception, and its truth to 
 nature clearer than sober daylight could. There is an ob- 
 scurity of mist rising from the uridrained shallows of the 
 mind, and there is the darkness of thunder-cloud gathering 
 its electric masses with passionate intensity from the clear 
 element of the imagination, not at random or willfully, but 
 by the natural processes of the creative faculty, to brood 
 those flashes of expression that transcend rhetoric, and are 
 only to be apprehended by the poetic instinct. 
 
 In that secondary office of imagination, where it serves 
 the artist, not as the reason that shapes, but as the inter- 
 preter of his conceptions into words, there is a distinction to 
 be noticed between the higher and lower mode in which it 
 performs its function. It may be either creative or pictorial, 
 may body forth the thought or merely image it forth. With 
 Shakespeare, for example, imagination seems immanent in 
 his very consciousness ; with Milton, in his memory. In 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 387 
 
 the one it sends, as if without knowing it, a fiery life into 
 the verse 
 
 " Sei die Braut das Wort, 
 Brautigam der Geist " ; 
 
 in the other it elaborates a certain pomp and elevation. 
 Accordingly, the bias of the former is toward over-intensity, 
 of the latter toward over-diffusiveness. Shakespeare's temp- 
 tation is to push a willing metaphor beyond its strength, to 
 make a passion over-inform its tenement of words ; Milton 
 can not resist running a simile on into a fugue. One always 
 fancies Shakespeare in his best verses, and Milton at the 
 key-board of his organ. Shakespeare's language is no longer 
 the mere vehicle of thought, it has become part of it, its very 
 flesh and blood. The pleasure it gives us is unmixed, di- 
 rect, like that from the smell of a flower or the flavor of a 
 fruit. Milton sets everywhere his little pitfalls of bookish 
 association for the memory. I know that Milton's manner 
 is very grand. It is slow, it is stately, moving as in tri- 
 umphal procession, with music, with historic banners, with 
 spoils from every time and every region, and captive epi- 
 thets, like huge Sicambrians, thrust their broad shoulders 
 between us and the thought whose pomp they decorate. 
 But it is manner, nevertheless, as is proved by the ease 
 with which it is parodied, by the danger it is in of degen- 
 erating into mannerism whenever it forgets itself. Fancy a 
 parody of Shakespeare I do not mean of his words, but of 
 his tone, for that is what distinguishes the master. You 
 might as well try it with the Venus of Milo. In Shake- 
 speare it is always the higher thing, the thought, the fancy, 
 that is preeminent ; it is Caesar that draws all eyes, and not 
 
388 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 the chariot in which he rides, or the throng which is but the 
 reverberation of his supremacy. If not, how explain the 
 charm with which he dominates in all tongues, even under 
 the disenchantment of translation ? Among the most alien 
 races he is as solidly at home as a mountain seen from dif- 
 ferent sides by many lands, itself superbly solitary, yet the 
 companion of all thoughts and domesticated in all imagina- 
 tions. 
 
 In description Shakespeare is especially great, and in 
 that instinct which gives the peculiar quality of any object 
 of contemplation in a single happy word that colors the im- 
 pression on the sense with the mood of the mind. Most 
 descriptive poets seem to think that a hogshead of water 
 caught at the spout will give us a livelier notion of a thun- 
 der-shower than the sullen muttering of the first big drops 
 upon the roof. They forget that it is by suggestion, not 
 cumulation, that profound impressions are made upon the 
 imagination. Milton's parsimony (so rare in him) makes 
 the success of his 
 
 " Sky lowered, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops 
 Wept at completion of the mortal sin." 
 
 Shakespeare understood perfectly the charm of indirect- 
 ness, of making his readers seem to discover for themselves 
 what he means to show them. If he wishes to tell that the 
 leaves of the willow are gray on the under side, he does not 
 make it a mere fact of observation by bluntly saying so, but 
 makes it picturesquely reveal itself to us as it might in na- 
 ture : 
 
 " There is a willow grows athwart the flood, 
 That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream." 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 389 
 
 Where he goes to the landscape for a comparison, he does 
 not ransack wood and field for specialties, as if he were 
 gathering simples, but takes one image, obvious, familiar, 
 and makes it new to us either by sympathy or contrast with 
 his own immediate feeling. He always looked upon nature 
 with the eyes of the mind. Thus he can make the melan- 
 choly of autumn or the gladness of spring alike pathetic : 
 
 " That time of year thou mayst in me behold, 
 When yellow leaves or few, or none, do hang 
 Upon those boughs that shake against the cold, 
 Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang." 
 
 Of again : 
 
 " From thee have I been absent in the spring, 
 When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, 
 Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, 
 That heavy Saturn leaped and laughed with him." 
 
 But as dramatic poet, Shakespeare goes even beyond 
 this, entering so perfectly into the consciousness of the 
 characters he himself has created, that he sees everything 
 through their peculiar mood, and makes every epithet, as if 
 unconsciously, echo and reecho it. Theseus asks Hermia 
 
 " Can you endure the livery of a nun, 
 For aye to be in shady cloister mewed, 
 To live a barren sister all your life, 
 Chanting faint hymns to the coldfruitkss moon ? " 
 
 When Romeo must leave Juliet, the private pang of the 
 lovers becomes a property of Nature herself, and 
 
 " . . . . envious streaks 
 Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east." 
 
390 
 
 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 But even more striking is the following instance from " Mac- 
 beth " : 
 
 " . . . . the raven himself is hoarse 
 That croaks the fatal enterance of Duncan 
 Under your battlements." 
 
 Here Shakespeare, with his wonted tact, makes use of a vul- 
 gar superstition, of a type in which mortal presentiment is 
 already embodied, to make a common ground on which the 
 hearer and Lady Macbeth may meet. After this prelude we 
 are prepared to be possessed by her emotion more fully, to 
 feel in her ears the dull tramp of the blood that seems to 
 make the raven's croak yet hoarser than it is, and to betray 
 the stealthy advance of the mind to its fell purpose. For 
 Lady Macbeth hears not so much the voice of the bodeful 
 bird as of her own premeditated murder, and we are thus 
 made her shuddering accomplices before the fact. Every 
 image receives the color of the mind, every word throbs 
 with the pulse of one controlling passion. The epithet 
 fatal makes us feel the implacable resolve of the speaker, 
 and shows us that she is tampering with her conscience by 
 putting off the crime upon the prophecy of the Weird Sis- 
 ters to which she alludes. In the word battlements, too, not 
 only is the fancy led up to the perch of the raven, but a 
 hostile image takes the place of a hospitable ; for men com- 
 monly speak of receiving a guest under their roof or within 
 their doors. That this is not over-ingenuity, seeing what is 
 not to be seen, nor meant to be seen, is clear to me from 
 what follows. When Duncan and Banquo arrive at the 
 castle, their fancies, free from all suggestion of evil, call 
 up only gracious and amiable images. The raven was but 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 391 
 
 the fantastical creation of Lady Macbeth's overwrought 
 brain : 
 
 " This castle has a pleasant seat, the air 
 Nimbly and sweetly doth commend itself 
 Unto our gentle senses. 
 
 This guest of summer, 
 The temple-haunting martlet, doth approve 
 By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath 
 Smells ivooingly here ; no jutty, frieze, 
 Buttress, or coigne of vantage, but this bird 
 Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle." 
 
 The contrast here can not but be as intentional as it is 
 marked. Every image is one of welcome, security, and con- 
 fidence. The summer, one may well fancy, would be a very 
 different hostess from her whom we have just seen expecting 
 them. And why temple-haunting, unless because it suggests 
 sanctuary ? O immaginativa, che si ne rubi delle cose di fuor, 
 how infinitely more precious are the inward ones thou givest 
 in return ! If all this be accident, it is at least one of those 
 accidents of which only this man was ever capable. I 
 divine something like it now and then in ^Eschylus, through 
 the mists of a language which will not let me be sure of 
 what I see, but nowhere else. Shakespeare, it is true, had, 
 as respects English, the privilege which only first-comers 
 enjoy. The language was still fresh from those sources at 
 too great a distance from which it becomes fit only for the 
 service of prose. Wherever he dipped, it came up clear and 
 sparkling, undefiled as yet by the drainage of literary facto- 
 ries, or of those dye-houses where the machine-woven fab- 
 rics of sham culture are colored up to the last desperate 
 style of sham sentiment. Those who criticise his diction as 
 
39 z SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 sometimes extravagant should remember that in poetry lan- 
 guage is something more than merely the vehicle of thought, 
 that it is meant to convey the sentiment as much as the 
 sense, and that, if there is a beauty of use, there is often a 
 higher use of beauty. 
 
 What kind of culture Shakespeare had is uncertain ; how 
 much he had is disputed; that he had as much as he 
 wanted, and of whatever kind he wanted, must be clear to 
 whoever considers the question. Dr. Farmer has proved, in 
 his entertaining essay, that he got everything at second hand 
 from translations, and that, where his translator blundered, 
 he loyally blundered too. But Goethe, the man of widest 
 acquirement in modern times, did precisely the same thing. 
 In his character of poet he set as little store by useless 
 learning as Shakespeare did. He learned to write hex- 
 ameters, not from Homer, but from Voss, and Voss found 
 them faulty ; yet somehow " Hermann und Dorothea " is 
 more readable than "Luise." So far as all the classicism 
 then attainable was concerned, Shakespeare got it as cheap 
 as Goethe did, who always bought it ready-made. For 
 such purposes of mere aesthetic nourishment Goethe always 
 milked other minds if minds those ruminators and digest- 
 ers of antiquity into asses' milk may be called. There were 
 plenty of professors who were for ever assiduously browsing 
 in vales of Enna and on Pentelican slopes among the ves- 
 tiges of antiquity, slowly secreting lacteous facts, and not 
 one of them would have raised his head from that exquisite 
 pasturage, though Pan had made music through his pipe of 
 reeds. Did Goethe wish to work up a Greek theme ? He 
 drove out Herr Bottiger, for example, among that fodder 
 delicious to him for its very dryness, that sapless Arcadia of 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 393 
 
 scholiasts, let him graze, ruminate, and go through all other 
 needful processes of the antiquarian organism, then got him 
 quietly into a corner and milked him. The product, after 
 standing long enough, mantled over with the rich Goethean 
 
 cream, from which a butter could be churned, if not pre- 
 
 * 
 
 cisely classic, quite as good as the ancients could have made 
 out of the same material. But who has ever read the 
 " Achilleis," correct in all ^essential particulars as it proba- 
 bly is ? 
 
 It is impossible to conceive that a man who in other re- 
 spects made such booty of the world around him, whose 
 observation of manners was so minute, and whose insight 
 into character and motives, as if he had been one of God's 
 spies, was so unerring that we accept it without question, as 
 we do Nature herself, and find it more consoling to explain 
 his confessedly immense superiority by attributing it to a 
 happy instinct rather than to the conscientious perfecting of 
 exceptional powers till practice made them seem to work 
 independently of the will which still directed them it is 
 impossible that such a man should not also have profited by 
 the converse of the cultivated and quick-witted men in 
 whose familiar society he lived, that he should not have 
 over and over again discussed points of criticism and art 
 with them, that he should not have had his curiosity, so alive 
 to everything else, excited about those ancients whom uni- 
 versity men then, no doubt, as now, extolled without too 
 much knowledge of what they really were, that he should 
 not have heard too much rather than too little of Aris- 
 totle's " Poetics," Quintilian's "Rhetoric," Horace's " Art of 
 Poetry," and the " Unities," especially from Ben Jonson 
 in short, that he who speaks of himself as 
 
394 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 " Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, 
 With what he most enjoyed contented least," 
 
 and who meditated so profoundly on every other topic of 
 human concern, should never have turned his thought to 
 the principles of that art which was both the delight and 
 business of his life, the bread-winner alike for soul and 
 body. Was there no harvest of the ear for him whose eye 
 had stocked its garners so full as well-nigh to forestall all 
 after-comers? Did he who could so counsel the practicers 
 of an art in which he never arrived at eminence, as in Ham- 
 let's advice to the players, never take counsel with him- 
 self about that other art in which the instinct of the crowd, 
 no less than the judgment of his rivals, awarded him an 
 easy preeminence ? If he had little Latin and less Greek, 
 might he not have had enough of both for every practical 
 purpose on this side pedantry? The most extraordinary, 
 one might almost say contradictory, attainments have been 
 ascribed to him, and yet he has been supposed incapable of 
 what was within easy reach of every boy at Westminster 
 School. There is a knowledge that comes of sympathy as 
 living and genetic as that which comes of mere learning is 
 sapless and unprocreant, and for this no profound study of 
 the languages is needed. 
 
 If Shakespeare did not know the ancients, I think they 
 were at least as unlucky in not knowing him. But is it in- 
 credible that he may have laid hold of an edition of the 
 Greek tragedians, Graed et Latint, and then, with such poor 
 wits as he was master of, contrived to worry 'some consid- 
 erable meaning out of them ? There are at least one or two 
 coincidences which, whether accidental or not, are curious, 
 and which I do not remember to have seen noticed. In the 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 395 
 
 "Electra" of Sophocles, which is almost identical in its 
 leading motive with "Hamlet," the Chorus consoles Electra 
 for the supposed death of Orestes in the same commonplace 
 way which Hamlet's uncle tries with him : 
 
 Qvqrov 7T0u/z? Trarpdf , 'H/U/crpa, (pj)6vei' 
 Qvrjrbq 6' 'Qpearrjq ' ware p) Tiiav arkvt, 
 Haaiv yap rjfuv TOVT' bQeiherai Tradelv. 
 
 " Your father lost a father ; 
 That father lost, lost his. . . . 
 
 But to persever 
 
 In obstinate condolement is a course 
 Of impious stubbornness. . . . 
 
 'Tis common ; all that live must die." 
 
 Shakespeare expatiates somewhat more largely, but the sen- 
 timent in both cases is almost verbally identical. The re- 
 semblance is probably a chance one, for commonplace and 
 consolation were always twin sisters, whom always to escape 
 is given to no man ; but it is nevertheless curious. Here is 
 another, from the " OEdipus Coloneus : " 
 
 ToZf TOI StKaiois x& Pp a XV viKq, ph/av, 
 " Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just." 
 
 The Greek dramatists were somewhat fond of a trick of 
 words in which there is a reduplication of sense as well as 
 of assonance,* as in the " Electra " 
 
 AAe/crpa yrjpaoKovoav avvjutvaia re. 
 
 * The best instance I remember is in " The Frogs," where Bacchus 
 pleads his inexperience at the oar, and says he is 
 
 which might be rendered 
 
 " Unskilled, unsea-soned, and un-Salamised." 
 
396 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 So Shakespeare 
 
 " Unhouselled, disappointed, unaneled " ; 
 and Milton after him, or, more likely, after the Greek 
 
 " Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved." 
 
 I mention these trifles, in passing, because they have in- 
 terested me, and therefore may interest others. I lay no 
 stress upon them, for, if once the conductors of Shake- 
 speare's intelligence had been put in connection with those 
 Attic brains, he would have reproduced their message in a 
 form of his own. They would have inspired, and not 
 enslaved him. His resemblance to them is that of con- 
 sanguinity, more striking in expression than in mere resem- 
 blance of feature. The likeness between the Clytemnestra 
 yvvaiKos avdpoftovhov ekmfrv Keap of ^Eschylus and the 
 Lady Macbeth of Shakespeare was too remarkable to have 
 escaped notice. That between the two poets in their choice 
 of epithets is as great, though more difficult of proof. Yet I 
 think an attentive student of Shakespeare can not fail to be 
 reminded of something familiar to him in such phrases as 
 " flame-eyed fire," " flax-winged ships," " star-neighboring 
 peaks," the rock Salmydessus 
 
 " . . . . Rude jaw of the sea, 
 Harsh hostess of the seaman, step-mother 
 Of ships" . 
 
 and the beacon with its "speaking eye of fire." Surely there 
 is more than a verbal, there is a genuine, similarity between 
 the avfipidpov ye^ao^a and " the unnumbered beach " and 
 "multitudinous sea." ^Eschylus, it seems to me, is willing, 
 just as Shakespeare is, to risk the prosperity of a verse upon 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 397 
 
 a lucky throw of words, which may come up the sices 
 of hardy metaphor or the ambsace of conceit. There is 
 such a difference between far-reaching and far-fetching! 
 Poetry, to be sure, is always that daring one step beyond, 
 which brings the right man to fortune, but leaves the 
 wrong one in the ditch, and its law is, " Be bold once 
 and again, yet be not over-bold." It is true, also, that 
 masters of language are a little apt to play with it. But 
 whatever fault may be found with Shakespeare in this 
 respect will touch a tender spot in ^Eschylus also. Does 
 he sometimes overload a word, so that the language not 
 merely, as Dryden says, bends under him, but fairly gives 
 way, and lets the reader's mind down with the shock 
 as of a false step in taste ? He has nothing worse than 
 TreAayof avBovv veicpolg. A criticism, shallow in hu- 
 man nature, however deep in Campbell's " Rhetoric," 
 has blamed him for making persons, under great ex- 
 citement of sorrow, or whatever other emotion, paren- 
 thesize some trifling play upon words in the very height 
 of their passion. Those who make such criticisms have 
 either never felt a passion or seen one in action, or else 
 they forget the exaltation of sensibility during such crises, 
 so that the attention, whether of the senses or the mind, 
 is arrested for the moment by what would be overlooked 
 in ordinary moods. The more forceful the current, the 
 more sharp the ripple from any alien substance inter- 
 posed. A passion that looks forward, like revenge, or 
 lust, or greed, goes right to its end, and is straightforward 
 in its expression ; but a tragic passion, which is in its 
 nature unavailing, like disappointment, regret of the in- 
 evitable, or remorse, is reflective, and liable to be continu- 
 
398 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 ally diverted by the suggestions of fancy. The one is a 
 concentration of the will, which intensifies the character 
 and the phrase that expresses it ; in the other, the will is 
 helpless, and, as in insanity, while the flow of the mind 
 sets imperatively in one direction, it is liable to almost ludi- 
 crous interruptions and diversions upon the most trivial 
 hint of involuntary association. I am ready to grant that 
 Shakespeare sometimes allows his characters to spend time 
 that might be better employed in carving some cherry- 
 stone of a quibble; that he is sometimes tempted away 
 from the natural by the quaint ; that he sometimes forces 
 a partial,, even a verbal analogy between the abstract 
 thought and the sensual image into an absolute identity, 
 giving us a kind of serious pun. In a pun our pleasure 
 arises from a gap in the logical nexus too wide for the 
 reason, but which the ear can bridge in. an instant. " Is 
 that your own hare, or a wig ? " The fancy is yet more 
 tickled where logic is treated with a mock ceremonial 
 of respect : 
 
 " His head was turned, and so he chewed 
 His pigtail till he died." 
 
 Now, when this kind of thing is done in earnest, the 
 result is one of those ill-distributed syllogisms which in 
 rhetoric are called conceits : 
 
 " Hard was the hand that struck the blow, 
 Soft was the heart that bled." 
 
 I have seen this passage from Warner cited for its beauty, 
 though I should have thought nothing could be worse, had 
 I not seen General Morris's 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 399 
 
 " Her heart and morning broke together 
 In tears." 
 
 Of course, I would not rank with these Gloucester's 
 
 " What ! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster 
 Sink in the ground ? I thought it would have mounted " ; 
 
 though as mere rhetoric it belongs to the same class.* It 
 might be defended as a bit of ghastly humor characteristic 
 of the speaker. But at any rate it is not without precedent 
 in the two greater .Greek tragedians. In a chorus of the 
 " Seven against Thebes " we have : 
 
 . . . . kv tie jaiq. 
 Zua (j>ovopvrti 
 
 Kapra 6' el<? 
 
 And does not Sophocles make Ajax in his despair quibble 
 upon his own name quite in the Shakespearean fashion, 
 under similar circumstances ? Nor does the coarseness 
 with which our great poet is reproached lack an ^Eschylean 
 parallel. Even the Nurse in " Romeo and Juliet " would 
 have found a true gossip in her of the " Agamemnon," who 
 is so indiscreet in her confidences concerning the nursery- 
 life of Orestes. Whether Raleigh is right or not in warning 
 historians against following truth too close upon the heels, 
 the caution is a good one for poets as respects truth to na- 
 ture. But it is a mischievous fallacy in historian or critic 
 to treat as a blemish of the man what is but the common 
 
 * I have taken the first passage in point that occurred to my memory. 
 It may not be Shakespeare's, though probably his. The question of 
 authorship is, I think, settled, so far as criticism can do it, in Mr. White's 
 admirable essay appended to the " Second Part of Henry VI." 
 
400 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 tincture of his age. It is to confound a spatter of mud with 
 a moral stain. 
 
 But I have been led away from my immediate purpose. 
 I did not intend to compare Shakespeare with the ancients, 
 much less to justify his defects by theirs. In the fine arts a 
 thing is either good in itself or it is nothing. It neither 
 gains nor loses by having it shown that another good thing 
 was also good in itself, any more than a bad thing profits 
 by comparison with another that is worse. The final judg- 
 ment of the world is intuitive, and is based, not on proof 
 that a work possesses some of the qualities of another whose 
 greatness is acknowledged, but on the immediate feeling 
 that it carries to a high point of perfection certain qualities 
 proper to itself. One does not flatter a fine pear by com- 
 paring it to a fine peach, nor learn what a fine peach is by 
 tasting ever so many poor ones. The boy who makes his 
 first bite into one does not need to ask his father if or how 
 or why it is good. Because continuity is a merit in some 
 kinds of writing, shall we refuse ourselves to the authentic 
 charm of Montaigne's want of it? I have heard people 
 complain of French tragedies because they were so very 
 French. This, though it may not be to some particular 
 tastes, and may from one point of view be a defect, is from 
 another and far higher a distinguished merit. It is their 
 flavor, as direct a telltale of the soil whence they drew it as 
 French wines are. Suppose we should tax the Elgin mar- 
 bles with being too Greek ? When will people, nay, when 
 will even critics, get over this self-defrauding trick of cheap- 
 ening the excellence of one thing by that of another, this 
 conclusive style of judgment which consists simply in be- 
 longing to the other parish ? As one grows older, one loses 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 4O i 
 
 many idols, perhaps comes at last to have none at all, though 
 he may honestly enough uncover in deference to the wor- 
 shipers before any shrine. But for the seeming loss the 
 compensation is ample. These saints of literature descend 
 from their canopied remoteness to be even more precious as 
 men like ourselves, our companions in field and street, 
 speaking the same tongue, though in many dialects, and 
 owning one creed under the most diverse masks of form. 
 
 Much of that merit of structure which is claimed for the 
 ancient tragedy is due, if I am not mistaken, to circum- 
 stances external to the drama itself to custom, to conven- 
 tion, to the exigencies of the theatre. It is formal rather 
 than organic. The " Prometheus " seems to me one of the 
 few Greek tragedies in which the whole creation has devel- 
 oped itself in perfect proportion from one central germ of 
 living conception. The motive of the ancient drama is 
 generally outside of it, while in the modern (at least in the 
 English) it is necessarily within. Goethe, in a thoughtful 
 essay,* written many years later than his famous criticism 
 of "Hamlet" in "Wilhelm Meister," says that the distinc- 
 tion between the two is the difference between sollen and wol- 
 len, that is, between must and would. He means that in the 
 Greek drama the catastrophe is foreordained by an inexora- 
 ble destiny, while the element of free will, and consequently 
 of choice, is the very axis of the modern. The definition 
 is conveniently portable, but it has its limitations. Goethe's 
 attention was too exclusively fixed on the Fate tragedies of 
 the Greeks, and upon Shakespeare among the moderns. In 
 the Spanish drama, for example, custom, loyalty, honor, and 
 
 * Shakspeare und sein Ende. 
 26 
 
402 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 religion are as imperative and as inevitable as doom. In the 
 " Antigone," on the other hand, the crisis lies in the charac- 
 ter of the protagonist. In this sense it is modern, and is 
 the first example of true character-painting in tragedy. But, 
 from whatever cause, that exquisite analysis of complex 
 motives, and the display of them in action and speech, 
 which constitute for us the abiding charm of fiction, were 
 quite unknown to the ancients. They reached their height 
 in Cervantes and Shakespeare, and, though on a lower plane, 
 still belong to the upper region of art in Le Sage, Moliere, 
 and Fielding. The personages of the Greek tragedy seem 
 to be commonly rather types than individuals. In the mod- 
 ern tragedy, certainly in the four greatest of Shakespeare's 
 tragedies, there is still something very like Destiny, only the 
 place of it is changed. It is no longer above man, but in 
 him ; yet the catastrophe is as sternly foredoomed in the 
 characters of Lear, Othello, Macbeth, and Hamlet as it 
 could be by an infallible oracle. In " Macbeth," indeed, 
 the Weird Sisters introduce an element very like Fate ; but 
 generally it may be said that with the Greeks the character 
 is involved in the action, while with Shakespeare the action 
 is evolved from the character. In the one case, the motive 
 of the play controls the personages ; in the other, the chief 
 personages are in themselves the motive to which all else is 
 subsidiary. In any comparison, therefore, of Shakespeare 
 with the ancients, we are not to contrast him with them as 
 unapproachable models, but to consider whether he, like 
 them, did not consciously endeavor, under the circumstances 
 and limitations in which he found himself, to produce the 
 most excellent thing possible, a model also in its own kind 
 whether higher or lower in degree is another question. 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 403 
 
 The only fair comparison would be between him and that 
 one of his contemporaries who endeavored to anachronize 
 himself, so to speak, and to subject his art, so far as might 
 be, to the laws of classical composition. Ben Jonson was a 
 great man, and has sufficiently proved that he had an eye 
 for the external marks of character; but when he would 
 make a whole of them, he gives us instead either a bundle 
 of humors or an incorporated idea. With Shakespeare the* 
 plot is an interior organism, in Jonson an external contriv- 
 ance. It is the difference between man and tortoise. In 
 the one the osseous structure is out of sight, indeed, but sus- 
 tains the flesh and blood that envelop it, while the other is 
 boxed up and imprisoned in his bones. 
 
 I have been careful to confine myself to what may be 
 called Shakespeare's ideal tragedies. In the purely histori- 
 cal or chronicle plays, the conditions are different, and his 
 imagination submits itself to the necessary restrictions on 
 its freedom of movement. Outside the tragedies also, " The 
 Tempest" makes an exception worthy of notice. If I 
 read it rightly, it is an example of how a great poet should 
 write allegory not embodying metaphysical abstractions, 
 but giving us ideals abstracted from life itself, suggesting an 
 under-meaning everywhere, forcing it upon us nowhere, tan- 
 talizing the mind with hints that imply so much and tell so 
 little, and yet keep the attention all eye and ear with eager, if 
 fruitless, expectation. Here the leading characters are not 
 merely typical, but symbolical that is, they do not illustrate 
 a class of persons, they belong to universal nature. Con- 
 sider the scene of the play. Shakespeare is wont to take 
 some familiar story, to lay his scene in some place the name 
 of which, at least, is familiar well knowing the reserve of 
 
4 o 4 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 power that lies in the familiar as a background, when things 
 are set in front of it under a new and unexpected light. 
 But in " The Tempest " the scene is laid nowhere, or cer- 
 tainly in no country laid down on any map. Nowhere, then ? 
 At once nowhere and anywhere for it is in the soul of 
 man, that still vexed island hung between the upper and the 
 nether world, and liable to incursions from both. There is 
 scarce a play of Shakespeare's in which there is such variety 
 of character, none in which character has so little to do in 
 the carrying on and development of the story. But con- 
 sider for a moment if ever the imagination has been so 
 embodied as in Prospero, the fancy as in Ariel, the brute 
 understanding as in Caliban, who, the moment his poor wits 
 are warmed with the glorious liquor of Stephano, plots re- 
 bellion against his natural lord, the higher reason. Miranda 
 is mere abstract womanhood, as truly so before she sees 
 Ferdinand as Eve before she was wakened to consciousness 
 by the echo of her own nature coming back to her, the 
 same, and yet not the same, from that of Adam. Ferdi- 
 nand, again, is nothing more than Youth compelled to 
 drudge at something he despises, till the sacrifice of will 
 and abnegation of self win him his ideal in Miranda. The 
 subordinate personages are simply types : Sebastian and 
 Antonio, of weak character and evil ambition ; Gonzalo, of 
 average sense and honesty ; Adrian and Francisco, of the 
 walking gentlemen who serve to fill up a world. They are 
 not characters in the same sense with lago, Falstaff, Shal- 
 low, or Leontius ; and it is curious how every one of them 
 loses his way in this enchanted island of life, all the victims 
 of one illusion after another, except Prospero, whose minis- 
 ters are purely ideal. The whole play, indeed, is a succes- 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 405 
 
 sion of illusions, winding up with those solemn words of the 
 great enchanter who had summoned to his service every 
 shape of merriment or passion, every figure in the great 
 tragi-comedy of life, and who was now bidding farewell to 
 the scene of his triumphs. For in Prospero shall we not 
 recognize the Artist himself 
 
 " That did not better for his life provide 
 Than public means which public manners breeds, 
 Whence comes it that his name receives a brand " 
 
 who has forfeited a shining place in the world's eye by de- 
 votion to his art, and who, turned adrift on the ocean of 
 life in the leaky carcass of a boat, has shipwrecked on that 
 Fortunate Island (as men always do who find their true 
 vocation) where he is absolute lord, making all the powers 
 of nature serve him, but with Ariel and Caliban as special 
 ministers? Of whom else could he have been thinking, 
 when he says 
 
 " . . . . Graves, at my command, 
 Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forth, 
 By my so potent art " ? 
 
 Was this man, so extraordinary from whatever side we 
 look at him, who ran so easily through the whole scale 
 of human sentiment, from the homely common sense of, 
 " When two men ride of one horse, one must ride behind," 
 to the transcendental subtilty of 
 
 " No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change ; 
 Thy pyramids, built up with newer might, 
 To me are nothing novel, nothing strange ; 
 They are but dressings of a former sight " 
 
406 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 was he alone so unconscious of powers, some part of whose 
 magic is recognized by all mankind, from the schoolboy to 
 the philosopher, that he merely sat by and saw them go 
 without the least notion what they were about ? Was he an 
 inspired idiot, vdtre bizarre Shakespeare? a vast, irregular 
 genius ? a simple rustic, warbling his native wood-notes wild, 
 in other words, insensible to the benefits of culture ? When 
 attempts have been made at various times to prove that this 
 singular and seemingly contradictory creature, not one, but 
 all mankind's epitome, was a musician, a lawyer, a doctor, 
 a Catholic, a Protestant, an atheist, an Irishman, a discoverer 
 of the circulation of the blood, and finally that he was not 
 himself, but somebody else, is it not a little odd that the last 
 thing anybody should have thought of proving him was an 
 artist ? Nobody believes any longer that immediate inspira- 
 tion is possible in modern times (as if God had grown old) 
 at least, nobody believes it of the prophets of those days, 
 of John of Leyden, or Reeves, or Muggleton and yet 
 everybody seems to take it for granted of this one man 
 Shakespeare. He, somehow or other, without knowing it, 
 was able to do what none of the rest of them, though know- 
 ing it all too perfectly well, could begin to do. Everybody 
 seems to get afraid of him in turn. Voltaire plays gentleman 
 usher for him to his countrymen, and then, perceiving that 
 his countrymen find a favor in him beyond that of " Zaire " 
 or " Mahomed," discovers him to be a Sauvage ivre, sans 
 le moindre e'tincelle de bon godt, et sans le -moindre connoissance 
 des regies. Goethe, who tells us that " Gotz von Berlichin- 
 gen " was written in the Shakespearean manner and we 
 certainly should not have guessed it, if he had not blabbed 
 comes to the final conclusion that Shakespeare was a poet, 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 407 
 
 but not a dramatist. Chateaubriand thinks that he has cor- 
 rupted art. " If, to attain," he says, " the height of tragic 
 art, it be enough to heap together disparate scenes without 
 order and without connection, to dovetail the burlesque 
 with the pathetic, to set the water-carrier beside the monarch 
 and the huckster-wench beside the queen, who may not 
 reasonably flatter himself with being the rival of the greatest 
 masters ? Whoever should give himself the trouble to re- 
 trace a single one of his days, ... to keep a journal from 
 hour to hour, would have made a drama in the fashion of the 
 English poet." But there are journals and journals, as the 
 French say, and what goes into them depends on the eye 
 that gathers for them. It is a long step from St. Simon to 
 Dangeau, from Pepys to Thoresby, from Shakespeare even 
 to the Marquis de Chateaubriand. M. Hugo alone, con- 
 vinced that, as founder of the French Romantic School, 
 there is a kind of family likeness between himself and Shake- 
 speare, stands boldly forth to prove the father as extravagant 
 as the son. Calm yourself, M. Hugo, you are no more a 
 child of his than Will Davenant was ! But, after all, is it 
 such a great crime to produce something absolutely new in 
 a world so tedious as ours, and so apt to tell its old stories 
 over again ? I do not mean new in substance, but in the 
 manner of presentation. Surely the highest office of a great 
 poet is to show us how much variety, freshness, and oppor- 
 tunity abides in the obvious and familiar. He invents no- 
 thing, but seems rather to rediscover the world about him, 
 and his penetrating vision gives to things of daily encounter 
 something of the strangeness of new creation. Meanwhile 
 the changed conditions of modern life demand a change in 
 the method of treatment. The ideal is not a strait waist- 
 
4 o8 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 coat. Because " Alexis and Dora " is so charming, shall we 
 have no " Paul and Virginia " ? It was the idle endeavor to 
 reproduce the old enchantment in the old way that gave us 
 the pastoral, sent to the garret now with our grandmothers' 
 achievements of the same sort in worsted. Every age says 
 to its poets, like a mistress to her lover, " Tell me what I 
 am like " ; and he who succeeds in catching the evanescent 
 expression that reveals character which is as much as to 
 say, what is intrinsically human will be found to have 
 caught something as imperishable as human nature itself. 
 Aristophanes, by the vital and essential qualities of his 
 humorous satire, is already more nearly our contemporary 
 than Moliere; and even the "Trouveres," careless and 
 trivial as they mostly are, could fecundate a great poet like 
 Chaucer, and are still delightful reading. 
 
 The Attic tragedy still keeps its hold upon the loyalty 
 of scholars through their imagination, or their pedantry, or 
 their feeling of an exclusive property, as may happen, and, 
 however alloyed with baser matter, this loyalty is legitimate 
 and well bestowed. But the dominion of the Shakespearean 
 is even wider. It pushes forward its boundaries from year 
 to year, and moves no landmark backward. Here Alfieri 
 and Lessing own a common allegiance ; and the loyalty to 
 him is one not of guild or tradition, but of conviction and 
 enthusiasm. Can this be said of any other modern ? of 
 robust Corneille ? of tender Racine ? of Calderon even, with 
 his tropical warmth and vigor of production ? The Greeks 
 and he are alike and alone in this, and for the same reason, 
 that both are unapproachably the highest in their kind. 
 Call him Gothic, if you like, but the inspiring mind that 
 presided over the growth of these clustered masses of arch 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 409 
 
 and spire and pinnacle and buttress is neither Greek nor 
 Gothic it is simply genius lending itself to embody the new 
 desire of man's mind, as it had embodied the old. After 
 all, to be delightful is to be classic, and the chaotic never 
 pleases long. But manifoldness is not confusion any more 
 than formalism is simplicity. If Shakespeare rejected the 
 unities, as I think he who complains of " Art made tongue- 
 tied by Authority " might very well deliberately do, it was 
 for the sake of an imaginative unity more intimate than any 
 of time and place. The antique in itself is not the ideal, 
 though its remoteness from the vulgarity of every-day as- 
 sociations helps to make it seem so. The true ideal is not 
 opposed to the real, nor is it any artificial heightening 
 thereof, but lies in it, and blessed are the eyes that find it ! 
 It is the mem divinior which hides within the actual, trans- 
 figuring matter-of-fact into matter-of-meaning for him who 
 has the gift of second-sight. In this sense Hogarth is often 
 more truly ideal than Raphael, Shakespeare often more 
 truly so than the Greeks. I think it is a more or less con- 
 scious perception of this ideality, as it is a more or less well- 
 grounded persuasion of it as respects the Greeks, that as- 
 sures to him, as to them, and with equal justice, a permanent 
 supremacy over the minds of men. This gives to his char- 
 acters their universality, to his thought its irradiating prop- 
 erty, while the artistic purpose, running through and com- 
 bining the endless variety of scene and character, will alone 
 account for his power of dramatic effect. Goethe affirmed 
 that, without Schroder's prunings and adaptations, Shake- 
 speare was too undramatic for the German theatre that, if 
 the theory that his plays should be represented textually 
 should prevail, he would be driven from the boards. The 
 
4 io SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 theory has prevailed, and he not only holds his own, but is 
 acted oftener than ever. It is not irregular genius that can 
 do this, for surely Germany need not go abroad for what her 
 own Werners could more than amply supply her with. 
 
 But I would much rather quote a fine saying than a bad 
 prophecy of a man to whom I owe so much. Goethe, in 
 one of the most perfect of his shorter poems, tells us that a 
 poem is like a painted window. Seen from without (and 
 he accordingly justifies the Philistine, who never looks at 
 them otherwise) they seem dingy and confused enough ; but 
 enter, and then 
 
 " Da ist's auf einmal farbig helle, 
 
 Geschicht' und Zierath glanzt in Schnelle." 
 
 With the same feeling he says elsewhere in prose, that 
 "there is a destructive criticism and a productive. The 
 former is very easy ; for one has only to set up in his mind 
 any standard, any model, however narrow " (let us say the 
 Greeks), " and then boldly assert that the work under re- 
 view does not match with it, and therefore is good for no- 
 thing the matter is settled, and one must at once deny its 
 claim. Productive criticism is a great deal more difficult ; 
 it asks, What did the author propose to himself? Is what 
 he proposes reasonable and comprehensible? and how far 
 has he succeeded in carrying it out ? " It is in applying 
 this latter kind of criticism to Shakespeare that the Germans 
 have set us an example worthy of all commendation. If 
 they have been sometimes over-subtile, they at least had 
 the merit of first looking at his works as wholes, as some- 
 thing that very likely contained an idea, perhaps conveyed 
 a moral, if we could get at it. The illumination lent us by 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 4 n 
 
 most of the English commentators reminds us of the candles 
 which guides hold up to show us a picture in a dark place, 
 the smoke of which gradually makes the work of the artist 
 invisible under its repeated layers. Lessing, as might have 
 been expected, opened the first glimpse in the new direc- 
 tion ; Goethe followed with his famous exposition of Ham- 
 let ; A. W. Schlegel took a more comprehensive view in his 
 " Lectures," which Coleridge worked over into English, 
 adding many fine criticisms of his own on single passages ; 
 and, finally, Gervinus has devoted four volumes to a com- 
 ment on the plays, full of excellent matter, though pushing 
 the moral exegesis beyond all reasonable bounds.* With 
 the help of all these, and especially of the last, I shall apply 
 this theory of criticism to Hamlet, not in the hope of saying 
 anything new, but of bringing something to the support of 
 the thesis that, if Shakespeare was skillful as a playwright, 
 he was even greater as a dramatist ; that, if his immediate 
 business was to fill the theatre, his higher object was to 
 create something which, by fulfilling the conditions and 
 answering the requirements of modern life, should as truly 
 deserve to be called a "work of art as others had deserved it 
 by doing the same thing in former times and under other 
 circumstances. Supposing him to have accepted con- 
 sciously or not is of little importance the new terms of the 
 problem which makes character the pivot of dramatic ac- 
 tion, and consequently the key of dramatic unity, how far 
 did he succeed ? 
 
 Before attempting my analysis, I must clear away a little 
 rubbish. Are such anachronisms as those of which Voltaire 
 
 * I do not mention Ulrici's book, for it seems to me unwieldy and 
 dull zeal without knowledge. 
 
4 i2 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 accuses Shakespeare in " Hamlet," such as the introduction 
 of cannon before the invention of gunpowder, and making 
 Christians of the Danes three centuries too soon, of the 
 least bearing aesthetically ? I think not ; but as they are of 
 a piece with a great many other criticisms upon the great 
 poet, it is worth while to dwell upon them a moment. 
 
 The first demand we make upon whatever claims to be 
 a work of art (and we have a right to make it) is that it 
 shall be in keeping. Now this propriety is of two kinds, 
 either extrinsic or intrinsic. In the first I should class 
 whatever relates rather to the body than the soul of the 
 work, such as fidelity to the facts of history (wherever that 
 is important), congruity of costume, and the like in short, 
 whatever might come under the head of picturesque truth, a 
 departure from which would shock too rudely our precon- 
 ceived associations. I have seen an Indian chief in French 
 books, and he seemed to me almost tragic ; but, put upon 
 the stage in tragedy, he would have been ludicrous. Lich- 
 tenberg, writing from London in 1775, tells us that Garrick 
 played Hamlet in a suit of the French fashion, then com- 
 monly worn, and that he was blamed for it by some of the 
 critics ; but, he says, one hears no such criticism during the 
 play, nor on the way home, nor at supper afterward, nor in- 
 deed till the emotion roused by the great actor has had 
 time to subside. He justifies Garrick, though we should 
 not be able to endure it now. Yet nothing would be gained 
 by trying to make Hamlet's costume true to the assumed 
 period of the play, for the scene of it is laid in a Denmark 
 that has no dates. 
 
 In the second and more important category I should 
 put, first, coordination of character, that is, a certain variety 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 in harmony of the personages of a drama, as in the attitudes 
 and coloring of the figures in a pictorial composition, so 
 that, while mutually relieving and setting off each other, 
 they shall combine in the total impression ; second, that sub- 
 ordinate truth to nature which makes each character cohe- 
 rent in itself; and, third, such propriety of costume and the 
 like as shall satisfy the superhistoric sense, to which, and to 
 which alone, the higher drama appeals. All these come 
 within the scope of imaginative truth. To illustrate my third 
 head by an example. Tieck criticises John Kemble's dress- 
 ing for Macbeth in a modern Highland costume, as being 
 ungraceful without any countervailing merit of historical 
 exactness. I think a deeper reason for his dissatisfaction 
 might be found in the fact that this garb, with its purely 
 modern and British army associations, is out of place on 
 Fores Heath, and drags the Weird Sisters down with it from 
 their proper imaginative remoteness in the gloom of the past 
 to the disenchanting glare of the footlights. It is not the anti- 
 quarian, but the poetic conscience, that is wounded. To 
 this, exactness, so far as concerns ideal representation, may 
 not only not be truth, but may even be opposed to it. An- 
 achronisms and the like are in themselves of no account, 
 and become important only when they make a gap too wide 
 for our illusion to cross unconsciously, that is, when they 
 are anacoluthons to the imagination. The aim of the artist 
 is psychologic, not historic truth. It is comparatively easy 
 for an author to get up any period with tolerable minuteness 
 in externals, but readers and audiences find more difficulty 
 in getting them down, though oblivion swallows scores of 
 them at a gulp. The saving truth in such matters is a truth 
 to essential and permanent characteristics. The Ulysses of 
 
414 
 
 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 Shakespeare, like the Ulysses of Dante and Tennyson, more 
 or less harmonizes with our ideal conception of the wary, 
 long-considering, though adventurous son of Laertes, yet 
 Simon Lord Lovat is doubtless nearer the original type. In 
 " Hamlet," though there is no Denmark of the ninth century, 
 Shakespeare has suggested the prevailing rudeness of man- 
 ners quite enough for his purpose. We see it in the single 
 combat of Hamlet's father with the elder Fortinbras ; in the 
 vulgar wassail of the King ; in the English monarch being 
 expected to hang Rosencrantz and Guildenstern out of hand 
 merely to oblige his cousin of Denmark ; in Laertes, sent to 
 Paris to be made a gentleman of, becoming instantly capable 
 of any the most barbarous treachery to glut his vengeance. 
 We can not fancy Ragnar Lodbrog or Eric the Red matricu- 
 lating at Wittenberg, but it was essential that Hamlet should 
 be a scholar, and Shakespeare sends him thither without more 
 ado. All through the play we get the notion of a state of 
 society in which a savage nature has disguised itself in the 
 externals of civilization, like a Maori deacon, who has only 
 to strip and he becomes once more a tattooed pagan with 
 his mouth watering for a spare-rib of his pastor. Histori- 
 cally, at the date of " Hamlet," the Danes were in the habit of 
 burning their enemies alive in their houses, with as much of 
 their family about them as might be to make it comfortable. 
 Shakespeare seems purposely to have dissociated his play 
 from history by changing nearly every name in the original 
 legend. The motive of the play revenge as a religious 
 duty belongs only to a social state in which the traditions 
 of barbarism are still operative, but, with infallible artistic 
 judgment, Shakespeare has chosen, not untamed nature, as 
 he found it in history, but the period of transition, a period 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 415 
 
 of which the times are always out of joint, and thus the ir- 
 resolution which has its root in Hamlet's own character is 
 stimulated by the very incompatibility of that legacy of 
 vengeance he has inherited from the past with the new cul- 
 ture and refinement of which he is the representative. One 
 of the few books which Shakespeare is known to have pos- 
 sessed was Florio's Montaigne, and he might well have 
 transferred the Frenchman's motto, " Que syais-je? " to the 
 front of his tragedy; nor can I help fancying something 
 more than accident in the fact that Hamlet has been a stu- 
 dent at Wittenberg, whence those new ideas went forth, of 
 whose results in unsettling men's faith, and consequently 
 disqualifying them for promptness in action, Shakespeare 
 had been not only an eye-witness, but which he must actu- 
 ally have experienced in himself. 
 
 One other objection let me touch upon here, especially 
 as it has been urged against " Hamlet," and that is the intro- 
 duction of low characters and comic scenes in tragedy. 
 Even Garrick, who had just assisted at the Stratford Jubi- 
 lee, where Shakespeare had been pronounced divine, was 
 induced by this absurd outcry for the proprieties of the 
 tragic stage to omit the grave-diggers' scene from "Hamlet." 
 Leaving apart the fact that Shakespeare would not have 
 been the representative poet he is if he had not given ex- 
 pression to this striking tendency of the northern races, 
 which shows itself constantly, not only in their literature, 
 but even in their mythology and their architecture, the 
 grave-diggers' scene always impresses me as one of the most 
 pathetic in the whole tragedy. That Shakespeare intro- 
 duced such scenes and characters with deliberate intention, 
 and with a view to artistic relief and contrast, there can 
 
416 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 hardly be a doubt. We must take it for granted that a man 
 whose works show everywhere the results of judgment some- 
 times acted with forethought. I find the springs of the pro- 
 foundest sorrow and pity in this hardened indifference of 
 the grave-diggers, in their careless discussion as to whether 
 Ophelia's death was by suicide or no, in their singing and 
 jesting at their dreary work. 
 
 " A pickaxe and a spade, a spade, 
 For and a shrouding-sheet : 
 O, a pit of clay for to be made 
 For such a guest is meet ! " 
 
 We know who is to be the guest of this earthen hospitality 
 how much beauty, love, and heart-break are to be covered 
 in that pit of clay. All we remember of Ophelia reacts 
 upon us with tenfold force, and we recoil from our amuse- 
 ment at the ghastly drollery of the two delvers with a shock 
 of horror. That the unconscious Hamlet should stumble on 
 this grave of all others, that it should be here that he should 
 pause to muse humorously on death and decay all this 
 prepares us for the revulsion of passion in the next scene, 
 and for the frantic confession : 
 
 " I loved Ophelia ; forty thousand brothers 
 Could not with all their quantity of love 
 Make up my sum ! " 
 
 And it is only here that such an asseveration would be true 
 even to the feeling of the moment ; for it is plain from all we 
 know of Hamlet that he could not have so loved Ophelia ; 
 that he was incapable of the self-abandonment of a true 
 passion; that he would have analyzed this emotion as he 
 does all others ; would have peeped and botanized upon it 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 417 
 
 till it became to him a mere matter of scientific interest. 
 All this force of contrast, and this horror of surprise, were 
 necessary so to intensify his remorseful regret that he should 
 believe himself for once in earnest. The speech of the 
 King, " O, he is mad, Laertes," recalls him to himself, and 
 he at once begins to rave : 
 
 " Zounds ! show me what thou'lt do ! 
 
 Woul't weep ? woul't fight ? woul't fast ? woul't tear thyself ? 
 Woul't drink up Eysil ? eat a crocodile ? " 
 
 It is easy to see that the whole plot hinges upon the 
 character of Hamlet, that Shakespeare's conception of this 
 was the ovum out of which the whole organism was hatched. 
 And here let me remark that there is a kind of genealogical 
 necessity in the character a thing not altogether strange to 
 the attentive reader of Shakespeare. Hamlet seems the 
 natural result of the mixture of father and mother in his 
 temperament, the resolution and persistence of the one, like 
 sound timber wormholed and made shaky, as it were, by the 
 other's infirmity of will and discontinuity of purpose. In 
 natures so imperfectly mixed it is not uncommon to find 
 vehemence of intention the prelude and counterpoise of 
 weak performance, the conscious nature striving to keep up 
 its self-respect by a triumph in words all the more resolute 
 that it feels assured beforehand of inevitable defeat in ac- 
 tion. As in such slipshod housekeeping men are their own 
 largest creditors, they find it easy to stave off utter bank- 
 ruptcy of conscience by taking up one unpaid promise with 
 another larger, and at heavier interest, till such self-swin- 
 dling becomes habitual and by degrees almost painless. 
 How did Coleridge discount his own notes of this kind with 
 27 
 
4 i8 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 less and less specie as the figures lengthened on the paper ! 
 As with Hamlet, so it is with Ophelia and Laertes. The 
 father's feebleness comes up again in the wasting heart-break 
 and gentle lunacy of the daughter, while the son shows it in 
 a rashness of impulse and act, a kind of crankiness, of whose 
 essential feebleness we are all the more sensible as con- 
 trasted with a nature so steady on its keel, and drawing so 
 much water, as that of Horatio the foil at once, in different 
 ways, to both him and Hamlet. It was natural, also, that 
 the daughter of self-conceited old Polonius should have her 
 softness stiffened with a fiber of obstinacy ; for there are 
 two kinds of weakness, that which breaks, and that which 
 bends. Ophelia's is of the former kind ; Hero is her coun- 
 terpart, giving way before calamity, and rising again so soon 
 as the pressure is removed. 
 
 I find two passages in Dante that contain the exactest 
 possible definition of that habit or quality of Hamlet's mind 
 which justifies the tragic turn of the play, and renders it 
 natural and unavoidable from the beginning. The first is 
 from the second canto of the " Inferno " : 
 
 " E quale quei che disvuol ci6 che v.olle, 
 
 E per nuovi pensier cangia proposta, 
 
 Si che del cominciar tutto si tolle ; 
 
 Tal mi fee' io in quella oscura costa : 
 
 Perch pensando consumai la impresa 
 
 Che fu nel cominciar cotanto tosta." 
 " And, like the man who unwills what he willed, 
 
 And for new thoughts doth change his first intent, 
 
 So that he can not anywhere begin, 
 
 Such became I upon that slope obscure, 
 
 Because with thinking I consumed resolve, 
 
 That was so ready at the setting out." 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 419 
 
 Again, in the fifth of the " Purgatorio " : 
 
 " Che sempre 1' uomo in cui pensier rampoglia 
 Sovra pensier, da se dilunga il segno, 
 Perche la foga 1' im dell' altro insolla." 
 
 " For always he in whom one thought buds forth 
 Out of another farther puts the goal, 
 For each has only force to mar the other." 
 
 Dante was a profound metaphysician, and as in the first 
 passage he describes and defines a certain quality of mind, 
 so in the other he tells us its result in the character and life, 
 namely, indecision and failure the goal farther off at the 
 end than at the beginning. It is remarkable how close a re- 
 semblance of thought, and even of expression, there is be- 
 tween the former of these quotations and a part of Hamlet's 
 famous soliloquy : 
 
 " Thus conscience [i. e., consciousness] doth make cowards of us all : 
 And thus the native hue of resolution 
 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 
 And enterprises of great pitch and moment 
 With this regard their currents turn awry, 
 And lose the name of action ! " 
 
 It is an inherent peculiarity of a mind like Hamlet's that 
 it should be conscious of its own defect. Men of his type 
 are for ever analyzing their own emotions and motives. They 
 can not do anything, because they always see two ways of 
 doing it. They can not determine on any course of action, 
 because they are always, as it were, standing at the cross- 
 roads, and see too well the disadvantages of every one of 
 them. It is not that they are incapable of resolve, but some- 
 how the band between the motive power and the operative 
 
42 o SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 faculties is relaxed and loose. The engine works, but the 
 machinery it should drive stands still. The imagination is 
 so much in overplus, that thinking a thing becomes better 
 than doing it, and thought with its easy perfection, capable 
 of everything because it can accomplish everything with 
 ideal means, is vastly more attractive and satisfactory than 
 deed, which must be wrought at best with imperfect instru- 
 ments, and always falls short of the conception that went 
 before it. " If to do," says Portia in " The Merchant of 
 Venice " if to do were as easy as to know what 't were good 
 to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages 
 princes' palaces." Hamlet knows only too well what 'twere 
 good to do, but he palters with everything in a double 
 sense : he sees the grain of good there is in evil, and the 
 grain of evil there is in good, as they exist in the world, and, 
 finding that he can make those feather-weighted accidents 
 balance each other, infers that there is little to choose be- 
 tween the essences themselves. He is of Montaigne's mind, 
 and says expressly that " there is nothing good or ill, but 
 thinking makes it so." He dwells so exclusively in the 
 world of ideas that the world of facts seems trifling ; nothing 
 is worth the while ; and he has been so long objectless and 
 purposeless, so far as actual life is concerned, that, when at 
 last an object and an aim are forced upon him, he can not 
 deal with them, and gropes about vainly for a motive out- 
 side of himself that shall marshal his thoughts for him and 
 guide his faculties into the path of action. He is the victim 
 not so much of feebleness of will as of an intellectual indif- 
 ference that hinders the will from working long in any one 
 direction. He wishes to will, but never wills. His con- 
 tinual iteration of resolve shows that he has no resolution. 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 421 
 
 He is capable of passionate energy where the occasion pre- 
 sents itself suddenly from without, because nothing is so 
 irritable as conscious irresolution with a duty to perform. 
 But of deliberate energy he is not capable ; for there the 
 impulse must come from within, and the blade of his analy- 
 sis is so subtile that it can divide the finest hair of motive 
 'twixt north and northwest side, leaving him desperate to 
 choose between them. The very consciousness of his de- 
 fect is an insuperable bar to his repairing it ; for the unity 
 of purpose, which infuses every fiber of the character with 
 will available whenever wanted, is impossible where the 
 mind can never rest till it has resolved that unity into its 
 component elements, and satisfied itself which on the whole 
 is of greater value. A critical instinct so insatiable that it 
 must turn upon itself, for lack of something else to hew and 
 hack, becomes incapable at last of originating anything 
 except indecision. It becomes infallible in what not to do. 
 How easily he might have accomplished his task is shown 
 by the conduct of Laertes. When he has a death to avenge 
 he raises a mob, breaks into the palace, bullies the King, 
 and proves how weak the usurper really was. 
 
 The world is the victim of splendid parts, and is slow to 
 accept a rounded whole, because that is something which is 
 long in completing, still longer in demonstrating its com- 
 pletion. We like to be surprised into admiration, and not 
 logically convinced that we ought to admire. We are wil- 
 ling to be delighted with success, though we are somewhat 
 indifferent to the homely qualities which insure it. Our 
 thought is so filled with the rocket's burst of momentary 
 splendor so far above us, that we forget the poor stick, use- 
 ful and unseen, that made its climbing possible. One of 
 
422 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 these homely qualities is continuity of character, and it 
 escapes present applause because it tells chiefly, in the long 
 run, in results. With his usual tact, Shakespeare has brought 
 in such a character as a contrast and foil to Hamlet. Ho- 
 ratio is the only complete man in the play solid, well-knit, 
 and true ; a noble, quiet nature, with that highest of all 
 qualities, judgment ; always sane and prompt, who never 
 drags his anchors for any wind of opinion or fortune, but 
 grips all the closer to the reality of things. He seems one 
 of those calm, undemonstrative men whom we love and ad- 
 mire without asking to know why, crediting them with the 
 capacity of great things, without any test of actual achieve- 
 ment, because we feel that their manhood is a constant 
 quality, and no mere accident of circumstance and oppor- 
 tunity. Such men are always sure of the presence of their 
 highest self on demand. Hamlet is continually drawing 
 bills on the future, secured by his promise of himself to him- 
 self, which he can never redeem. His own somewhat femi- 
 nine nature recognizes its complement in Horatio, and clings 
 to it instinctively, as naturally as Horatio is attracted by 
 that fatal gift of imagination, the absence of which makes 
 the strength of his own character, as its overplus does the 
 weakness of Hamlet's. It is a happy marriage of two minds 
 drawn together by the charm of unlikeness. Hamlet feels 
 in Horatio the solid steadiness which he misses in himself; 
 Horatio in Hamlet that need of service and sustainment to 
 render which gives him a consciousness of his own value. 
 Hamlet fills the place of a woman to Horatio, revealing him 
 to himself not only in what he says, but by a constant claim 
 upon his strength of nature ; and there is great psychological 
 truth in making suicide the first impulse of this quiet, un- 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 423 
 
 demonstrative man, after Hamlet's death, as if the very 
 reason for his being were taken away with his friend's need 
 of him. In his grief, he for the first and only time speaks 
 of himself, is first made conscious of himself by his loss. If 
 this manly reserve of Horatio be true to nature, not less so 
 are the communicativeness of Hamlet, and his tendency to 
 soliloquize. If self-consciousness be alien to the one, it is 
 just as truly the happiness of the other. Like a musician 
 distrustful of himself, he is for ever tuning his instrument, 
 first overstraining this cord a little, and then that, but un- 
 able to bring them into unison, or to profit by it if he could. 
 We do not believe that Horatio ever thought he " was 
 not a pipe for Fortune's finger to play what stop she please," 
 till Hamlet told him so. That was Fortune's affair, not his ; 
 let her try it, if she liked. He is unconscious of his own 
 peculiar qualities, as men of decision commonly are, or they 
 would not be men of decision. When there is a thing to be 
 done, they go straight at it, and for the time there is nothing 
 else for them in the whole universe but themselves and their 
 object. Hamlet, on the other hand, is always studying him- 
 self. This world and the other, top, are always present to 
 his mind, and there in the corner is the little black kobold 
 of a doubt making mouths at him. He breaks down the 
 bridges before him, not behind him, as a man of action 
 would do ; but there is something more than this. He is an 
 ingrained skeptic ; though his is the skepticism, not of rea- 
 son, but of feeling, whose root is want of faith in himself. 
 In him it is passive, a malady rather than a function of the^ 
 mind. We might call him insincere : not that he was in any 
 sense a hypocrite, but only that he never was and never 
 could be in earnest never could be, because no man with- 
 
4 2 4 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 out intense faith in something ever can. Even if he only 
 believed in himself, that were better than nothing; for it 
 will carry a man a great way in the outward successes of 
 life, nay, will even sometimes give him the Archimedean ful- 
 crum for moving the world. But Hamlet doubts everything. 
 He doubts the immortality of the soul, just after seeing his 
 father's spirit, and hearing from his mouth the secrets of the 
 other world. He doubts Horatio even, and swears him to 
 secrecy on the cross of his sword, though probably he him- 
 self has no assured belief in the sacredness of the symbol. 
 He doubts Ophelia, and asks her, "Are you honest? " He 
 doubts the ghost, after he has had a little time to think 
 about it, and so gets up the play to test the guilt of the King. 
 And how coherent the whole character is ! With what per- 
 fect tact and judgment Shakespeare, in the advice to the 
 players, makes him an exquisite critic ! For just here that 
 part of his character which would be weak in dealing with 
 affairs is strong. A wise skepticism is the first attribute of 
 a good critic. He must not believe that the fire-insurance 
 offices will raise their rates of premium on Charles River, be- 
 cause the new volume of poems is printing at Riverside or 
 the University Press. He must not believe so profoundly in 
 the ancients as to think it wholly out of the question that 
 the world has still vigor enough in its loins to beget some 
 one who will one of these days be as good an ancient as any 
 of them. 
 
 Another striking quality in Hamlet's nature is his per- 
 petual inclination to irony. I think this has been generally 
 passed over too lightly, as if it were something external and 
 accidental, rather assumed as a mask than part of the real 
 nature of the man. It seems to me to go deeper, to be 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 425 
 
 something innate, and not merely factitious. It is nothing 
 like the grave irony of Socrates, which was the weapon of a 
 man thoroughly in earnest the boomerang of argument, 
 which one throws in the opposite direction of what he 
 means to hit, and which seems to be flying away from the 
 adversary, who will presently find himself knocked down by 
 it. It is not like the irony of Timon, which is but the will- 
 ful refraction of a clear mind twisting awry whatever enters 
 it or of lago, which is the slime that a nature essentially 
 evil loves to trail over all beauty and goodness to taint them 
 with distrust : it is the half-jest, half-earnest of an inactive 
 temperament that has not quite made up its mind whether 
 life is a reality or no, whether men were not made in jest, 
 and which amuses itself equally with finding a deep mean- 
 ing in trivial things and a trifling one in the profoundest 
 mysteries of being, because the want of earnestness in its 
 own essence infects everything else with its own indiffer- 
 ence. If there be now and then an unmannerly rudeness 
 and bitterness in it, as in the scenes with Polonius and Os- 
 rick, we must remember that Hamlet was just in the condi- 
 tion which spurs men to sallies of this kind ; dissatisfied, at 
 one neither with the world nor with himself, and accord- 
 ingly casting about for something out of himself to vent his 
 spleen upon. But even in these passages there is no hint 
 of earnestness, of any purpose beyond the moment; they 
 are mere cat's-paws of vexation, and not the deep-raking 
 ground-swell of passion, as we see it in the sarcasm of 
 Lear. 
 
 The question of Hamlet's madness has been much dis- 
 cussed and variously decided. High medical authority has 
 pronounced, as usual, on both sides of the question. But 
 
426 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 the induction has been drawn from too narrow premises, 
 being based on a mere diagnosis of the case, and not on 
 an appreciation of the character in its completeness. We 
 have a case of pretended madness in the Edgar of " King 
 Lear " ; and it is certainly true that that is a charcoal sketch, 
 coarsely outlined, compared with the delicate drawing, the 
 lights, shades, and half-tints of the portraiture in Hamlet. 
 But does this tend to prove that the madness of the latter, 
 because truer to the recorded observation of experts, is real, 
 and meant to be real, as the other to be fictitious ? Not in 
 the least, as it appears to me. Hamlet, among all the char- 
 acters of Shakespeare, is the most eminently a metaphysi- 
 cian and psychologist. He is a close observer, continually 
 analyzing his own nature and that of others, letting fall his 
 little drops of acid irony on all who come near him, to 
 make them show what they are made of. Even Ophelia is 
 not too sacred, Osrick not too contemptible for experiment. 
 If such a man assumed madness, he would play his part 
 perfectly. If Shakespeare himself, without going mad, could 
 so observe and remember all the abnormal symptoms as to 
 be able to reproduce them in Hamlet, why should it be be- 
 yond the power of Hamlet to reproduce them in himself? 
 If you deprive Hamlet of reason, there is no truly tragic 
 motive left. He would be a fit subject for Bedlam, but not 
 for the stage. We might have pathology enough, but no 
 pathos. Ajax first becomes tragic when he recovers his 
 wits. If Hamlet is irresponsible, the whole play is a chaos. 
 That he is not so might be proved by evidence enough, were 
 it not labor thrown away. 
 
 This feigned madness of Hamlet's is one of the few 
 points in which Shakespeare has kept close to the old story 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 427 
 
 on which he founded his play ; and, as he never decided 
 without deliberation, so he never acted without unerring 
 judgment. Hamlet drifts through the whole tragedy. He 
 never keeps on one tack long enough to get steerage-way, 
 even if, in a nature like his, with those electric streamers of 
 whim and fancy for ever wavering across the vault of his 
 brain, the needle of judgment would point in one direction 
 long enough to strike a course by. The scheme of simu- 
 lated insanity is precisely the one he would have been likely 
 to hit upon, because it enabled him to follow his own bent, 
 and to drift with an apparent purpose, postponing decisive 
 action by the very means he adopts to arrive at its accom- 
 plishment, and satisfying himself with the show of doing some- 
 thing, that he may escape so much the longer the dreaded 
 necessity of really doing anything at all. It enables him to 
 play with life and duty, instead of taking them by the 
 rougher side, where alone any firm grip is possible to feel 
 that he is on the way toward accomplishing somewhat, when 
 he is really paltering with his own irresolution. Nothing, I 
 think, could be more finely imagined than this. Voltaire 
 complains that he goes mad without any sufficient object or 
 result. Perfectly true, and precisely what was most natural 
 for him to do, and, accordingly, precisely what Shakespeare 
 meant that he should do. It was delightful to him to in- 
 dulge his imagination and humor, to prove his capacity for 
 something by playing a part ; the one thing he could not do 
 was to bring himself to act, unless when surprised by a sud- 
 den impulse of suspicion, as where he kills Polonius, and 
 there he could not see his victim. He discourses admirably 
 of suicide, but does not kill himself; he talks, daggers, but 
 uses none. He puts by the chance to kill the King with the 
 
428 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 excuse that he will not do it while he is praying, lest his soul 
 be saved thereby, though it is more than doubtful whether 
 he believed it himself. He allows himself to be packed off 
 to England, without any motive except that it would for the 
 time take him farther from a present duty : the more dis- 
 agreeable to a nature like his because it was present, and 
 not a mere matter for speculative consideration. When 
 Goethe made his famous comparison of the acorn planted in 
 a vase which it bursts with its growth, and says that in like 
 manner Hamlet is a nature which breaks down under the 
 weight of a duty too great for it to bear, he seems to have 
 considered the character too much from one side. Had 
 Hamlet actually killed himself to escape his too onerous 
 commission, Goethe's conception of him would have been 
 satisfactory enough. But Hamlet was hardly a sentimental- 
 ist, like Werther ; on the contrary, he saw things only too 
 clearly in the dry north-light of the intellect. It is chance 
 that at last brings him to his end. It would appear rather 
 that Shakespeare intended to show us an imaginative tem- 
 perament brought face to face with actualities, into any clear 
 relation of sympathy with which it can not bring itself. The 
 very means that Shakespeare makes use of to lay upon him 
 the obligation of acting the ghost really seems to make it 
 all the harder for him to act ; for the specter but gives an 
 additional excitement to his imagination and a fresh topic 
 for his skepticism. 
 
 I shall not attempt to evolve any high moral significance 
 from the play, even if I thought it possible ; for that would 
 be aside from the present purpose. The scope of the higher 
 drama is to represent life ; not every-day life, it is true, but 
 life lifted above the plane of bread-and-butter associations, 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 429 
 
 by nobler reaches of language, by the influence at once in- 
 spiring and modulating of verse, by an intenser play of pas- 
 sion condensing that misty mixture of feeling and reflection 
 which makes the ordinary atmosphere of existence into 
 flashes of thought and phrase whose brief but terrible illumi- 
 nation prints the outworn landscape of every day upon our 
 brains, with its little motives and mean results, in lines of 
 telltale fire. The moral office of tragedy is to show us our 
 own weaknesses idealized in grander figures and more awful 
 results to teach us that what we pardon in ourselves as 
 venial faults, if they seem to have but slight influence on 
 our immediate fortunes, have arms as long as those of kings, 
 and reach forward to the catastrophe of our lives ; that they 
 are dry-rotting the very fiber of will and conscience, so that, 
 if we should be brought to the test of a great temptation or 
 a stringent emergency, we must be involved in a ruin as 
 sudden and complete as that we shudder at in the unreal 
 scene of the theatre. But the primary object of a tragedy is 
 not to inculcate a formal moral. Representing life, it teaches, 
 like life, by indirection, by those nods and winks that are 
 thrown away on us blind horses in such profusion. We 
 may learn, to be sure, plenty of lessons from Shakespeare. 
 We are not likely to have kingdoms to divide, crowns fore- 
 told us by weird sisters, a father's death to avenge, or to kill 
 our wives from jealousy; but Lear may teach us to draw 
 the line more clearly between a wise generosity and a loose- 
 handed weakness of giving ; Macbeth, how one sin involves 
 another, and for ever another, by a fatal parthenogenesis, 
 and that the key which unlocks forbidden doors to our will 
 or passion leaves a stain on the hand, that may not be so 
 dark as blood, but that will not out ; Hamlet, that all the 
 
430 
 
 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 noblest gifts of person, temperament, and mind slip like 
 sand through the grasp of an infirm purpose ; Othello, that 
 the perpetual silt of some one weakness, the eddies of a sus- 
 picious temper depositing their one impalpable layer after 
 another, may build up a shoal on which an heroic life and 
 an otherwise magnanimous nature may bilge and go to 
 pieces. All this we may learn, and much more, and Shake- 
 speare was no doubt well aware of all this and more ; but I 
 do not believe that he wrote his plays with any such didac- 
 tic purpose. He knew human nature too well not to know 
 that one thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of 
 warning that, where one man shapes his life by precept 
 and example, there are a thousand who have it shaped for 
 them by impulse and by circumstances. He did not mean 
 his great tragedies for scarecrows, as if the nailing of one 
 hawk to the barn-door would prevent the next from coming 
 down souse into the hen-yard. No, it is not the poor 
 bleaching victim hung up to moult its draggled feathers in 
 the rain that he wishes to show us. He loves the hawk- 
 nature as well as the hen-nature ; and, if he is unequaled in 
 anything, it is in that sunny breadth of view, that impregna- 
 bility of reason, that looks down all ranks and conditions of 
 men, all fortune and misfortune, with the equal eye of the 
 pure artist. 
 
 Whether I have fancied anything into Hamlet which the 
 author never dreamed of putting there I do not greatly con- 
 cern myself to inquire. Poets are always entitled to a roy- 
 alty on whatever we find in their works ; for these fine crea- 
 tions as truly build themselves up in the brain as they are 
 built up with deliberate forethought. Praise art as we will, 
 that which the artist did not mean to put into his work, but 
 
SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 43 ! 
 
 which found itself there by some generous process of nature 
 of which he was as unaware as the blue river is of its rhyme 
 with the blue sky, has somewhat in it that snatches us into 
 sympathy with higher things than those which come by plot 
 and observation. Goethe wrote his " Faust " in its earliest 
 form without a thought of the deeper meaning which the 
 exposition of an age of criticism was to find in it ; without 
 foremeaning it, he had impersonated in Mephistopheles the 
 genius of his century. Shall this subtract from the debt we 
 owe him ? Not at all. If originality were conscious of 
 itself, it would have lost its right to be original. I believe 
 that Shakespeare intended to impersonate in Hamlet not a 
 mere metaphysical entity, but a man of flesh and blood : yet 
 it is certainly curious how prophetically typical the charac- 
 ter is of that introversion of mind which is so constant a 
 phenomenon of these latter days, of that over-consciousness 
 which wastes itself in analyzing the motives of action instead 
 of acting. 
 
 The old painters had a rule, that all compositions should 
 be pyramidal in form a central figure, from which the 
 others slope gradually away on the two sides. Shakespeare 
 probably had never heard of this rule, and, if he had, would 
 not have been likely to respect it more than he has the so- 
 called classical unities of time and place. But he understood 
 perfectly the artistic advantages of gradation, contrast, and 
 relief. Taking Hamlet as the key-note, we find in him 
 weakness of character which, on the one hand, is contrasted 
 with the feebleness that springs from overweening conceit in 
 Polonius and with frailty of temperament in Ophelia, while, 
 on the other hand, it is brought into fuller relief by the 
 steady force of Horatio and the impulsive violence of Laertes, 
 
432 
 
 SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE. 
 
 who is resolute from thoughtlessness, just as Hamlet is ir- 
 resolute from overplus of thought. 
 
 If we must draw a moral from Hamlet, it would seem to 
 be that Will is Fate, and that, Will once abdicating, the in- 
 evitable successor in the regency is Chance. Had Hamlet 
 acted, instead of musing how good it would be to act, the 
 King might have been the only victim. As it is, all the main 
 actors in the story are the fortuitous sacrifice of his irresolu- 
 tion. We see how a single great vice of character at last 
 draws to itself as allies and confederates all other weaknesses 
 of the man, as in civil wars the timid and the selfish wait to 
 throw themselves upon the stronger side : 
 
 " In Life's small things be resolute and great 
 To keep thy muscles trained : know'st thou when Fate 
 Thy measure takes ? or when she'll say to thee, 
 ' I find thee worthy, do this thing for me ' ? " 
 
THE 
 
 MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS.* 
 
 THE appearance of Professor Draper's ingenious and 
 original treatise on " Physiology " must call the attention of 
 a large class of readers to those higher questions of the sci- 
 ence which are freely discussed in its pages. The scientific 
 and literary character of the work has been made the sub- 
 ject of special notice in various other quarters. It is agreed 
 that Professor Draper has given us a book that is full of in- 
 terest, containing many striking views and novel experimen- 
 tal illustrations. Its faults spring out of its merits, and are 
 such as belong to most works of science written by men of 
 lively imagination. We make our sincere acknowledgments 
 
 * Published July, 1857. 
 
 1. Human Physiology, Statical and Dynamical ; or the Conditions 
 and Course of the Life of Man. By John William Draper, M. D., LL. D., 
 Professor of Chemistry and Physiology in the University of New York. 
 New York : Harper & Brothers. 1856. 8vo. Pp. 649. 
 
 2. The Mutual Relations of the Vital and Physical Forces. By Wil- 
 liam B. Carpenter, M. D., Examiner in Physiology and Comparative 
 Anatomy in the University of London. From the " Philosophical Trans- 
 actions," Part II., for 1850. Lpndon. 1850. 4to. Pp. 37. 
 
 3. The Correlation of Physical Forces. By W. R. Grove, M. A., 
 F. R. S., Barrister-at-Law. Second edition. London. 1850. 8vo. 
 Pp. 119. 
 
 4. Caloric ; its Mechanical, Chemical, and Vital Agencies in the Phe- 
 nomena of Nature. By Samuel L. Metcalfe, M. D., of Transylvania Uni- 
 versity. London. 1843. 2 vols. 8vo. Pp. 1,100. 
 
 28 
 
434 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 to the author for the fresh contributions he has furnished to 
 our knowledge of the laws of life, and the new impulse he 
 has imparted to the study of its mysteries. 
 
 We have prefixed to this paper the titles of two essays, 
 published within the last few years, and also of a ponderous 
 volume which saw the light before either of them, and has 
 been, or seems to have been, less read than either. Mr. 
 Grove's essay has excited great attention in England, and 
 received the honors of translation into the French language. 
 Dr. Carpenter's paper, published in the " Philosophical 
 Transactions," extended the generalizations of Mr. Grove 
 into the domain of Physiology. Both are brief, and are 
 therefore read. Dr. Metcalfe forgot the motto which he must 
 have often seen quoted from D'Alembert : " The author 
 kills himself in spinning out what the reader kills himself in 
 cutting short." Consequently his book has been shelved, 
 in spite of its originality and learning. But we must do our 
 countryman the justice to say that, if there is anything in 
 the physical theory of vital actions which has found advo- 
 cates in Mr. Newport and Dr. Carpenter, and which Pro- 
 fessor Draper has so forcibly illustrated, Dr. Metcalfe has an- 
 ticipated them all in maintaining that caloric " is alone, of 
 every form of being, quick or dead, the active principle " ; 
 the same doctrine, modernized, which, in another form, was 
 taught by Hippocrates. And we must be permitted to ex- 
 press our astonishment that a work of such pretensions, pub- 
 lished in London, should be ignored by any English writer 
 of authority, while he is repeating and developing its leading 
 ideas, long since given to the world. 
 
 We do not propose to make a critical examination of any 
 of these publications. We only avail ourselves of them for 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 435 
 
 the purpose of opening one of the questions which all of them 
 suggest or discuss. This is the relation existing between the 
 physical agencies of general nature and the peculiar mani- 
 festations of living beings. The interest of physiologists 
 was especially called to this subject by the well-known lec- 
 tures of Professor Matteucci, delivered in the University of 
 Pisa, by appointment of the Tuscan Government, in 1844. 
 A translation of these lectures was introduced to the Eng- 
 lish public under the auspices of Dr. Pereira and Professor 
 Faraday. From that time, the questions involved in the 
 comparison of living and lifeless nature have attracted more 
 and more attention, until they have become, in a measure, 
 blended with popular studies. We propose to select one 
 subdivision of this vast subject for such discussion as may 
 not be unfitted for the eye of the unprofessional student of 
 nature. 
 
 If the reader of this paper live another complete year, his 
 self-conscious principle will have migrated from its present 
 tenement to another, the raw materials, even, of which are 
 not as yet put together. A portion of that body of his which 
 is to be will ripen in the corn of the next harvest. Another 
 portion of his future person he will purchase, or others will 
 purchase for him, headed up in the form of certain barrels 
 of potatoes. A third fraction is yet to be gathered in a 
 Southern rice-field. The limbs with which he is then to 
 walk will be clad with flesh borrowed from the tenants of 
 many stalls and pastures, now unconscious of their doom. 
 The very organs of speech with which he is to talk so wisely, 
 or plead so eloquently, or preach so effectively, must first 
 serve his humbler brethren to bleat, to bellow, and for all 
 the varied utterances of bristled or feathered barn-yard life. 
 
436 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 His bones themselves are, to a great extent, in posse, and not 
 in esse. A bag of phosphate of lime which he has ordered 
 from Professor Mapes, for his grounds, contains a large part 
 of what is to be his next year's skeleton. And, more than 
 all this, as by far the greater part of his body is nothing, 
 after all, but water, the main substance of his scattered mem- 
 bers is to be looked for in the reservoir, in the running 
 streams, at the bottom of the well, in the clouds that float 
 over his head, or diffused among them all. 
 
 For a certain period, then, the permanent human being 
 is to use the temporary fabric made up of these shifting ma- 
 terials. So long as they are held together in human shape, 
 they manifest certain properties which fit them for the use 
 of a self-conscious and self-determining existence. But it 
 is as absurd to suppose any identification of this existence 
 with the materials which it puts on and off, as to suppose 
 the hand identified with the glove it wears, or the sponge 
 with the various fluids which may in succession fill its pores. 
 Our individual being is in no sense approximated to a potato 
 by living on that esculent for a few months ; and if we study 
 the potato while it forms a part of our bodies under the name 
 of brain or muscle, we shall learn no more of the true na- 
 ture of our self-determining consciousness than if we studied 
 the same tuber in the hill where it grew. 
 
 These forms of nutritive matter that pass through our 
 systems in a continual round may be observed, weighed, 
 tested, analyzed, tortured in a thousand ways, without our 
 touching for a moment the higher problem of our human 
 existence. Sooner or later, according to the perfection of 
 our methods and instruments, we bring hard up against a 
 deaf, dumb, blind fact. The microscope reaches a granule, 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 437 
 
 and there it stops. Chemistry finds a few bodies which it 
 can not decompose, and plays with them as with so many 
 dominos, counting and matching equivalents as our old 
 friends of the Cafe Procope used to count and match the 
 spots on their humbler playthings. But why C 4 , O 2 , H 6 , 
 have such a tendency to come together, and why, when they 
 have come together, a fluid ounce of the resulting compound 
 will make the small philosopher as great as a king for an 
 hour or two, and give him the usual headache which crowns 
 entail upon their wearers, the next morning, is not written 
 in the pages of Lehmann, nor treasured in the archives of 
 Poggendorf. Experimental physiology teaches how to stop 
 the wheels of the living machinery, and sometimes how to 
 start them when their action is checked ; but no observation 
 from the outside ever did or ever will approach the mystery 
 of that most intense of all realities our relations, as respon- 
 sible agents, to right and wrong. It will never answer, by 
 aid of microscope, or balance, or scalpel, that ever-recurring 
 question 
 
 " Whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
 This longing after immortality ? " 
 
 The study of physical and physiological phenomena has 
 been thought to lead to what is called materialism, or some- 
 thing worse. In spite of Galen's half-Christian religious 
 eloquence in spite of Haller's defense of the faith, and of 
 Boerhaave's apostolic piety we can not forget the old say- 
 ing that where there are three physicians there are two 
 atheists. It would be almost as fair to say that where there 
 are three bank-clerks there are two rogues. Unquestion- 
 ably, the handling of large sums of money betrays into dis- 
 
43 8 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 honesty some men who would have resisted slighter tempta- 
 tions. So the exclusive study of the bodily functions may, 
 now and then, lead away a weak mind from the contempla- 
 tion of the spiritual side of nature. The mind, like the 
 eye, has its adjustment to near and remote objects. A 
 watchmaker can find the broken tooth in a ship's chronom- 
 eter quicker than the captain, and the captain will detect 
 a sail in the distance long before the artisan can see it. 
 Physiologists and metaphysicians look at the same objects 
 with different focal adjustments ; but if they deny the truths 
 out of their own immediate range, their eyes have got the 
 better of their judgment. If the mariner will not trust his 
 chronometer to the expert, he loses his reckoning ; if the 
 nice-fingered myope should play sailor, the pirate would be 
 sure to catch him. Our old, foolish proverb is not, there- 
 fore, wholly without its meaning. Charlatans in physiology, 
 who are not so likely to be found in any other profession as 
 in the one mentioned, make the mistake of confounding the 
 results derived from their observation of the working of cer- 
 tain instruments, in health or disease, with those that claim 
 another and a more exalted source. Our convictions, even 
 without special divine illumination, reveal us to ourselves, 
 not as machines, but as subcreative centers of intelligence 
 and power. The two ranges of mental vision should never 
 be confounded for good or for bad. The laws of the organ- 
 ism can not be projected, a priori, on the strength of the 
 profoundest intuitions. Hunter's maxim, " Don't think, but 
 try," comes down like a pile-driver on the audacious head 
 possessed by the delusion that it can find out how things 
 are by abstract speculation upon the question how they 
 ought to be. But, on the other hand, the doctrine of an 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 439 
 
 immortal spirit will never come from the dissecting-room or 
 the laboratory, unless it is first carried thither from a higher 
 sphere. Yet there is nothing in these workshops that can 
 efface it, any more than their gases and exhalations can blot 
 out the stars of heaven. 
 
 Thus what we have to say must be considered as apply- 
 ing solely to the living body, and not to the divine emana- 
 tion which, in the human form, seems, but only seems, to 
 identify itself for a while with the shape it uses. We shall 
 not even think it necessary to consider the living body in 
 all its attributes. Animals have a life in common with 
 plants ; they grow, they keep their condition, they decay ; 
 they reproduce their kind, they perish ; and these acts, apart 
 from self-consciousness or any voluntary agency, constitute 
 them living creatures. This simplest and broadest aspect 
 of living nature is that which we propose to consider. 
 
 Life may be contemplated either as a condition, mani- 
 fested by a group of phenomena, or as the cause of that, 
 condition. Looked at as a condition, it is the active state 
 peculiar to an organism, vegetable or animal, which consists 
 in the maintenance of structural integrity by a constant in- 
 terchange of elements with surrounding matter. This inter- 
 change is effected under the influence of certain exciting 
 agencies, or stimuli, such as light and heat, which are essen- 
 tial to its due performance. An egg or a seed perishing 
 undeveloped has never been excited into this active state, 
 and therefore can not be said to have lived. It was only 
 for a time capable of living, if the proper stimuli and sur- 
 rounding matters had been present. 
 
 But life may be considered, again, as a cause of the phe- 
 nomena just referred to, and it is in this aspect that we 
 
440 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 mean to regard it ; and, before attempting to examine our 
 special question, we must remember the limits of all our in- 
 quiries with reference to causation. We can hope for no- 
 thing more, in the way of positive increase of knowledge, 
 than these results in any such inquiry : to detect the con- 
 stant antecedents of any condition or change ; to resolve 
 one or more antecedents into consequents of some previous 
 fact ; to show that one or more of the causative elements are 
 the same that are productive of other effects ; and, lastly, to 
 reproduce the effect by supplying the causative conditions, 
 or to prove the nature of the constant antecedent by experi- 
 ment. As to the essence of causation or of force, in any of 
 its aspects, we are no wiser than Newton, the profoundest 
 student of its laws, and the readiest to confess his ignorance 
 of its intimate nature. 
 
 Let us look first at the' theological relations of an in- 
 quiry into the causes and nature of life. These, if nothing 
 else, may, we think, be satisfactorily adjusted. 
 
 Every action, or series of actions, is referred by the 
 mind to a force, and this again to a power. Thus the action 
 of a clock is referred to the force of the spring, and this 
 force is the manifestation of a power stored in the spring by 
 winding it up, and set free by giving the first swing to the 
 pendulum. We may consider action as the specific applica- 
 tion of force ; force as the transfer of power, or power in 
 transitu j power itself as the original or delegated source of 
 being, or of change in its condition. Thus life, which ap- 
 pears as a series of actions, is referred to a force commonly 
 called vital, and this to a power, having its center in the 
 Divine Being ; for all who recognize a Divinity are agreed 
 that all power comes from him. This is what they mean 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 44 i 
 
 when they call omnipotence one of his attributes. The first 
 manifestations of force are habitually referred to the same 
 original source. Thus we say that the Creator gave motion 
 to the planets in space, taking it for granted that the Master- 
 hand alone could impart their original impulse. If, how- 
 ever, we are asked why they continue to roll on, we are told 
 that the vis inertia keeps them from stopping. But this is a 
 mere name, and we might as well say that the vis motus 
 starts a planet, as that the vis inertia keeps it going. A 
 simpler statement is that the Divine agency, once in opera- 
 tion, never changes without cause. We can not allow force 
 to be self-sustaining any more than self-originating, nor 
 matter itself to be self-subsistent any more than self-creating. 
 " Actualia dependent a Deo turn in existendo, turn in agen- 
 do. . . . Neque male docetur conservationem divinam esse 
 continuatam creationem, ut radius continue a sole prodit." 
 Such are the words of Leibnitz. The apparent uniformity 
 of force, and the seeming independent existence of matter, 
 lead us to speak of them as if their laws, as we term them, 
 were absolutely and eternally inherent. But a law which 
 an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Being enforces, is 
 plainly nothing more than the Lawgiver himself at work. 
 This is the meaning of that somewhat startling utterance of 
 Oken, " The universe is God rotating." Transcendental 
 Physiology is beginning to steal from the hymn-books : 
 
 " With glory clad, with strength arrayed, 
 The Lord, that o'er all nature reigns, 
 The world's foundations strongly laid, 
 And the vast fabric still sustains." 
 
 So sang Tate-and' Brady, paraphrasing the royal David. 
 
44 2 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 And Watts, still more expressly, in the hymn made famous 
 by " the harp of thousand strings " : 
 
 " His Spirit moves our heaving lungs, 
 Or they would breathe no more." 
 
 Once giving in our complete adhesion to the doctrine of 
 the " immanent Deity," we get rid of many difficulties in 
 the way of speculative inquiry into the nature and origin of 
 things. This may be an important preliminary. Mr. New- 
 port, the very distinguished physiological anatomist, com- 
 municated a paper to the Linnaean Society, in the year 1845, 
 " On the Natural History of the Oil Beetle, Meloe." It 
 contained the following sentence : " The facts I have now 
 detailed lead me, in conformity with the discovery by Fara- 
 day of the analogy of light with heat, magnetism, and elec- 
 tricity, to regard light as the primary source of all vital and 
 instinctive power, the degrees and variations of which may, 
 perhaps, be referred to modifications of this influence on the 
 special organization of each animal body." The Council of 
 the Society objected to the publication of the passage from 
 which this is extracted. The Society's " Index Expurga- 
 torius " would have been more complete if it had included 
 the " Invocation " of the third book of " Paradise Lost," 
 which has hitherto escaped the Anglican censorship. 
 
 But if the student of nature and the student of divinity 
 can once agree that all the forces of the universe, as well as 
 all its power, are immediately dependent upon its Creator 
 that he is not only omnipotent, but ovcmimovent we have no 
 longer any fear of nebular theories, or doctrines of equivocal 
 generation, or of progressive development. If we saw a 
 new planet actually formed in the field of the telescope, or 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 443 
 
 the imaginary " Acarus Crossii " put together " de toutes 
 pieces " under the microscope, true to its alleged pedigree 
 out of Silex, by Galvanism it would no more turn us into 
 atheists than a sight of the mint would make us doubt the 
 national credit. 
 
 We are ready, therefore, to examine the mystery of life 
 with the same freedom that we should carry into the exami- 
 nation of any other problem ; for it is only a question of 
 what mechanism is employed in its evolution and suste- 
 nance. 
 
 We begin, then, by examining the general * rules which 
 the Creator seems to have prescribed to his own operations. 
 We ask, in the first place, whether he is wont, so far as we 
 know, to employ a great multitude of materials, patterns, 
 and forces, or whether he has seen fit to accomplish many 
 different ends by the employment of a few of these only. 
 
 In all our studies of external nature, the tendency of in- 
 creasing knowledge has uniformly been to show that the 
 rules of creation are simplicity of material, economy of in- 
 ventive effort, and thrift in the expenditure of force. All 
 the endless forms in which matter presents itself to us are 
 resolved by chemistry into some threescore supposed simple 
 substances, some of these, perhaps, being only modifications 
 of the same element. The shapes of beasts and birds, of 
 reptiles and fishes, vary in every conceivable degree ; yet a 
 single vertebra is the pattern and representation of the 
 framework of them all, from eels to elephants. The identity 
 reaches still further across a mighty gulf of being but 
 bridges it over with a line of logic as straight as a sunbeam, 
 and as indestructible as the scimetar-edge that spanned the 
 chasm in the fable of the Indian Hades. Strange as it may 
 
444 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 sound, the tail which the serpent trails after him in the dust 
 and the head of Plato were struck in the die of the same 
 primitive conception, and differ only in their special adapta- 
 tion to particular ends. Again, the study of the movements 
 of the universe has led us from their complex phenomena to 
 the few simple forces from which they flow. The falling 
 apple and the rolling planet are shown to obey the same 
 tendency. The stick of sealing-wax that draws' a feather to 
 it, is animated by the same impulse that convulses the 
 stormy heavens. 
 
 These generalizations have simplified our view of the 
 grandest material operations, yet we do not feel that creative 
 power and wisdom have been shorn of any single ray by the 
 demonstrations of Newton or of Franklin. On the contrary, 
 the larger the collection of seemingly heterogeneous facts 
 we can bring under the rule of a single formula, the nearer 
 we feel that we have reached toward the source of knowl- 
 edge, and the more perfectly we trace that little arc of the 
 immeasurable circle which comes within the range of our 
 hasty observations, at first like the broken fragments of a 
 many-sided polygon, but at last as a simple curve that in- 
 closes all we know or can know of nature. To our own in- 
 tellectual wealth, the gain is like that of the overburdened 
 traveler, who should exchange hundred-weights of iron for 
 ounces of gold. Evanescent, formless, unstable, impalpable, 
 a fog of uncondensed experiences hovers over our conscious- 
 ness like an atmosphere of uncombined gases. One spark 
 of genius shoots through it, and its elements rush together 
 and glitter before us in a single translucent drop. It would 
 hardly be extravagant to call science the art of packing 
 knowledge. 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 445 
 
 We are moving in the right direction, therefore, when 
 we summon all the agencies of nature before the tribunal of 
 Science, and try the question of their identity under their 
 various aliases, just so often as a new set of masks or dis- 
 guises is detected in their possession. The accumulated 
 discoveries of late years have resulted in such a trial. Fol- 
 lowing the same course that Newton and Franklin followed 
 in their generalizations, living philosophers have attempted 
 to show relations of mutual convertibility, if not of identity, 
 between the series of forces known as light, heat, electricity, 
 magnetism, and chemical affinity. Some leading facts indi- 
 cating their intimate relationship may be very briefly re- 
 called. 
 
 A body heated to a certain point becomes luminous ; its 
 heat seems to pass over partly into the condition of light. 
 Thus iron becomes red-hoi at about 1,000 Fahrenheit. 
 Light may, perhaps, be changed into, or manifest itself as, 
 heat. In Franklin's famous experiment, the black cloth, 
 which absorbs all the luminous rays, sinks deepest into the 
 snow. Light, again, may act chemically, as heat does, as we 
 see in the results of photography. It may be fixed in a body, 
 like heat, as is shown in the Bologna phosphorus, which 
 shines for some minutes after being exposed to sunlight, or 
 to the common light of day. Heat develops electricity, as 
 in the various thermo-electric combinations of different 
 metals. Electricity produces light, and sets fire to combus- 
 tibles. The highest magnetic powers are developed in iron 
 by the action of galvanic electricity. The magnet, again, is 
 made to give galvanic shocks in a common form of battery, 
 with the usual manifestations of light and heat. Chemical 
 force develops light, heat, and electricity ; and each of these 
 
44 6 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 is used constantly in the laboratory as a practical means of 
 inducing chemical action. Heat alone is shown, by an ex- 
 periment of Mr. Grove, to be capable of decomposing water. 
 Further than this, as all forms of motion are capable of de- 
 veloping heat, or light, or electricity, according to the con- 
 ditions under which it occurs, and as heat and electricity 
 and chemical changes are habitually used to produce motion, 
 it is questioned whether all the apparent varieties of force 
 are not mutually convertible, there being in reality but one 
 kind of force, which manifests itself in each of the different 
 modes just spoken of according to the material substratum 
 through which it is passing, or some other modifying cause. 
 And as there are facts indicating the existence of a system 
 of equivalents as prevailing in these conversions, or of a fixed 
 ratio between the various convertible forms of force, so that 
 a given electrical force will produce just so much heat or 
 chemical decomposition, and either of these reproduce the 
 original amount of electricity, it has been maintained, that 
 the total force of the inorganic universe is undergoing per- 
 petual transfer, but never changes in amount, any more than 
 the matter of the universe is altered in quantity by change 
 of form. 
 
 This would be the noblest of generalizations, could we 
 accept it without limit as an established truth : a few simple 
 elements the material world formed by their innumerable 
 combinations ; one force, an effluence from the central power 
 of creation, animating all binding atoms, guiding systems, 
 illuminating, warming, renewing, dissolving, as it passes 
 through the various media of which the unbreathing universe 
 is made up. 
 
 We may carry the generalization a step further. We know 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 447 
 
 nothing of matter itself except as a collection of localized 
 forces, points of attraction and repulsion, as Boscovich ex- 
 pressed his notion of its elements. Take a quartz crystal as 
 an example. It resists the passage of certain other forces 
 through a limited portion of space. It resists the separation 
 of that sphere of resistance into two or more parts, by means 
 of what we call cohesion. If a ray of light attempts to pass 
 the portion of space within which these circumscribed forces 
 have been found to act, it is thrown back or bent from its 
 course. Here, then, are localized forces, or agencies that 
 produce change ; the existence of anything behind them 
 substance or substratum is a mere hypothesis. But while 
 the fluent forces of the universe have been shown to pass 
 more or less completely into one another, these collections 
 of stationary forces which we call matter have hitherto 
 maintained their ground against every attempt to reduce 
 them to unity, or to render them in any degree mutually 
 convertible. Our threescore groups of fixed forces, known 
 as simple substances, defy all further analysis, so far as our 
 present power and knowledge extend. 
 
 But we must remember that, even if the hypothesis of the 
 absolute unity of the various imponderable agencies were 
 established as a fact, we should still have to look somewhere 
 between their sources and our organs for the difference in 
 their manifestations. And this could be only in the media 
 through which they act. If electricity becomes magnetic 
 attraction in passing through iron, and iron only, we must 
 look to the metal for the cause of its change of form. Thus 
 we only transfer the differentiating agency from one sphere 
 to another, in consequence of the experimental inferences 
 of the physicist and the chemist. If chemistry had reduced 
 
44 8 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 matter to some one mother-element, we should have been 
 forced to refer all its different manifestations, such as gold, 
 sulphur, oxygen, and the rest, to the influence of external 
 agencies operating through them. The tendency of modern 
 research, without claiming for its inferences the character of 
 demonstration, is in the other direction : unity of the fluent 
 forces ; diversity of the fixed forces, or matter. 
 
 Such are the data derived from the inorganic world with 
 which we approach the consideration of the phenomena that 
 belong to organized beings. According to their analogies 
 we should look for the cause of any peculiar manifestation 
 we might meet with in the fixed forces or material structure 
 of the organism. 
 
 When we commence the examination of this material 
 structure, we find it so different from everything that we have 
 met with in lifeless matter, that we are tempted to believe 
 it must differ no less in elementary composition. The sub- 
 stance of these five hundred mute slaves that we call mus- 
 cles, and the currents of this " running flesh " that we call 
 blood, seem unlike anything in earth, air, or waters. But 
 Chemistry meets us with her all-searching analysis, and tells 
 us that this solid and this fluid, and all the other structures 
 of the body, however varied in aspect, are but combinations 
 of a few elements which we know well in the laboratories of 
 Nature and Art. A few gallons of water, a few pounds of 
 carbon and of lime, some cubic feet of air, an ounce or two 
 of phosphorus, a few drachms of iron, a dash of common salt,, 
 a pinch of sulphur, a grain or more of each of several hardly 
 essential ingredients, and we have man, according to Ber- 
 zelius and Liebig. We have literally " weighed Hannibal," 
 or his modern representative, and are ready to answer Ju- 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 449 
 
 venal's question. The wisest brain, the fairest face, and the 
 strongest arm before or since Ulysses and Helen and Aga- 
 memnon, were or are made up of these same elements, not 
 twenty in number, and scarcely a third of the simple sub- 
 stances known to the chemist. The test-tube, and the cru- 
 cible, and the balance that " cavils on the ninth part of a 
 hair," have settled that question. Appearances, therefore, 
 have proved deceptive with regard to the composition of 
 the organism. 
 
 Again, if we looked for the first time at the mode of ac- 
 tion of the living structure, we should probably decide that 
 the forces at work to produce the operations we observe 
 must be of an essentially different nature from those which 
 we see manifested in brute matter. Here are solids sus- 
 tained and fluids lifted against the force of gravity. Here 
 is heat generated without fire. Here is bread turned into 
 flesh. Here is a glairy and oily fluid shut up in a tight cas- 
 ket, sealed by Nature as carefully as the last will and testa- 
 ment of an heirless monarch ; and lo ! what the casket holds 
 is juggled into blood, bone, marrow, flesh, feathers, by the 
 aid of a little heat, which, increased a few degrees, might 
 give us an omelet instead of a chicken. Surely, we should 
 say, here must be new forces, unknown to the common forms 
 of matter. Yet appearances may deceive us, as they de- 
 ceived us respecting the substance of the organism until the 
 chemist set us right. 
 
 We must try the actions just as he has tried the elements. 
 We are not bound to do for them any more than he has 
 done for the materials he has worked upon. If he has 
 stopped at analysis, and confessed that synthesis is beyond 
 his powers, so may we. He has shown us the carbon, the 
 29 
 
45 
 
 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 iron, and the other elements of which blood and muscular fiber 
 are made up. But he has never made a drop of blood or a 
 fiber of muscle. We have done as much for physiological 
 analysis, if we can show that such or such a living action is 
 produced by some form of natural force with which we are 
 acquainted as it appears in inorganic matter, although we 
 can not reproduce the living action by artificial contrivances. 
 It is not to be supposed that the laboratory can present com- 
 bining elements to one another under all the conditions fur- 
 nished by the organism, nor that any one living act should be 
 imitated after the mutually interdependent round of move- 
 ments has been permanently interrupted. 
 
 Proceeding, then, to our analysis of the living actions, a 
 very superficial examination shows us that many of the phys- 
 ical agencies are manifested in the organism in the same 
 way as in ordinary matter. Thus gravity is always at work 
 to drag us down to the earth. It holds us spread out on the 
 nurse's lap in infancy. We stand up against it for some 
 three or four score years. Then it pulls us slowly down- 
 ward again. The biped is forced to become a triped. The 
 jaw falls by its own weight, and must continually be lifted 
 again ; so that old men, as Haller remarked, seem to be con- 
 stantly chewing. It stretches us out at last, and flattens the 
 earth over our bones, and so has done with us. Our fluids 
 obey it during our whole lives. The veins of the legs dilate 
 in tall men who stand much ; the hands blanch if we hold 
 them up ; the'face reddens if we stoop. The same cohesion 
 that gives strength to knife-handles, and tenacity to bow- 
 strings serves the purposes of life in bones and sinews. The 
 valves of the heart and vessels, which pointed Harvey to the 
 discovery of the circulation, proclaim the obedience of the 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 451 
 
 fluids to the laws of hydraulics. The tear-passages are 
 filled by the force of capillary attraction. The skin soaks 
 up fluids and allows them to escape through it, as membranes 
 and films of paper and sheets of unglazed porcelain do in 
 our experiments. The chemical reactions between the blood 
 and the atmosphere, and between the gastric juice and the 
 food, may be imitated very successfully out of the body. 
 The eye and the ear recognize the ordinary laws of light 
 and sound in all their arrangements. Levers, pulleys, and 
 even the wheel and axle, play their usual part in the passive 
 transfer of the forces that move the living machinery. 
 
 These facts, and many others of similar character which 
 might be mentioned, point to the following conclusion : If 
 there is a special force acting in the living organism, it must 
 exist in addition to the general forces of nature, and not as 
 a substitute for them. To know whether such a special 
 force is necessary, or whether the general forces of nature 
 are sufficient, we must know what these last are capable 
 of doing, and what they can not do, and must compare 
 their ascertained power and its limitatfbns with the living 
 task to be performed. This is the next point to be exam- 
 ined. 
 
 That form of force which we call chemical affinity is 
 capable of giving an indefinite number of aspects and quali- 
 ties to matter, by varying the proportions and mode of com- 
 bination of a few simple elements. Oxygen and nitrogen, 
 which are the breath of our nostrils, become a corrosive 
 fluid when united in certain simple proportions differing 
 from those of atmospheric air. The same elements, in varied 
 combinations, serve us as food, or form a fluid, one drop of 
 which kills almost like a stroke of lightning. Thus there is 
 
452 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 nothing exceptional in the fact that the compounds of the 
 vegetable or animal structure should present the distinctive 
 characters by which we know them as starch or fat, as fiber 
 or muscle. 
 
 Neither does there appear to be anything in the mere 
 fact of assimilation which establishes a distinct line of de- 
 markation between the living and the lifeless world. A 
 crystal, from a solution containing several salts, appropriates 
 just the materials adapted to build up its own substance. 
 A lichen does nothing more. The air is a solution of the 
 elements that form it, and it appropriates and fixes them. 
 The penetration of the new materials into the organic struc- 
 ture, and their interstitial distribution among its parts, might 
 seem to draw the line of distinction. But this is very limited 
 in many plants, and depends on their mechanical arrange- 
 ment, one division growing upon the outside and another 
 upon the inside. The porosity of organized beings which 
 favors this mode of nutrition is nothing but an increase 
 of internal surface ; soluble nutritive matters are diffused 
 through their textures just as water and other fluids pass 
 into the pores of the Spanish alcarraza ; and there is no 
 reason why this internal surface should not appropriate new 
 matter, as well as the external surface of a mineral. 
 
 The constancy of specific form is not more absolute in 
 organized beings than in crystals. The difference between 
 different crystalline shapes of the same mineral is not greater 
 than that of the grub and the butterfly, or of the floating and 
 the fixed medusa. 
 
 Nor is a certain limitation of size a distinguishing mark 
 of vitality. Some crystals are microscopic, some needle- 
 like, some columnar. No diamond was ever found too 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 453 
 
 heavy for a lady's coronet; but there are beryls which it 
 would break a man's back to carry. 
 
 The plant and the animal have been thought to be pecu- 
 liar in maintaining their integrity by continual waste and 
 renewal. They are a perpetual " whirlpool," into which 
 new matter is constantly passing, and from which the ma- 
 terials that have been used 'are always being thrown out. 
 It might at first seem hard to match this condition by any 
 fact from the inorganic world. But, from time immemorial, 
 life has been compared to a flame, a spark, a torch, a candle: 
 
 " Et, quasi cursores, vitae lampada tradunt." 
 
 The inverted flambeau of the ancients is still a frequent 
 symbol in our rural cemeteries. Macbeth, Othello, John of 
 Gaunt, have made the image familiar to us in different forms : 
 
 " My oil-dried lamp, and time-bewasted light, 
 Shall be extinct with age and endless night." 
 
 The simile is in fact a little fatigued with long use, and the 
 Humane Society is hardly true to its name when it tolerates 
 the expression that " the vital spark was extinct." But this 
 is the very object of comparison that we here want, not for 
 ornament but use. Professor Draper has beautifully drawn 
 the parallel between the flame and the plant. The flame is 
 not living, yet it grows ; it is fed by incessant waste and 
 supply ; and it dies at length, exhausted, clogged, or sud- 
 denly quenched. The plant must suck up fluid by its wick- 
 like roots, as well as the lamp by its root-like wick. The 
 leaves must let it evaporate, as does the alcohol in an unpro- 
 tected spirit-lamp. Here, then, is the mechanism of per- 
 
454 
 
 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 petual interstitial change, which we have a right to say may 
 be purely physical in the one case, as in the other. 
 
 We need not wonder, in view of this perpetual change 
 of material, that the living body, as a whole, resists decom- 
 position. The striking picture drawn by Cuvier in his in- 
 troduction to the " Comparative Anatomy," in which the 
 living loveliness of youthful beauty is contrasted with the 
 fearful changes which a few hours will make in the lifeless 
 form, loses its apparent significance when we remember the 
 necessary consequence of the arrest of its interior move- 
 ments. The living body is like a city kept sweet by drains 
 running underground to every house, into which the water 
 that supplies the wants of each household is constantly 
 sweeping its refuse matters. The dead body is the same 
 city, with its drains choked and its aqueducts dry. The 
 individual system, like the mass of collective life that 
 constitutes a people, is continually undergoing interstitial 
 decomposition. If we take in a ton every twelvemonth, 
 in the shape of food, drink, and air, and get rid of only 
 a quarter of it unchanged into our own substance, we 
 die ten times a year not all of us at any one time, 
 but a portion of us at every moment. It is a curious 
 consequence of this, we may remark by the way, that 
 if the refuse of any of our great cities were properly 
 economized, its population would eat itself over and over 
 again in the course of every generation. We consume no- 
 thing. Our food is like those everlasting pills that old phar- 
 macopoeias tell of, heirlooms for the dura ilia of successive 
 generations. But we change what we receive, first into our 
 own substance, then into waste matter ; and we have no evi- 
 dence that any single portion of the body resists decompo- 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 455 
 
 sition longer during life than after death. Only, all that 
 decays is at once removed while the living state continues. 
 
 As for our inability, already referred to, to imitate most 
 of the organic compounds, it is no more remarkable than 
 our inability to manufacture precious stones. Some combi- 
 nations take place readily ; others require the most delicately 
 adjusted conditions. Potassium and oxygen rush into each 
 other's arms like true lovers. Iron blushes a tardier con- 
 sent before changing its maiden name for oxide. The 
 " noble metals " are coy to the great elemental wooer ; they 
 must be tampered with by go-betweens before they will 
 yield. Chlorine and hydrogen unite with a violent explo- 
 sion, if exposed to sunlight. Hydrogen and oxygen resist 
 the mediation of the sunbeams, but come together with 
 sudden vehemence if crossed by the electric spark or touched 
 by a flame. Most bodies must be dissolved before they will 
 form alliances; "corpora non agunt nisi soluta." Some can 
 combine only in the nascent state ; like princes, they must 
 be betrothed in their cradles. There is nothing strange, 
 then, in the fact that combinations formed in the vegetable 
 or animal laboratory should be hard to imitate out of the 
 body. Yet the chemist has already succeeded in forming 
 urea ; and artificial digestive fluids, borrowing nothing from 
 life but a bit of dried and salted rennet, do their work quite 
 as well as the gastric juice of many dyspeptic professors. 
 These instances show us that, if we can only supply the 
 necessary conditions, the chemical forces are always ready. 
 Nature expects every particle of carbon, and the rest, to do 
 its duty under all circumstances. The digestive secretions 
 often devour the stomach after death. A drowned man is 
 restored by artificial respiration ; the air forced into the 
 
456 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 lungs changes the blood in their capillary vessels ; the blood 
 thus changed is enabled to flow more freely; the heart is 
 unloaded of its stagnant contents, and roused to action ; the 
 round of vital acts is once more set in motion ; and all this 
 because carbon and oxygen are always true to each other. 
 
 We are obliged to confess, as the result of this examina- 
 tion, that the inherent and inalienable relations of the ele- 
 ments found in the living organism may be sufficient to 
 account for all the acts of composition and decomposition 
 observed during life, without invoking that special " chimie 
 vivante " which Broussais and others have supposed to be 
 one of the properties of organization. 
 
 There is another mode of operation found in animals 
 and vegetables, which has been considered as depending 
 upon special vital) in distinction from physical, causes. 
 This is the process by which certain bodies are selected 
 from others for absorption or secretion ; as when the chyle 
 is taken up by the lacteals, and the bile is separated from 
 the blood by the liver. To account for this, the organs 
 have been supposed to possess a certain " low intelligence," 
 which directs them in this selection. Yet there is evidence 
 that the ordinary physical laws are not idle in these opera- 
 tions, and it is fair to ask if they may not be the only real 
 agencies. The lacteals will not take up oily matters until 
 they have been turned into an emulsion by the pancreatic 
 fluid ; just as a wick wetted with water will not take up oil 
 until this is emulsified, or made a soap of. 
 
 We may still inquire why each secreting gland forms or 
 transmits its own special product, and no other ; why the 
 liver secretes only bile, and the lachrymal gland only tears. 
 We can see nothing in the anatomical formation of these 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 457 
 
 organs to account for their peculiar modes of action. But 
 there are many phenomena of simple physical transudation 
 equally unexplained. When water and alcohol are separated 
 by a membrane, a current is established between the fluids 
 in both directions, that from the water to the alcohol the 
 denser to the lighter being the most rapid. When a simi- 
 lar experiment is performed with sirup and water, the cur- 
 rent is from the water to the sirup the lighter to the denser. 
 When the same fluids are employed, the nature and position 
 of the membrane used occasion differences which we can 
 not explain. With the skin of a frog, the current from the 
 water is most rapid when the internal surface is toward the 
 alcohol. But, with an eel-skin, the reversed position is most 
 favorable to the flow in the same direction. 
 
 Again, in the phenomena of precipitation, as seen in the 
 laboratory, we have an illustration of the chemical side of 
 secretion. Two clear fluids are mixed, and one of them 
 immediately separates or secretes one or more of its elements 
 as a distinct product ; or both may be decomposed with 
 entire transformation of aspect and properties. Or a simple 
 solid substance is introduced into a fluid compound, and at 
 once seizes upon some constituent, and appropriates it, as 
 when iron is immersed in solutions of salts of copper. Still 
 more striking is the well-known action of spongy platinum 
 in producing the combination of hydrogen and oxygen, with- 
 out undergoing any chemical change itself. 
 
 Let us see whether some of these same physical opera- 
 tions may not be manifested in the liver, taking this as the 
 typical secreting organ. Its cell-walls may govern their 
 currents of transudation by laws of their own, as eel-skins 
 and frog-skins govern the currents of alcohol and water. 
 
458 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 The two kinds of blood that meet in its capillary vessels 
 may react upon each other, and produce mutual decomposi- 
 tion, as well as any other compound fluids. The substance 
 of the liver has as much right to appropriate fat, without a 
 special license from vitality, as the iron, in the experiment 
 referred to above, to appropriate copper. It may have as 
 good a title from the Supreme Authority to join the elements 
 that form cholesterine, as spongy platinum to unite hydrogen 
 and oxygen. This catalytic agency the priestly office of 
 chemical nature that gives to one body the power of marry- 
 ing innumerable pairs of loving atoms, itself standing apart 
 in elemental celibacy is not to be denied its possible place 
 in the living mechanism. Its action may, perhaps, be more 
 extended than in inanimate bodies. The instances furnished 
 by the action of the pancreatic fluid and the gastric juice 
 may belong to a far more numerous series o" similar phe- 
 nomena. We may grant a difference of degree between the 
 separations or secretions effected by the reactions between 
 the complex elements of the organism and those witnessed 
 in unorganized matter ; but the difference of essential na- 
 ture is less easily demonstrated. 
 
 But it will be said that the several parts select their 
 special secretions with reference to the general wants of the 
 system. If there is no evidence of adaptation of parts to a 
 whole anywhere except in living beings, then we must allow 
 that here is a difference in kind as well as in degree, which 
 it would be hard to reconcile with the supposition that the 
 same forces are the sole agents in both cases. But it is vain 
 to deny that the macrocosm shows the same adaptation of 
 parts as the microcosm. When the Resolute was found 
 adrift and boarded by the American sailors, there was no 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 459 
 
 sail on her masts, and no hand at her helm. Yet there was 
 just as much evidence in her build and equipments that she 
 was framed and provided for a definite purpose as if the 
 good ship had been seen with all her men at the ropes and 
 the steersman at the wheel, following a lead into the ice- 
 fields of the North. So if the earth had been visited by 
 some wandering spirit before a fern had spread its leaves, 
 or a trilobite had clashed his scales, the evidence of adapta- 
 tion of its several parts to one another, as well as to ulterior 
 ends, would have been clear as the sun that shone upon its 
 primeval strata. Its steady circuit through the heavens, ex- 
 posing it on all sides to light and shade in succession ; the 
 qualities of matter that lead its various forms to arrange 
 themselves as shapeless matrix, or geometrical solid, into 
 ever downward-sinking waters and ever upward-rising at- 
 mospheres ; the self-preserving and self-classifying tendency, 
 constantly at work to educe new harmonies out of the de- 
 stroying conflict of the active powers of nature show that 
 the adaptation of parts to the whole is wider than the realm 
 and older than the reign of life. 
 
 All the physical laws, in and out of the organism, are ar- 
 ranged in harmony with one another. Each organ of a plant 
 or an animal is supported by and accountable to the general 
 system. But this system holds the same relations to the 
 surrounding universe. Every creature that is born has an 
 account opened at once with Nature debtor by so much of 
 carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, azote ; creditor by so much car- 
 bonic acid and ammonia, or whatever may be the medium 
 of payment. Life is adapted to maintain a certain normal 
 composition of the atmosphere, as much as the atmosphere 
 to maintain life. And as air existed before plant or animal 
 
460 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 lived to breathe it, and as air is made up of at least three 
 elements, each of these, considered as a part, was adjusted 
 in quality and quantity to the whole with the same fitness 
 that we see in the relation of the amount and quality of the 
 bile as compared with the other secretions and the wants of 
 the system. 
 
 But the living system protects itself by special provisions, 
 it will be said ; look at the thickened cuticle upon the work- 
 ingman's hand, and see how admirably it shields the sensi- 
 tive surface. True ; and see also how delightfully the same 
 thickened cuticle acts in the case of a corn. The avidity 
 with which the most deadly substances are sucked in by the 
 skin the suddenness with which a single drop of poison 
 will work its way through the system from the surface of a 
 mucous membrane shows us that the same force acts for 
 good or bad indifferently ; that is, it is under the general 
 law of harmony, but not modified to meet accidental condi- 
 tions. Just so in the greater universe, the tide rises by -one of 
 its beneficent provisions, wafting a hundred fleets into their 
 harbors, but not less surely drowning the poor wretches who 
 are caught on the sands by its advancing waters. " Faugh 
 a ballagh ! " " Clear the coast ! " is the word when we get 
 across the track of any natural agency. We must not ex- 
 pect it to turn out for any particular end ; the Creator has 
 imparted no such wisdom to matter. 
 
 The course of a single ray of light is the eternal illustra- 
 tion of the Divine mode of action. It is always in straight 
 lines. The difference between our utilitarian methods, al- 
 ways looking to special ends, and the Supreme handling of 
 things in their universal aspect, is beautifully shown in the 
 structure of one of our domestic animals. If a watchmaker 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 461 
 
 should insist on putting into a common watch one little 
 wheel, unseen, and unconnected with the rest of the ma- 
 chinery, because he had made repeaters which required such 
 a wheel, we should smile at his lost labor. But there is a 
 little collar-bone, too small to be of any use, floating in the 
 midst of the muscles about a cat's shoulder, which is as con- 
 stant as if the animal's welfare depended upon it. Why is 
 it there ? It is the vanishing point of a series of models 
 formed on one general plan. The plan, as a whole, is a 
 monument of infinite wisdom, adapted to the various needs 
 of a numerous series of conscious beings. But it is so vast 
 that it includes what we call utility as one of its accidents, 
 and this anatomical fact shows us one of the borders at 
 which the Divine conception overlaps the temporary appli- 
 cation. The human artisan is wise in leaving out the wheel 
 when it is no longer wanted. But the seemingly trivial ar- 
 rangement just mentioned shows that the Deity respects a 
 normal type more than a practical fact. His thoughts and 
 his ways are not as ours. 
 
 The limited duration of existence might be thought to be 
 characteristic of organic being. But, in the first place, this 
 fact is not so universal and absolute as might be supposed. 
 De Candolle long since promulgated the doctrine that trees 
 live indefinitely, and never die but from injury or disease. 
 The death of our great forest-trees is commonly owing to 
 fracture, in consequence of the decay of the inner portion 
 of the stem, which no longer performs any but a mechanical 
 office. On the other hand, many crystals undergo decom- 
 position, of form at least, within a longer or shorter period, 
 by efflorescence or deliquescence. The very conditions of 
 organic life imply a liability to disable its implements. A 
 
462 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 river chokes up its own bed with detritus ; a chimney fills 
 itself up with soot. The organism is a multilocular sac of 
 fluids that are loaded with dissolved and suspended matters. 
 The smoke of life ascends from innumerable pores of animal 
 bodies, from the first gasp to the last breath that is expelled. 
 What marvel that the vessels become thickened, and the 
 working organs clogged with accumulating deposits? We 
 can only wonder, with the hymn to which we have referred, 
 that the harmony of so exquisitely adjusted a mechanism 
 should be so long maintained, and not at all at the brevity 
 of life in any of its forms, or the diversity of its duration. 
 
 But there is the great mystery of reproduction. Are 
 there any acts of inorganic nature parallel to those that take 
 place in the development of an embryo of one of the higher 
 animals ? This development may be decomposed into the 
 following separate elements : i. A movement of assimilation 
 imparted by an organism to a separable product of secretion 
 or of 'growth; 2. A differentiating movement, which divides 
 and arranges the formative materials into the substance of 
 tissues and organs ; 3. A modeling force, or shaping agency, 
 which determines the form of the several parts and of the 
 whole ; 4. A coordinating force, which brings the various 
 separate acts into harmony with one another, the motus re- 
 gius of Lord Bacon. 
 
 Now, the question is, not whether all these actions are 
 combined in any other known group of material changes 
 than embryonic development, but whether any one of them 
 is absolutely sui generis. And first, we do not see why mo- 
 lecular movements may not be imparted by one portion of 
 matter to another, as well as movements in mass. Fire is so 
 propagated, and forms a new center independent of its 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 463 
 
 origin. Magnetism is imparted from one body to another, 
 without diminution of its intensity in the first. Secondly, 
 the rending apart of the most intimately combined elements, 
 and their distribution to the positive and negative poles re- 
 spectively, may illustrate the separation of the several con- 
 stituents of the embryonic structure from one another. A 
 very weak current will decompose saline mixtures, and even 
 refractory oxides. Heat alone, as we have seen, will de- 
 compose water. Is it not in harmony with these physical 
 facts, that a weak current of heat, long continued, as in 
 incubation, should induce the separation and yuasz-polsiT 
 arrangement of the loosely combined atoms that are to form 
 the embryo ? Thirdly, is not the shaping power more ob- 
 vious in the rhombs of a fragment of Iceland spar than in 
 the disk of a lichen, which falls on a stone and spreads just 
 as a drop of rain would spread ? We may, in fact, see the 
 two forms of the modeling process Nature's plane and 
 spherical geometry in operation side by side in the same 
 structure. The raphides, or included crystals, which we 
 often find in great abundance in vegetable cells those of 
 the onion, for instance illustrate the point in question. 
 Lastly, we have already seen cause to deny that the princi- 
 ple of harmony of parts, or multiplicity in unity, can be con- 
 fined to living bodies, without overlooking the most obvious 
 adjustments of the elements of general nature to one another 
 and to one great plan. " The wonderful uniformity in the 
 planetary system," says Newton, "must be allowed the effect 
 of choice; and so must the uniformity in the bodies of 
 animals." 
 
 It appears, from the survey we have taken, that we might 
 expect, from the general character of the creative plan, that, 
 
464 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 as preexisting materials were employed to form organic struc- 
 tures, so preexisting force or forces would be employed to 
 maintain organic actions or unconscious life. It is certain 
 that the materials of the organism are to a great extent sub- 
 ject to the common laws of mechanical and chemical forces. 
 It is not proved that these same forces are incompetent to 
 produce the whole series of interstitial changes in which the 
 functions of life common to vegetables and animals consist. 
 On the contrary, the more we vary our experiments and ex- 
 tend our observation, the more difficult we find the task of 
 assigning limits to their power. The preservation of specific 
 form and dimensions has not appeared to be confined to 
 living beings. The cooperation of the parts of an organized 
 structure does, indeed, imply a plan, or preestablished har- 
 mony, but no more than the arrangement of the spheres or 
 the relations of the elements to one another. Each little 
 world of life shows only the same solidarity, on a small scale, 
 that prevents the universe from being a chaos. Limits of 
 duration are not peculiar to living beings, nor always evident 
 in them. Reproduction combines several modes of action, 
 no one of which is without its inorganic parallel. 
 
 Given, then, a plant or a man, there seems no good rea- 
 son why either should not begin to live with all its might so 
 soon as the conditions of light, heat, air whatever stimuli 
 or food it requires shall be made to act upon it. Such is 
 the case with the drowned man who is "brought to life." 
 He was defunct to all intents and purposes, except that the 
 organs and fluids had not had time to become clogged or 
 decomposed, when a whiff of air set the whole machinery 
 going again. " Two is my number," said Sir Charles Napier. 
 " Two wives, two daughters, two sons, and two deaths. I 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 465 
 
 died at Corunna, and now the grim old villain approaches 
 again." Life is not the absolute unit we suppose. If a man 
 is dead who "breathes his last," or " expires," such dead 
 men have unquestionably been restored to life without a 
 miracle. In other words, a man may be dead conditionally 
 dead, unless there happen to be a double bellows or a gal- 
 vanic battery in the neighborhood, and some one who knows 
 how to use it. But if a man is not dead so long as any so- 
 called living process goes on, then most men are buried alive ; 
 for there is no doubt that certain secretions the mucous se- 
 cretion among others, as one of our best pathologists thinks 
 take place for a considerable time after a person has "ex- 
 pired." Probably a certain number of those who have just 
 died or expired could be resuscitated to movement, if not to 
 consciousness, by artificial respiration, if it were a thing to 
 be desired. The reason that they can not be permanently 
 restored, like those rescued from the water, is that some 
 organ or fluid has undergone an important injury in the vast 
 majority of cases, if not in all. 
 
 Life is a necessary attribute, then, of a perfect organism 
 exposed to the proper external influences, just as much as 
 gravity belongs to a metal, or hardness to a diamond. Just 
 as the Creator, in calling the material elements into exist- 
 ence, contemplated their fitness to form a part of the living 
 creation yet to be, so did he also diffuse such forces, or forms 
 of force, through the world as should of necessity manifest 
 themselves through any perfect organism as what we call life. 
 Such is the conclusion pointed at by the range of analogies 
 we have adduced. A vast number of facts testify in its 
 favor, and it is hard to find any that oppose it which can not 
 be explained. Whatever incomprehensible mystery there 
 30 
 
466 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 may have been in the first fabrication of these living time- 
 keepers that measure ages in their conscious or unconscious 
 movements, one common key seems enough to wind them all 
 up and set them going. We may not accept Mr. Newport's 
 generalization as to light, but, whatever form of force we 
 may recognize as iheflrimum mobile in the series of organic 
 movements, we are contented to accept as the chosen mode 
 of action of the all-pervading Presence. If the Deity has 
 seen fit to make one agent serve many purposes, the fact 
 will be acquiesced in, in the face of the threatened San 
 Benitos of all the Linnaean societies. 
 
 The battle-ground of atheism is not in the field of 
 natural science ; meaning by that the study of material phe- 
 nomena. The argument from design to an intelligent con- 
 triver does not require the knowledge of Cuvier or Hum- 
 boldt to make it satisfactory. Every man carries about with 
 him in his own organization a syllogism which all the logic 
 in the world can never mend. If his skepticism will not 
 melt away in such an ocean of evidence, it is because it is 
 insoluble. Whatever contrivances have been employed, the 
 grand result of an immeasurable whole, all the parts of 
 which are fitted together with a foresight and wisdom which 
 it mocks the human intellect to attempt to sound, except 
 along its shallower edges, remains to be accounted for, and 
 Paley's argument from the watch to its maker illustrates the 
 simple course of reasoning which the healthy mind is natu- 
 rally forced to follow. 
 
 The evidence we have been considering applies to the 
 perfect and mature organism, and does not reach the ques- 
 tion how such organisms first came into being. Who shall 
 tell us whether the first egg was parent or offspring of the 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 467 
 
 first fowl? The poet must answer for the philosopher. 
 Milton has ventured to paraphrase the Scriptural account 
 of creation with a freedom not always allowed to modern 
 science. "The tepid caves, and fens, and shores "hatch 
 their feathered broods from eggs. The grassy clods become 
 the mothers of young cattle. The bees appear, not a single 
 pair, but " swarming," as our own naturalists tell us they 
 must have appeared. But our prosaic evidence as to the 
 introduction of the forms of life upon our planet is limited. 
 And, first, there is no authentic evidence that the devel- 
 opment of any organism has been directly observed without 
 the demonstrated or probable presence of a germ derived 
 from a previous structure having similar characters. Even 
 the vexed question of the origin of the entozoa, or internal 
 parasites, has received its approximate solution from modern 
 investigations. The tape-worm, for instance, is found to 
 exist in two different forms or stages of development. Each 
 perfect tape-worm contains some twelve millions of eggs, 
 capable of being reduced to a floating dust, and thus being 
 deposited on various articles used as food. The mouse, 
 nibbling at everything, swallows some of these, and they 
 grow in his body into the state of cystic worms, an interme- 
 diate form of development only of late recognized as being 
 a stage of the tape-worm's growth. By and by the cat eats 
 the mouse, and the cystic worm, finding its proper habitat 
 in this animal's alimentary canal, assumes the true propor- 
 tions of the tania crassicollis. And so another cystic worm, 
 which is common in the flesh of oxen, sheep, and especially 
 pigs, becomes, by a similar metamorphosis, the tcema solium, 
 or long tape-worm of their human consumer. The tribes 
 that live on raw flesh are said to be particularly subject to 
 
4 68 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 the tape-worm. The hint derived from their experience 
 may serve as an offset against Dr. Kane's Arctic experience, 
 and the recommendation of a raw diet from nearer sources. 
 So far as our immediate object is concerned, we have got rid 
 of one enigma in finding not only the cradles but the 
 nurseries of these entozoa. We are obliged to consign the 
 supposed instances of equivocal generation derived from 
 their history to the same category with Virgil's swarm of 
 bees born from a decaying carcass. 
 
 But, in the second place, the evidence of geology has 
 made it plain that new forms of life have been called into 
 being at many different periods of the earth's history. The 
 multitude of distinct floras and faunas in different regions 
 and strata of the earth sufficiently proves that the formation 
 of new organisms "has been as much a part of the regular 
 order of things in creation as the precession of the equi- 
 noxes, or upheavals and depressions, or any of those changes 
 that work out their great results in the longer cycles of time. 
 No one who observes the manner in which new specific 
 forms are gradually introduced among those already exist- 
 ing, can help seeing that such new formations may have 
 been quietly intercalated in the midst of their predecessors 
 by a series of operations in which, as in the mighty processes 
 by which new continents are uplifted, nothing but secondary 
 agencies were apparent. Chemistry teaches us, as we have 
 seen, that no new materials were required to be called into 
 being. It is not to be supposed that certain parcels of car- 
 bon or of oxygen were created when the first living forms, 
 containing these elements as a matter of necessity, were 
 fashioned, inasmuch as they already existed in immeasurable 
 abundance. What was wanted was not the materials of the 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 469 
 
 organism, or of its germ, but the force to bring them together 
 without the intermediate action of a parent structure. The 
 creation of matter out of nothing is perfectly credible as 
 a fact, but not definitely conceivable by our imaginations. 
 The combination of preexisting elements, and the develop- 
 ment of new properties in the resulting compound, is what 
 we daily witness. 
 
 If the most insignificant infusorial plant or animal, hav- 
 ing well-defined specific characters, had been evolved under 
 our own eyes, in circumstances precluding the possible exist- 
 ence of a germ derived from a previous similar being, the 
 fact would furnish us with a theory of the organic creation, 
 so far as the purely vital, not the spiritual, side is concerned. 
 Not having any such fact to appeal to, but, on the contrary, 
 finding the rule that whatever lives comes from a germ abso- 
 lutely universal, so far as we are acquainted with actual life, 
 we are reduced to barren speculation as to the special 
 mechanism employed in the many changes of programme 
 which the paleontologist points out to us in the vegetable 
 and animal world of the past. 
 
 " The world is in its dotage, and yet the cosmogony, or 
 creation of the world " puzzles us, as it did the philosopher 
 from whom these words are cited. By feeling our way up, 
 through what is possible, or at least conceivable, from the 
 laws of the inorganic world to the simplest manifestations 
 of life, we may construct a theory of the evolution of life by 
 means of the existing forces of nature, acting in different 
 degree or intensity from their present ordinary mode of 
 operation. 
 
 Let us construct such a theory, not to lean upon it, but 
 to see what degree of plausibility it may present, or how its 
 
47 o THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 weakness may drive us to another hypothesis. We will try 
 to make the most of it, as an advocate pleads his client's 
 cause without compromising his private opinion. Suppose 
 the problem to be the mechanism of the introduction of 
 vegetable life. And, first, let us illustrate our possible rela- 
 tions to this question by an imaginary picture of a body of 
 philosophers of a somewhat ruder stamp than ourselves, and 
 the statement of a question which may have occurred to 
 them, and taxed their highest faculties. 
 
 A group of savages, living in a remote island, have from 
 time immemorial been in the habit of employing fire for 
 warming themselves and in cooking. They never suffer it to 
 be extinguished everywhere at once, for they know that they 
 can not rekindle it except from another fire. They breed it 
 as we breed trees in our nurseries. The fact of burning is 
 no more a mystery to them than any other natural fact ; its 
 phenomena are constant, determinable beforehand, and con- 
 trollable, and, although they can not talk about carbon and 
 oxygen as button-using sages talk, they practically know the 
 laws of combustion. They know that fire is prolific and 
 self-developing ; that it has its little red seeds, and in due 
 time its slender buds and broad, waving corolla, like a flower ; 
 that it loves air and hates water ; that it gives pleasure or 
 pain, according to the way of using it; that it renders the 
 flesh of the canine race still more acceptable than their liv- 
 ing presence, and even adds new tenderness to the paternal 
 relation in case of premature bereavement. All this they 
 know. But if they are asked where the first fire came from, 
 or how it was born, they have no answer to render, or only 
 an idle story to tell. It was the gift of the Great Spirit, or 
 some tawny Prometheus stole it from heaven. As for any 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 47 x 
 
 mechanism by which it can be produced, they are entirely 
 unable to suggest or conceive it. The wind, they know, fans 
 a spark into a flame, but they laugh at the idea that the wind 
 should kindle a fire without a single spark to begin with. 
 At length a great hurricane sweeps over their island. It 
 sways the tangled forest-branches backward and forward ; it 
 rends and twists and grinds them, until the earth is strewed 
 with their fragments. Two dry boughs are swinging across 
 each other, and chafing in the blast. Presently a smoke rises 
 from their point of crossing, and then a flame the woods 
 are set on fire ; but the great mystery is solved, and from 
 that time forward the natives rub two sticks together when 
 they desire to have the means of warming their fingers, or 
 discussing the merits of such game as they may have bagged 
 in their last skirmish. 
 
 We stand in the same relation to the origin of vegetable 
 life as that in which the savages stood to the origin of fire 
 before the tempest revealed it. Give us but one little vege- 
 table spark, and we can in due time kindle it by our appli- 
 ances into a flame of blossoms wreathed in a cloud of foliage. 
 Thrust into the soil this little brown scale, one of those which 
 the elm has dropped in thousands at our feet, and it will go 
 on towering and spreading until it overshadows the fourth 
 part of an acre. Take this double-winged germ, that looks 
 so like an Egyptian amulet, and bury it. Out of its core 
 will spring a tall shaft that will wear its greenness for a cen- 
 tury, though scarred with many a wound, through which its 
 sweet juices have been stolen. This persistent force, build- 
 ing up the elm and the maple out of such mere specks of 
 matter, holding steadily to the specific characters of each in 
 every diversity of soil and climate, and maintaining them 
 
47 2 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 through the vicissitudes of a hundred seasons, is as great a 
 mystery as would be the production of such a seed as either 
 of those mentioned by deposition from the air which con- 
 tains their elements, or their formation de novo from any col- 
 lection of their proximate principles. It is only because we 
 are not in the habit of witnessing the formation of germs as 
 a daily occurrence, that we invest it with preternatural con- 
 ditions. Geologists, who are constantly dealing with suc- 
 cessive new creations, learn to accept the primitive evolution 
 of an organism as a regular process, equally with its continu- 
 ance. The lighting of a friction-match is not more wonder- 
 ful than the conflagration of a great city which it kindles. 
 If Schultze and Schwann had succeeded instead of failed 
 in their experiments on equivocal generation, we should 
 have taken the fact as quietly as the invention of lucifers. 
 
 Let us proceed with our theoretical construction. We 
 have as much right to say that carbon has a tendency to 
 take the form of a plant under certain circumstances, as 
 that it has to become a diamond under other conditions. 
 We do not see it changing directly into a plant ; did we ever 
 see it crystallizing into a diamond ? Let us now consider 
 the earth just at the period before the first evolution of 
 vegetable life. As uncounted billions of tons of carbon 
 have since been abstracted from the atmosphere to represent 
 what we may call the fixed organic capital of our planet, as 
 well as vast quantities of other elements derived from the 
 earth and the waters, we may suppose the soil and atmos- 
 phere to have then represented a saturated solution of the 
 elements of vegetable organisms. Some change of condi- 
 tion, natural but exceptional, like the hurricane in our im- 
 aginary picture an influx of alien elements from some dis- 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 473 
 
 tant source, or an alteration of temperature, for instance 
 destroys the equilibrium of the solution. There takes place 
 a vast precipitate of living crystals needle-like, acuminated, 
 porous, crusted with an inorganic coat of silex the grass that 
 covers the plains and hillsides. The organic solution hav- 
 ing been thus reduced, the next living precipitate may 
 probably be of a different grade, more slowly formed, more 
 complex, a higher vegetable growth. Would this process be 
 a whit more incomprehensible than the deposition of a cube 
 of common salt from a clear fluid ? Now, although a nucleus 
 in the shape of 'a preexisting cube of salt helps and accel- 
 erates this last process, it is not always necessary to it. So 
 the living shape, which commonly depends for development 
 on its preexisting nucleus, or germ, may be conceived, under 
 certain conditions, to be formed without it, obeying the same 
 general forces, which are confessedly strong enough to shape 
 and build up a mighty tree out of a mere particle of matter, 
 or more properly from the elements to which this particle 
 has given their first direction. After a certain number of 
 vital precipitations, we might suppose the solution, atmos- 
 pheric or other, of the organizable substances, to retain just 
 so much of these principles as would be sufficient to keep up 
 the integrity of the organic deposits. The cube of salt will 
 retain its form indefinitely if kept in the fluid from which it 
 was deposited. And thus we see a reason for the fact that 
 every organism is immersed in a solution of its own constitu- 
 ents. It does not follow that we must be able to imitate this 
 natural process by our artificial arrangements. To say no- 
 thing of our very imperfect control of the natural forces, the 
 scale of magnitude of the experiment may entirely deter- 
 mine the results. Spontaneous combustion happens not un- 
 
474 
 
 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 frequently in heaps of vegetable matter; but no experi- 
 menter will expect the same substances to take fire in such 
 quantities as he examines by the microscope. 
 
 It is only going a step further in our supposition to con- 
 ceive the first stage of vital precipitation as a simpler pro- 
 cess. We may suppose the living precipitate to consist of 
 what we may call indifferent germs, that is, assimilating and 
 self-developing centers, determinable, but not yet deter- 
 mined ; bearing the same relation to vegetable growths gen- 
 erally which the seed of an apple or pear bears to the many 
 possible varieties that may spring from it. This hypothesis 
 is by no means identical with that of progressive develop- 
 ment. It supposes the existence of permanent types, but 
 conceives each type to represent the plastic diagonal of two 
 forces a general organizing principle and a local determin- 
 ing one. The line of direction once fixed persists indefi- 
 nitely, self-perpetuating, in the individual and the species, a 
 vital movement parallel to its own axis. It is not our fault 
 if these indifferent germs are the same things as the semina 
 rerum of the old heathen Lucretius and his masters; the 
 question is, whether they do not assist our conception of the 
 mechanism of creation, and remove a part of its seeming 
 difficulty. 
 
 We might apply this hypothesis of indifferent germs to 
 that singular parallelism without identity observed in the 
 organisms of remote regions. The resemblance between 
 many growths of the Eastern and Western Continents, for 
 instance, would follow as the result of the diffusion of iden- 
 tical germs amid similar, but not identical, general con- 
 ditions of soil and climate. The same series of resemblances 
 might be expected which we see in distant but correspond- 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 475 
 
 ing parts of the body in various affections of the skin. Both 
 arms or both cheeks often present very nearly the same dis- 
 eased aspect, the blood being the common source of the 
 disturbing element, and certain corresponding parts on the 
 two sides of the body furnishing the conditions for its de- 
 velopment. So the two planetary limbs thrust through the 
 folds of the ocean, one on either side, may be supposed to 
 throw out their grasses, or oaks, or elms ; like each other, 
 but not the same. 
 
 " God has been pleased," says Paley, " to prescribe lim- 
 its to his own power, and to work his ends within these 
 limits." We can conceive of the introduction of vegetable 
 life without any overstepping of the present self-prescribed 
 limits of Divine power, as we. understand them. It is not 
 absurd to suppose that new vegetable types may be forming 
 from time to time in the existing order of things. The vul- 
 gar belief is in favor of such occurrences. The extraordi- 
 nary fact of the appearance of oaks after a pine-growth has 
 been removed, and other occurrences of similar nature, have 
 never been thoroughly investigated, so far as we can learn. 
 Scientific men question curiously on the subject ; there is a 
 doubt in their minds about the acorns, if they accept the 
 facts about the oaks, as commonly alleged. It is strange 
 that such substantial seeds should be scattered so widely. 
 It is stranger that such perishable matter as they hold should 
 retain its vitality so long. The experiments on equivocal 
 generation have been made too recently, and by men of too 
 much judgment, to allow us to treat the doctrine with con- 
 tempt. A thousand negative experiments can never settle 
 the question definitively. We do not say that it is probable, 
 but we can not say it is not true, that new types may be in- 
 
476 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 tercalated every century or every year into the existing 
 flora. If the Dix pear was created for the first time in a 
 garden, in Washington Street, who shall say that the same 
 power may not have just given us a new fungus in some 
 corner of its vast nursery ? 
 
 Whatever difficulties we find in attempting to frame a 
 conception of the first evolution of animal life, there are cer- 
 tain facts which we are authorized to take as guides in our 
 reasonings or imaginings upon the matter. Science con- 
 firms the statement of revelation, that animal life must have 
 come into being after vegetable life. The plain reason is, 
 that plants are necessary to prepare the food of animals. 
 And since no existing animal organism is ever built up 
 directly from the elements, but only out of materials derived 
 directly or mediately from the vegetable world, we may 
 question whether those first created were put together di- 
 rectly from the elements. The first animals were necessarily 
 placed where their food was abundant. But their food con- 
 tained the elements of their bodies, and why should not the 
 proximate principles contained in the accumulations of 
 vegetable matter about their birthplace have furnished the 
 materials of the first, as well as of all subsequent organisms ? 
 
 The primordial development of the higher animals pre- 
 sents this peculiar difficulty that their germs depend for 
 their evolution on their continued connection with the 
 parent. We can conceive of an infusorial seed or ovum as 
 being formed by the "concourse of atoms," guided by that 
 Infinite Wisdom which we see every day grouping the same 
 atoms about their living nuclei. Reasonable men experi- 
 ment with the hope of observing such a fact. But no one 
 since Paracelsus unless it be the mother of Frankenstein 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 477 
 
 has thought of getting up an artificial hormmculus, or 
 or even a lower mammal, or a bird. Vaucanson's duck was 
 perhaps the nearest approach to such a performance. He 
 could utter the monosyllable abhorred of medical men, and 
 make himself disagreeable in more ways than it is necessary 
 to mention. But he was nothing better than wood, and 
 illustrates the hopeless distance between the best of our 
 paltry toys and the universe of miracles shut up in any one 
 of the more perfect animal organisms. So difficult has the 
 problem of the evolution of the higher animal forms ap- 
 peared to speculative philosophers, that they have invented 
 the theory of progressive development of the superior from 
 the lower types. The sharp lines which separate species, as 
 shown by observation of every organic fcwm, extinct as well 
 as living, have caused this famous and seductive hypothesis 
 to be very generally rejected as untenable. 
 
 With all the difficulties, however, that stand in the way 
 of our conceiving of the evolution of a mammal by the aid 
 of the general forces of nature acting on the organic ele- 
 ments, we do not see where to draw the line which shall 
 separate the higher from the lower forms of life, and assign 
 a different origin to the two divisions of the series. Reason- 
 ing from below upward, we should come to this frank con- 
 clusion, that, as definite form, limited duration, growth and 
 decay, harmony of parts, transmissible qualities, all implying 
 a controlling intelligence, are manifested in the inorganic 
 world, we can not assume that the same forces which pro- 
 duce its phenomena may not show themselves through all 
 forms of organized matter as vital force. And, as the con- 
 ditions of action of these forces must have varied at different 
 periods of the earth's history, we can not assume that they 
 
478 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 have always been incompetent to bring together the elements 
 of organized matter. The various organic forms which we 
 observe fossilized in the strata of the earth, without any 
 parent structures in the subjacent layers, may be considered 
 as marking by their appearance the epoch of successive 
 " fits of easy transmission " of the plastic elemental influ- 
 ence: 
 
 " Sed, quia finem aliquam pariundi debet habere, 
 Destitit ; ut mulier, spatio defessa vetusto." 
 
 And here we leave this aspect of the question, to look at it 
 in another point of view. 
 
 We recognize two, and only two, great divisions in cre- 
 ated things. To the first class of his creatures the Deity 
 sustains only active relations. All their qualities, functions, 
 adjustments, harmonies, are immediate expressions of his 
 wisdom and power. Every specific form is a manifestation 
 of the Supreme thought. Every elemental movement is the 
 Sovereign's self in action. The only question is, whether he 
 has at one time been present in our elements with an organ- 
 izing force, and afterward withdrawn this particular mani- 
 festation, or whether under the same conditions these ele- 
 ments would always manifest his ideas in the production of 
 the same forms, just as they now maintain the present forms 
 of life by a perpetual miracle, which we fail to recognize as 
 such only because it is familiar to our daily experience. 
 We have stated, as well as our space permitted, the argu- 
 ment for the presence of an organizing force in the ele- 
 ments around us. 
 
 To the second class of his creatures the Creator stands 
 in passive as well as active relations. They are no longer 
 simple instruments to do his bidding. They may disobey 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 479 
 
 him, and violate the harmonies of the universe. They have 
 the great prerogative of self-determination, which, with 
 knowledge of the moral relations of their acts, constitutes 
 them responsible beings. 
 
 Now, if our previous view of matter and of elemental 
 force as continuous Divine manifestations is correct, they 
 could not in the nature of things become self-determining 
 existences. The creation of independent centers of will and 
 action involves a change in the character of the formative 
 agencies hitherto at work in the portion of the universe with 
 which we are acquainted. And here we come at once upon 
 that mystery of mysteries : How and when are these spiritual 
 natures called into being, and what is their relation to the 
 material frames whose fundamental vital action we have 
 alone considered ? Have they existed in some former state, 
 as Plato taught in the Academy, and Dr. Edward Beecher 
 has maintained in the Church ? Are the shores of embry- 
 onic life crowded with souls waiting for their bodies, as 
 Lucretius tells his readers was the foolish fable, and as 
 Brigham Young reveals to his congregation and announces 
 in his harem ? Or can it be that Tennyson has solved the 
 difficulty when he tells us that 
 
 " ... star and system rolling past, 
 
 A soul shall draw from out the vast, 
 And strike his being into bounds, 
 
 " And, moved through life of lower phase, 
 Result in man, be born and think " ? 
 
 Or does the soul organize its own body, as thoughtful men 
 have held, from Aristotle to Mr. Garth Wilkinson ? 
 
 Into these and similar questions we can not now enter, 
 
480 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 
 
 if under any circumstances we should be willing to cast a 
 line into such fathomless abysses of speculation. But as we 
 have followed the physical view of life upward until we 
 have reached an impassable limit, it is but fair to indicate 
 briefly the reversed aspect of living nature, when viewed 
 from above downward, by taking, as the point of departure, 
 its spiritual apex, instead of its material base. 
 
 The introduction of self-determining existence, or sub- 
 creative centers, into the order of things, marks, as we have 
 said, the great change of action by which Omnipotence saw 
 fit to assume passive, as well as active, relations to its crea- 
 tures. There is nothing in light or heat, or electricity, or 
 chemical or mechanical force, that can give any account of 
 spiritual existence. When the first human soul was intro- 
 duced to earthly being, if not before the date of this last 
 birth of creation, there was a new force put forth which was 
 not any of these. And so, whenever a new soul takes mor- 
 tal shape, we recognize it as an emanation from its Maker 
 by some other channel than through the elemental sub- 
 stances or influences that wait upon its secondary and sim- 
 ply organic necessities. 
 
 We could not think it strange that, at the period of this 
 spiritual evolution, a force running parallel with it in the 
 material world a force not identical with any of the ordi- 
 nary physical agencies should combine the elements of the 
 bodily form, and shape it to the wants of the immaterial 
 principle. We should not therefore be constrained to throw 
 upon the common forces of nature that wonderful develop- 
 ment from simple to complex, from general to special, which 
 carries a translucent vesicle through a series of evolutions 
 and differentiations, until it wears the shape of the august 
 
THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. 4 8i 
 
 being to whom the Deity has delegated a portion of his om- 
 nipotence. But this conclusion would oblige us to argue 
 backward from it to the lower animals, whose material frames 
 and organic existence are essentially identical in their com- 
 position and mode of being with our own. And, conceding 
 that a special change of character in the forces of nature 
 marks the appearance of animal life, there would be strong 
 reason for extending the same supposition to the vegetable 
 kingdom. This is only one instance of the difference be- 
 tween our conclusions when we look from the higher sphere 
 and those which we naturally accept from the workshops of 
 material philosophy. We must be content to remain in 
 doubt on many details of creation not revealed to us, on 
 which we can only shape a few half-shadowed hypotheses. 
 
 In conclusion, we recognize our spiritual natures as hav- 
 ing only incidental and temporary relations with the ma- 
 terial substance and general forces of the universe. But we 
 may concede that, the further our examination extends, the 
 more completely the organic or simply vital forces appear to 
 resolve themselves into manifestations of those closely re- 
 lated or mutually convertible principles which give activity 
 to the unconscious portion of the universe. We have no 
 experimental evidence that these physical agencies can form 
 any living germ by their action upon matter ; nor can we 
 prove the contrary. The only directly observed conditions 
 of the evolution of a living structure involve the presence 
 of a germ derived from a being of similar characters. But 
 observation of the earth's strata shows that new forms of 
 life have appeared at numerous successive periods by some 
 other creative mechanism. We can frame hypotheses not 
 inconsistent with the ordinary laws of matter to account 
 3 1 
 
482 THE MECHANISM OF VITAL ACTIONS. ' 
 
 for such formations, but they can be regarded only as more 
 or less ingenious speculations. We are obliged to recognize 
 a special intervention of creative power in the introduction 
 of spiritual existence in the midst of the preexisting uncbn- 
 scious creation. If we' allow that higher modes of .action 
 have once been superinduced upon the ordinary physical 
 forces, we can not deny the possibility, and even probability, 
 of repeated changes in the working machinery of creation, 
 coinciding with the evolution of each new type of organiza- 
 tion. And if new formulae of force in combination with 
 matter preceded the creation of each organism, or group of 
 organisms, we can understand that a special vital formula 
 may be involved in the continuance of their existence. Thus 
 accepting the fact of a change of law as a possible part of 
 the constitution of the universe, we arrive, independently of 
 revelation, at the doctrine of miracles, as this term is com- 
 monly understood. But in the view we have taken, what- 
 ever part may be assigned to the physical forces in the pro- 
 duction and phenomena of life, all being is not the less one 
 perpetual miracle, in which the Infinite Creator, acting 
 through what we often call secondary causes, is himself the 
 moving principle of the universe he first framed and never 
 ceases to sustain. 
 
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