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 Social Sciences & Humanities Library 
 
 University of California, San Diego 
 Please Note: This item is subject to recall. 
 
 Date Due 
 
 MAY 1 5 1997 
 
 2 3 1996 
 
 Cl 39 (2/95) 
 
 UCSD Li). 
 
LITERARY AND HISTORICAL 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE BANCROFT 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUAEE. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, 
 
 BY GEORGE BANCROFT, 
 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
 District of New York. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ESSAYS : 
 
 I. THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS, 1824, - - 1 
 
 IT. ENNUI, 1830, ---------- 44 
 
 III. THE RULING PASSION IN DEATH, 1833, - - - 75 
 
 STUDIES IK GERMAN LITERATURE, 1824 AND FOL 
 LOWING YEARS : 
 
 I. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS, ------ 103 
 
 II. THE REVIVAL OF GERMAN LITERATURE, - - 124 
 
 III. MEN OF SCIENCE AND LEARNING, - - - - 152 
 
 IV. THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE, - - - 167 
 V. TRANSLATIONS, 1818 1824, ------ 206 
 
 STUDIES IN HISTORY : 
 
 I. ECONOMY OF ATHENS, 1831, ------ 247 
 
 II. DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE, 1834, - - - 280 
 
 III. RUSSIA, 1829, ---------- 318 
 
 IV. THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY, 1829, - - 334 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES : 
 
 I. A WORD ON CALVIN THE REFORMER, OCT. 1834, 405 
 II. THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE IN ART, GOVERN 
 MENT AND RELIGION, 1835, ----- 4Q8 
 
 III. IN MEMORY OF WM. ELLERY CHANNING, 1842, - 436 
 
 IV. ORATION COMMEMORATIVE OF ANDREW JACK 
 
 SON, 1845, ---------- 444 
 
 V. THE NECESSITY. THE REALITY, AND THE PRO 
 MISE OF THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN 
 RACE, 1854, ---------- 481 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 THE FIVE SOURCES OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN. 
 
 THE connexion between the mind and the body can 
 never be explained. As yet, the first principles on 
 which it depends, have not been discovered. Nature, 
 in her mysterious operations, eludes the sagacity of the 
 most careful observers. Her venerable form is con 
 cealed by a veil, which no mortal has been permitted to 
 raise. The first cause is " that which hath been, which 
 is, and which shall be, and which no man has compre 
 hended." But we can notice the relation between one 
 set of appearances and another, and may hope to be 
 benefited by practical inductions from our observations. 
 By them we are led to regard the body, not merely as 
 the temporary abode of the soul, but also as the instru 
 ment by which knowledge is acquired and purposes 
 executed. No idea of the external world finds its way 
 to the mind but through the senses ; while the action 
 of the internal organs excites the passions, modifies the 
 operations of thought, and imparts peculiarities to the 
 moral nature. 
 1 
 
2 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 The union and reciprocal influence of the mind 
 and body are established before the period for observa 
 tion has arrived. If the reasonings of physiologists are 
 just, the infant at its birth is already possessed of a con 
 sciousness of its being. It has its passions, its desires, 
 its propensities ; and not only its physical organization 
 is decided, but also the complexion of its character. 
 There remains room for education to accomplish her 
 high designs in developing its powers, in confirm 
 ing its advantages, in counteracting its faults, in sup 
 plying its deficiencies, in tempering its elements. But 
 there are certain limits, within which this influence of 
 art is restrained. The features of the mind, as of the 
 face, are fixed beyond the possibility of change. Free 
 opportunity is left for the culture of morals ; but it is 
 also decided, by what vices the child, on ripening to 
 manhood, will be most liable to be assailed, and in 
 what virtues he is constitutionally fitted to excel. 
 
 The native peculiarities of individuals may be illus 
 trated by enumerating those which experience has 
 shown to exist. Sex renders a diversity of moral char 
 acter inevitable. But not to dwell on this universal 
 division, there may clearly be observed in every one at 
 least five sources of difference, residing in his original 
 organization. 
 
 The human family, which now occupies the earth, 
 is composed of several races. Some illustrious physi 
 ologists have, it is true, contended that strictly speaking 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 6 
 
 there is but one ; and that men, descended from com 
 mon parents, have been variously changed by the con 
 tinued influence of climate and regimen. But while 
 speculative science leads to the belief in a common 
 origin, and establishes beyond a doubt the unity of our 
 kind, the difference at present actually exists ; and the 
 child inherits the physical and moral characteristics of 
 the race to which it belongs. The Englishman and 
 the Hindoo, though natives of the same city, are from 
 birth unlike in mind and in feature. 
 
 The same race has been variously modified in 
 different ages of the world. The Greek of the Byzan 
 tine Empire was not as the Greek of the Athenian 
 democracy. The Roman of to-day is not the Roman 
 of the Commonwealth. A German baron of the pres 
 ent time is all unlike the feudal robber of the middle 
 ages. Each generation bears marks by which it may 
 be distinguished from any former one. These differ 
 ences, though they are the result of the state of society 
 in its influence on the individuals who compose it, are 
 nevertheless in some measure hereditary ; so that the 
 new-born child is affected by the age in which its ex- 
 
 t/ O 
 
 istence commences. This is confirmed by analogies, 
 drawn from the whole animal creation. 
 
 Nations, also, have their characteristics, which are 
 transmitted from one generation to another. The infant, 
 therefore, receives with its original frame the peculiarities 
 of its nation. To what degree this modification of char- 
 
4 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 acter extends, it is difficult to determine. It probably 
 reaches further than we may, at first thought, be ready 
 to believe, and not only inclines the mind to certain 
 habits and particular sentiments, to such virtues as 
 valor and prudence, but also to such vices as rapacity 
 and cruelty, to cunning, to effeminacy, to superstition, 
 to servile obedience. It gives an aptitude for acqui 
 escing in certain forms of society and government, and 
 a facility for the acquisition and use of a particular lan 
 guage. The Frenchman is born with a natural predis 
 position to cheerfulness ; the American Indian with an 
 innate passion for the chase ; the Arab of the desert 
 with a propensity to plunder. Who will hesitate to 
 ascribe the bravery of the Cossacks to a peculiarity 
 common to their nation, and continued by descent? 
 Who will doubt, that there are tribes of men naturally 
 unwarlike ? Is it not to be believed, that the physical 
 organization of many a Tartar tribe inclines them to a 
 wandering life ? Could any possible education make 
 of the next generation of the serfs in Russia good 
 citizens of a free, popular government ? Animals often 
 show peculiar skill in matters, to which not they, but 
 then 1 parents, have been trained. The books of the 
 naturalists furnish well-attested examples of qualities 
 thus inherited. In like manner we may believe, that 
 the ancient adorers of leeks and onions, or the present 
 worshippers of the Grand Lama, came into the world 
 predisposed to superstition ; that the Turk is naturally 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 5 
 
 given to stern composure and faith in the power of 
 destiny ; that the Siamese commoner does, as it were, 
 of himself cringe and fall on his knees before the 
 absurd nobility of his country; and that the de 
 scendant of the Pilgrims, whether on the banks of 
 the Detroit, the Iowa, or the Oregon, has the true 
 instinct for liberty. As to speech, the infant in the val 
 ley of the Euphrates inherits, it may not be doubted, 
 an aptness to learn the diffuse forms of its Oriental 
 language ; and on the borders of the Seine to prefer 
 the dialect of Paris to the deeper accents of the 
 Germans. Though a man may have acquired a foreign 
 language in his infancy, his thoughts were not des 
 tined by nature to flow in it ; and perfect success in 
 the use of w T ords is obtained only in the mother 
 tongue. 
 
 The differences in national character are obvious, 
 when we hold up in contrast the manners and history 
 of nations. It is still easier to observe the traits which 
 mark families. The father s lineaments and consti 
 tution, the mother s temper, re-appear in their off 
 spring. The child bears the features of its parents, 
 and how often is the analogous resemblance of mind and 
 tastes perceptible. 
 
 And lastly, the life of every person has, from its 
 commencement, its own peculiarities. From the first 
 dawn of consciousness it is distinguished from that of 
 every other intelligent being; and it contains within 
 
6 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 itself, the principles which are to decide on character, 
 condition, and happiness. 
 
 It appears then, from its race, its age, its nation, its 
 family, and its own organization, the infant receives 
 with its existence peculiar qualities. If it be asked, 
 in what these original differences consist, we might 
 safely invite the reader to consider for himself each 
 class, under which we have arranged them, and test our 
 statement by its application to individual cases. This 
 would be attended with no difficulty as far as regards 
 the three first sources of difference. Where men are 
 to be judged of by comparing them in masses, whether 
 of races or of peoples, and centuries of national existence 
 are to be grouped together for the convenience of 
 observing, it may be easy to seize on characteristics 
 which stand out in bold relief. But it is in the daily 
 walks of life, that a proper discrimination becomes both 
 difficult and invaluable. It is in comparing family with 
 family, and man with man, that an almost endless variety 
 seems to baffle every effort at classification. 
 
 But the subject has been happily reduced to order. 
 It is found possible to analyze the ingredients, which 
 compose the physical, and influence the moral nature ; 
 and thus to arrive at comparatively a small number 
 of elements, which, by their various combinations, 
 produce the infinite diversity existing between indi 
 viduals. The ancients already established the simple 
 classification of men according to their organization, 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 7 
 
 and with the happy sagacity, for which they are justly 
 considered eminent, invented the DOCTRINE or TEMPER 
 AMENTS ; a doctrine, in itself neither unimportant nor 
 uninteresting ; of high moment to the physician in the 
 treatment of disease, and not without its advantages to 
 any one in the care of his health ; a doctrine which 
 holds a conspicuous place in physiological science ; and 
 forms a fit object of liberal curiosity, as belonging in 
 general to the history and knowledge of man. 
 
 It is our purpose to expound this intricate sub 
 ject. Every one who reads, may try the correctness 
 of our views, by comparisons drawn from his own 
 experience. Yet the observer will bear in mind, 
 that the theory has to exhibit each temperament in 
 its purity, unmixed and unmitigated; life generally 
 furnishes only examples, in which one or the other is 
 strongly predominant. It is our duty, in order to draw 
 the lines of separation between opposite classes, to pre 
 sent the peculiar qualities in a strong and distinct light. 
 Nature blends them in harmonious combinations. 
 
 THE SANGUINEOUS TEMPERAMENT. 
 
 The temperament, which in its external appearance, 
 claims the highest degree of physical beauty, is the san 
 guineous. Its forms are moulded by nature to perfect 
 symmetry, and invested with a complexion of the 
 clearest lustre. The hands of the artist have embodied 
 
O THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 its outlines in the majestically graceful Apollo of the 
 Vatican. Its delicate shape is "the dream of love." 
 A mild and clear eye promptly reveals the emotions of 
 the heart ; the veins swell with copious and healthful 
 streams ; and the cheek is quick to mantle with the 
 crimson current. The breath of life is inhaled freely ; 
 the chest is high and expanded like that of " a young 
 Mohawk warrior ; " the pulse is active but gentle ; the 
 hah- light ; the skin soft and moist ; the face unclouded ; 
 and, in short, the whole organization is characterized by 
 the vigor and facility of its functions. 
 
 The moral character of those who belong to this 
 temperament is equally pleasing. They are amiable 
 companions, every where welcome, and requiting the 
 kindness shown them by gentleness of temper and 
 elegance of manners. They are distinguished for play 
 fulness of fancy and ready wit. Their minds are rapid 
 in their conceptions, and pass readily from one subject 
 to another, so that they can change at once from gaiety 
 to tears, or from gravity to mirth. Of a happy mem 
 ory, a careless and unsuspecting mien, a contented 
 humor, a frank disposition, they form no schemes of 
 deep hypocrisy or remote ambition. They are naturally 
 affectionate, yet fickle in their friendships ; prompt to 
 act, yet uncertain of purpose. They excel in labors 
 which demand a most earnest but short application. 
 They conquer at a blow, or abandon the game. They 
 gain their point by a coup de main, never by a tedious 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 9 
 
 siege. They are easily excited, but easily calmed ; they 
 take fire at a word, but are as ready to forgive. They 
 dislike profound meditation, but excel in prompt inge 
 nuity ; they succeed in light exercises of fancy, in hap 
 pily contrasting incongruous objects, and inventing sin 
 gular but just comparisons. They are given to display, 
 and passionately fond of being admired. Inconstant 
 by nature, they are full of sympathy, and are eminently 
 capable of transferring themselves in imagination into 
 other scenes and conditions. Hence they sometimes 
 are successful in the lighter branches of letters ; but 
 they are too little persevering to excel. A continuance 
 of intellectual labor is odious to them ; and in no case 
 have they been known to unite the deep sentiments of 
 philosophy to eloquent language. They are the gayest 
 members of society, and yet the first to feel for others. 
 With a thousand faults, their kindness of heart makes 
 them always favorites. In their manners, they unite a 
 happy audacity with winning good nature ; their con 
 versation is gay, varied, and sparkling ; never profound, 
 but never dull ; sometimes trivial, but often brilliant. 
 Love is then- ruling passion ; but it is a frolic love, to 
 which there are as many cynosures as stars. It is Ki- 
 naldo in the chains, which he will soon break to submit 
 to new ones. Occasionally they join in the contest for 
 glory. In council they never have the ascendant ; but 
 of all executive officers they are the best. They often 
 are thrown by some happy chance to be at the head of 
 
10 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 affairs ; but they never retain power very long. They 
 are sometimes even delighted with camps ; but the 
 field of arms is for them only an affair for a holiday ; 
 they go to battle as merrily as to a dance, and are soon 
 weary of the one and the other. Life *is to them a 
 merry tale ; if they are ever sad, it is but from com 
 passion or the love of change ; and they breathe out 
 their sighs chiefly in sonnets. Thus they seem made 
 for sunshine and prosperity. Nature has given them 
 the love of enjoyment, and blessed them with the gift 
 of cheerfulness. In short, this temperament is to the 
 rest, what youth is to the other periods of life ; what 
 spring is to the succeeding seasons ; the time of fresh 
 ness and flowers, of elastic hope and unsated desire. 
 
 For examples of this temperament, go to the abodes 
 of the contented, the houses of the prosperous. Ask 
 for the gayest among the gay in the scenes of pleasure ; 
 search for those who have stilled the voice of ambition 
 by the gentle influence of contented affection. In the 
 mythology of the ancients, among whom generally 
 character stood forth in bolder relief, numerous illus 
 trations may be found. We may mention Paris, who, 
 as the poet says, went to battle like the war-horse 
 prancing to the river s side, and who valued the safety 
 of his country less than the gratification of his love ; or 
 Leander, whose passion the waters of the Hellespont 
 could not quench ; or the too fascinating Endymion, 
 who drew Diana herself from her high career. In his- 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 11 
 
 tory, we have the dangerous Alcibiades, who surpassed 
 all other Athenians in talent, the Spartans in self- 
 denial, the Thracians in abandoned luxury ; Mark An 
 tony, who, for a time, was the first man in Rome, but 
 gave up the world for Cleopatra ; Nero, the capricious 
 tyrant, whose tomb was yet scattered with flowers ; 
 the English Leicester, for whom two queens contend 
 ed ; the gallant Hotspur of the British drama ; the 
 French duke de Richelieu ; the good king Henry ; the 
 bold and amiable Francis ; or to take quite a recent 
 example, the brave and gallant, but passionate and 
 wavering Murat, now, in time of truce, displaying his 
 splendid dresses and his skill in horsemanship be 
 fore the admiring Cossacks, and anon in the season 
 of strife, charging the enemy s cavalry with fearless 
 impetuosity. But we have the most striking illustra 
 tion of the sanguineous temperament, when uncon 
 trolled by moral principle, in the life and character of 
 Demetrius, the famed besieger of cities. The son of 
 Antigonus was tall, and of beautiful symmetry. Grace 
 and majesty were united in his countenance ; so that 
 he inspired at once both affection and awe. In his 
 hours of leisure, he was an agreeable profligate ; in his 
 moments of action, no man equalled him in diligence 
 and despatch. Like Bacchus, he was terrible in war, 
 but in peace a voluptuary. At one time he hazards 
 honor and liberty for the indulgence of his love ; and 
 at another, his presence of mind and his daring make 
 
12 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 him victorious in the bloodiest naval battle of which 
 any record exists. Though sometimes capriciously 
 cruel, he was naturally humane. By turns a king 
 and a pensioner, a hero and a profligate, a tyrant and 
 a liberator, he conquered Ptolemy, besieged Thebes, 
 gave freedom to Athens, was acknowledged to be the 
 most active warrior of his age, and yet died in cap 
 tivity, of indolence and gluttony. 
 
 Plutarch s life of Demetrius Poliorcetes might in 
 deed be called the adventures of a sanguineous man, 
 but of one morally abandoned. Where men of this 
 temperament are distinguished for blamelessness and 
 purity, they comprise within themselves all that is 
 lovely and amiable in human nature. They are the 
 fondest husbands and the kindest fathers. They live 
 in an atmosphere of happiness. The fables of Arcadia 
 seem surpassed by realities. It is especially in early 
 life that their virtues have the most pleasing fragrance ; 
 " severe in youthful beauty," they are like the Israelites, 
 who would not eat of the Eastern king s meat, and yet 
 had countenances fairer than all. These are they, of 
 whom the poets praise the destiny which takes them 
 early from the world. These are the favorites of 
 heaven, who, if they live to grow old, at their death 
 " fill up one monument with goodness itself." 
 
 With regard to the preservation of health, we sum 
 up every precept for the sanguineous man in this one ; 
 avoid excess. He should take much active, but not 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 13 
 
 violent exercise ; and must be careful to diminish the 
 tendency to plethora. He may dance, may fence, may 
 indulge in field-sports, or use any of the exercises of a 
 well instituted gymnasium ; but all moderately. Na 
 ture has made him prone to indulgence, but has made 
 indulgence doubly dangerous for his constitution and 
 his morals. We repeat it : let him avoid excess, and 
 his life will pass away in uninterrupted cheerfulness, in 
 deeds of courtesy and benevolence, in the habitual 
 exercise of the gentle and the generous virtues. 
 
 THE ATHLETIC TEMPERAMENT. 
 
 The athletic temperament possesses in some re 
 spects the external appearance of the sanguineous ; but 
 it rises to a colossal stature, and is possessed of extra 
 ordinary strength. It implies an excess of muscular 
 force over the sensitive. In superior physical powers, it 
 loses all playfulness of mind. The athletic man has 
 great vigor of frame, but is of an inactive spirit. He 
 never attains to elevated purposes, or a fixed character ; 
 he has no acuteness or insight into human motives, no 
 gift of eloquence or poetry. He can be made an in 
 strument in the hands of others, but never of himself 
 conceives vast enterprises. He is good-humored, and by 
 coaxing and flattery may be persuaded to do or suffer 
 almost any thing ; but if his passions are excited, 
 he is capable of becoming ferocious, and even brutal. 
 
14 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 The sanguineous man often becomes athletic by a 
 course of exercise, fitted to give the greatest develop 
 ment to the animal nature. 
 
 The mythology of the ancients furnishes examples 
 of this class, in the whole race of the Titans, who 
 thought in their folly that they could scale heaven, 
 because their mighty arms could rend mountains from 
 their bases. But the best instance among the demi 
 gods is Hercules. The brawny hero was perpetually 
 cozened by Eurystheus, was compelled to execute the 
 most frightful labors, turned rivers from their courses, 
 withdrew the dead from the world of shades, and 
 struck terror into the powers of Orcus, and yet was 
 the slave of his appetites, and the dupe of his mistress. 
 In all this he shows the excess of force and its con 
 comitant mental imbecility. 
 
 If we turn to real life for illustrations, it must be 
 remembered, that this temperament rarely fills the 
 high offices of power and trust. The historic muse 
 names of it no one among the benefactors of mankind. 
 Had we the annals of the amphitheatres of old, we 
 could know what giant son of the human race had 
 worn the highest honors for prodigies of strength. 
 In the unsettled period of the Roman empire, there 
 are not wanting instances of men, who gained the 
 diadem by being the strongest of those that joined 
 in the scramble, or won the hearts of the barbarian 
 legions, by excelling in the barbarian virtue of mere 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 15 
 
 physical force. There was too, quite recently, a Saxon 
 elector, or rather a Polish king, who could break a 
 horse shoe though he could not govern a kingdom, 
 and was more successful in his debaucheries, than 
 in acquiring the respect of men. He pretended to 
 be an amateur of the fine arts, when he really under 
 stood nothing but the chase. He left the government 
 of Saxony to his minister and yet believed he did 
 every thing himself ; he found the Poles troublesome 
 to manage and therefore abandoned them to anarchy ; 
 the capital of his hereditary dominions was menaced by 
 the Prussians ; he fled taking with him his pictures 
 and his porcelain, but leaving to the conqueror the 
 archives of the state. Every body knows the story 
 of his father, August Frederic, the second of the 
 name. He sold his fine regiment of dragoons to his 
 most dangerous neighbor for twelve porcelain* vases. 
 Once his mortal enemy Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, 
 in the strangest freak, came unexpectedly and unattend 
 ed to breakfast with him in Dresden ; some hours after 
 the king had rejoined his army, Augustus held a coun 
 cil to consider whether he ought not to have detained 
 his royal guest as a prisoner. 
 
 In republics, this athletic temperament can have no 
 chance to gain power ; it is only by divine right, or the 
 favor of a female ruler, that it can hope to control the 
 fortunes of states. The study of history leads us to cry 
 out against the injustice of history ; it is a mere accident, 
 
16 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 whether genuine worth finds a place there. Philip, the 
 landgrave of Hesse, was a great friend of Protestant 
 ism. He also begged of Luther leave to have two wives 
 at once. This was a strange request from a Christian 
 prince t<J a reformer of religion ; but Luther decided 
 the request to be a reasonable one. Philip was always 
 for prompt measures ; he struck a bold blow, or none. 
 Finding war too troublesome, he left the business to 
 others, and gave himself up to slothful indulgence. 
 If his end seems inconsistent with his earlier years, the 
 riddle is solved by a word ; he was of the athletic tem 
 perament. Indeed the whole family of Hessian princes 
 has had a tendency to that class. Frederic, the second 
 of the line, was fond of splendor ; nd not famous for 
 nice feeling. He sold his soldiers at a high rate. 
 England paid him more than twenty-one millions of 
 rix dollars for twelve thousand of them, for eight 
 years. Why is it worse for an African prince to dis 
 pose of the captives whom he takes in war, to cultivate 
 sugar and cotton in America, than for a Hessian 
 prince to sell his own subjects, of whom he has 
 the divine right to be the parent and the sovereign, 
 to fight the battles of England, and be shot at for less 
 than sixpence a day ? The son of the Landgrave just 
 mentioned, was one of the richest and meanest misers 
 in Europe, the most tyrannical petty despot of his time. 
 Inventing a new right of primogeniture, he promulga 
 ted a law respecting those who were permitted to be 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 17 
 
 educated, and allowed the clergy generally, and some 
 public functionaries of a certain rank, to educate only 
 their oldest son. We connect with a prince, at least 
 some ideas of external splendor, and liberality of dis 
 position. But what shall we think of this niggardly au 
 tocrat, who fumbled in the pockets of the poor man in 
 quest of his last penny, and raked the barren sands of 
 an exhausted soil for a few more grains of gold ? 
 
 The most remarkable of all historical personages of 
 the athletic temperament, was Potemkin, for several 
 years the unlimited favorite of Catharine. For a while 
 men thought him possessed of a colossal genius ; but 
 he had nothing colossal except his body. He had no 
 character, and soon made it evident. What mighty 
 events spring from petty causes ! An inferior officer 
 saw the empress display herself in uniform before the 
 guards ; her sword was without tassels ; he tore his 
 own from the hilt, to make her an offering of them ; 
 she accepted the tribute, and became enamored of 
 his person ; and he made himself her master. The 
 chancellor of the empire outwitted him; so that the 
 armed neutrality was the result of a court intrigue. 
 His mind was of the coarsest order. " How many 
 prostitutes are there in Petersburgh ? " said she to him 
 one day. " Forty thousand," replied he, " without the 
 court." He was excessively grasping and excessively 
 prodigal. He was worth thirty-five millions of our 
 dollars, and yet could not be induced to pay a trades- 
 2 
 
18 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 man s bill. Catharine lavished on him immense sums ; 
 he would further forge checks in her name on the pub 
 lic treasury, and accept bribes from foreign powers. 
 The first division of Poland was to him but " child s 
 play." When the Tartars of the Crimea hesitated to 
 take the oath of allegiance to Catharine, he ordered 
 thirty thousand of them to be slaughtered in a mass, 
 men, women and children. The grand riband of the 
 order of St. George is given in Russia, only to a com- 
 mander-in-chief, after a victory. To gain this, he 
 quarrelled with the Porte in 1787, and in the next 
 year, took Otchakow by storm, in spite of sickness and 
 scarcity. He surpassed all men of his time in prodi 
 gality, in meanness, in sensual indulgence, and capri 
 cious vanity. He died at last, in consequence of his 
 excesses, under a tree by the road-side; and when 
 Paul came to the crown, the body of Potemkin was 
 thrown into a ditch. 
 
 Such is the athletic temperament. Its excess of 
 health and strength is by no means desirable. When 
 the constitution once begins to fail, it is broken up 
 suddenly and rapidly. And there is really less of the 
 true vital principle in this temperament, than in any 
 other. Those who belong to it never acquire eminent 
 intellectual distinction; and are ignorant of refined 
 sensations. No prayers, no sacrifices, no exertions, 
 not even nightly vigils, can open for them the sanctu 
 ary of the muse Heaven has conferred on them a 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 19 
 
 majestic frame, but doomed them to perpetual medioc 
 rity. The athletic man can receive few rules for the 
 regulation of his health. Indeed, Hippocrates pro 
 nounces his usual condition to be a state of malady. 
 We can only exhort him to be temperate, and to use 
 his strength with discretion. His life will probably not 
 extend to old age, and will be exposed to many in 
 firmities. 
 
 In history, this temperament has gained distinction 
 in the troublesome times, when brutal force and fierce 
 indifference were in the ascendant. In poetry, it is 
 illustrated by the Ajax of Homer, and we have an accu 
 rate description of it in Chaucer. 
 
 " The Miller was a stout carl for the nones, 
 Eul bigge he was of braun, and eke of bones ; 
 That proved wel, for over all ther he came, 
 At wrastling he wold bere away the ram. 
 He was short shuldered, brode, a thikke gnarre, 
 Ther n as no dore, that he n olde heve of barre, 
 Or breke it at a renning with his hede." 
 
 THE BILIOUS TEMPERAMENT. 
 
 We turn to the consideration of a class of men, to 
 whom the destinies of the world are generally commit 
 ted; who rule in the cabinet and on the exchange; 
 who control public business, and guide the deliber 
 ations of senates, and who, whether in exalted or pri 
 vate stations, unite in the highest degree instant saga- 
 
20 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 city with persevering energy. They possess, like the 
 sanguineous, quickness of perception and rapidity of 
 thought ; but they at the same time have the power of 
 confining their attention to a single object. They have 
 good practical judgment ; they see things as they are, 
 and are never deceived by contemplating measures in a 
 false light ; they have a clear eye to pierce the secrets 
 of the human heart, to read the character and under 
 stand the motives of others. They are patient and in 
 flexible in their purposes ; and hoAvever remote may be 
 the aim of their desires, they labor with unwearied toil 
 even for a distant and apparently uncertain success. 
 They are prone to anger, and yet can moderate or 
 conceal their indignation. Their strongest passion is 
 ambition; all other emotions yield to it; even love 
 vainly struggles against it ; and if they sometimes give 
 way to beauty, they in their pleasures resemble the 
 Scythians of old, who at their feasts used to strike the 
 cords of their bows, to remind themselves of danger. 
 The men of whom we are speaking are urged by con 
 stant restlessness to constant action. An habitual sen 
 timent of disquietude allows them no peace but in the 
 tumult of business ; the hours of crowded life are the 
 only ones they value; the narrow road of emulation 
 the only one in which they travel. 
 
 These moral characteristics are observed to be con 
 nected with a form more remarkable for firmness than 
 for grace. The complexion is generally not light ; and 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 21 
 
 
 
 not unfrequently of a sallow hue ; the hair is dark ; the 
 skin dry ; the flesh not abundant, but firm ; the mus 
 cular force great in proportion to the volume of the 
 muscles ; the eye vivid and sparkling. The appetite is 
 voracious rather than delicate; the digestion rapid. 
 Of the internal organs, the liver is proportionably the 
 largest and the most active ; and its copious secretions 
 give a name to the class. 
 
 Such is the nature of those who belong to the 
 bilious temperament. They are to be employed, 
 wherever hardiness of resolution, prompt decision, 
 and permanence of enterprise are required. They 
 unite in themselves in an eminent degree the manly 
 virtues, which lead to results in action. At their birth 
 all the gods came to offer gifts ; the graces alone re 
 mained away. They stand high in the calendar of courts, 
 and know how to woo the favor of the citizens of re 
 publics ; but Cupid, indignant at their independence 
 of him, degrades them in his beadroll. They do not 
 reign in the world of fashion, and the novel-writer 
 could make of an Oxenstiern or a Sully an imposing 
 picture, but not the hero of a sentimental tale. 
 
 Will you learn from living examples, what is the 
 nature of the bilious temperament? Walk to the 
 exchange, and ask who best understands the daring 
 business of insurance ? Discover by whom the banks 
 are managed which give the surest and largest divi 
 dends? Go to our new settlements in the west, 
 
22 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 and mark the men who are early and late riding 
 through the majestic forests of virgin nature, where 
 the progress is impeded, it is true, by no under 
 wood, but where every hardship must be endured, 
 streams forded, nights be spent under the open sky, 
 hunger be defied, and a thousand dangers be braved 
 by the keen speculator, who will take nothing on trust. 
 Or watch the arena of public strife, and see who it is, 
 that most skilfully, and yet most secretly, touches the 
 springs of national action, and controls the distribution 
 of praise and emoluments in the very court of honor ? 
 
 Or if you will not trust yourself with scrutinizing 
 the motives of the living, consult the Muse of History, 
 and with her trumpet tongue, she will tell you of those 
 who are the elect of her heart, those who fill the uni 
 verse with their fame, and have swayed their times by 
 their prowess and their mental power ; from the mighty 
 conquerors of earliest antiquity, whose names float to 
 us among the wrecks of unknown empires, to the last 
 wonderful man, who, in our own times, dealt with 
 states as with playthings, and, by the force of his des 
 potic will, shook the civilized world to its centre. 
 
 Ancient history furnishes perhaps no more exact 
 illustration of this temperament, than in the charac 
 ter of Themistocles. In his boyhood he shunned 
 boyish sports ; but would compose declamations and 
 harangues. He says of himself, that he had learnt 
 neither to tune the harp nor handle the lyre, but thai 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 23 
 
 he knew how tg make a small and inglorious city both 
 powerful and illustrious. He could not sleep for the 
 trophies of Miltiades. When his superior in the com 
 mand raised a staff to repel disagreeable advice by a 
 blow, he coolly said, " Strike but hear me," rendering 
 patience sublime by his patriotism. Having been a 
 poor and disinherited child, he made his way to the 
 highest honors in Athens, and for a season controlled 
 the civilized world. " He was the first of men," says 
 Thucydides, ."for practical judgment." Of Romans 
 we might name as of the bilious temperament, the 
 elder Brutus, the glorious hypocrite, who hid the power 
 of his genius till he could exert it for liberty. The 
 greatest foreigner in the days of the Republic on the 
 Roman soil was Hannibal, and he, not less than Julius 
 Caesar, was of the bilious class. 
 
 But were we to select an example among those, 
 who at any time have been masters of the Seven Hills, 
 we should name the wonderful Montalto, Pope Sextus 
 V. In early life he exerted astonishing industry and 
 talent, made himself the favorite preacher in the cities 
 of Italy, and afterwards won the hearts of the Spaniards, 
 till he was at last made Cardinal. Then of a sudden 
 his character seemed changed ; and for almost twenty 
 years he played the part of a deceiver, with unequalled 
 skill. He lived at a retired house, kept few servants, 
 was liberal in his expenses for charities, but parsimo 
 nious towards himself ; contradicted no one ; submitted 
 
24 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 even to insults with perfect good humor ; and, in short, 
 acquired the reputation of being the most meek, the 
 most humble, and the most easily guided among the 
 cardinals. Of the forty-two cardinals who entered the 
 conclave, Montalto seemed nearest to another world. 
 A crutch supported the declining strength of his old 
 age ; and a distressing cough indicated that life was fast 
 consuming away. Six parties divided the assembly ; 
 and fourteen cardinals deemed themselves worthy of 
 the tiara. On balloting, Albano, the most powerfully 
 supported, had but thirteen votes. Let us take this 
 good natured, dying old man, thought they ; he will be 
 easily managed ; and four parties of the six united for 
 Montalto. The ballot was ended ; " Gods ! I am Pope 
 of Rome," exclaimed the hale old man. Casting from 
 him the cloaks in which he was muffled, he threw his 
 crutch across the room, and bending back, spit to 
 the ceiling of the high chamber of the Vatican in 
 which he was, to show the vigor of his lungs. Never 
 did a wiser man hold the keys of St. Peter. He pun 
 ished vice even in the high places, with inexorable sever 
 ity ; he established the library of the Vatican ; placed the 
 magnificent obelisk in front of St. Peters ; caused the 
 matchless cupola to be built ; conducted water to the 
 Quirinal Hill; erected a vast hospital for the poor; 
 made the splendid street, called from his name Felice ; 
 reformed the finances of the states of the Church; 
 and, while he exercised great influence on the affairs of 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 25 
 
 Christendom, he himself kept at peace. Since his 
 time, the Catholic Church has not had at its head 
 a man of superior genius. 
 
 In the care of his health the bilious man has no 
 excess of humors that require to be dissipated by vio 
 lent exercise. He may use almost any kind of motion 
 in a moderated degree. In summer he must avoid fa 
 tiguing labors during the heat of the day. Autumn is 
 , the best season for him ; especially when the air is at 
 once cool and moist. Then in the midst of nature s 
 decline he forms projects for his own advancement; 
 nor does he always pause, though his path to success 
 may lead through the ruin of others. 
 
 THE PHLEGMATIC TEMPERAMENT. 
 
 There are men, not absolutely dull, yet not of livery 
 sensibility ; their thoughts are exact, but neither very 
 gay, nor very profound ; their ideas come tardily, but 
 with precision ; they are quiet ; not disposed to anger ; 
 and in general, pursue a middle course. They are 
 fond of repose, and, if left to themselves, would sleep 
 away a large part of their lives. These men are of a 
 light and often delicate complexion; the countenance 
 is without expression ; the eye tranquil ; the hair of no 
 decided color ; the muscles of great volume, but feeble ; 
 the pulse mild, and disappearing under a firm pressure. 
 The fibres are soft ; the humors of the body abound. 
 
26 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 Such are the characteristics, moral and physical, of the 
 phlegmatic, or, as it is often called, the lymphatic tem 
 perament. 
 
 The phlegmatic man is tranquil in all his affections ; 
 he is never troubled with desperate love. As he pos 
 sesses neither enterprise nor sudden resolution, he 
 avoids undertakings wherein those qualities would be 
 necessary. He cultivates, or rather seems naturally to 
 possess, the qualities of prudence and discretion. His 
 conduct is free from excesses ; and his vices and virtues 
 are stamped with mediocrity. He easily acquires es 
 teem, and never excites admiration. He is not tor 
 mented by ambition, or a thirst for praise ; neither is 
 he exposed to the temptations which most frequently 
 and most dangerously beset the weaknesses of others. 
 But let him not be proud of this imagined superiority. 
 He purchases his distinction by foregoing the highest 
 pleasures of the imagination and the most delicate 
 enjoyments of existence. Unfit for acting in sudden 
 emergencies, he succeeds perfectly well in labors which 
 chiefly require patience, where gradual advancement is 
 the result of moderate but continued efforts. Hence 
 he is sure to be jostled from the road to influence in 
 times of high excitement ; and never possesses power 
 but in seasons of profound tranquillity. It is with 
 great surprise that we find a late popular writer quote 
 the illustrious Fox, as an illustration of the phleg 
 matic temperament. Fox was given to pleasure as well 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 27 
 
 as to business ; he had taste, philanthropy, warm feel 
 ings, impetuous daring, many of the most honorable 
 qualities of the sanguineous man. The British minis 
 ters of greatest note, from Lord Burleigh to Canning, 
 were generally of the bilious temperament. But if we 
 must give a great name as an example of this class, 
 we should take the philosopher and historian Hume. 
 The Dutch are nationally of this organization. It 
 would not seem to suit the character of a poet ; but 
 Thomson was a phlegmatic man, " more fat than bard 
 beseems," though youthful admirers may find it diffi 
 cult to reconcile this opinion with their idea of the poet 
 of the Seasons. Take these lines as proof of his nature : 
 " But first the fuel d chimney blazes wide ; 
 The tankards foam ; and the strong table groans 
 Beneath the smoking sirloin, stretched immense 
 From side to side, in which, with desperate knife, 
 They deep incision make." 
 
 And when he compares the steam of hot punch to the 
 breath of May as it comes over violets, and praises the 
 ale which is 
 
 - " not afraid, 
 E en with the vineyard s best produce to vie," 
 
 the verses, on the whole, are as barbarous in their 
 measure as they are phlegmatic in their conception. 
 
 No exercise is too violent for the man of this tem 
 perament. His sleeping energies must be awakened ; 
 his imagination roused from its lethargy by powerful 
 
28 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 excitement. In summer, to guard against his natural 
 lassitude, let him rise in time to help Hyperion to his 
 horse ; and quicken his system by a cold bath ; then, 
 careless of the heat, he may plunge into the forest and 
 pursue the chase, till real fatigue gives him a claim to 
 repose. In winter he may run at full speed till his 
 heavy frame pants for breath; or wrestle violently 
 with, an equal antagonist till his chill blood flows 
 warmly to his cheek. Nor need he shun the social 
 circle and the festive dance. The society of the gay 
 will not undermine his gravity, and the noise of mirth 
 and the sight of beauty will never be too stimulating 
 for his sluggish passions. 
 
 THE MELANCHOLIC TEMPERAMENT. 
 
 Observe the pensive man, who stands musing apart 
 from the rest, and whom we should think bilious but 
 for the compression of his chest. His countenance is 
 pallid or sallow; and his features are expressive of 
 melancholy. He is lean, yet of great muscular vigor ; 
 his eyes are clear and brilliant, yet of a sombre expres 
 sion. His hair is dark, and does not readily curl. He 
 is rather tan, and not ill-formed, yet slender ; his breast 
 is narrow, and confines the play of his lungs ; he 
 stoops as he sits or walks. His internal organization is 
 marked by energy and life ; but the action of the sys 
 tem meets with obstructions. His nerves are extremely 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 29 
 
 sensitive ; yet generous warmth is wanting to mollify 
 and expand their extremities. His blood circulates 
 with languor, and if he is long exposed to the cold in a 
 state of inactivity, it is soon chilled. His stomach is 
 apt to become indolent ; he is liable to the anguish of 
 difficult digestion. Such are the physical peculiarities 
 of the melancholic temperament. 
 
 The man of this class unites an habitual distrust of 
 himself and weak indecision in common affairs, with 
 obstinate persistence in matters on which he is decided, 
 and undaunted perseverance in pursuing one object. 
 When he has no strong motive to fix him, his wavering 
 exposes him to the reproach of pusillanimity ; and he 
 might find it difficult to repel the charge, were it not 
 that it is impossible to make him swerve from a purpose 
 once adopted. Beauty has an inconceivable and mys 
 terious power over him. He deserts the society of the 
 wise and learned, the disputes of politicians and the dis 
 cussions of men of business, for the unquiet enjoyment 
 which he finds in its vicinity. Yet while he yields to 
 the temporary influence and dominion of any one who 
 is lovely, he is slow to form an attachment ; and if his 
 affections are once engaged, his love bears the seal of 
 eternity. In his intercourse with men, he avoids all 
 society which does not suit his habits of mind ; but he 
 is sincere in his friendships, and, we must also add, 
 slow to forgive an injury. The recollection of a wrong 
 remains imprinted almost indelibly on his memory. In 
 
30 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 society his manners are embarrassed and often awk 
 ward ; yet he does not fail to excite interest and a sen 
 timent akin to compassion. When he converses, his 
 imagination exerts itself powerfully, and he often uses 
 original and singularly expressive forms of language. 
 Indeed the imagination is at all times the strongest 
 faculty of his mind. It creates a world for him, all 
 unlike the real one. He does not see things as they 
 are, but beholds in them only the reflections of his own. 
 representations. His delight is in profound sentiment, 
 and he excels in the delineation of strong passions and 
 intense suffering. Powerful motives are required to 
 bring him to action. If suddenly called upon, when 
 he is not moved, he falters ; can decide on nothing ; 
 and appears to exhibit a complete inefficiency and un- 
 suitableness for business. But if strong excitement ac 
 companies the unexpected summons, he comes with 
 energy and decision to the guidance of affairs, pours 
 forth his ideas in a torrent of extraordinary and irre 
 sistible eloquence, and surpasses all expectation. It is 
 a weakness of the melancholic man, that he is always 
 contemplating himself; the operations of his own mind, 
 the real, or more probably, the imaginary woes of his 
 own experience. The sanguineous man is happy in his 
 fickleness ; the bilious enjoys himself in the stir of 
 action ; the phlegmatic is content, if he is but left alone 
 to repose undisturbed ; the melancholic is quite satis 
 fied only when discoursing, or musing on himself and 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 31 
 
 his sorrows. So far lie is liable to the charge of vanity ; 
 but no further. He does not form too high an estimate 
 of himself; self-conceit is the peculiar foible of the san 
 guineous. Love is the ruling passion of the sangui 
 neous ; ambition of the bilious ; the melancholy man is 
 haunted by a longing for glory. This gives an impulse 
 to his patriotism ; this kindles his imagination and leads 
 him to beautiful designs ; this prompts him to enter on 
 the career of letters ; this not unfrequently drives him 
 with irresistible power to nightly vigils and immode 
 rate toil, in the hope to enshrine his name among the 
 immortal. He is timid, and his fastidious taste is 
 never satisfied with what he performs, though of all 
 men he can least brook censure ; so that he exhibits 
 the apparent contradiction of relying most obstinately 
 on a judgment which he himself distrusts. This diffi 
 dence of himself may at first seem to injure the perfec 
 tion and utility of his labors. But his doubting makes 
 him anxious to finish his productions in the most care 
 ful manner. To what else do we owe the perfect grace 
 and harmony of Virgil? the compact expression and 
 polished elegance of Gray ? 
 
 If the melancholic man errs in his practical estimate 
 of men, he at least studies the principles according to 
 which they act, and carefully analyzes their motives 
 and passions. He understands the internal operations 
 of their minds, even while he is unsuccessful in his 
 direct attempts at influencing them. He is himself 
 
32 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 capable of a high and continued enthusiasm. Gifted 
 with affections which may be refined and elevated, he 
 can feel admiration for all that is beautiful and un 
 selfish among men ; can pay homage to the fine arts ; 
 or be admitted to enjoy the serious pleasures afforded 
 by philosophy and poetry. He has no talent for light 
 humor and pleasantry ; but he excels in bitter retorts 
 and severity of satire. He is subject to ecstasies of 
 pleasure no less than of pain ; and the former become 
 him less than the latter. He possesses the virtue of 
 patience in the most eminent degree. Nothing can 
 fatigue or subdue him. Disappointments do not weary 
 him, nor can he be baffled by delay. 
 
 The history of literature and the arts is full of ex 
 amples of this temperament ; on the world also, it has 
 frequently exercised a wide and lasting influence. The 
 most eloquent of modern philosophers, the gifted child 
 of Geneva, the outcast of fortune, offers an illustration. 
 How brilliant is his imagination ! What timidity 
 marks his character in smaller affairs ! What daunt 
 less courage animated him, when he published truths 
 in defiance of the Roman Church and the ven 
 geance of despots ! What a power also was exercised 
 over him by beauty ! How willingly he offers his 
 Eloise in manuscript, on gilt-edged paper, neatly 
 sewed with ribands, to his accomplished patroness ! 
 What ignorance of the world do we find in him, and 
 yet what discriminating delineations of the passions and 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 33 
 
 hearts of men ! So long as a love of truth, of liberty, 
 of virtue, shall avail with charity to mitigate the con 
 demnation of vices, which a defect of education may 
 palliate but not excuse ; so long as splendor of imagina 
 tion, keen reasoning, eloquent reproofs of fashionable 
 follies and crimes, in a word, the fine thoughts and 
 style of genius, shall be admired, the name and the 
 writings of Rousseau will be remembered, and the ana 
 lysis of his mind explain the organization which we are 
 describing. 
 
 In English poetry, Cowley seems to have been of 
 this temperament. Milton, originally bilious, acquired 
 something of it from age and misfortunes. It was 
 natural to the bard of Mantua ; it threw the thick 
 cloud of self-torturing gloom over the poet of chivalry 
 and the cross, the sweetest minstrel of his country, 
 or rather of all time, the inimitable Tasso. 
 
 These are instances of men devoted to letters. 
 History describes Demosthenes as of a slender form 
 and short breath ; therefore, we infer, of a narrow 
 chest. His physiognomy has a gloomy expression, as 
 we know not only from the busts of him, but from the 
 insolent jests of ^Eschines. He is represented as of 
 unyielding fixedness of purpose ; a man, whom neither 
 the factions of the people, nor the clamors of the aris 
 tocratic party, nor the gold of Macedonia, could move 
 from the career of disinterested patriotism. Arriving 
 at early manhood, he found an object worthy of the 
 3 
 
34 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 employment of his life, and remained true to it in dan 
 ger, in power, in success, in defeat, at home, on em 
 bassies, in exile, and in death. He was an ardent lover 
 of liberty, smitten also with a true passion for glory. 
 Moreover in spite of his perseverance, he was naturally 
 timid. When he was presented at the court of Philip, 
 he is said to have been embarrassed, and to have 
 shown no proofs of his greatness. When called from 
 the forum to the camp, he was not at once capable of 
 directing the battle. He was accustomed never to 
 address the Athenians except after careful preparation ; 
 yet, on great occasions, he was sometimes raised 
 beyond himself, and if excited and compelled to speak, 
 he did it as it were by inspiration, and with irresisti 
 ble force. Ah 1 these things are traits of the melancholic 
 temperament. 
 
 We think we are abundantly authorized by his 
 torical evidence in these remarks on Demosthenes ; 
 though, as far as our knowledge extends, he is cited 
 in none of the books of physiology. To this class 
 we venture to add the name of one still more glorious 
 in human annals, and we do it confidently, relying on 
 the portraits of his person and his moral character. 
 It is the illustrious mariner to whom this country has 
 recently paid high honors, by the pen of Washington 
 Irving. We mean Christopher Columbus, who was 
 inspired by the innate majesty of his own soul, to sail 
 so far into an unknown hemisphere, 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 35 
 
 " Ch appena seguira con gli occhi il volo 
 La Fama, ch ha mille occhi, e mille penne. 
 Canta ella Alcide, e Bacco, e di te solo, 
 Basti a i poster! tuoi ch alquanto accenne ; 
 Che quel poco dara lunga memoria 
 Di poeina dignissima, e d istoria." 
 Thus we see, that persons of the melancholic tem 
 perament, possess great means of influencing others, 
 and exercising power over the destinies of mankind. 
 In our account of it, we have purposely avoided men 
 tioning the monstrous crimes, which are described by 
 Cabanis, Richerand, and other physiologists, as its 
 natural effects. They are not so. Providence has 
 made no temperament morally evil or good. It has 
 exposed each to its own temptations, and facilitated to 
 each the acquisition of virtues. The rashness of the 
 sanguineous is counteracted by humanity and the softer 
 virtues ; the ambition of the bilious by clear reason and 
 a quick perception of what is just ; the weakness of the 
 melancholic by patience and unwearied application. 
 But it must be confessed that when they become cor 
 rupt, their vices may produce very different degrees of 
 horror. The bilious man is never wantonly cruel or 
 wicked. Caesar, in his ambition, finished the ruin of 
 his country s liberties, but his success was not sullied 
 by bloody vengeance. Nero, who was sanguineous, 
 was at first humane, then fickle, then corrupt, and 
 when his innocence was gone, he made men miserable 
 for his amusement. Vengeance is the crime of the 
 
36 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 melancholic. Witness the proscriptions of Sylla. 
 When the melancholic man surrenders himself to 
 the influence of malignant or degrading passions, 
 he is cold and merciless; his imagination is full of 
 corrupt images ; his lusts are unnatural ; his breast 
 conceives dark and hateful designs ; he becomes in 
 different to consequences ; he neither respects the hap 
 piness of others nor is awed by the prospect of his own 
 ruin ; he is deaf to the voice of humanity, reckless of 
 nature, of God, and of eternity. Tiberius, Dornitian, 
 Philip II. of Spain ; these are examples, would there 
 were no more, that the melancholic temperament may 
 be ruinous to public happiness. The mind turns gladly 
 from these men of atrocious souls, to the milder virtues 
 and the better genius of Burke or the elder Pitt. 
 
 Let the melancholic man, if he values health of 
 body, qf mental peace, never yield to indolence, and 
 shun solitude when his fancy begins to brood darkly 
 over his cares. His diet should be rich, moderate in 
 quantity, but nutritious. Pasting, or a low fare, 
 might give his passions a tragical power. Light wines 
 he may freely use. In winter, if he will but be often 
 abroad, the cold weather will call off his thoughts from 
 his troubles. Sufficient exercise by day, and cheerful 
 company in the evening, will keep him in a good con 
 dition. Summer is the dangerous season for him. The 
 solitary admiration of nature confirms all his evils. 
 " Go, soft enthusiast ! quit the cypress groves, 
 Nor to the rivulet s lonely moanings tune 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 37 
 
 Your sad complaint. Go, seek the cheerful haunts 
 Of men, and mingle with the bustling crowd ; 
 Lay schemes for wealth, or power, or fame, the wish 
 Of nobler minds, and push them night and day. 
 Or join the caravan in quest of scenes 
 New to your eyes and shifting every hour, 
 Beyond the Alps, beyond the Apennines. 
 Or more adventurous, rush into the field 
 Where war grows hot ; and raging through the sky, 
 The lofty trumpet swells the maddening soul." 
 
 THE NERVOUS TEMPERAMENT. 
 
 We have finished the enumeration of temperaments, 
 as described by the fathers of medicine. The Greeks 
 recognized but four, considering the athletic only as a 
 modification of the sanguineous. Modern writers 
 form a distinct class of the athletic, and they add 
 another, of which examples doubtless existed among 
 the ancients, and which in modern times embraces no 
 inconsiderable portion of mankind. 
 
 The temperament to which we allude is the ner 
 vous. We cannot readily give a type of its moral 
 character, for a part of its peculiarity is, that it admits 
 of the most various modifications. It is known by the 
 predominance of the sensitive part of the system. It 
 is not that the nerves are deranged, or delicate, or 
 weak ; on the contrary, the action of the nerves is dis- 
 
38 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 proportionately powerful ; they do their office too 
 effectually. 
 
 The nervous temperament is marked by extreme 
 sensibility. An impression is easily made ; the mind 
 is active and volatile ; flying hastily from one subject 
 and one feeling to another, not from fickleness, but 
 from a rapidity of associations. It is quick in making 
 combinations and forms its resolutions suddenly ; but 
 the durability of these resolutions depends on the 
 texture of the fibres. If they are effeminate, the char 
 acter is fickle; if they are hard, and in man, this 
 usually happens, the character is firm and possessed of 
 decision. In the latter case the nervous man is lean, 
 and as it were emaciated; his muscles are compact; 
 the eye bright and rapid. He is capable of the most 
 diversified action. He can instantaneously break from 
 deep devotion to give himself up to amusement, from 
 sympathy with the sorrows of others to mix in gaiety. 
 Sometimes he is distinguished in public speaking ; 
 but wit and sarcasm, frequent illustrations, abrupt 
 transitions, are more natural to him than careful 
 reasoning or impassioned eloquence. He is scarcely 
 ever pathetic ; but he excels in epigrammatic con 
 ceits, in the quick perception of the ludicrous, and 
 in the pointed expression of his ideas. He delights 
 in proverbs, and manufactures new ones. He is com 
 monly eccentric in his ways ; and while he is fre 
 quently suspected of levity by the world, he retorts 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 39 
 
 upon it by a cold philosophy, and a "contempt for 
 the malignant vulgar." The people of Neufchatel 
 dismissed their pastor, because he disbelieved in the 
 eternity of future punishments. The pastor appealed 
 to Frederic, who declined interference. " If," said 
 he, and it was his only and his formal answer, "if 
 the people of Neufchatel insist on being damned 
 for ever, I shall interpose no objections." Frederic 
 is the most striking example of the nervous tem 
 perament. Voltaire also belonged to it. So too in 
 the north, we have no hesitation in classing under 
 it the Russian Suwarrow. In antiquity we think that 
 Socrates was an instance of it ; to the many he seemed 
 an odd buffoon ; but his friends and pupils knew that 
 his mind held glorious converse with the sublimest 
 truths. We further venture the suggestion, that the 
 eccentric apostate, the gifted Julian, possessed the 
 traits of the nervous class. Were we to name two 
 more, they should be the emperor Hadrian of Rome, 
 and his counterpart, the emperor Joseph of Austria. 
 
 Where this temperament exists in an intense de 
 gree, it becomes a malady. Its remedy is exercise. 
 The balance must be restored between the sensitive 
 and the muscular forces ; and this can be effected only 
 by diminishing the action of the intellect and cultiva 
 ting that of the animal nature. Nothing else can give 
 rest. Friendship, letters, business, action, all will 
 not avail, or rather will but increase the evil. The 
 
40 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 labors of agriculture, or any labor abroad, which will 
 gently occupy the thoughts, and at the .same time 
 strengthen the body, are of most service. Children 
 of this class suffer from too early attempts to cultivate 
 their minds. Such attempts are immediately followed 
 by great apparent results, but do in fact confirm the 
 natural weakness and misfortune of the individual. 
 
 THE TEMPERED TEMPERAMENT. 
 
 It will hardly be necessary to repeat, that these 
 temperaments are seldom found unmixed, although 
 one is usually predominant. In general it may be 
 observed, that the sanguineous prevails at the north ; 
 the bilious at the south ; the phlegmatic in cold and 
 moist marshy countries. In our immediate vicinity, 
 examples of the sanguineous occur more frequently 
 than of any other. A mixture of the sanguineous 
 and the bilious is very common, and forms the tem 
 perament best suited for the faithful and tranquil dis 
 charge of private duties. The melancholic is also not 
 rare ; the nervous is uncommon, except in the other 
 sex; busy America does not produce decided cases 
 enough of the phlegmatic to bring them into the 
 account. 
 
 And which is the best temperament ? Each is 
 content with itself. The bilious man thinks no hours 
 worth remembering, except those which have been 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 41 
 
 passed in the midst of ambitious toil. But do you think 
 that the sanguineous will desert his pleasant fireside, 
 abandon his cheerfulness, and restrain the fickle wan 
 derings of his affections, for all the boasted superiority 
 of the bilious temperament ? Or that the melancholic 
 man, in love with himself and his mournful humor, de 
 sires a change in his constitution ? Or that the phleg 
 matic indolence, which cares not whether the world 
 was made for Caesar or no, would wish to part with its 
 indifference, and figure in the career of public honors ? 
 Providence has been merciful and benevolent to each. 
 The best temperament, the beau ideal, is compounded 
 of all the rest, and we will call it the tempered temper 
 ament; in which the happiest proportion of the ele 
 ments is observed, so that nature may be proud of her 
 production. This model may never have existed in per 
 fection : many of the wise and good, who have been 
 the benefactors of mankind, have approached near 
 to it ; our own Washington nearest of all. 
 
 We have now explained the six classes, into which 
 all physical peculiarities and the corresponding moral 
 ones may be resolved. It no longer remains difficult to 
 show how men vary from one another in the manner in 
 which we have stated. That a peculiar temperament 
 distinguishes a nation, no one who will consult history, 
 or look through the world, at the Turks, the Dutch, 
 the Spaniards, can deny. It is equally obvious that 
 the same defects and advantages of original organi- 
 
42 THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 
 
 zation are transmitted in families. The distinction 
 between individuals is as apparent as between the 
 races. 
 
 It is only in the comparison between man in one 
 age and another, that physiologists, following the indi 
 cations of Plato in his impracticable theory of a repub 
 lic, believe it possible to effect great changes and im 
 provements in his condition. When these ingenious 
 observers are admitted to offer counsel, the most bril 
 liant prospects are opened for the amelioration of the 
 human race, and the happiness, health, and virtue of 
 future generations. The companions of man s exist 
 ence, his dogs and his horses, have already seen the 
 epoch of regeneration ; it does but remain for him now 
 to try upon himself, what he has so successfully at 
 tempted upon others ; to review, says the illustrious 
 Cabanis, who, for the most part, uses words consider 
 ately, " to review arid correct the work of nature." " A 
 daring enterprise " he may well add. In that happy 
 condition, which the physiologists are to prepare, the 
 inequalities of temperaments are to be removed, and a 
 mixture of the elements in the happiest proportions is 
 to form a healthful body, the dwelling and the instru 
 ment of a healthful mind. There will then be no more 
 of atrabilious frenzy ; no more of athletic dulness ; the 
 phlegmatic are to exchange their inertness for the live 
 lier exercise of their bodies and the cheering efforts of 
 imagination; and the sanguineous to be metamor- 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS. 43 
 
 phosed from frivolity to fixedness, from inattention 
 and indecision to steadfastness of purpose. There is 
 still to be an infinite variety of character, resulting 
 chiefly from the influence of climate, age, regimen, and 
 pursuits ; but there is to be no more excess. Good 
 ness is to be ingrafted on every member of the human 
 race. There is to be no more sorrowing for ideal 
 suffering ; the compressed lungs of the melancholy are 
 to find relief and freedom; their sombre features to 
 kindle with habitual cheerfulness. And then this 
 blessed age of our late posterity, is to wonder at 
 the present ; and to read with astonishment, that the 
 science of physiology and the kindred studies have had 
 no more influence in a century which boasts, and in 
 many respects may justly boast, of its enlightened 
 condition. 
 
 With the best wishes for this improved race of 
 man, which future times may behold, we turn to the 
 world around us, where the thousand inadvertencies, 
 follies, and excesses of men, continue to make them 
 heirs to a thousand evils. Enough we believe, has 
 been said to show, that the care and culture of the 
 physical system should be methodically pursued, in 
 order to promote the health, just action, and harmo 
 nious co-operation of the body and the mind. 
 
ENNUI. 
 
 i. 
 
 ENNUI is a word which the French invented, 
 though of all nations in Europe they know the least 
 of it; while the Turks, with their untiring gravity, 
 lethargic dignity, blind fatalism, opium-eating, and 
 midnight profligacies, have undoubtedly the largest 
 share. Next to the Turks, the English suffer most 
 from it. Hear the account which their finest poetical 
 genius of the present century gives of himself, when he 
 was hardly of age : 
 
 " With pleasure drugged he almost longed for woe, 
 And e en for change of scene would seek the shades 
 
 below." 
 
 The complaints of a young man in the bloom 
 of life and the vigor of early hope, cannot excite much 
 sympathy. But in his fullest maturity he still draws 
 the appalling picture of unalleviated ennui, in language 
 that was the mournful echo of his mind. 
 
 " Tis time this heart should be unmoved, 
 Since others it has ceased to move ; 
 Yet, though I canot be beloved, 
 
 Still let me love. 
 
ENNUI. 45 
 
 " My days are in the yellow leaf; 
 The flowers and fruits of love are gone ; 
 The worm, the canker, and the grief 
 Are mine alone." 
 
 Such was the harassed state of Lord Byron, at the 
 epoch which seemed to promise him a crowded suc 
 cession of exciting sensations. He was struggling 
 for honor on the parent soil of glory; he was sur 
 rounded by the stir and tumult of barbarous warfare ; 
 he had the consciousness, that the eyes of the civilized 
 world were fixed upon his actions ; he professed enthu 
 siasm in behalf of liberty ; and yet there was not irri 
 tation enough in the new and busy life of the camp, to 
 overcome his apathy. He only sought to give away 
 his breath on the field, and take his rest in a soldier s 
 grave. 
 
 The literature of the hour is essentially transient. 
 The public mind seizes rapidly every discovery ; and 
 rightly claims the instant distribution of truth. But 
 with this is connected a feverish excitement for novelty. 
 The world, in the earliest period of which accounts have 
 reached us, followed after the newest strains ; and now 
 the voice of the past, all musical as it is with the finest 
 harmonies of human intelligence, is lost in the jangling 
 din of temporary discussions. Philosophy steals from 
 the crowd, and hides herself in retirement, awaiting a 
 better day ; erudition is undervalued, and almost dis 
 appears. It would seem, as though the wise men of 
 
46 ENNUI. 
 
 old frowned in anger on the turbulence of the petty 
 passions, and withdrew from the contentious haunts, 
 where wisdom has no votaries, and tranquillity no 
 followers. In the days of ancient liberty, the public 
 places rung with the nervous eloquence of sublime 
 philosophy ; and the streets of Athens offered nothing 
 more attractive than the keen discussions, the piercing 
 satire, and the calm philanthropy of Socrates. But 
 now it is ephemeral politics which rule the city and 
 the country; the times of deep reflection, of slowly 
 maturing thought, are gone by ; the age of studious 
 learning is past, and every thing is carried along the 
 rushing current of public economy, or of private 
 business. Life is divided between excited passions 
 and morbid indifference. 
 
 And is this current so strong, that it cannot be 
 resisted ? Can we never separate ourselves from the 
 throng, and with dispassionate coolness, watch the 
 various emotions and motives, by which society is 
 swayed ? 
 
 The moralists, who utter their oracles in the com 
 monplace complaints of a heathenish discontent, tell us, 
 that we are born but to pursue, and pursue but to be de 
 ceived. They say that man in his eagerness for earthly 
 honors, is like the child that chases the gaudy insect ; 
 the pursuit idle ; the object worthless. They tell us, 
 that it is but an illusive star, which beams from the 
 summit of the distant hill ; advance, and its light re- 
 
ENNUI. 47 
 
 cedes ; ascend, and a wider space is yet to be traversed, 
 and a higher hill is seen beyond. And they tell us, 
 that this is vanity. But how poorly have they studied 
 the secrets of the human breast ! How imperfectly do 
 they understand the feebleness and the strength of 
 man s fortitude ! If glory still rests on the remotest hill, 
 if the distant sky is still invested with the delicate hues 
 of promise, pursuit remains a pleasure ; and the pilgrim, 
 ever light-hearted, passes heedlessly over each rugged 
 barrier. But suppose the alluring star to be blotted 
 out ; the lustre of the horizon to have faded into the 
 shades of a cloudy evening; the pursuit to be now 
 without an object ; and the blood which hope had sent 
 merrily through the veins, to curdle round the despond 
 ing heart. Then it is, that the springs of joy are poi 
 soned by the demons of listlessness. 
 
 The scholar and the Christian have guarantees 
 against despair. The desire for intelligence is never 
 satisfied but with the attainment of that wisdom which 
 passes all understanding ; and the mind discerning the 
 bright lineaments of its perfect exemplar, can set no 
 limits to the sacred passion, which recognises the con 
 nection of the human with the divine, and places 
 before itself a boundless career of advancement. But 
 it is not with these high questions that we are at pres 
 ent engaged. We have thrown open the book of 
 human life ; we are to read there of this world and 
 its littleness, of the springs of present action, of the 
 relief of present restlessness. 
 
48 ENNUI. 
 
 We have said, that the pursuit of a noble object is 
 in itself a pleasure. It is to the mind which shuns the 
 forming a definite design, that the universe seems de 
 ficient in the means of happiness, and existence becomes 
 a prey to the fiend of ennui. 
 
 Let us analyze this sensation more accurately. Let 
 us fix with exactness the true signification of ENNUI. 
 Let us see if it be widely diffused. Let us ascertain 
 the limits of its influence. Perhaps the investigation 
 may lead us to a more intimate acquaintance with our 
 nature. 
 
 n. 
 
 Ennui is the desire of activity without the fit means 
 of gratifying the desire. It presupposes an acknowl 
 edgment of exertion as a duty, and a consciousness of 
 the possession of powers suited to making an exertion. 
 It is itself a state of idleness, yet of disquiet ; a discon 
 tented inertness ; an indeterminate craving and cease 
 less mobility, without any commensurate purpose. 
 Wherever a^ course of conduct is the result of cheerful 
 efforts to gain a livelihood, of a passion for intelligence, 
 a zeal for glory, or to sum up a great variety of theories 
 in one, of a just and enlightened self-love, there no ves 
 tige of ennui can be found. But should the primary 
 motives of human effort fail, should the mind become 
 a prey to listlessness and gnaw upon itself, all its de 
 vices to escape from this self-destructive process, are to 
 
ENNUI. 49 
 
 be ascribed to the presence of ennui. The most ener 
 getic of our race, in the very crisis of their career, if per 
 chance they are compelled to hesitate in the choice of 
 their measures, and must wait fresh tidings before 
 rushing to the field of action, may suffer from its tor 
 ments during the hours of expectation, which alike 
 refuse to be filled up or to pass away. Industry itself 
 may tire of its task ; and its longings for relief and 
 change may bring with it disgust at its routine and a 
 sense of weariness that can yet find no rest. Even the 
 most indefatigable zealot, on attaining the result of his 
 long, and hearty, and well directed efforts, may at the 
 very moment of perfect success give way to the senti 
 ment of satiety or of lassitude, and suffer the pain of 
 discovering that all is vanity and vexation of spirit, 
 and that there is no profit under the sun. 
 
 It is ennui that stupefies the dull preacher, who 
 yawns over his weekly office and reads a lifeless sermon 
 of which " the saw " puts the sinner to sleep. Often in 
 the endless repetitions of the lawyer you may plainly 
 see how he loathes 
 
 " To drudge for the dregs of men, 
 And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen." 
 
 The life of Napoleon, in the very moment of 
 most imminent danger, presents a marvellous instance 
 of ennui. While the allies were collecting around him 
 in their utmost strength, he was himself wavering in 
 his purposes, and reluctant to decide on the retreat to 
 4 
 
50 ENNUI. 
 
 Leipsic. An eye-witness relates, " I have seen him at 
 that time seated on a sofa, beside a table on which lay 
 his charts, totally unemployed, unless in scribbling me 
 chanically large letters on a sheet of white paper." So 
 heavily and slowly dragged the hours of suspense for 
 the mighty warrior, at a time, when, in his own lan 
 guage, nothing but a thunderbolt could have saved him. 
 Or, to take an example from the earliest monument 
 of Grecian genius. Achilles, in the pride of youth, 
 engaged in his favorite profession of arms, making his 
 way to an immortality secured to him by the voice of 
 his goddess mother, sure to gain the victory in any 
 contest, and selecting for his reward the richest spoils 
 and the fairest maid, Achilles, the heroic heathen, was 
 fully and satisfactorily employed, and according to his 
 semi-barbarous notions of joy and right, was happy 
 within his own breast, and was happy in the world 
 around him. When the same youthful warrior was in 
 sulted by the leader under whose banners he had 
 rallied, when the recesses of his tent were invaded and 
 his domestic peace disturbed, his mind was strongly 
 agitated by love, anger, hatred, the passion for strife, 
 and the intense effort at forbearance ; and though there 
 was here room enough for activity, there was nothing 
 but pain and misery. But when the dispute was over, 
 and the pupil of the Centaur, trained for strife, and vic 
 tory, and glory, withdrew from the army, and gave 
 himself up to an inactive contemplation of the struggle 
 
ENNUI. 51 
 
 against Troy, his energies were absorbed in the morbid 
 feeling of ennui. Homer was the truest painter of the 
 human passions. The picture which he draws of 
 Achilles, receiving the subsequent deputation from the 
 Greeks, illustrates our subject exactly. It was in vain 
 for the hero to attempt to soothe his mind with the 
 melodies of the lyre; his blood kindled only at the 
 music of war : it was idle for him to seek pleasure in 
 celebrating the renown of heroes ; this was but a vain 
 effort to quell the burning desire to surpass them in 
 glory. He listens to the deputation, not tranquilly, 
 but peevishly. He charges them with duplicity, and 
 avows that he loathes their king like the gates of hell. 
 He next reverts to himself: "The warrior has no 
 thanks," he exclaims in the bitterness of disappoint 
 ment ; " the coward and the brave man are held in 
 equal honor." Nay, he goes further, and quarrels with 
 providence and fixed destiny. "After all," says he, 
 " the idler, and the man of many achievements, each 
 must die." " To-morrow," he adds, "my vessels shall 
 float on the Hellespont." The morning dawned ; but 
 the ships of Achilles still lingered near the banks of the 
 Scamander. The notes of the battle sounded, and he 
 was still in suspense between the fiery impulse for war 
 and the haughty reserve of revenge. 
 
 When Bruce approached the sources of the Nile, a 
 thousand sentiments of pride rushed upon his mind ; 
 he seemed to himself more fortunate and more glorious 
 
52 ENNUI. 
 
 than any European king or warrior, conqueror or 
 traveller, that had ever attempted to penetrate into the 
 interior of Africa. This was a moment of exultation 
 and triumphant delight. But when he had actually 
 reached the ultimate object of his research, he has him 
 self recorded the emotions which were awakened 
 within him. At the fountain-head of the Nile, Bruce 
 was almost a victim to sentimental ennui. 
 
 In this anecdote of the Abyssinian traveller, we 
 have an example of the rapidity with which disgust 
 treads on the heels of triumph. We will cite another, 
 where misery was followed and consummated by ennui. 
 The most eloquent of the Girondists was Vergniaud. 
 It was he that in the spirit of prophecy compared the 
 French revolution to Saturn, since it was about to 
 devour successively all its children, and finally to estab 
 lish despotism with its attendant calamities. The 
 rivalship of the Mountain in the Convention, the unsuc 
 cessful attack on Robespierre, the trial and condemna 
 tion of Louis XVI., the defection of Dumourier and its 
 consequences, had roused the mind of the fervent but 
 foredoomed orator to the strongest efforts which the 
 consciousness of wavering fortunes and the menace of 
 utter ruin, patriotism, honor, and love of life, could call 
 forth. At last came the day, fraught with horrors, 
 when the clamors of a despotic and inexorable mob, 
 claimed of the Convention Vergniaud and his associates, 
 the little remnant of republican sincerity, to be the vie- 
 
ENNUI. 53 
 
 tuns of their fiendish avidity for blood. Who will 
 doubt, that during that fearful session the highest pos 
 sible excitement called him into the highest possible 
 activity ! Here there was no room for listlessness, and 
 quite as little for happiness. The guarantees of order 
 were failing, and friends were to be buried under the 
 same ruins with the remains of regular legislative au 
 thority. Vergniaud retired from the scenes where the 
 foulest of the dogs of war were howling for their prey, 
 and when Gregoire found him out in his hiding-place, 
 the republican orator, though robbery and massacre 
 were triumphant in the city, was discovered reading 
 Tacitus. Why ? Prom affectation ? Surely not ; Gre- 
 goire s visit was unexpected. From cool philosophy ? 
 Still less. The studies of Vergniaud on that day were 
 the studies of a man burning for action, and having 
 nothing before him but the heavy weariness of idle 
 hours that seemed to lag forever. 
 
 Ennui was the necromancer which conjured up the 
 ghost of Caesar on the eve of the battle of Phillippi. 
 And when Brutus prematurely esteemed the day lost, 
 he had yet to wrestle with that unseen enemy, and 
 enter on a new contest, where he was sure to be over 
 thrown. " Oh liberty ! What crimes are committed in 
 thy name," cried Madame Roland as she passed to the 
 scaffold through intense and unmitigated suffering, 
 dignifying the scene by the majesty of her own forti 
 tude. The Roman had no such nobleness of nature ; 
 
54 ENNUI. 
 
 " Oh virtue ! thou art but a name," he exclaimed, as he 
 resolved on suicide. When Brutus dared to despair 
 of virtue, the atrocious sentiment was dictated, not by 
 the spirit that had aspired to restore the liberties of the 
 world, but by the demon of ennui, which in an evil 
 hour had possessed itself of the pretended patriot s 
 soul. 
 
 Finally, to take but one more example, the timid 
 lover, whose affections are moved, yet not tranquillized, 
 who gazes with the eyes of fondness on an object that 
 seems to be of a higher world, and admires as the stars 
 are admired, which are acknowledged to be beautiful 
 yet are never possessed ; the timid lover neither wholly 
 doubting, nor wholly hoping; the sport alternately 
 of joy and of sorrow ; full of thought and full of 
 longing ; feeling the sentiment of rapture yield to the 
 faintness of uncertain hope, is half his time a true per 
 sonification of ennui. 
 
 in. 
 
 That the activity of ennui is widely diffused, will 
 hardly be denied by any careful observer of human 
 nature. No individual can conscientiously claim to 
 have been always and wholly free from its temptations, 
 except where there has been a life springing from the 
 purest sources, sanctified by the early influence of 
 religious motives, and protected fr< m erroneous judg- 
 
ENNUI. 55 
 
 ments by the steady exercise of a healthful under 
 standing. For the rest, though few are constantly 
 afflicted with it as an incurable evil, there are still 
 fewer who are not at times made to suffer from its 
 assaults. It lays its heavy hand alike on the man of 
 business and the recluse ; it has its favorite haunts in 
 the city, but it chases the aspirant after rural felicity, 
 into the scenes of his rural listlessness ; it makes the 
 young melancholy, and the aged garrulous ; it haunts 
 the sailor and the merchant ; it appears to the warrior 
 and to the statesman ; it takes its place in the curule 
 chair, and sits also at the frugal board of old-fashioned 
 simplicity. You cannot flee from it ; you cannot hide 
 from it; it is swifter than the birds of passage, and 
 swifter than the breezes that scatter clouds. It climbs 
 the ship of the restless who long for the suns of Eu 
 rope ; it jumps up behind the horseman who scours 
 the woods of Michigan; it throws its scowling glances 
 on the attempt at present enjoyment ; it scares the epi- 
 curian from his voluptuousness, and when the ascetic 
 has finished his vow, it compels him to repeat the tale 
 of his beads. 
 
 To the prevalence of ennui must be traced the 
 craving for intense excitement. When life has become 
 almost stagnant, and the ordinary course of events 
 proves unable to awaken any strong interest, ennui 
 assumes a terrific power, and clamors for emotion, 
 though that emotion is to be purchased by scenes of 
 
56 ENNUI. 
 
 horror and of crime. " What a magnificent entertain 
 ment ! " said the Parisian mob, " how interesting a 
 spectacle to see a woman of the wit and courage of 
 Madame Roland pass under the guillotine ! " And the 
 sensitive admirer of works of fiction ransacks the 
 shelves of a library for novels of thrilling and " pain 
 ful " interest. 
 
 To the same kind of restless vacancy we have to 
 ascribe the demand for the vehement declamations of 
 the tragic actor, and the splendid music of the opera ; 
 the cunning tricks of the village conjuror, and the 
 lascivious pantomime of the city ballet-dancers; the 
 disgusting varieties of bull-fights, and the murderous 
 feats of pugilism. It has sometimes driven men to 
 indulge the locomotive zeal of the professed pedes 
 trians, and sometimes to seek the perfect quiescence of 
 the "pillar saints." 
 
 The habits of ancient Rome illustrate most clearly 
 the extent to which the passion for strong sensations 
 may hurry the public mind into extravagances, and 
 repress every sentiment of sympathy and generosity. 
 Ambition itself is not so reckless of human life as 
 ennui ; clemency is a favorite attribute of the former ; 
 but ennui has the tastes of a cannibal, and the sight 
 of human blood, shed for its amusement, makes it 
 greedy after a renewal of the dreadful indulgence. 
 The shows of the ancient gladiators were attended 
 by an infinitely more numerous throng than is ever 
 
ENNUI. 57 
 
 gathered by any modern spectacle. The fondness for 
 murderous exhibitions raged with such vehemence, 
 that they were at length introduced as an attraction 
 at the banquet, and the guests, as they reclined at 
 table in the luxury of physical ease, have been wet by 
 the life-blood of the wounded gladiators. 
 
 Quinetiam exhilarare viris convivia caede 
 Mos oliin, et miscere epulis spectacula dira 
 Certantum ferro, ssepe et super ipsa cadentum 
 Pocula, respersis non parco sanguine mensis. 
 Time would fail us were we to illustrate the various 
 atrocities which attended these diversions, designed to 
 amuse the most refined population of Rome ; or even 
 to enumerate the various classifications in the art of 
 murder on the stage. And let it not be supposed, that 
 the life of one of these combatants was the more safe, 
 because it depended on the interposition of the Roman 
 fair. The signals in token of relenting clemency, pro 
 ceeded commonly from the multitude ; the more usual 
 signal, made by virgins and matrons, demanded the 
 continuance of the combat unto death. We call Titus 
 the delight of the human race, and praise his common 
 place puerility, perdidi diem, though it was the ex 
 clamation of conceit, rather than of manliness. It 
 was this philanthropist, this favorite of humanity, 
 who caused the vast Roman amphitheatre to be erect 
 ed, as it were a monument to all ages of the barbarous 
 civilization of the capital of his empire. And as to the 
 
58 ENNUI. 
 
 numbers who appeared on these occasions, was it a 
 pair? or a score? We will not ask after the mas 
 sacres commanded and consummated by a Tiberius 
 or a Caligula. Trajan was a discreet prince ; dis 
 posed to introduce habits of industry. Yet he kept 
 up a succession of games to cheat the population of 
 Rome of ennui, during a hundred and twenty-three 
 days, in which time ten thousand gladiators were 
 decked for sacrifice. 
 
 Thus the intenseness of this passion is evident from 
 the method of relief which it required. We may also 
 remark, that superstition itself, interwoven as it is 
 with all the fears and weaknesses of humanity, sub 
 jects the human mind to a bondage less severe and less 
 permanent than that of the terrific craving after some 
 thing to dissipate the weariness of the heart. At 
 Rome the sacrifices to the heathen deities were abol 
 ished before the games of the gladiators were sup 
 pressed ; it was less difficult to take from the priests 
 their spoils, from the altars their victims, from the 
 prejudices of the people their religious faith, than to 
 rescue from ennui the miserable wretches whose lives 
 were to be the sport of the idle. The laws already 
 forbade offering the bull to Jove, when the poet still 
 had to pray that none might perish in the city under 
 the condemnation of pleasure, 
 
 Nullus in urbe cadat, cujus sit pcena voluptas. 
 
ENNUI. 59 
 
 Philosophy itself offers no guarantee against the 
 common infirmities of listlessness. Many a stoic has 
 resisted the attacks of external evil with an exemplary 
 fortitude, and has yet failed in his encounter with 
 time. Strange, indeed, that time should be an incum- 
 brance to a sage ! Strange indeed, that, when life is so 
 short, and the range of thought boundless, and time 
 the most precious of gifts, dealt out to us in successive 
 moments, a possession which is most coveted, and can 
 the least be hoarded, winch comes, but never returns, 
 which departs as soon as given, and is lost even in 
 the receiving, strange, indeed, that such a grant, so 
 acceptable, so fleeting, and so irrevocable, should ever 
 press severely upon a philosopher ! 
 
 And yet wisdom is no security against ennui. 
 The man who made Europe ring with his eloquence, 
 and largely contributed to the spirit of republican 
 enthusiasm, wasted away for months in a state of the 
 most foolish torpidity, under the idea that he was 
 dying of a polypus at his heart. Nay, this specu- 
 latist, who presumed to believe himself skilled in the 
 ways of man and an adept in those of women, who 
 dared to expound religion and proposed to reform Chris 
 tianity, who committed and confessed the meanest 
 actions, and yet, as if in the presence of the Supreme 
 Arbiter of life and before the tribunal of Eternal 
 Justice, arrogated to himself an equality with the 
 purest in the innumerable crowd of the immortal 
 
60 ENNUI. 
 
 he, the proud one, would so far yield to ennui, as 
 to put the final and eternal welfare of his soul at 
 issue on the throw of a stone. " Je men vais" he 
 says to himself, "je men vais Jeter cette pierre contre 
 I arbre qui est vis-a-vis de moi : si je le touc/te, signe 
 de salut ; si je la manque, signe de damnation" 
 
 But Jean Jacques passes for a madman. The 
 temperate Spinoza, being cut off from active life and 
 from social love, necessarily encountered a void within 
 himself. It was his favorite resource to catch spiders 
 and teach them to fight ; and when he had so far made 
 himself master of the nature of these animals, that he 
 could get them as angry as game cocks, he would, all 
 thin and feeble as he was, break out into a roar of 
 laughter, and chuckle to see his champions engage, as 
 if they, too, were fighting for honor. 
 
 Poor Spinoza ! It may indeed be questioned, 
 whether his whole philosophy was not a sort of pas 
 time with him. It may be, that he was ingenious 
 because he could not be quiet, and wrote from a 
 want of something to do. At any rate it has fared 
 strangely with his works. The world had well-nigh 
 become persuaded, that Spinoza was but a name for 
 the most desolating form of atheism, and next he 
 is canonized. The skeptic Bayle heaps ridicule upon 
 the great Jewish dialectician; the dreamer Novalis, 
 who himself died of ennui, revered him as a model of 
 sanctity. 
 
ENNUI. 61 
 
 J3ut we have a stronger example than either of 
 these. The very philosopher, who first declared ex 
 perience to be the basis of knowledge, and found 
 his way to truth through the safe places of observation, 
 gives in his own character some evidences of partici 
 pation in the common infirmity. He said very truly, 
 that there is a foolish corner even in the brain of the 
 sage. Yet if there has ever appeared on earth a man 
 possessed of reason in its highest perfection, it was 
 Aristotle. He had the gift of seeing the forms of 
 things, undisturbed by the confusing splendor of 
 then hues ; his faculties, like the art of sculpture, rep 
 resented objects with the most precise outlines and 
 exact images ; but the world in his mind was a 
 colorless world. He understood and has explained 
 the secrets of the human heart ; but he performs 
 his moral dissections with the coolness of an anato 
 mist, engaged in a delicate operation. The nicety of 
 his distinctions, and his deep insight into nature, are 
 displayed without passion, while his constant effort 
 after the discovery of new truth, never for one moment 
 betrays him into mysticism, or tempts him to substitute 
 shadows for realities. One would think, that such a 
 master of analysis was the personification of self-posses 
 sion ; that his unruffled mind would always dwell in the 
 serene regions of intelligence ; that his step would rest 
 on the firm ground of experience ; that his progress to 
 the sublime temple of truth and of fame, would have 
 
62 ENNUI. 
 
 been ever secure and rapid ; that happiness itself would 
 have blessed him in his tranquil devotedness to exalted 
 pursuits. 
 
 In the mouth of Pindar, life might be called a 
 dream, and it would but pass for the effusion of poetic 
 melancholy. But when the sagacious philosopher as 
 serts, that all hope is but the dream of waking man, the 
 solemn expression of discontent is but the sad confes 
 sion of his own unsatisfied curiosity ; and nothing but 
 the wonderful vigor of his mind could have preserved 
 him from settled gloom. 
 
 Again the venerable sage examined into the sources 
 of happiness. It does not consist, he affirms, in volup 
 tuous pleasures, for they are transient, brutalizing, and 
 injurious to the mind ; nor in public honors, for they 
 depend on those who bestow them, and it is not 
 felicity to be the recipient of an uncertain bounty ; 
 nor yet does happiness consist in riches, for the care 
 of them is but a toil ; and if they are expended, it is 
 plainly a proof, that contentment is sought for in the 
 possession of other things. In his view, happiness 
 consists in the pursuit of knowledge, and in the prac 
 tice of virtue, under the auspices of mind, and nature, 
 and fortune. He that is intelligent, and young, and 
 handsome, and vigorous, and rich, is alone the happy 
 man. Did the world need the sublime wisdom, the 
 high endowment of the Stagyrite, to teach, that nei 
 ther the poor, nor the dull, nor the aged, nor the sick, 
 
ENNUI. 63 
 
 can share in the highest blessings of mortal being? 
 When it is remembered that Aristotle was favored 
 above all his contemporaries in intellectual gifts, we 
 invite the reader to draw an inference as to the state of 
 his mind, which still demanded the beauties of per 
 sonal attractions, and the lavish liberality of fortune. 
 
 When asked what is the most transient of fleeting 
 things, the philosopher made but a harsh answer, in 
 naming "gratitude;" but his mind must have been 
 sadly a prey to ennui, when he could exclaim, " My 
 friends ! there are no friends." 
 
 He was not willing to sit or stand still, when he 
 gave lessons in moral science ; but walked to and fro 
 in constant restlessness. Indeed, if tradition reports 
 rightly, he did not wait the will of Heaven for his 
 release from weariness, but in spite of all his sublime 
 teachings and all his expansive genius, he was content 
 to die as the fool dieth. 
 
 But ennui kills others beside philosophers. It is 
 not without example, that men have died by their own 
 hand, because they have attained their utmost wishes. 
 The man of business, finding himself possessed of a 
 sufficient fortune, retires from his wonted employments ; 
 but the habit of action remains, and becomes a power 
 of terrific force. . In such cases, the sufferer whiles 
 away listless hours of intense suffering; the mind 
 preys upon itself, and sometimes life ebbs of itself, 
 sometimes suicide is committed. 
 
64 ENNUI. 
 
 Saul went out to find his father s asses. Pleased 
 with the humble employment he made search with a 
 light heart and an honest one. But, seeking asses, he 
 found a kingdom ; and tranquillity fled when posses 
 sion was complete. The reproofs of conscience and 
 discontent with the world produced in him a morbid 
 melancholy, and pain itself would have been to him 
 a welcome refuge from ennui. 
 
 We detect the same subtle spirit at work in the 
 slanders in which gossips find relief. Truth is not ex 
 citing enough to those who depend on the characters 
 and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement ; 
 and if a story is told of more than common interest, 
 ennui is sure to have its joy in adding embellishments. 
 If hours did not hang heavy, what would become of 
 scandal ? Time, the common enemy, must be passed, 
 as the phrase is, and the phrase bears its own com 
 mentary ; and since the days of gladiators are gone by, 
 what better substitute than blackening the reputation 
 of the living? To the pusillanimous and the idle, 
 scandal is the condiment of life ; and while backbiting 
 furnishes their entertainment abroad, domestic quarrel 
 ling fills up the leisure hours at home. It is a pretty 
 general rule, that the medisante is a termagant in her 
 household ; and, as for our own sex, in nine cases out 
 of ten, the evil tongue belongs to a disappointed man. 
 
 Fashion, also, in its excess, is but a relief against 
 ennui ; and it is strong evidence of the universal preva- 
 
ENNUI. 65 
 
 lence of listlessness, that a change in dress at Paris 
 can, within a few months, be imitated in St. Louis. 
 But not ennui, a milder influence sways the conduct 
 of the young and the fair. The latent consciousness of 
 beauty, the charm of an existence that is opening in 
 the fulness of its attractions, the becoming loveliness 
 of innocence and youth, the simple cheerfulness of in 
 experience, lead them to find delight in a modest and 
 graceful display. The unrivalled Broadway is not 
 without its loungers ; yet of these the young and the 
 gay are not discontented ones. In the strength of 
 their own charms, they, like the patriot statesman, 
 neither shun nor yet court admiration ; and as they 
 move along the brilliant street, half coveting half re 
 fusing attention, 
 " They feel that they are happier than they know." 
 
 From Broadway we pass to the crowded haunts of 
 business. Is ennui found there ? Do the money 
 changers grow weary of profits ? Is business so dull 
 that bankers are without employment? Have the 
 underwriters nothing at sea to be anxious about ? Do 
 the insurers on life forget to exhort the holders of its 
 policies to temperance and exercise? These are all 
 too profoundly engaged and too little romantic, to 
 be moved by sentimental repinings. But there are 
 those, who plunge headlong into affairs from the rest 
 lessness of their nature, and who hurry into bold enter- 
 5 
 
66 ENNUI. 
 
 prises, because they cannot endure to be idle. Business, 
 like poetry, requires a tranquil mind; but there are 
 those, who venture upon its tide, under the impulse of 
 ennui. How shall the young and haughty heirs of 
 large fortunes rid themselves of their time, and acquit 
 themselves in the eye of the public of their imagined 
 responsibilities ? One writes a tale for the Souvenirs, 
 another speculates in stocks. The former is laughed 
 at, yet hoards an estate ; the latter is food for hungry- 
 sharks. Then comes bankruptcy ; and sober thought 
 repels the fiend that had been making a waste of life ; 
 or the same passion drives its possessor to become a 
 busy-body and zealot in the current excitement of the 
 times ; or absolute despair, ennui in its intensity, leads 
 to insanity. 
 
 For the mad-house, too, as. well as the debtor s 
 jail, is recruited by the same blighting power, and 
 nature recovers from languid apathy by the excitement 
 of frenzy. Or the thought of suicide creeps in ; fancy 
 revels in the contemplation of the grave, and covets 
 the aspect of death as the face of a familiar friend. 
 The mind invests itself in the sombre shades of a mel 
 ancholy longing after eternal rest a longing which is 
 sometimes connected with unqualified disbelief, and 
 sometimes Associated with an undefined desire of a 
 purely spiritual existence. 
 
ENNUI. 67 
 
 IV. 
 
 We might multiply examples of the very extensive 
 prevalence of that unhappy languor of which we are 
 treating. Let us aim rather at observing the limit of 
 its power. 
 
 It was a mistaken philosophy, which believed in 
 ennui as an evidence and a means of human perfec 
 tibility. The only exertions which it is capable of pro 
 ducing, are of a subordinate character. It may give 
 to passion a fearful intensity, consequent on a state of 
 moral disease ; but human virtue must be the result of 
 far higher causes. The exercise of principle, the gene 
 rous force of purified emotions, cheerful desire, and 
 willing industry, are the parents of real greatness. If 
 we look through the various departments of public and 
 of intellectual action, we shall find the mark of inferior 
 ity upon every tlung which has sprung from ennui. In 
 the mechanic arts it may contrive a balloon, but never 
 could invent a steamboat. In philosophy it might 
 beget the follies of Cynic oddity, but not the sublime 
 lessons of Pythagoras. In religion, it stumbles at a 
 thousand knotty points in metaphysical theology, but 
 it never led the soul to intercourse with Heaven, or to 
 the contemplation of divine truth. 
 
 The celebrated son of Philip, " Macedonia s mad 
 man," was of exalted genius ; and political wisdom had 
 its share in his career. Ennui could never have pro- 
 
68 ENNUI. 
 
 duced him ; but it may well put in its claim to the 
 Swede. Or let us look rather for a conqueror, who 
 dreamed that he had genius to rival Achilles, and yet 
 never formed a settled plan of action. The famous 
 king of Epirus has seemed to be an historical puzzle, 
 so uncertain was his purpose, so wavering his character. 
 Will you know the whole truth about him ? Pyrrhus 
 was an ennuye. 
 
 In verse,- ennui may produce effusions from " per 
 sons of quality," devoid of wit and sense ; but not the 
 satire of Pope. When a poet writes a song for hire, 
 or solely to be sung to some favorite air, it is more than 
 probable his verses will be lifeless, and his meaning 
 doubtful. Thus, for example, 
 
 " The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, 
 
 Deceitful shine, deceitful flow." 
 This is sheer nonsense, the evidence of a vacant mind. 
 Joy smiles in good earnest, and many an aching heart 
 knows too well the deep truth of distress. 
 
 It is dangerous for a man of superior ability to find 
 himself thrown upon the world without some regular 
 employment, The restlessness inherent in genius being 
 thus left undirected by any permanent influence, frames 
 for itself occupations out of accidents. Even moral in 
 tegrity sometimes falls a prey to this want of fixed 
 pursuits. Genius, so left without guidance, attains no 
 noble ends ; but resembles rather a copious spring, con- 
 
ENNUI. 69 
 
 veyed in a decaying aqueduct ; where the waters contin 
 ually waste away through the frequent crevices. The law 
 of nature is here, as elsewhere, binding ; and no pow 
 erful results ever ensue from the trivial exercise of high 
 endowments. The finest mind, when destitute of a 
 fixed purpose, passes away without leaving permanent 
 traces of its existence. 
 
 These remarks apply perhaps in some measure 
 even to Leibnitz, whose intelligence and mental ac 
 tivity were the wonder of his age. He attained 
 celebrity, but hardly a contented spirit ; at times he 
 descended to the consideration of magnitudes infinitely 
 small, and at times rose to the belief that he heard the 
 universal harmony of nature ; for years he was devoted 
 to illustrating the antiquities of the family of a petty 
 prince ; and then again he assumed the sublime office 
 of defending the perfections of Providence. Yet with 
 this variety of pursuit, the great philosopher was hardly 
 to be called a happy man ; and it is enough to fill us 
 with melancholy to find, that the very theologian who 
 would have proved this to be absolutely the best of 
 all possible worlds, died of chagrin. Our subject 
 is more fully illustrated in the case of a less gifted, 
 though a notorious man, the famed Lord Bolingbroke. 
 His talents as a writer have secured him a distinguished 
 place in the literature of England ; and his political ser 
 vices, during the reign of Queen Anne, have rendered 
 him illustrious in English history. But though he was 
 
70 ENNUI. 
 
 possessed of wit, eloquence, family, wealth, and oppor 
 tunity, he never displayed true dignity of character, or 
 real greatness of soul. He appeared to have no fixed 
 principles of action ; and to have loved contest more 
 than victory. Wherever there was strife, there you 
 might surely expect to meet St. John ; and his public 
 career almost justifies the inference, that after a defeat 
 apostasy seemed to him a moderate price for permis 
 sion to appear again in the lists. But as he always 
 coveted power with an insatiable avidity, he never could 
 rest long enough to acquire it. On the stormy sea of 
 public life, he was for ever struggling to be on the top 
 most wave ; but the waves receded as fast as he ad 
 vanced; and fate seemed to have destined him to 
 fruitless efforts and as fruitless changes. 
 
 In early life he sought distinction by his debauch 
 eries ; and succeeded in becoming the most daring 
 profligate in London. Tired of the excess of dissipa 
 tion, he attempted the career of politics, and found his 
 way into Parliament under the auspices of the whigs. 
 When politics failed, he put on the mask of a metaphy 
 sician. Weary of that costume, he next attempted to 
 play the farmer. Dissatisfied with farming, he wrote 
 political pamphlets. Still discontented, he strove to 
 undermine the basis of the religious faith of his 
 country. 
 
 He began public life as a whig ; but as the tones 
 were in the ascendant, he rapidly ripened into a tory ; 
 
ENNUI. 71 
 
 he ended his political career by deserting the tories, 
 and avowing the doctrines of stanch and uncom 
 promising whigs. He tried libertinism, married life, 
 politics, power, exile, restoration, the House of Com 
 mons, the House of Lords, the city, the country, 
 foreign travel, study, authorship, metaphysics, infi 
 delity, farming, treason, submission, dereliction, but 
 ennui held him with a firm grasp all the while, and it 
 was only in the grave that he ceased from troubling. 
 
 To an observer who peruses his writings with this 
 view of his character, many of his expressions of wise 
 indifference and calm resignation, have even a ludicrous 
 aspect. The truth breaks forth from all his attempts 
 at disguise. The philosopher s robes could not hide 
 the stately wrecks of his political passions. Round the 
 base of Vesuvius, the lava of former eruptions has so 
 entirely resolved itself into soil, that vineyards thrive 
 on the black ruins of the volcano ; and the ancient de 
 vastation could hardly be recognised, except for an 
 occasional dark mass, which, not yet decomposed, 
 frowns here and there over the surrounding fertility. 
 Something like this was true of St. John ; he believed 
 his ambition extinct, and attempted to gather round 
 its ruins all the beauties and splendor of contented 
 wisdom ; but his nature was still ungovernably fierce ; 
 and to the last, his passions lowered angrily on the 
 quiet scenes of his literary retirement. 
 
 There is no clue to his career, except in supposing 
 
72 ENNUI. 
 
 him to have been under the influence of ennui, which 
 was perpetually terrifying him into the grossest contra 
 dictions. He could not be said to have had any prin 
 ciples, or to have belonged to any party ; and wherever 
 he gave in his adhesion, he was sure to become utterly 
 faithless. He was not less false to the Pretender than 
 to the King, to Ormond than to Walpole. He was 
 false to the tories and false to the whigs ; he was false 
 to his country, for he attempted to involve her in civil 
 war ; and false to his God, for he combated religion. 
 He was not swayed by a passion for glory, for he did 
 not pursue it steadily ; nor by a passion for power, 
 for he quarrelled with the only man by whose aid he 
 could have maintained it. He was rather driven to 
 and fro by a wild restlessness, which led him into gross 
 contradictions " for his sins. " Nor was his falsehood 
 without its punishment. What could be more pitifully 
 degrading, than for one who had been a successful 
 British minister of state, and had displayed in the face 
 of Europe his capacity for business and his powers of 
 eloquence, to accept a seat in the Pretender s cabinet, 
 where pimps and prostitutes were the prime agents 
 and counsellors ? 
 
 There exists a very pleasant letter from Pope, 
 giving an account of Bolingbroke s rural occupations, 
 during his country life in England, after the reversal 
 of his attainder. He insisted on being a farmer ; and 
 to prove himself so, hired a painter to fill the wans of 
 
ENNUI. 73 
 
 his countryhouse with rude pictures of the implements 
 of husbandry. The poet describes him standing be 
 tween two haycocks, watching the clouds with all the 
 apparent anxiety of a husbandman ; but to us it seems 
 that his mind was at that time no more in the skies, 
 than when he quoted Anaxagoras, and declared heaven 
 to be the wise man s home. His heart clung to earth, 
 and to earthly strife ; and his uneasiness must at last 
 have become deplorably wretched, since he could con 
 sent to leave a piece of patchwork, made up of the 
 shreds of other men s skepticism, as his especial legacy 
 to posterity. 
 
 Thus we have endeavored to explain the nature of 
 that apathy which is worse than positive pain, and 
 which impels to greater madness than the fiercest 
 passions, which kings and sages have not been able 
 to resist, nor wealth nor pleasures to subdue. We 
 have described ennui as a power for evil rather than 
 for good; and we infer, that it was an erroneous 
 theory which classed it among the causes of human 
 superiority, and the means of human improvement. 
 It is the curse pronounced upon voluptuous indolence 
 and on excessive passion ; on those who decline active 
 exertion, and thus throw away the privileges of exist 
 ence ; and on those who live a feverish life, in the con 
 stant frenzy of stimulated desires. There is but one 
 cure for it, and that is found in moderation ; the exer 
 cise of the human faculties in their natural and health- 
 
74 ENNUI. 
 
 ful state ; the quiet performance of duty, in meek sub 
 mission to the controlling Providence, -which has set 
 bounds to our achievements in setting limits to our 
 powers. Briefly : our ability is limited by Heaven 
 our desires are unhmited, except by ourselves ennui 
 can be avoided only by conforming the passions of the 
 human breast to the conditions of human existence. 
 
THE RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 i. 
 
 " 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 favor 
 ites," 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 grey 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, exchanging the pursuits 
 of ambition for the quiet of observation, the strife of 
 public discussion for the diffuse but instructive Ian- 
 
76 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 guage of experience, passes to the grave amidst grate 
 ful recollections and the tranquil enjoyment of satisfied 
 desires. 
 
 The happy, it is agreed by all, are afraid to con 
 template their end ; the unhappy, it has been said, look 
 forward to it as to a release from suffering. " I think 
 of death often," said a distinguished but dissatisfied 
 man ; " and I view it as a refuge. There is something 
 calm and soothing to me hi 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 contemplated with carelessness. Religion may 
 elevate the soul to a sublime reliance on a future exist 
 ence ; 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 then* thoughts from the consider 
 ation of its terrors. It is an impulse of nature to strive 
 to preserve our being ; and the longing cannot be 
 eradicated. 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 di- 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 77 
 
 rectly 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 finding 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, he ordered his wounds to be dressed ; and, 
 when aid was declared to be unavailing, the dying officer 
 clamorously demanded 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 amidst maledictions and threats heaped upon 
 the innocent surgeon. This foolish frenzy may have 
 appeared like blasphemy ; it was but the uncontrolled 
 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 philosopher sometimes express an apprehension, 
 which cannot be pacified. The celebrated British 
 moralist, Samuel Johnson, was the instructor of his 
 age ; his works are full of the austere lessons of 
 
78 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 reflecting wisdom. It might have been supposed, 
 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 inspired him with confidence in the skill of his 
 medical attendants. And yet it was not so. A sullen 
 gloom overclouded his faculties ; he could not summon 
 resolution to tranquillise his emotions ; and, in the 
 absence of his attendants, he gashed himself, with 
 ghastly and debilitating wounds, as if the blind lacer 
 ations of his misguided arm could prolong the mo 
 ments of an existence, which the best physicians of 
 London declared to be numbered. 
 
 " Is there any thing 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 
 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 XL of France ; a monarch, who was not des 
 titute of eminent qualities as well as repulsive vices ; 
 possessing courage, a knowledge of men and of busi 
 ness, an indomitable will, a disposition favorable to the 
 administration of justice among his subjects ; viewing 
 impunity in wrong as exclusively a royal prerogative. 
 Remorse, fear, a consciousness of being detested, dis- 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 79 
 
 gust with life and horror of death, these were the sen 
 timents 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 physi 
 cians 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 Paule ; 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 acknow 
 ledged by an English poet ; who, after describing our 
 being as the dream of a shadow, " a weak-built isth 
 mus 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 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 ! 
 
80 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 II. 
 
 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 attainment of their object at any 
 price, the competitors for political power are apt to 
 cling fast to the scene of their rivalry. Lord Castle- 
 reagh 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 unrelenting 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 
 himelf 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 intolerable sorrows. 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 81 
 
 Madame de Sevigne, in her charming letters, 
 gives the true sensations of the ambitious man, when 
 suddenly called to leave the scenes of his efforts 
 and his triumphs. Rumor, with its wonted credu 
 lity, 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 w T oman. In 
 a night, the most energetic, reckless statesman in 
 Europe, passionately fond of place, extending his in 
 fluence 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, winch his policy had rendered complicate? 
 Who should terminate the wars which he had begun ? 
 Who should follow up the blows which he had aimed ? 
 Well might he have exclaimed to the angel of death, 
 " Ah, grant me a short reprieve ; spare me, till I can 
 check the Duke of Savoy ; checkmate the Prince of 
 Orange ! " " No ! No ! You shall not have a single, 
 single minute." Death is as inexorable 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 passion for life, 
 whether expressed in the language of superstition, of 
 6 
 
82 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 abject despondency, or of the desire of continued 
 power, could not prolong existence for a moment. 
 
 in. 
 
 But though the love of life may be declared a uni 
 versal instinct, it does not follow that death is usually 
 met with abjectness. It belongs to virtue and to man 
 liness to accept the inevitable decree with firmness. It 
 is often sought voluntarily ; but even then the latent pas 
 sion is discernible. A sense of shame, a desire of plun 
 der, 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 common 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 indif 
 ferent, for purposes which, perhaps, if his mind were 
 enlightened, he would labor to counteract. The life 
 of the soldier is a life of contrast ; of labor and idle 
 ness ; 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 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 83 
 
 same soldier would fly precipitately from any hazard 
 which he had not bargained to encounter. The mer 
 chant 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 grave-yards. But the same merchant would be 
 struck by panic and desert his own residence in a more 
 favored chine, 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 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 perpet 
 uated. Yet is it to be supposed 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 
 
84 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 incur danger more frequently than the honest physi 
 cian. There is no type of malignant maladies with 
 which he fails to become acquainted ; no hospital so 
 crowded with contagion, that he dares not walk freely 
 through its wards. His vocation 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 inhales the 
 poisoned atmosphere, he must coolly reflect on the 
 medicines which may mitigate the sufferings that he 
 cannot remedy. Nay ; after death has ensued, he 
 must search with the dissecting knife for its hidden 
 cause, if so by multiplying his own perils he may dis 
 cover 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 in 
 difference to his own. The physician shuns every 
 danger, but such as the glory of his profession com- 
 mands him to defy. 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 85 
 
 IV. 
 
 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 paradox; but the dread of dying has 
 itself sometimes prompted suicide, and the man who 
 seeks to destroy himself, at the very moment of perpe 
 trating 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 assassin, 
 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 reme 
 dies ; 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 
 
86 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 not with indifference merely, but contempt. It is pure 
 affectation, 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 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 sensualist, 
 one to whom life was every thing, and the loss of it the 
 total shipwreck of every thing. 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 teas 
 ing 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 an 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 in 
 clement 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 pre- 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 87 
 
 vent a compassion which would endanger the reign of 
 superstition, the priests with drums and cymbals, 
 drown the terrific cries of their victims. So it is with 
 those w T ho 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. 
 
 v. 
 
 Perhaps the most common device for averting con 
 templation from death itself, is in directing it to the 
 manner of dying. Vanitas vanitatum! Vanity does 
 not give up its 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 funereal splendors. It was no 
 uncommon thing among the Romans for a rich man to 
 appoint an heir, on condition that his obsequies 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 engraved on his tomb ; but they are no 
 more than a plain expression of a very common passion ; 
 the same, which leads the humblest to desire that at 
 
00 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 .east a stone may be placed at the head of his grave, 
 and demands the erection of splendid 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 nowa 
 days 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 neighbors 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 con 
 quests." He was wrong there. He came naked 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 sceptre or his scymitar. 
 Saladin was vain. He sought in dying to contrast the 
 power he had enjoyed with the feebleness of his con 
 dition; to pass from the world in a striking an- 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 89 
 
 tithesis ; 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 Heliogabalus, 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 woollen ! 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 ap 
 pearances 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 pleas 
 ures consume life. There you may witness the har 
 lot s euthanasia. The Trench court was at Choisy, 
 when Madame de Pompadour felt the pangs of a fatal 
 
90 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 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 per 
 mitted ! 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 his 
 torian, 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 
 
 O . v <J 
 
 which she coveted, the opportunity to reign till her part 
 ing gasp. The courtiers thronged round the death-bed 
 of a woman, who distributed favors with the last exha 
 lations of her breath ; and the king hurried to name to 
 public offices the persons whom her faltering 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 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 91 
 
 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 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 approbation of the philosophers. She lisped no 
 word of penitence ; she shed no tears of regret. The 
 surate left her as she was in the agony : " Wait 
 a moment," said she, "we will leave the house to 
 gether." 
 
 The dying mistress was worshipped while she 
 breathed ; hardly was she dead when the scene changed ; 
 two domestics carried out her body on a hand-barrow 
 from the palace to her private home. The king stood 
 at the window, looking at the clouds, as her remains 
 were carried by. " The Marchioness," said he, " will 
 have bad weather on her journey." 
 
 VI. 
 
 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 common motives for dissimulation ; and time, that 
 lays his hand on every thing else, destroying beauty, 
 undermining health, and wasting the powers of life, 
 
92 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 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, tells us, that the discoverer of our 
 continent, in a hallucination 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 de 
 fiance. " 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." 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 93 
 
 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 
 magnanimous genius and a shallow wit, may com 
 pare this splendid eulogy of Milton with the superficial 
 levity in the commentary of Warton. It is a fashion 
 to call Sir Henry Vane a fanatic. And what is fanat 
 icism ? 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 un 
 compromising defender of civil and religious liberty be 
 fanaticism ; if to forgive injuries be fanaticism ; if to 
 believe that the mercy of God extends to all his 
 creatures, and may reach even the angels of dark- 
 
94 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 ness, be fanaticism ; if to have earnestly supported 
 in the Long Parliament the freedom of conscience, 
 if to have repeatedly, boldly and zealously interposed 
 to check the persecution of Roman Catholics, 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 non-conformity, if 
 in his public life to have pursued a career of firm, con 
 scientious, disinterested consistency, never wavering, 
 never trimming, never changing, if all this be fanat 
 icism, then was Sir Harry Vane a fanatic. Not other 
 wise. The people of Massachusetts declined to con 
 tinue 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 opposed the tyranny of Cromwell. When that 
 extraordinary man entered the House of Commons 
 to break up the Parliament, which was about to 
 pass laws that would have endangered his supremacy, 
 Vane rebuked him for his purpose of treason. When 
 the musketeers invaded the hall of debate, and others 
 were silent, Vane exclaimed to the most 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." 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 95 
 
 Though Vane suffered from the usurpation of the 
 Protector, he lived to see the Restoration. On the 
 return of the Stuarts, like Lafayette among the Bour 
 bons, he remained the stanch enemy of tyranny. The 
 austere patriot, whom Cromwell had feared, struck 
 terror into the hearts of a faithless 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 in 
 fluence, 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 par 
 liament ; " 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 en 
 joyed the society of his family, as if he had been re 
 posing 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 malig 
 nity of his hatred. " Ten thousand deaths for me," ex 
 claimed Vane, " ere I will stain the purity of my con 
 science." 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." 
 
96 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 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 cannot part with that," and died. 
 Lorenzo de Medici, upon his death-bed, sent for 
 Savonarola to receive his confession and grant him 
 absolution. The severe anchorite questioned the dying 
 sinner with unsparing 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 ac 
 quired ? " 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 resumed 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 successors. 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 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 97 
 
 hell itself were opening beneath his bed. " Not that ! 
 I cannot 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, 
 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 approached the coast of 
 Massachusetts. He loved his family; but at that 
 moment he gave his whole soul to the cause of free 
 dom. "Oh that I might live," it was his dying 
 wish, " to render to my country one last service." 
 
 VII. 
 
 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 preci 
 pice, totter towards the brink which they would shun. 
 Every body remembers the atheism and bald sensuality 
 
98 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 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 MacchiaveUi attests the truth, set forth the 
 deep baseness 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 Senigaglia, for the purpose 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 assassin, 
 to obtain of Alexander a dispensation for his omis 
 sions,, a release from purgatory. 
 
 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 am I 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 ignobly by the hand of a woman. 
 We have ever admired the gallant death of Sir Richard 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 99 
 
 Grenville, who, in a single ship, encountered a nu 
 merous 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 gal 
 lows, but not at the thought of dying. He felt the 
 same sentiment which made death welcome to Nelson 
 and 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. 
 
 vm. 
 
 Finally : he who has a good conscience and awell 
 balanced mind meets death with calmness, resignation, 
 
100 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 and hope. Saint Louis died among the ruins of 
 Carthage ; a Christian king, laboring in vain to expel 
 the religion of Mahomet 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 sacrament, closed his eyes, and died, as he was re 
 peating 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 peni 
 tent had given satisfaction. " Yes," replied father 
 Roust, " like a man of genius." The curate was dis 
 pleased ; 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 ! 
 Benevolence of feeling and. self-possession diffused 
 serenity round the hour of his passing away. Con 
 fident that the hand of death was upon him, he yet 
 submitted to the application of remedies, that he might 
 gratify his more hopeful friends. They had recourse 
 to leeches ; and with delightful simplicity the great 
 
RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 101 
 
 naturalist observed, it was he who had discovered that 
 leeches possess red blood. The discovery, which he 
 made in his youth, had been communicated to the pub 
 lic 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 poverty, the sullen rejection which his first 
 claims for advancement had received, and all the 
 vicissitudes through which he had been led to the 
 highest distinctions in science. The son of the 
 Wirtemberg 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 Prance by the grace 
 and fluency of his elocution. And now he was 
 calmly predicting his departure ; his respiration be 
 came rapid ; and his head fell as if he were in med 
 itation. Thus his soul passed to its Creator without a 
 struggle. " Those who entered afterwards would 
 have thought -that the noble old man, seated in his 
 
102 RULING PASSION IN DEATH. 
 
 arm-chair by the fire-place, was asleep ; and would 
 have walked softly across the room for fear of dis 
 turbing 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 continued 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 indiffer 
 ence. 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. 
 
STUDIES IN GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
 f 
 
 I. 
 
 NATIONAL literature varies with, national char 
 acter. It represents the aspect under which the world 
 is contemplated, and shows the coloring imparted by 
 climate, government, and society. The Muse, with 
 her divine inventions, may shape the character of a 
 people after a favorite pattern of ideal excellence ; but 
 the beauty, concentrated in the model, must have 
 already existed in surrounding realities, which imagi 
 nation only combines and vivifies. The hearts of the 
 many will not be moved, except the appeal be made 
 to passions which are already strong, and gratify 
 tastes and awaken sympathies which are already 
 formed. 
 
 The literature of a nation, therefore, commends it 
 self to the attention of enlightened curiosity, even inde 
 pendently of its intrinsic merits, from the knowledge it 
 sheds on the nature of man. Genius remains always 
 
104 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the same high gift. But how differently has it 
 ripened under the grateful splendor of an Italian sky, 
 and in the chilling climate of the North ! at the court 
 of Louis, and on the soil of Germany ! at Edinburgh 
 and Ispahan ! at Vienna and Washington ! And this 
 diversity gives relief to the productions of each nation, 
 and constitutes their interchange a reciprocity of bene 
 fits and gratifications! We censure the extravagant 
 creations of oriental fancy, and yet the East has given 
 to the West more than it has received. It has peopled 
 the air with sylphs, and filled the w T orld of man with 
 magic agencies ; it contributed many a strange tale to 
 be wrought into beautiful shape by the more careful 
 European artist. In the Fairy Queen, to glance only 
 at English literature, something of its manner was 
 blended with Spenser s sweetness and melancholy ; 
 and it adds vivacity to the playful satire of Pope. The 
 story of the Merchant of Venice is of Eastern origin ; 
 and the Tempest and the Midsummer Night s Dream 
 borrow their charms from the brilliant legends of the 
 same clime. Thus it is, that while learning blesses 
 its possessors, the stores which it collects and dispenses, 
 contribute to the general instruction and amusement. 
 
 A universal interest and extended culture favor not 
 the variety of literary productions only, but also the 
 culture of taste. .They are necessary to the acquisition 
 of just discrimination, and the quick perception and 
 ready acknowledgment of merit. There may be an 
 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 105 
 
 intuitive perception of excellence, but it is only from 
 large comparisons that we arrive at safe inferences. 
 The mind that takes a wide range, is willing to observe 
 the manner in which genius contemplates nature under 
 every sky and in every condition of life ; it gains the 
 power of recognising beauty of invention, by what 
 ever disguise the public fashions of place and time 
 may have hid its lustre. 
 
 The freedom capable of discerning beauty in 
 writing, independent of local peculiarities, is a vic 
 tory over prejudice and narrowness. Its reward is 
 vast and immediate, and consists in the power of 
 receiving enjoyment from every exhibition of genius. 
 Perhaps no people offers in its literature more nume 
 rous or more opposite causes of gratification than the 
 Germans. Others may surpass them in melody of 
 verse, or exact and measured elegance ; but never 
 before did the world behold a nation mature, in a 
 century, a literature so diversified in its character, 
 marked by so much learning and so much liberality, 
 so full of thought and imagination, so distinguished 
 alike for philosophical reasoning, and the boldest 
 expression of enthusiastic feeling. 
 
 The aspect of nature is reflected in German liter 
 ature. In Italy, the Apennines, for the most part 
 scantily wooded, or even entirely naked, rise in beau 
 tiful and successive ranges ; the clear atmosphere lends 
 to them distinct outlines, and shows to perfect advan- 
 
106 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 tage the intermingling of light and shade on the suc 
 cession of hills and valleys ; and the spectator willingly 
 lends an ear to the fables of antiquity. It seems no 
 unnatural idea, that the cheerful brooks and the invi 
 ting woods should have joyous nymphs and deities for 
 their guardians. In Germany, the mountains are 
 carefully kept covered with the forest, whose sombre 
 foliage heightens their aspect of gloom ; or the thin 
 branches of the pines make the rugged cliffs appear 
 still more bleak and desolate ; the mists often gather 
 among the ridges, or wrap tiie highest peaks in clouds ; 
 the productions of the soil, at any considerable eleva 
 tion, mark an inhospitable zone, and indicate the 
 abject poverty of the inhabitants ; and so a rude super 
 stition has assigned to these northern fastnesses the 
 homes of wizards and spectres ; the theatre of noctur 
 nal incantations ; the general muster-ground of all the 
 motley and fiendish creations of a barbarous fancy. 
 
 The history of Germany is unique, and has had 
 its influence on its poets. In many parts of the coun 
 try, especially along the Rhine and the Neckar, and on 
 the heights .which command the rich valleys of central 
 Germany, the genius of the middle ages is still visibly 
 hovering round 
 
 " Those gray but leafy walls, where ruin greenly dwells." 
 There you have the battlements and the massive watch- 
 towers of the baronial castles, the dungeons and sub 
 terraneous passages, the banqueting halls and tlit, 
 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 107 
 
 chapels, which are so often introduced into romance, 
 and which in themselves are far more touching in their 
 decay, than in the descriptions of any writer of fiction. 
 You may inspect the very chambers of the secret 
 tribunal, its instruments of torture, and its places of 
 execution; or listen to the simple and pure legends 
 which religious tradition has connected with the scenes 
 of greatest loveliness. Of these mediaeval relics, enough 
 remains to give clear conceptions of the manners 
 of those times, in which the fierceness of chivalrous 
 courage was tempered by the influence of the Church, 
 and the harshness of the haughty knight contrasted 
 with the impressive piety and graceful gentleness of 
 woman. When we are admitted to the inner apart 
 ments and see, as it were, the daily footsteps of their 
 inhabitants, we are brought nearer to the incidents of 
 feudal power ; the anxious lady of the castle is still im 
 patiently hearkening for the return of her lord; the 
 courtyard yet rings with the clattering of arms, the 
 neighing of steeds, and the loud merriment of a numer 
 ous and idle retinue; the wine still flows freely at the 
 hospitable but intemperate banquet ; the priest chastens 
 the fierceness of valor with mercy, absolves the timid 
 soul from the guilt of sin, and at the altar sanctifies to 
 youthful prowess the possession of beauty, whose affec 
 tion was won by courage in the field. 
 
108 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 II. 
 
 The political organization of Germany, after many 
 changes, continues to be a strange anomaly. Its soil, 
 occupying the very heart of Europe, has been the 
 general battle-field for contending nations, while its 
 princely families have for centuries furnished wives to 
 more than half the sovereigns of Europe. Its climate 
 and soil vary, as you pass from the barren sands, cold 
 seasons, and level regions of the North, to the mag 
 nificence of the country watered by the Danube, or the 
 genial mildness and abundance that crown the valley 
 of the Rhine. Had its hardy population been bound 
 together under one master, the liberty of the old world 
 would have been at their mercy. But even the ap 
 pearance of an executive union was destined to disap 
 pear in the revolutionary convulsions of Europe. The 
 line of Roman emperors has ceased, and the phantom 
 of a crown is worn no longer. Letters are now the 
 great, and we might almost say, the only efficient 
 bond for the German people. They have a common 
 language, and a common literature ; in other respects, 
 their governments are severally nearly as independent 
 as those of the Italian States. The German league 
 forms little beside a vain show. The interests of the 
 several states are heterogeneous, and the connection 
 but nominal; while Goethe is the man of the whole 
 nation, a favorite at Vienna, and on the left bank of 
 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 109 
 
 the Rhine. A strange condition of public existence ! 
 where there are no topics relating to the whole com 
 monwealth, to call forth an undivided expression of 
 feeling ; and yet where works of genius in literature 
 are claimed by a population of more than forty millions. 
 
 The inhabitants of Germany are every where distin 
 guished for kindliness and hospitality. Here are the 
 strongholds of Protestantism ; and here too, Roman 
 Catholics worship in sincerity, and delight in learning ; 
 while religion discards alike bigotry and superstition. 
 That the fine arts are held in high repute, is attested 
 by the enthusiasm which the Gallery of Dresden con 
 tinues to excite. Music is so universally cultivated, 
 that there is no considerable town where admirable 
 concerts may not be heard in private circles ; nor is 
 affection confined to Mozart and native composers ; 
 sometimes the touching strains of the elder artists are 
 revived; of Scarlatti, who composed and played the 
 harp till almost seventy ; but still more of Palestrina, 
 whose ashes were deemed worthy of a place in St. 
 Peter s, the Raphael of music, than whom no one has 
 better known how to express the spirit of religion by 
 the harmony of sounds. 
 
 The tendency of the wide diffusion of culture to 
 promote intellectual freedom, is increased by the fact, 
 that in the Northern and Central parts of Germany 
 there is but one very large city ; while Vienna is too 
 near the confines of the ancient Empire to form a cen- 
 
110 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 tre for the mind of the nation. Indeed, an impulse 
 greater than any from Vienna, has been given by 
 Weimar, a city not so large, and certainly not so 
 flourishing as was the town of Providence, or Cincinnati, 
 in 1827. The public, that invisible, most powerful, im 
 partial personification of the enlightened opinion and 
 authority of a nation, is in Germany, as in the United 
 States, to be sought for every where. In every village, 
 cultivated minds are unfettered by the decisions of a 
 metropolis, and opinions are freely given and boldly 
 canvassed. The fate of a book published in France, is 
 decided at Paris ; but in Germany, the highest honors 
 in letters, as with us the presidential dignity, are to be 
 won only by obtaining the free suffrages of remote, in 
 dependent, and equal districts. 
 
 The arrangements of the bookselling interest are 
 analogous. Leipzig is the great centre of this busi 
 ness ; in Leipzig, every book, be it published where it 
 may, is advertised and kept regularly for sale. Nothing 
 is so sure of a good reception, as to pretend to make 
 its way by itself, independent of the usual mode ; and 
 nothing so small or so mean, as to be overlooked. So 
 perfect is the system, you may receive of the smallest 
 bookseller, in the smallest town that has a bookseller, 
 any work published in any part of the country, as 
 surely, as soon, and on as good terms, as if you had 
 applied to the house most largely engaged in the 
 trade. Nor is it unworthy of remark, that the 
 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. Ill 
 
 common style of printing is a correct, but not an 
 expensive one. 
 
 in. 
 
 There is the more advantage in economical arrange 
 ments for distributing books through Germany, as 
 learning is there seldom attended by wealth and inde 
 pendence. German literature is the result of the 
 moral energy of its own votaries. It was fostered 
 by no Maecenas ; it was cherished by no Augustus ; 
 it was not rocked and dandled into maturity, but 
 struggled against opposition, overcame indifference, 
 and triumphed over contempt. Even Leibnitz, at 
 comparatively a recent day, had the weakness not to 
 be proud of his countrymen ; and Frederic of Prus 
 sia could not perceive the germs of that genius, which 
 in his last years was to bloom so abundantly. It 
 was the mass of the nation that wrought out the 
 intellectual salvation of the country; and hence it 
 comes, that men of letters in Germany, emerging from 
 the middling class, have had their sympathies with the 
 people, and have watched for its liberties. To the 
 aristocracy, Germany owes little of its intellectual eleva 
 tion. 
 
 Of this it is proudly conscious. It is not of the 
 slightest moment, whether the presence of the learned and 
 of those endowed with creative genius is desired among 
 the possessors of political or hereditary rank. Who 
 
112 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 asks if Homer kept company with kings? Who is 
 troubled because Milton would not, or could not go to 
 court ? An ingenious scholar of the North, whose 
 merits are above our praise, observes, as a favorable 
 characteristic of our time, that authors " constitute the 
 chosen ornaments of society." It may be well for the 
 classes which are privileged by fortune, to associate to 
 themselves the eloquent who can sway public opinion, 
 or the masters of science who can produce new re 
 sources of power or wealth. But the willing parasite 
 ranks infinitely beneath the stern recluse, whose mind, 
 self-balanced, finds repose in its own strength. Men 
 of letters belong essentially to the laboring class ; they 
 are links in the chain which binds together the widely 
 diversified elements of society. They rise from the. 
 general mass and should not separate from it. All the 
 delight of vanity in counting the powerful, the wealthy 
 or the fashionable as friends, should never induce them 
 to resign their right to equality on the field of general 
 exertion, founded, as their claim is, on the glory of 
 inspiring the thoughts, and moulding the moral exist 
 ence of .contemporary millions. Such is the sentiment 
 of the German universities, where a want of manliness 
 is not forgiven. A professor had received a diploma of 
 nobility. " Ah," said his colleague, the mathematician 
 Kastner, on the arrival of the parchment ; " the fellow 
 rises on the ruins of his like ; one foolish sheep builds 
 his greatness on the skin of another." 
 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 113 
 
 It would be melancholy to follow the lives of emi 
 nent German scholars through then 1 trials in the com 
 mencement of their career, were it not that we may 
 almost always discern the hopeful serenity proceeding 
 from the conscious exercise of exalted intellect. Many of 
 them provided at first for their subsistence, by rilling 
 subordinate stations in schools ; to many the universities 
 offered a temporary theatre, or a scene of honor and 
 exertion for life. The admirable constitution of the 
 German universities, rendered it the more easy to ap 
 pear there in the capacity of public instructor. In 
 them the care of the several branches of science, is 
 not exclusively intrusted to any one. The regular 
 professor is liable to find competitors in any, whose 
 predilections or whose wants may lead them to instruct 
 in the same department. The few establishments 
 where the system of restraint prevails, have had little 
 or no share in the prosperity, vigorous industry, and 
 sound and impartial learning, for which the German 
 is distinguished. According to its theory the busi 
 ness of teaching should be as free as with us the prac 
 tice of law. To insure the co-operation of some one 
 eminent man in each department, a regular professor 
 is appointed, with a very moderate salary, which ope 
 rates only as a bounty, to, influence his choice of 
 abode. His income depends on his industry and 
 success, and is as unlimited as his talents and reputa 
 tion. Beside this, any man, who can offer evidence of 
 8 
 
114 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 his competency, by an examination, a public disputa 
 tion, and a printed dissertation, that may serve as a 
 specimen of his erudition, is allowed to give public or 
 private lessons, under the sanction of the university, 
 with every facility to be derived from the use of its 
 fixtures, and with all the advantage of being fairly in 
 the list of equal competition. 
 
 Here, mark the difference in our institutions. 
 With us all instruction in the universities is monop 
 olized; whether the professorship derives its income 
 from fees paid by the students, or endowments, the 
 care of each branch of knowledge is entirely in the 
 hands of the person appointed ; he has no competitor. 
 In Germany the professor has his salary ; the right 
 to teach, and to gain emoluments from teaching, he 
 shares with all who have the requisite qualifications. 
 There are not a few men in America now, who have 
 no connection with any of our public institutions, and 
 who could not, of their own accord alone, enter on the 
 career of instruction in them, who yet have a right, that 
 would not be disputed, of teaching the sciences public 
 ly, and at will, in any one of the leading German uni 
 versities. It may be thought, that this liberty of 
 teaching is fruitful of endless strife and undignified 
 jealousies. Far from it. It makes the public teachers 
 industrious and faithful, for otherwise they would soon 
 be out of employment ; and it is no more productive 
 of evil, than the custom among us, of a young lawyer 
 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 115 
 
 or physician attempting to practise his profession in 
 any place where he thinks an opportunity offers. The 
 established professors find nothing grievous in the 
 arrangement. Now and then, it is true, a professor 
 who remains behind the age, or has little talent as a 
 teacher, is doomed to see his lecture-room vacant, and 
 offer instruction which no one cares to receive. And 
 so it ought to be. But a faithful man derives such an 
 advantage from his regular appointment, that to him 
 his youthful competitors are but as followers and coad 
 jutors, who give assistance to the students in those 
 things for which he has neither time nor inclination. 
 A competitor of equal years and standing is unknown, 
 except as a professor likewise regularly established; 
 for talent and learning are not such every-day qualities 
 as to be left unsought for. When a professor dies, or 
 is incapacitated by age, the public has the benefit of being 
 able to select a successor from the crowd of young and 
 experienced aspirants. And if, which will sometimes 
 happen, the regular professor grows idle, the science 
 does not droop ; the want of instruction calls forth per 
 sons competent to give it ; and the public is not a 
 great loser by any misappropriations, since the receipts 
 of a teacher fall off with the decline of his own exertions. 
 Nor let it be supposed that the universities, which 
 have had so wide an influence on the culture of man 
 kind, are all of them hallowed by age. Gottingen is 
 but of the last century, though it has already gathered 
 
116 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the most useful library in the world. The foundation 
 of the University of Berlin belongs to the present cen 
 tury ; and the number of its students has, at times, 
 been the largest on the continent. Within a year of the 
 foundation of a university at Munich, in 1826, its success 
 was assured. But how were those foundations laid ? 
 Not by building halls, but by collecting together learned 
 men, and opening to them a career of utility, honor, 
 and emolument. Honos et prcemia ! Where these are 
 dispensed freely, learning will thrive ; industry, un 
 checked in its exertions, and unlimited in its rewards, 
 will in this, as in every thing else, lead to brilliant results. 
 
 It would not be without interest to glance at the 
 condition of our country, and form an estimate of 
 the character of men who would become public in 
 structors, if our institutions were put on a similar 
 liberal footing ; the relative number of those, who, in 
 this country and in Germany, are desirous of a public 
 education ; the influence of the respective govern 
 ments ; the liberality of the community. But the sub 
 ject is too important to be treated incidentally ; and 
 we will only remark, that if our universities languish, 
 the cause does not lie in the apathy of the public. 
 
 The influence of the German universities is incalcu 
 lable. They fill the offices of state with men of cul 
 ture ; and there is hardly a village where they have not 
 domesticated learning. They give an earnest and 
 speculative character to the common mind; render 
 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 117 
 
 the public capable of appreciating eminent merit, and 
 impress even on the works of fiction, traces of an 
 intimate acquaintance with other ages and nations. A 
 union of strength of imagination with the power of 
 various acquisition, is characteristic of German genius. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Letters are in Germany a career to which men are 
 regularly educated. The profession is, moreover, a 
 thronged one ; of course, moderate merit is abundant, 
 and distinction difficult. There are few instances of 
 scholars who have at once risen to eminence. The first 
 years on entering life are generally years of hardship 
 and struggle ; but where talent is joined to industry, 
 notoriety is at last gained, and a moderate competence 
 secured. There is nothing in our country more nearly 
 analogous to this state of things, than the condition 
 of the profession of law. The road of emulation is so 
 crowded, that it is unsafe to rest upon honors already 
 acquired ; persevering diligence is necessary to pre 
 serve even a favorite from neglect. German scholars 
 understand that there is much hard work to be done, 
 requiring time and habitual toil, from day to day; 
 letters are not to be the pastime of a dull afternoon 
 the business over which a man may loll in an easy 
 chair the fashionable topic for a half hour s conver 
 sation in the evening ; they are considered, as they 
 
118 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ought to be, a most honorable and most laborious 
 occupation for life. 
 
 To these habits of industry we must attribute the 
 profoundness and the universality which characterize 
 German literature. In almost every department of 
 human knowledge, it can show some one treatise, 
 which may be said to exhaust the subject ; containing 
 not the views of the author merely, but a condensed 
 sketch of all that has been written upon the matter in 
 discussion. 
 
 There is one branch of speculative learning, requir 
 ing rare sagacity and deliberation, and cultivated but 
 little except in Germany. It is called the Higher 
 Criticism, and begins its office where historical criti 
 cism ends. Thus, as to the poems of Homer, all the 
 evidence which we possess, enables us only to establish 
 the essential identity of our printed copies with the 
 edition collated and published by the Alexandrian 
 scholars. But what changes may have taken place in 
 the verse, previous to that period ? What proof have 
 we that the Alexandrian scholars had an uncorrupted 
 text? The same kind of questions has been raised 
 in theological philology. It is obvious, that to ask 
 them of the rash, is only to throw open the floodgates 
 of literary doubt. And in fact, there has been left 
 hardly one eminent author of antiquity, who has not 
 been cheated out of part of his fame. Sophocles is 
 made to give up one of his plays ; Plato half his dia- 
 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 119 
 
 logues ; Anacreon almost all his odes ; and the Iliad 
 and the Odyssey are declared to be full of interpola 
 tions, the shreds and rags of audacious sophists, 
 patched upon the simple and majestic robes of Ho 
 mer. The too great prevalence of this dangerous 
 method has given to a branch of science an air of 
 skepticism, which was not the object of the writers, 
 and which by no means exists in the people. 
 
 The same spirit of expansive inquiry, which does 
 the business of research so faithfully, has encouraged a 
 universal interest in literary productions. The great 
 works of other countries and ages are not merely 
 known to the man of letters, but are for the most part 
 nationalized in translations which give the very form 
 and sentiments, the ideas and the tone of the original. 
 We should mention Wolf s German translation of the 
 Clouds of Aristophanes, and William von Humboldt s 
 of the Agamemnon of ./Eschylus, as admirable speci 
 mens of this kind of work, of which Voss may be 
 called the inventor. Where such fidelity is required, 
 the style was at first harsh ; but long and frequent 
 exercise, and unceasing efforts, have given such flex 
 ibility, copiousness, and variety to the German lan 
 guage, that many of the greatest poets of all times, not 
 the ancients only, but Calderon and Shakspeare, Tasso, 
 Ariosto, and Dante, are reproduced in their own 
 measures and their own style, and have become 
 familiar topics of interest to all who know how to 
 
120 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 beguile an hour with a book. So numerous are the 
 translations from the Latin and Greek, that a work in 
 two large volumes was required for their enumeration. 
 All good versions meet with a favorable reception. 
 On the theatres, Romeo and Juliet, or the Merchant 
 of Venice, of the English dramatist, will draw as large 
 a house, and gratify it as much, as the Wallenstein, or 
 the Mary Stuart of Schiller. Calderon is played as 
 often as Goethe ; and even a comedy of Terence is 
 sometimes represented. 
 
 This enlarged curiosity increases in an unparalleled 
 manner the amount of knowledge in circulation, and 
 liberates the general mind from prejudice, without 
 impairing the originality of German inventive literature. 
 The nation has its own character, which is preserved 
 inviolate, though it is strengthened and fructified by 
 additions from many sources. 
 
 Independence is a characteristic of German scho 
 lars. Controversy is carried on with the utmost free 
 dom. Where truth is the object, it is not deemed 
 tolerable, that social considerations should check a 
 free expression of thought. Hence there is a great 
 collision of opinions, as with us in the political world, 
 and every one comes finally to be examined. It is not 
 esteemed unseemly for men, who reside in the same 
 place, or are employed at the same university, to advo 
 cate opposite views ; and the habit of conducting lit- 
 erary researches in personal seclusion, encourages the 
 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 121 
 
 scholar to unbiased inquiry and boldness of utterance. 
 Passing their time in retirement and application, the 
 men of letters have little communication with each 
 other, or the world, but by their writings. Separated 
 from society by continual industry, while they yet hold 
 close intercourse with the public through the press, in 
 timate relations of friendship, and on the other hand, 
 implacable hostilities, may grow up between those who 
 have never heard the sound of each other s voice. 
 
 The continuance of solitary study leads finally to a 
 state of high mental excitement. The scholar, within 
 the walls of his closet, feels the impulse of passionate mo 
 tives, the rush of rapid thought, and the charms of 
 crowded existence. He represents to himself not a 
 distinct, visible, and well-known audience, but a vast 
 and undefined mass of intelligence and numbers, an as 
 semblage unlimited in its possible extent, and deriving 
 new dignity from the awful mystery in which it is en 
 veloped. The German scholar writes under the con 
 viction that his work will fall under the eyes of men 
 competent to judge, and his usual tranquillity and 
 regularity make him the more susceptible of this kind 
 of encouragement. 
 
 . The remoteness in which the German student lives 
 from ordinary interruptions, favors devotedness to a 
 single object. The instances are numerous, of men 
 who have consecrated the best part of their lives to one 
 engrossing pursuit. The science which thus engages 
 
122 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the mind for years, becomes ever present to then* 
 thoughts, and is treated with liveliness as well as learn 
 ing. There are some who can describe to you the an 
 tiquities of Egypt, or the ruins of Persepolis, who may 
 hardly know there are republicans among the Andes ; 
 others have a better understanding of the springs that 
 directed the Peloponnesian war, than the French revo 
 lution. Subjects of antiquity are treated as though 
 they were present to the senses ; and the lecturer on 
 Greece transfers himself and all his interests, for the 
 time, to the scenes which he describes. The historian 
 of nature, too, lives in his theme ; he carries his enthu 
 siasm into the details of physiology, and explains with 
 animation the wonders of the mineral kingdom ; or, if 
 his topic be the fossil remains of the former creation, he 
 seems almost to throw his mind back into that wonder 
 ful state of things, when plastic power delighted in 
 monstrous forms, when trees dropped amber, and in 
 sects were enshrined in transparent tombs. 
 
 With much that is excellent, much extravagance 
 has been published in Germany, where, in the first ten 
 years of this century, there were more than ten thou 
 sand living authors. Sentiments bold and paradoxical, 
 inventions wild and wonderful, sometimes for a season 
 engage the attention, which nothing but genius and 
 truth can hold fast. But among so many good intel 
 lects, error cannot proceed far without opposition, nor 
 folly without exposure. The nation does not stand 
 
GENEEAL CHARACTERISTICS. 123 
 
 answerable for the aberrations of any of its citizens, 
 since it is the first to censure their perversity. 
 
 The facility of receiving enjoyment from every 
 exhibition of genius, is an advantage of high value. 
 Every man has, indeed, the right to choose his own 
 guides to the summit of Olympus ; but we question 
 the soundness of those who deny that there are more 
 ways than one. Such an opinion could be explained, 
 only as the result of a narrowness that willingly 
 wears the shackles of prejudice. We all admire the 
 loveliness of our own landscape ; but shall we 
 have no susceptibility to other charms ? Shall Switz 
 erland, where the glaciers enter the fertile valley, 
 and whiter and summer are seen side by side, 
 have no power to please us ? Or a scene beneath a 
 southern sky, where the palm-trees lift their heads in 
 slender magnificence, the forests glitter with the splen 
 dor of variegated plumage, and earth is gay with all 
 the colors that gain their deep tints from a tropical 
 sun ? The eye that communes with nature and under 
 stands it, discerns beauty in all its forms. And shafl 
 we, who are certainly not incurious as to the concerns 
 of all nations, be indifferent to foreign letters ? Is 
 there no happy moment of tranquillity in which learn 
 ing may raise her head fearlessly and be respected, and 
 the pursuits of contemplative life be cheered by the 
 free expression of general approbation, and quickened 
 into excellence by the benignity of an attentive nation ? 
 
124 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 We cannot as yet be said to have a national literature ; 
 but we already have the promise of one, and the first 
 fruits ; as the literary character of the country is devel 
 oped, it should resemble our political institutions in 
 liberality, and welcome excellence from every quarter 
 of the world. 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 I. 
 
 The first use of the German as a written language, 
 is full of interest for the antiquary ; but, like the re 
 searches into the earliest Anglo-Saxon literature, can 
 hardly claim universal attention. No relic has come 
 down to us, of the bards of whom Tacitus makes men 
 tion. The Edda furnishes but a very doubtful means 
 of ascertaining what kind of poetry was in vogue in the 
 days of Herman ; nor do any existing documents 
 explain the changes produced in popular poetry and 
 habits of thought by the introduction of Christianity. 
 Religious hymns were circulated by the monks ; and 
 one considerable poem, the Life of St. Anno, by an 
 unknown author, will long be preserved, not for its 
 merit, but as a curious literary production. 
 
 The Suabian period, in which the romance of 
 chivalry prevailed, forms the next stage in the progress 
 of German poetry. From the twelfth to the fourteenth 
 century, at least two hundred candidates for fame may 
 
ITS PEOGRESS TILL 1770. 125 
 
 be counted. There are not wanting critics, who per 
 suade themselves that Homer hardly deserves higher 
 esteem than the poets of love and the singers of the 
 Nibelungs. But these derive their chief interest from 
 the age in which they were produced. The lyric 
 pieces of the period, which ring sweet and harmonious 
 chimes on the vernal season, the tender passion, and 
 devotedness to woman, were mere lispings in the ac 
 cents of the Provencal muse. 
 
 In the fourteenth century, the romantic poetry 
 degenerated ; and the rhymes of the master workmen 
 among the several corporations of mechanics became 
 all that Germany, for three centuries, could exhibit in 
 proof of poetic activity. The knights and warriors had 
 had their day; it seemed but just, that that of the 
 tradesmen should dawn. Miracles in literature are 
 rare ; the interminable strains of the rhyming artisans 
 may have beguiled their wanderings as apprentices, or 
 glorified their respective cities, or professions ; but they 
 contain little of the spirit of poetry. 
 
 Hans Sachs was a wonder in one sense of the word. 
 He wrote more rhymes than any person of whom literary 
 history makes mention, with the single exception of 
 Lope de Vega. Of comedies and tragedies, he com 
 posed two hundred and eight ; his works, collectively, 
 consist of six thousand and forty-eight pieces ; the se 
 lections of his choicest productions fill three folio vol 
 umes ; and he sustained withal the character of a 
 
126 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 reputable citizen and good shoemaker. Poets may 
 find tongues in trees and wisdom in stones, the 
 materials for philosophic verse in the tale of a wagon 
 er, or the discourse of a pedler ; may illustrate from 
 the unlettered hinds of a village all the vices and pas 
 sions which can disturb mankind ; but it would be 
 hard to discern beauty in a play, for example, where 
 God is introduced as catechising Abel and his play 
 fellows, and the good child answers correctly, according 
 to the orthodox manual of the day ; while Cain and his 
 party reply like inattentive boys, who have not half 
 learnt their lesson. In his multitudinous works, Hans 
 Sachs introduces heroines and heroes of classic an 
 tiquity ; soldiers and statesmen ; lovers and poets ; 
 saints and devils ; men, angels, and women ; but they 
 all are made on the same last ; they all, both male and 
 female, wear the costume of Nuremberg. 
 
 The literature of Germany was destined to sink 
 still lower, before its glorious awakening. In the 
 seventeenth century a piebald jargon, compounded 
 of Latin, and Trench, and German, assumed to be the 
 fashion; and pure German, in spite of all its native 
 wealth and energy, was derided as rustic, clumsy, and 
 ungenteel. The style of the day travestied the borrowed 
 words with a domestic termination, and the labored 
 periods, admitting here and there the homely expres 
 sions of the pure Saxon dialect, resembled some room 
 in an old castle, where the sober wainscoting, in its 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 127 
 
 stern and real beauty, is bedizened, and aH but wholly 
 concealed under second-hand finery. 
 
 II. 
 
 A century ago, original genius was still inactive ; 
 the propensity to imitate predominant ; and the talent 
 for imitating exceedingly feeble. The intellectual con 
 dition of the empire resembled its political ; its native 
 energies were impaired by foreign alliances, and the 
 German language and literature seemed as much neg 
 lected as the permanent interests of the state. The 
 style of writing was a diffuse and pedantic barbarism. 
 Nor was there any earnest of a renovation of taste and 
 a revival of nationality. A foreign system cramped 
 the mind, and translations from the French masters 
 lost the delicacy and splendor which they possess in 
 then- own idiom. The nation as a political body had 
 ceased to have a common feeling ; in the quarrels of 
 Europe, the states of Germany were ranged on different 
 sides ; civil wars were not objects of horror ; a com 
 munity of political feeling did not exist even in theory. 
 Skepticism had counteracted the former energy of the 
 religious principle. The princes and German courts 
 were all French in taste and manners ; and though 
 many were lavish of their means in gaining new lux 
 uries and increasing their splendor, yet it never occurred 
 to them to gather round their baby thrones the best 
 spirits of their nation, and so to embalm their own 
 
128 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 memories in a permanent literature. Thus letters had 
 nothing to hope from the government, the nobility, 
 or the opulent ; and could find inspiration neither in 
 national taste, nor in the religious feeling of the age, 
 nor in patriotism. 
 
 Of the leading sovereignties in Germany, not one 
 was administered in a national spirit. Motives of local 
 policy and relative aggrandizement swayed the cabinets. 
 The imperial constitution had become a frail bond of 
 union for elements, which had at no period been well 
 consolidated, and which were now forcibly repelling 
 each other ; tottering towards its end, it resembled a 
 decrepit old man, whose gray hairs may "gain a respect 
 which his strength cannot command. The influence 
 of Prussia at the diet made the imperial crown still 
 more an empty pageant. The political alliance of 
 Austria with the Trench, though it ended in disasters 
 to the latter, was unfavorable to patriotism; while 
 Frederic, who had to contend with a German army 
 against the Bourbons for his existence, trampled on 
 the nationality of his subjects, gathered round his 
 person the writers of France, and contemplated the 
 literary occupations of his own countrymen with super 
 cilious indifference or contempt. Circumstances like 
 these weighed down the spirit of native writers. A gen 
 eral languor characterised style, which had nothing of 
 natural passion, or even of uncouth energy. The noble 
 dialect of Germany was used without strength, dignity 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 129 
 
 or grace, while the practice of reciprocal indiscriminate 
 praise, that pestilent patron of mediocrity in either hem 
 isphere, lavished honors, as if genius had been of 
 every-day growth. 
 
 Light began to dawn when public discussion be 
 came more free ; and a Saxon and a Swiss school were 
 formed, at first in rivalry, and finally in declared hos 
 tility. Of the former, Gottsched was the leader, at 
 Leipzig ; while Bodrner, at Zurich, with Breitinger for 
 his squire, challenged his adversaries to battle. A 
 thirty years war preceded the establishment of the civil 
 and religious liberties of Germany ; a thirty years 
 literary feud between two men of narrow minds and 
 boundless vanity, went before its literary awakening. 
 
 Of the belligerent parties, Bodmer made the attack, 
 and for several years Gottsched acted on the defensive. 
 The Swiss called in the English to his assistance ; the 
 Saxon took the French for auxiliaries. Bodmer deemed 
 himself sure of victory and unlimited glory, when he 
 brought forward a translation of Milton s Paradise 
 Lost ; and we venerate the man who could summon 
 Milton as his ally ; but Gottsched damned the trans 
 lation with faint praise, and having, as Professor of 
 Eloquence and Poetry in the University of Leipzig, 
 formed a literary circle in which he was the dictator, he 
 issued a decree for translations from the French, and 
 comedies, and tragedies, in Alexandrines. The rules 
 of criticism having been established, poems were writ- 
 9 
 
130 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ten, as if to illustrate a principle. Fame, " the bright 
 guerdon," is distributed by favor. Many a man has 
 suffered martyrdom for his faith ; but John Rogers 
 alone found his way into the Primer. To Bodmer 
 and Gottsched, circumstances secure a conspicuous 
 place in the history of letters. 
 
 Bodmer, born 1698, was of narrow intellect and 
 limited taste. His mind was fitted out with some 
 knowledge of English literature. Of the genius of 
 Shakspeare, he had, indeed, no conception ; but he 
 was firm in the love of Milton. He detested music ; 
 and rhyme was a greater offence to him than wine to a 
 faithful Mussulman. Himself destitute of humor and 
 of wit, he questioned their value. He held the poetic 
 diction of Homer inferior to his own ; and would have 
 thought himself slighted, had his tragedies been called 
 only equal to those of ^Eschylus and Sophocles ; though 
 his imagination was as dry as the leaves of last year. 
 At first he was a translator and critic, and tried to 
 compete with his Leipzig rival ; but when almost fifty 
 years old, he was smit with the desire of becoming an 
 epic poet, and chose Noah for his theme. Something 
 he contrived to borrow from Milton and others ; but 
 he who could not write prose agreeably, attains the 
 maximum of ridiculousness in his catalogue of the 
 beasts, whose well-arranged columns he marches into 
 the Ark in hobbling hexameters. 
 
 Bodmer has the merit of having revived some 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 131 
 
 earlier German works, that were falling into oblivion. 
 His adversary, Gottsched, born two years after him, was 
 a German at heart, and his love of country is the best 
 thing about him. This led him to cherish his own lan 
 guage, and to plead for its purity. His poetry is made 
 up of common-places, which he could pour out like 
 water ; and he was as indefatigable as a mill-stream, 
 that runs even on holidays. In Leipzig his authority 
 became supreme ; and elsewhere, his tragedies were 
 acted with applause. His Cato, a tame imitation of 
 Addison s, passed through ten editions. He rebuked 
 all levity of manner ; abominated operas ; did his utmost 
 to banish Harlequin from the stage ; and passed judg 
 ment on Shakspeare as a complete barbarian. When 
 he was attacked, his self-complacent pedantry was a 
 shield, that the keenest weapons of his foes could not 
 pierce. 
 
 His wife surpassed him in talent. The daughter 
 of an eminent physician, she had, in her childhood, 
 been employed to copy for her father. In her seven 
 teenth year, Gottsched became acquainted with her, 
 and offered her all the love of which he was capable. 
 Their courtship lasted for five years ; and their mar 
 riage was a barren one, so that she had none of the 
 consolations of her sex. She was his assistant rather 
 than his wife ; their union was but a literary partner 
 ship. He made her read Greek and Latin authors of the 
 most heterogeneous character, and in the original Ian- 
 
132 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 guages ; concealed behind a partition of tapestry, she 
 was compelled to listen, as he screamed out his lec 
 tures, and to take notes of them ; she carried on 
 his correspondence with public men and scholars ; she 
 daily translated for the press ; she wrote for him tra 
 gedies and comedies, reviews and prefaces ; in the divi 
 sion of labor, he composed the elaborate treatises, and 
 she defended her husband from ridicule in epigrams. 
 She had, moreover, to write the titles of books on the 
 backs of some thousands of volumes in the professor s 
 library. All that she accomplished under such aus 
 pices, is of little value. More feeling and nature are 
 expressed in her private letter to a female friend, to 
 whom, about three months before her death, she 
 writes : " I have sad news to tell you ; I am losing 
 my eyesight almost entirely. Oh, how I long to hear 
 the hour of my dissolution strike. Do you ask for the 
 cause of my sickness? Here it is. Twenty-eight 
 years of unbroken labor, secret sorrow, and tears 
 without number, which God only has seen flow." 
 
 Of one man, who, at this early period strove for 
 the honors of verse, we must speak with veneration. 
 Albert Haller, a native of Berne, a pupil of Boerhaave, 
 the most eminent physiologist of his day, not only ap 
 plied himself to almost every department of learning, 
 but in his youth wrote pastorals, and an epic of some 
 thousands of lines. These he threw into the flames 
 in his twentieth year. His poem of the Alps was 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 133 
 
 composed by him while yet a minor. As a phy 
 sician in Berne, he was not very successful ; but Miinch- 
 hausen, the father of the Georgia Augusta, invited 
 him to Gottingen. There he awakened a public inter 
 est in the youthful university, and established and per 
 fected the collections requisite for a high school of 
 learning. After he had been professor, seventeen years, 
 he longed for his own country again, the canton, which 
 is filled with the brightest and boldest scenes that 
 Europe can show ; where brooks, that come from dis 
 solving snows, leap down precipices of so many hun 
 dred feet, that they are dissipated into spray as they 
 fall ; where flowers grow by the side of masses of ice, 
 and the mountains produce the plants of coldest re 
 gions just above the ripening grape : he longed for his 
 native city, where one man in four attains the age of 
 seventy ; where the eye embraces from the hills, in one 
 view, the brightest glories of the crowded Alps ; and, 
 looking beyond the fertile fields of the immediate 
 vicinity, beholds in the distance the -glaciers, as they 
 sparkle in the sunbeams. In Gottingen, he had every 
 wish for the advancement of his science gratified ; but 
 then he was in the midst of the ambitious and conten 
 tious, whose clashing interests did not fail to breed 
 dislikes ; and so his mountain land won him again to 
 independence. Being still -in the best years of man 
 hood, on his return to Berne, he gave himself up in 
 part to study, and in part to his countrymen. To the 
 
134 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 learned periodical, issued at Gottingen, lie continued 
 to contribute, till finally the number of his articles in 
 that work amounted to twelve thousand. In practical 
 life, he was always honored with the magistracy ; he 
 devised a plan for an orphan-house ; he reformed the 
 medical police ; he took care that the poor should have 
 good salt to their bread ; he settled dissensions about 
 boundaries between the cantons ; and all the while 
 continued to advance natural science by his labors, 
 and conducted a wide correspondence in the pol 
 ished dialects of Europe. Meantime, the Univer 
 sities of Halle and of Gottingen solicited him to be 
 their chancellor ; the learned societies of Europe vied 
 in electing him their associate ; the Russian govern 
 ment desired to win him for St. Petersburgh ; the 
 King of Sweden decorated him with the order of the 
 Polar Star ; and Joseph II. sought him out in his re 
 tirement. But Haller was, in the common sense, 
 neither ambitious nor happy. His spirit never knew 
 the joyousness of content. In his seventieth year, 
 he escaped from the sorrows of a melancholy temper 
 ament and a sickly frame ; having, a twelvemonth before 
 his death, published the eleventh edition of his poems. 
 The praise of Haller extends as far as the science 
 which he advanced. In his poems he writes from his 
 own warm feelings ; and Ins earnestness communicates 
 to his verse an air of solemnity. His style is not 
 uniformly correct ; and Ms manner seldom has freedom 
 
ITS PRO GEES S TILL 1770. 135 
 
 and ease. His " Alps " had no model in the literature 
 of his language ; the descriptions are just, but some 
 times too minute and trivial ; noble reflections are in 
 terspersed amidst description. 
 
 in. 
 
 A greater and a better impulse was given to the 
 national mind by Klopstock, who, having remained the 
 usual season at the celebrated school of Schul- 
 pforte, and then pursued his studies as a theologian at 
 Jena, and afterwards at Leipzig, published, while yet in 
 his twenty-fourth year, the first three cantos of a poem 
 which will never be forgotten. At once a new pros 
 pect seemed opening for German letters. In 1748, 
 the poet, though still at an early age, covered with the 
 glory of unbounded success, went as a teacher in a 
 private family to Langensalza ; where he became deeply 
 enamored of one who did not return his affection. 
 The nation heard with astonishment, that there lived 
 the German maid that could be indifferent to the suit 
 of the bard of the Messiah, to whom the laurel had 
 been decreed by acclamation. Letters were sent from 
 remote parts, conjuring her to yield her heart, and be 
 come the inspiring muse of her lover. All in vain ; 
 and Klopstock, who was deeply chagrined, in the 
 days of his dignity remembered his unrequited passion 
 as a sinful weakness. His fancy lost something of its 
 
136 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 delicacy, and his manner assumed more of stateliness. 
 From that time he appears officially as the ambassador 
 of the muses, the representative of morality, and the 
 example for the nation. 
 
 The summer of 1750 he passed in Switzerland, on 
 Bodmer s invitation, and universal veneration wel 
 comed him to Zurich ; but the favor of the king of 
 Denmark called him to Copenhagen, where he resided 
 for twenty years ; in 1771 he established himself in the 
 republic of Hamburgh. Age could not chill his love 
 of liberty. With a zeal like that of youth he partici 
 pated in the enthusiasm excited by the French Revolu 
 tion, before it soiled itself with blood. He died in 
 1803 ; and his funeral was celebrated with a magnifi 
 cence never before vouchsafed to a poet s obsequies. 
 It took place on a fine day, in the last of March; 
 thousands and thousands thronged to gaze ; and every 
 honor which could be shown by the citizens and the 
 authorities of two opulent mercantile cities, was mani 
 fested, as his body was carried from Hamburgh to a 
 village near Altona, and buried by the side of his wife. 
 
 Klopstock s manners were simple ; but he had the 
 carriage of a pattern-man, as though the whole world 
 had an interest in his saying or doing nothing improper. 
 Of friendship he made a sort of idolatry ; and his sin 
 cere heart and warm fancy sometimes invested ordinary 
 men with qualities of excellence. His muse never had 
 cause to blush for him, either for want of purity, or of 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 137 
 
 honesty ; and his life was as spotless as his verse. As 
 it regards the great, he was too upright to flatter. 
 He had enemies ; but he went always his own way, 
 and never turned to the right or to the left, to answer 
 an adversary. When younger poets began to render his 
 supremacy questionable, he neither encouraged nor cen 
 sured them. 
 
 Klopstock s merit for the influence he had on Ger 
 man literature, and his general merit for us all, as a 
 poet, are very different things. In the first respect, we 
 give him the highest place among his countrymen. 
 When mediocrity was extolled, he tauglit the way to 
 nobler creations ; he reformed the measure of German 
 poetry ; he led to the abolition of the Alexandrine 
 verse, so inconsistent with the genius of his language ; 
 he introduced into letters, patriotism, with a genuine 
 love of religion. 
 
 Klopstock expressed the spirit of romantic poetry 
 in classic forms. His measures and his severity of 
 taste were ancient ; the sentiment and the tone were 
 peculiar to the moderns. He is the poet of feeling ; 
 but it is feeling, over which a manly understanding 
 keeps guard. His mind never plays with alluring 
 forms, that charm the senses ; he is uniformly earnest. 
 He despised rhyme, though his best hymns are in 
 rhyme. He is always national, and full of enthusiasm, 
 and yet he is in no respect a bard of the people ; we 
 mention it not to his praise. He is so refined, that he 
 
136 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 delicacy, and his manner assumed more of stateliness. 
 From that time he appears officially as the ambassador 
 of the muses, the representative of morality, and the 
 example for the nation. 
 
 The summer of 1750 he passed in Switzerland, on 
 Bodmer s invitation, and universal veneration wel 
 comed him to Zurich ; but the favor of the king of 
 Denmark called him to Copenhagen, where he resided 
 for twenty years ; in 1771 he established himself in the 
 republic of Hamburgh. Age could not chill his love 
 of liberty. With a zeal like that of youth he partici 
 pated in the enthusiasm excited by the French Revolu 
 tion, before it soiled itself with blood. He died in 
 1803 ; and his funeral was celebrated with a magnifi 
 cence never before vouchsafed to a poet s obsequies. 
 It took place on a fine day, in the last of March; 
 thousands and thousands thronged to gaze ; and every 
 honor which could be shown by the citizens and the 
 authorities of two opulent mercantile cities, was mani 
 fested, as his body was carried from Hamburgh to a 
 village near Altona, and buried by the side of his wife. 
 
 Klopstock s manners were simple ; but he had the 
 carriage of a pattern-man, as though the whole world 
 had an interest in his saying or doing nothing improper. 
 Of friendship he made a sort of idolatry ; and his sin 
 cere heart and warm fancy sometimes invested ordinary 
 men with qualities of excellence. His muse never had 
 cause to blush for him, either for want of purity, or of 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 137 
 
 honesty ; and his life was as spotless as his verse. As 
 it regards the great, he was too upright to flatter. 
 He had enemies ; but he went always his own way, 
 and never turned to the right or to the left, to answer 
 an adversary. When younger poets began to render his 
 supremacy questionable, he neither encouraged nor cen 
 sured them. 
 
 Klopstock s merit for the influence he had on Ger 
 man literature, and his general merit for us all, as a 
 poet, are very different things. In the first respect, we 
 give him the highest place among his countrymen. 
 When mediocrity was extolled, he tauglit the way to 
 nobler creations ; he reformed the measure of German 
 poetry ; he led to the abolition of the Alexandrine 
 verse, so inconsistent with the genius of his language; 
 he introduced into letters, patriotism, with a genuine 
 love of religion. 
 
 Klopstock expressed the spirit of romantic poetry 
 in classic forms. His measures and his severity of 
 taste were ancient ; the sentiment and the tone were 
 peculiar to the moderns. He is the poet of feeling ; 
 but it is feeling, over which a manly understanding 
 keeps guard. His mind never plays with alluring 
 forms, that charm the senses ; he is uniformly earnest. 
 He despised rhyme, though his best hymns are in 
 rhyme. He is always national, and full of enthusiasm, 
 and yet he is in no respect a bard of the people ; we 
 mention it not to his praise. He is so refined, that he 
 
i40 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 volumes of his works. They never will be well trans 
 lated ; for it would almost be as easy to write tliem 
 anew. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Klopstock regenerated the poetry of Germany ; the 
 first writer of the eighteenth century, whose manner in 
 prose made an epoch, is Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. 
 He dethroned the idols that men were worshipping ; 
 he taught a bolder, more decisive, more profound way 
 of criticism, and gave an example of a style, which in 
 its kind has not been excelled. 
 
 The son of poor and most religious parents, he 
 passed a childhood of self-denial, under a strict system 
 of domestic discipline. At an early age he was removed 
 to the school of Meissen, and became an excellent 
 scholar in the ancient languages and in the mathe 
 matics. He went from Meissen to the University of 
 Leipzig ; where, profiting by the instructions of no pro 
 fessor but Ernesti, he fell into company which it 
 alarmed his parents to hear that he kept, took a lively 
 interest in the theatre, actually wrote for the stage, and 
 remained without any fixed pursuit. Weary of Leipzig, 
 he removed to Berlin, where he engaged in literary 
 labors of minor importance. From thence, to please 
 his parents, he went to Wittenberg, where he faithfully 
 pursued his studies. Having no source of income but 
 his literary labors, he next acquired a reputation as 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 141 
 
 a critic, which made him feared in all Germany. Tired 
 of Wittenberg, he returned to Berlin, where Mendel 
 sohn and Nicolai were his friends, and he produced a 
 tragedy on a subject of common life. After an un 
 satisfactory engagement as a travelling companion to 
 the son of a merchant, he went to Berlin again, and 
 supported himself by his writings. For a season, he 
 was employed actively in Silesia. From Berlin he was 
 induced to go to Hamburgh, as a dramatic critic. 
 From thence he was transferred to Wolfenbiittel, 
 as Librarian ; and he died in the service of Bruns 
 wick. 
 
 Lessing was distinguished for a clear understand 
 ing, accurate and immense erudition, and a rapid mind. 
 He took nothing on trust ; and, least of all, followed 
 the impulse of feeling or of fancy. During his whole 
 life, he never had a dream ; and a story is told 
 of him, that, when a friend, who was travelling with 
 him on a fine day in spring, expressed rapture at the 
 beauty of the season, he replied, that he envied the 
 sensation which he could not share. He described him 
 self to be a critic, not a poet. His words always have 
 a plain meaning. Sometimes he throws out his ideas 
 in a style that flows like a torrent ; and sometimes en 
 forces them by imagery, always significant, and often 
 beautiful. His imagination, which never dazzled, was 
 fertile in illustration, so that his style is eminently 
 epigrammatic. He had a passionate love for what 
 
142 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 seemed truth ; and, so far from fearing the harsh 
 censures of others, he delighted in opposition. The 
 tendency of some of his writings is unquestionably 
 skeptical ; but his opponents were not without bigotry, 
 and no one came forward to cope with him with his 
 own weapons. His conflicts were numerous ; and no 
 man, that ever engaged with him, came off unhurt. 
 Dean Swift was not more tremendous in Irish contro 
 versies. Indeed, in the most famous of Lessing s 
 battles, he so cut in pieces the leathern shield of 
 pedantry and prescription, that his enemies were 
 obliged to gag him by an edict from his government. 
 
 If, from a general criticism, we turn to a consider 
 ation of the several works of Lessing, we have to con 
 sider him as a dramatic writer, a critic, and a writer on 
 subjects of philosophy and theology. 
 
 Of his dramas, Minna von Barnkelm appeals to 
 national sympathies, having in the background the inci 
 dents of the seven years war. 
 
 Emilia Galotti, a tragedy in prose, is the finest of 
 its kind, in the German, or in any language. But this 
 kind is not the highest. The tale of the Roman Vir- 
 ginius is made to wear the mask of modern Italy, so 
 that it becomes a protest against the vices of the 
 petty princes, not of that peninsula only, but of Ger 
 many. Thus it gains a political interest. In the Ro 
 man story, the knife that is drawn, reeking with 
 blood, from the wound of Virginia, has a consecrated 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 143 
 
 power, to cut asunder the bonds in which the % nation 
 was held. Rome s liberty reconciles us to Virginia s 
 martyrdom. In Emilia Galotti, no revolution breaks 
 out, and there is nothing but the moral beauty of 
 the sacrifice, to relieve the impression of horror at the 
 sad catastrophe, 
 
 Lessing is the most distinguished critic of his 
 nation, whether we regard his manner, his originality, 
 or his influence. His greatest work in this depart 
 ment is his series of essays on the drama, published 
 during the period of his connection with the stage at 
 Hamburgh. The French taste was at that time preva 
 lent in Germany. Frederic II. did not attack the 
 French armies more boldly than Lessing the French 
 dramas ; denying the identity of the ancient Grecian 
 and the modern French dramatic art. August Schlegel 
 has but developed the ideas of the great master. Les- 
 sing s error was, that he wished to make the stage too 
 natural ; thus preparing the way for a flood of tame 
 copies of common incidents. But he gave back to 
 the Germans their intellectual liberty in matters of 
 imagination, especially the drama ; he drew the atten 
 tion of his countrymen to Calderon and Spanish liter 
 ature ; he gave a masterly analysis and defence of the 
 critical principles of Aristotle, whose name he declared 
 he would not have regarded, had not the reasons of 
 the Grecian sage possessed such cogent force; and 
 finally, he set in a strong light -the genius of Shak- 
 
144 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 speare, at a time when it was a rare thing, in any 
 country, to award the highest honors in the drama 
 to the greatest of masters. 
 
 The theological controversies of Lessing embittered 
 his last days. He himself was opposed to all positive 
 religious institutions. His view was, that religious 
 truth is eternal, and knows no change ; that by de 
 grees the human mind has advanced, and is still 
 advancing in this, as in every branch of knowledge ; 
 that a revelation is a truth, communicated to those 
 not yet quite ripe to receive it ; that it is a step 
 towards perfection, to get rid of those prepossessions 
 which incline to one form more than another; since 
 religion is above them all- without division and 
 without change. 
 
 When Lessing, by the superiority of his own 
 talents, was crushing his feeble antagonist, he himself 
 was silenced by an effort of despotic authority. For 
 this, and the abuse he received, he determined to 
 "play the theologians a trick," and wrote his last, 
 most perfect drama, Nathan the Wise. It is a didactic 
 drama, of which the moral is borrowed from a story of 
 Boccaccio, whose wealth has fed a hundred beggars. 
 
 * C2C-J 
 
 The scene is in Jerusalem at the period of the crusades ; 
 and the poet introduces the most various personages ; 
 the chivalrous Saladin, the lord of Mussulmen ; the 
 wise and wary Nathan, the great leader of the Jews ; 
 the Christian patriarch ; a dervise from the remote 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 145 
 
 East ; a Knight Templar ; a Christian female slave ; 
 and a heroine, who was born a Christian, but had been 
 educated in Nathan s house without any particular re 
 ligion. Now, great as is the dramatic interest, the 
 philosophical object is the leading one ; and that is, to 
 represent these several men as going wrong, and doing 
 unjustifiable things, whenever they follow their own 
 particular faith ; and as gaining on our admiration, in 
 the degree in which they sacrifice their exclusiveness. 
 In so far as a grand lesson of toleration is inculcated, 
 and the virtues of humanity, which may bloom on the 
 Ganges or in Syria, in Jew or Mussulman, in the Deist 
 or the Christian, are concerned, the tendency of the play 
 is a noble one. But more is designed ; the writer wishes 
 not only to show, that generous feelings may be pro 
 duced in any clime, but that all forms of religion 
 counteract those feelings that the Jew, and the 
 Turk, and the Christian, must each throw away the 
 peculiarities of his faith, as a dangerous prejudice. 
 And under this point of view, Nathan the Wise 
 merits the severest reprehension ; for there is not 
 one particle of the winning graces of Christianity 
 in the only Christian characters whom he introduces. 
 The female menial is a simpleton, that hardly knows 
 more of her religion than that she has been bap 
 tized; the Knight Templar is a splenetic, disap 
 pointed young man ; brave, but misanthropical ; hon 
 est, but rash ; and the patriarch is a bloodhound, who 
 10 
 
146 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 thinks no more of burning a Jew than of whipping a 
 thief. 
 
 Lessing s merits were negative. He was strong to 
 pull down, not to build up. He showed the insuffi 
 ciency of the rules of criticism prevalent in his country ; 
 but he left it for his successors to establish a better ; 
 he unveiled the defects in the works which then en 
 joyed popular admiration ; but he erected no perfect 
 model in any branch of poetic invention, and his 
 theory of the drama is a perverse one ; he waged war 
 on bigotry and blind faith, but he did not leave reli 
 gion on a firmer foundation. In short, he attacked ad 
 mirably ; he opposed triumphantly ; but he has added 
 little to the sum of human happiness and intelligence. 
 
 v. 
 
 The contemporary and coadjutor of Lessing and 
 Klopstock in revolutionizing German taste, was Wie- 
 land, whose career is psychologically curious. He 
 began as a religious enthusiast, and afterwards 
 paraded the pretensions of a free-thinker ; he was 
 in youth prudish, and in his ideas of love eminently 
 Platonic ; and bye and bye he thought it manly to be 
 able to tell a coarse story without blushing. 
 
 In this second period, he drew his system of phi 
 losophy partly from Shaftesbury, partly from Helvetius, 
 commending virtue, as a sort of heroism, not to be 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 147 
 
 expected from every body, but to be admired when 
 it appeared ; and esteeming morality, because it is 
 graceful and becoming. Having been a visionary, 
 he turned satirist ; and having himself paraded re 
 ligious sentiment like Bodmer, he mocked at enthu 
 siasm and ridiculed his master. But as plants cannot 
 thrive without the pure air of heaven, so true poetry 
 cannot put forth its glory without the " breath of God 
 in the soul of man." We venerate the erudition of 
 Wieland, but in respect to the moral of his writings, he 
 seems to us like a snail, creeping over the best things 
 in life, and leaving them odious by the slime which 
 marks his progress. The agony of doubt in minds of 
 real energy deserves forbearance ; but quiet skepticism 
 is a result of intellectual indolence, or weakness ; and 
 contempt falls on those who make a base " abandon 
 ment of reason " in Epicurean employments. Wieland s 
 life was regular, but speculatively he yielded himself up 
 to the influence of his animal nature, and then rattling 
 his chains, pretended to think their clanking was me 
 lody, and poetry, and wisdom. 
 
 An agreeable style in narration, a pleasant cheer 
 fulness of mind, a great extent and variety of acquisi 
 tions, a literary industry which kept him on the theatre 
 of action full sixty years, are claims to praise which we 
 readily acknowledge belong to Wieland. He writes 
 gracefully, but without vigor; his style is diffuse, so 
 that good-natured critics greeted his birthday with 
 
148 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the wish, that the thread of his life might be spun out 
 as long as his ideas in his own periods ; his subjects 
 have no real variety ; his manner of treating them is 
 devoid of nobleness and dignity. A young man in 
 conflict with the temptations of life, is his perpetual 
 theme, repeated with wearisome prolixity. We have 
 it in his novels and in his poems ; in the worst and in 
 the best ; it is the turning point in Oberon, the foun 
 dation of Agathon, and, in short, the main staple of 
 Wieland s productions. It is his philosophy, his 
 poetry, his prose, his incident, his catastrophe. 
 
 We cannot much admire even the epic poem of 
 Oberon. The narration is easy and agreeable, clear, 
 and generally interesting. The plots are closely con 
 nected, and the story conducted to a perfect end. But 
 the best things in it are borrowed. Besides, our 
 author selects for his highest effort, the scene in which 
 the unmarried heroine gives birth to a child ; and, after 
 making all possible allowances for nature, and heathen 
 ism, and chivalry, and youth, the accident which brings 
 about the trials of the hero and heroine, cannot, by any 
 machinery of fairies, be dignified into a poetic incident. 
 
 Agathon, the most famous prose work of Wieland, 
 is Tom Jones turned philosopher. The story is in 
 vested with an Attic mask, and the arts of erudition are 
 called in to give a lustre to the romance. We have the 
 system of Plato, assailed by Hippias in person ; the 
 commonwealth of Athens alternates with Syracuse ; 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 149 
 
 and Dionysius, and Dion, and Aristippus, and last of 
 all, the excellent Archytas of Tarentum, are conjured 
 up by the learning of the novelist. But we are not 
 taken into the secret abodes and private mansions of 
 Grecian life. It is only modern coquetry that puts on 
 an Attic name. For ourselves, we think we perceive a 
 want of individuality, and a wonderful family likeness 
 in the heathens and Christians, the infidels and heretics, 
 the ancients and moderns, who have been described by 
 Wieland ; and we should trust his delineations of life 
 at Smyrna, or Syracuse, or Athens, as much as at the 
 court of Charlemagne, or any where else, except in the 
 coteries of his contemporaries. 
 
 The mind of Wieland was passive, not creative. 
 He did not gain his stock from communing with his 
 own soul, or with nature, or with God ; but he picked 
 it up by piecemeal ; bringing into his own garner an 
 idea from Plato, and a theory from the French mate 
 rialists ; a satirical touch from Cervantes, and yet 
 more from Lucian ; stealing an incident from Fielding, 
 a grace from Ariosto, and a story from Chaucer. He 
 obtained his inspiration, not " by devout prayer to that 
 eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance, but by 
 the invocation of memory and her siren daughters." 
 Klopstock thought meanly of him ; and Schiller s Al 
 manac did justice to his general acquaintance with 
 literature, but called him the " graceful girl of Wei 
 mar, insipid and vain." 
 
150 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Wieland and Klopstock are of opposite polarities ; 
 those whom the one attracts, the other as surely repels 
 Wieland treats of actual life, Klopstock of sentiment ; 
 Klopstock is heavenly-minded, Wieland is earthly to 
 excess ; Klopstock is elegiac, Wieland is gay ; Klop 
 stock excels in lyric verse, Wieland in narrative ; the 
 former despised rhyme, the latter delighted in it ; 
 Klopstock is an eagle soaring away from the crowd, 
 Wieland a starling that insults the passers by. 
 
 Of the three most distinguished writers, in the first 
 period of reviving literature in Germany, each filled a 
 large and important part ; the one, by exciting a na 
 tional spirit ; another, by exercising the severity of 
 criticism ; and the third, by keeping in favor the blan 
 dishments of rhyme in narrative poetry. Thus they 
 divided among themselves the labor of restoring letters 
 
 . O 
 
 in their country, while throngs of inferior writers 
 gathered in groups round the admired triumvirate. 
 
 VI. 
 
 But there was one, who pursued his solitary career 
 apart from the crowd. The name of Winckelman is 
 not to be pronounced without veneration for his ear 
 nestness, and sympathy for his sorrows. The whole 
 circle of human knowledge does not possess a more 
 cheerful subject of study than that of ancient art, to 
 which he devoted himself ; and we know not the man 
 
ITS PROGRESS TILL 1770. 151 
 
 of superior mind, whose life has been less favored by 
 the ordinary gifts of fortune. He was the son of a 
 poor shoemaker, in a town of little note. At the 
 public school, the aged master was pleased with him, 
 and took him into his house ; and when the old man 
 grew blind, the boy used to be his guide, and to read to 
 him, receiving in return the benefit of his conversation. 
 After the hardest struggles with extreme poverty at the 
 gymnasium, at the university, and in early life, when 
 twenty-nine years old, he obtained a place in the 
 employ of the Saxon minister, near Dresden, with a 
 salary of fifty-six dollars. And here he was happy 
 for he could make himself familiar with painting 
 and sculpture. When his merits were perceived, the 
 sovereign of Saxony gave him a pension of one hundred 
 and fifty dollars, to continue two years, with leave to 
 travel in Italy. There he made himself friends, and 
 resided, chiefly in Rome, for thirteen years. In 1768, 
 he was induced to visit Germany. As he saw the 
 mountains of the Tyrol, his heart grew heavy ; as he 
 descended them on the north, he was seized with a real 
 home-sickness for Italy. With difficulty he was in 
 duced to proceed to Vienna. Here he was well re 
 ceived by Kaunitz, who had a taste for the fine arts, 
 and kindly noticed by Maria Theresa. It was in April 
 that he entered Germany ; and early in June, he was 
 on his way again to Italy. On the journey, the kind- 
 hearted, unsuspecting scholar fell into the company of a 
 
152 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 pardoned convict, who murdered him at Trieste, in the 
 hope of getting possession of his gold medallions. 
 
 Winckelman s History of Ancient Art, first pub 
 lished in 1764, is the common property of cultivated 
 nations ; original in its design ; full of taste, erudition, 
 and eloquence . When we consider the nature of the sub 
 jects, in treating which he obtained his glory, so unlike 
 any thing that lay in his horoscope ; or the finished 
 style in which his works are written, especially when 
 the imperfect state of German literature, previous to his 
 leaving Germany, is remembered, we feel for him an 
 unmixed admiration. How energetic a will must he 
 have possessed, to accomplish what he did, as it were 
 in spite of his destiny ! And how much is it to bis 
 honor, that, though he could find rest only among the 
 creations of Southern art, he preserved the pride of a 
 German, and laid his laurels at the feet of his country. 
 
 MEN OF SCIENCE AND LEARNING. 
 I. 
 
 Enthusiasm in letters manifests itself by devoted- 
 ness. Singleness of purpose can alone conduct to the 
 highest eminence ; it may leave the character feebly 
 developed in the points that concern the details 
 of business and active intercourse ; but it will give 
 the mind a singular power in the department with 
 which it is familiar. Engendered in a fervid spirit by 
 
MEN OF SCIENCE AND LEARNING. 153 
 
 a noble object, it grows by exercise into a habit ; and 
 intellectual life, upheld by a permanent excitement, 
 almost entirely independent of fortune and the world, be 
 comes its own solace and reward. The constant effort at 
 advancement in culture and the discovery of truth, 
 gives variety and value to existence. In the eye of the 
 world, such studious men may appear to be but poor 
 calculators, who sacrifice the main chance to follow 
 ideal interests ; but, on the other hand, in their theory, 
 the man of lower pursuits is a thoughtless spendthrift, 
 who, being possessed of nothing but time, squanders it 
 wastefully, and lays up no treasure in himself. 
 
 We name a planet after a German who began his 
 career as a musician in a Hanoverian regiment. He 
 possessed that power which can consecrate a life to a 
 great design. Too poor to buy a telescope, he had in 
 genuity enough to make one ; and Providence, as if to 
 laugh to scorn the vain distinctions of scientific corpo 
 rations, left it to this child of nature to make the most 
 striking astronomical discovery of the last century. 
 
 Perhaps it may be thought that fame and wealth are 
 the leading passions which have impelled men to 
 earnest and undivided application. Certainly the love 
 of fame becomes a generous mind ; for who would not 
 wish to stand well with his fellow-men? Yet Her- 
 schel s great precursor, Copernicus, was superior to its 
 allurements. He deliberately spent the greatest part 
 of a life of more than seventy years, in establishing the 
 
154 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 theory which bears his name ; and possessing a kind of 
 knowledge which could not but secure to him a univer 
 sality of reputation beyond any which a poet can 
 compass, he yet communed with himself on his great 
 discoveries so long, that he never saw them published 
 till the very day of his death. 
 
 Or is the prospect of wealth the excitement to 
 intellectual efforts ? In the same department of 
 knowledge, the industry and labors of Kepler were 
 unwearied. While others have gained glory by bring 
 ing forward isolated doctrines, Kepler created science. 
 He had taste and genius for poetry, but gave his en 
 thusiasm to the study of the skies. Though in the 
 service of the German emperor, he yet lived on the 
 narrowest means ; and, after all his success and all his 
 labors, left to his family but twenty-two rix dollars, and 
 an old horse, worth a few florins. But was Kepler 
 therefore unhappy ? His correspondence breathes the 
 spirit of cheerfulness, and he tells the story of his own 
 penury without complaints. Kepler was the precursor 
 of Newton ; the Englishman lived to be more than 
 eighty ; Kepler died while not yet sixty. We do not 
 contrast their respective merits ; but when it is done, 
 the miserable external existence of Kepler should not 
 be left out of mind. Newton was worshipped in his 
 lifetime as a superhuman being. He was member of 
 parliament ; was knighted ; enjoyed the benefits of for 
 tune ; and, dying, left a good estate. Kepler s body 
 
MEN OF SCIENCE AND LEARNING. 155 
 
 was given to the earth without honor ; the remains of 
 Newton were interred with pomp, dukes and lords 
 being the pall-bearers ; on his monument, he was 
 called " the honor of the human race." In the last 
 century, a proposal was made to erect a monument to 
 Kepler by subscription, and the plan failed. " After 
 all," said Kastner, "since Germany refused him 
 bread while he dwelt on earth, it matters little now 
 that he has been immortal for more than a century 
 and a hah 7 , whether it gives him a stone." " His mon 
 ument," said another, " is in the moon." 
 
 This devotedness is more frequently illustrated 
 among the Germans than elsewhere in Europe. It 
 is the same spirit under a different form, that supported 
 the man, who, more than any other, is the fit represen 
 tative of German character the father of the reforma 
 tion. When he perilled his life without fear, before the 
 imperial diet, under the frown of the emperor himself, 
 he would not swerve from his purpose, declaring for 
 his only excuse, "I cannot act otherwise, that God 
 knows." 
 
 The exact sciences have continued to be success 
 fully cultivated in the country which gave the first 
 impulse to modern astronomy. Euler continued his 
 labors with cheerfulness, even in the last seventeen 
 years of his life, though the light of heaven shone on 
 him in vain and his eyes were closed on the splendors 
 of the firmament, through which he had loved to trace 
 
156 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the wanderings of the planets. In o\ir day the greatest 
 of mathematicians in Germany is Gauss. Nothing 
 that he has attempted, is left incomplete. In science, 
 like Schiller in poetry, he always finished his work 
 with the most scrupulous exactness and elegance, not 
 so much to delight others, as to satisfy himself. He 
 has written little ; but the highest perfection belongs 
 to all that he has published. Those who are best com 
 petent to judge, consider him as the rival of La Place. 
 In variety of powers, the French astronomer has the 
 ascendency; in devotedness, he is surpassed by the 
 Hanoverian. La Place had the vanity to be a peer ; 
 one may see his portrait in Paris, in which he is repre 
 sented in the robes of the privileged order. But who 
 feels an interest in the Marquis de La Place ? Tor the 
 farmer s son, who expounded the system of celestial 
 mechanics and discovered new applications of the doc 
 trine of the calculus, who reconciled the apparent irreg 
 ularities in the motions of the heavenly bodies with the 
 influence of acknowledged laws, and deduced directly 
 from the principle of gravity the results which had 
 been gathered from the observations of many cen 
 turies for him, one of the greatest mathematicians of 
 all times, we have the most profound respect. But La 
 Place, the unskilful minister of the interior, the chan 
 cellor of Napoleon s senate, the member of the upper 
 house of the Bourbons, was, after all, but an infe 
 rior man. 
 
MEN OF SCIENCE AND LEARNING. 157 
 
 II. 
 
 May we not then infer, that the power of con 
 secrating a life with undivided zeal to one great object, 
 is characteristic of Germany ? In the department of 
 natural history, this quality leads to wonderful accuracy 
 and minuteness of knowledge. We might refer to the 
 cabinet in Berlin, as perhaps the best arranged of any 
 in the world. Not to enumerate many names, we yet 
 must express veneration for the patriarch Blumenbach, 
 who for more than fifty years taught the great 
 branches of natural history and physiology to crowded 
 audiences. The spirit that breathed in all that he 
 uttered, enkindled the ardor of curiosity. Versed in all 
 that could interest a philosopher, he strayed into other 
 departments of science only to illustrate his own. 
 
 
 
 His great contemporary in Paris, the Baron Cuvier, 
 took office under the Bourbons, and, without one single 
 talent as a statesman, except the gift of speaking grace 
 fully and fluently, was yet tickled with the cap and 
 bells of public place. Blumenbach, too, had been at 
 court ; but not as a possessor of office. On a journey 
 to England, George the Third, who loved his Hanove 
 rian subjects, invited him to Windsor. "Now tell 
 me," said the king familiarly, "of all that you have 
 seen in my capital what has most surprised you ? " 
 " The Kangaroo," replied Blumenbach promptly ; for 
 that singular animal had then for the first time been 
 brought from Australasia. 
 
158 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 The pupils of Blrnnenbach cherish towards him re 
 spect and affection ; and long after the echo of his voice 
 shall have died away, they will remember the hours 
 that were passed in his lecture-room as among the 
 most profitable and agreeable of their lives. Is it asked 
 by what secret charm he so long gathered around him 
 from all parts of the world a throng of curious youth, 
 whose affection he governed, and whose zeal he in 
 flamed ? It was genius united with singleness of pur 
 pose and cheerful benevolence. At ease in his own 
 mind, he observed all earnest efforts with delight, and 
 derived information from every possible source; and 
 while his powers are of a nature which would con 
 duct to eminence in any career, he never faltered in his 
 attachment to the science which won his first love. 
 
 In the same way the secret of German success in 
 philological pursuits lies in the unity of object, encou 
 raged and strengthened by free and numerous competi 
 tion. In England men of learning often acquire high 
 offices in the church. But Heyne, once immersed in phi 
 lological lore, was never to quit it except with life. 
 Eighteen years did not seem too many to give to the 
 elucidation of one poet. That poet was indeed 
 Homer, and the interpretation of his rhapsodies 
 brought into discussion the whole of Grecian my 
 thology. Heyne acquired, on the score of per 
 sonal character and capacity for business, a great and 
 well-founded fame. He was the confidential friend 
 
MEN OF SCIENCE AND LEARNING. 159 
 
 of a prime minister, yet Ms influence was used solely to 
 perfect the establishments of the university of which he 
 was a member. In a letter from him to Herder, he 
 describes his mode of life. " I see company/ 3 says he, 
 " hardly three times a year," and he declares that " all 
 his colleagues, except the fools," thus live within them 
 selves. He was accustomed to rise at five, and was so 
 closely employed during the morning, that he did not 
 see his family till the time for dinner. This was a 
 hasty meal. At tea, he spent with them a quarter of 
 an hour, and that only in his advanced age. At eight 
 came the evening repast, to which he willingly gave an 
 hour, and then he continued his employments till half- 
 past ten or eleven. In this way he was able to read 
 three or four lectures of an hour s length daily, to 
 despatch more than a thousand letters a year, to publish 
 elaborate works, of which the titles cover twenty octavo 
 pages, and to write at least eight thousand articles in 
 the Review of which he was the editor, beside many 
 contributions to other journals. Such a career is 
 hardly enviable ; and he may seem to have renounced 
 all the comforts of social life. Yet Heyne was beloved 
 in his family, and tenderly respected by his children. 
 His external circumstances were, for a part of his life, 
 severe in the extreme. But at last he found a refuge. 
 Having acquired by his wisdom the direction of the 
 most respected university of the continent, he beheld 
 all its institutions thrive under his management; his 
 
1GO GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 name spread through the world ; even in his lifetime 
 the greatest of the Roman poets was introduced into 
 the United States in the text which his industry had 
 amended. The merit of Heyne extended to a reform 
 in learning. The necessity of grammatical precision 
 continued to be acknowledged, but taste also was culti 
 vated, together with a lively sensibility to all the beauty 
 and instruction contained in the written monuments of 
 antiquity. It was in his school, and following in his 
 steps, that the seed was sown for the rich harvest 
 which is now gathering in Germany in every branch 
 of philological research. 
 
 One peculiar merit of Heyne we cannot forbear 
 mentioning. He was the librarian of the Georgia 
 Augusta, and an excellent one ; and to us this seems 
 high praise. There are probably at this time not more 
 than six good librarians in the world, and of these we, in 
 this country, at least have one. The office requires de- 
 votedness ; and further, a good librarian must be conver 
 sant with all the sciences, must possess the very spirit of 
 order, great activity and vigilance, and an almost intui 
 tive judgment, to make new purchases with prudence, 
 and preserve a proportion in the several departments. 
 Heyne, though he began under no peculiarly favorable 
 auspices, was chief librarian for forty-nine years, with 
 almost unlimited influence ; and he left the collection, 
 the very best, decidedly the best arranged, and the 
 most judiciously put together, in Europe. The royal 
 
MEN OF SCIENCE AND LEARNING. 161 
 
 library at Paris is a chaos to it. In a collection of 
 about 300,000 volumes, there is not one on which even 
 a younger clerk cannot readily lay his hand. 
 
 III. 
 
 No one has contemplated classical antiquity from a 
 more commanding point of view than Frederic Augustus 
 Wolf, the illustrious rival of Heyne. This most celebra 
 ted scholar of our times, was born of humble parents in 
 1 7 5 7, at Hainrode, in the county of Hohenstein. Hardly 
 was he seven years old, before he was entered at the 
 Gymnasium in Nordhausen ; and at seventeen, he re 
 paired to the University of Gottingen, with the reputa 
 tion of having already acquired an extraordinary ac 
 quaintance with the works of the ancients. His favorite 
 study led him at once to Heyne, who questioned him 
 on his plans. When he declared his intention of devo 
 ting himself to classical philology, Heyne, who in his 
 early years had suffered from extreme want and 
 deferred expectation, endeavored to dissuade him, 
 saying, "There are but three professorships of Elo 
 quence in all Germany." " One of those three I am 
 determined to have," replied the young aspirant ; and, 
 in fact, in 1783, before he was twenty-seven, he be 
 came professor of Eloquence in the University of 
 Halle, where he pursued his high literary career with 
 11 
 
162 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 boldness, ardor, and, we believe, with prodigious, 
 though irregular industry. 
 
 In after life, he used to say of himself, that it was 
 his object to be an instructor, not an author. And it 
 is the testimony of one of his pupils, that at times it 
 was with difficulty he could make his way .through the 
 crowd in his lecture-room. His hearers, it was said, 
 " hung upon his lips with such attention and love, that 
 you might have heard their hearts beat under their 
 shaggy coats." On the other hand he was excessively 
 overbearing toward his colleagues ; excusing himself in 
 the words of Bentley, with whom he delighted in being 
 compared ; and who would take off his hat only to the 
 junior students, saying, " Of the former nothing can 
 be made; the latter may yet come to something." 
 But with ah 1 the excesses of his occasional arrogance, 
 Wolf s disposition was benevolent. His time he gave 
 most liberally to his pupils. He lent books from his 
 very valuable library cheerfully ; and when these have 
 been sold by some ungrateful vagabond, he has repur 
 chased his own volumes without losing his temper, and 
 without becoming less liberal in his spirit. He used 
 to say, that there was a malice of the head, and a 
 malice of the heart. Of the last he declared he pos 
 sessed nothing. 
 
 When Halle was annexed to the kingdom of West 
 phalia, Wolf was transferred to Berlin ; and though 
 he did not take an active part in the new university, 
 
MEN OF SCIENCE AND LEARNING. 163 
 
 which was then establishing in that city, he still pro 
 fessed to read lectures. But here was the trial of his 
 character. The use which a man makes of his leisure, 
 shows the spirit he is of; and if prosperity is in gen 
 eral the great trial of character, it is the opportunity to 
 be indolent which is the touchstone of the scholar. 
 Wolf, when he found himself possessed of leisure and 
 a pension, became idle ; and he who as a philologian 
 would have had no peer in Europe, set up for a fine 
 gentleman. But with all Iris efforts, the man, who had 
 spent his youth among the mountains, and his man 
 hood among books, never could get the air of a 
 courtier. 
 
 The stranger that would see him, might expect to 
 find him on a sunny morning in the park between 
 eleven and one, or at the best restaurateur s about 
 three, or an hour or two later at his own rooms. 
 If joined on his walks, and he preferred society, he 
 would, with delightful garrulity, tell the story of his 
 early life, repeat his good sayings, especially his severe 
 ones, fight his battles with his assailants over again, 
 and boast that his five letters to Heyne were as sym 
 metrical as a Greek tragedy. He would recount the 
 persons of rank, by whom he had been treated with 
 civility; and now and then he would speak of the 
 poetry he admired, and the examples of ancient or of 
 modern worth to which he offered a willing tribute. 
 For he retained to the last something of the lofty spirit 
 
164 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 of a scholar ; if he loved good cheer, he loved a good 
 book also ; the exquisite airs in the last opera of Ros 
 sini, or the admirable acting on the Berlin stage, never 
 made him faithless to the strains in the Greek cho 
 ruses, which he would pretend that he could read as 
 easily as the prayer-book. He studied the art of living 
 well; but he also retained a soul for the unrivalled 
 eloquence of Plato. If in his desultory conversation he 
 sometimes repeated the newest tale of scandal, he 
 would at others with his clear voice, which was melody 
 itself, read aloud the perfect hexameters of Homer, or 
 run through the mazes of a Pindaric strophe, or chant 
 the rapid anapaests of his favorite Aristophanes. He 
 prided himself also on his knowledge of the English ; 
 and Fielding s Tom Jones was his favorite work. His 
 pronunciation of the French was not good, yet he held 
 himself perfectly competent to judge of the delicacies 
 and rules of that language. 
 
 He could not brook a superior in any thing. To 
 show his own mastery over the German, he began a 
 strictly literal version of the Odyssey, adding nothing, 
 exhausting the meaning of each Greek word, and 
 giving not merely line for line, but foot for foot, and 
 caesura for caesura. When he had completed exactly 
 one hundred lines in this manner, he stopped in the 
 midst of a sentence, declaring that there lived not the 
 man who could go on and finish the period. Again, 
 when he wrote in German, he, more than once, made 
 
MEN OF SCIENCE AND LEARNING. 165 
 
 an apology for employing a language that was less 
 familiar to him than Latin. Of his style in Latin, no 
 praise could seem to him excessive. Cicero had, in 
 one of his works, translated a long passage from 
 the Euthyphron of Plato; Wolf turned the whole 
 of the dialogue into Latin in a most masterly man 
 ner, and on purpose, as he has been heard to say, 
 that he might challenge a comparison with Cicero 
 himself, 
 
 IV. 
 
 Wolf was accustomed to complain, that the study 
 of theology was made a profession by itself, and 
 Grotius was his example, to prove the compatibility 
 of theological erudition with the acquisitions of a 
 statesman. 
 
 German theology, however, is a topic on which it 
 is not our province to enter. Its learning is univer 
 sally acknowledged; but objections are raised to its 
 faith and spirit. We venture to suggest that Chris 
 tianity has nothing to fear from investigation; that 
 Germany is the centre and main support of protestant 
 ism on the continent ; that to declare its most learned 
 divines no better than infidels, has at least nothing of 
 consolation in it ; and finally, that the German nation, 
 as a mass, is eminently quickened and cheered by re 
 ligious influences. We will add one word more, for 
 to defend a tolerant spirit is never out of season. The 
 
166 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Germans in their turn are astonished, when they are 
 told that thousands of children walk our streets who 
 have not been baptized ; and that the great majority 
 in our country know nothing of the rite of confirmation. 
 Let us then beware of rash judgments respecting a 
 great people. The proper consideration of differences 
 in usages and habits of thought may nourish a 
 stronger attachment to the principle which underlies a 
 ceremony and lends to a custom its importance. 
 
 Nor shall we attempt an analysis of the masters in 
 German philosophy. The effect on the nation at 
 large of the earnest and continued study of meta 
 physics, is as manifest as that of Edwards and Hopkins 
 on the intellectual habits of the people of New Eng 
 land. So various are the systems, that almost every 
 possible theory may be found, either in the lessons of 
 Kant, who investigates with exactness the sources of 
 science, measures the boundaries of the human un 
 derstanding, sets up the landmarks between positive 
 knowledge and idle speculation, and then deduces the 
 rules of taste, the principles of justice, the doctrines of 
 virtue, and the truths of religion, from reason itself, 
 and the ultimate laws of human existence ; or, in the 
 audacious Fichte, who leaves the ideal Berkeley far in 
 the rear, annihilates earth and heaven, and exaggerates 
 the sentiment of individuality, till he comes to know 
 of no essence but himself, and deems the universe and 
 its glories but creations and images of his own mind ; or 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 167 
 
 in Schelling, who claims existence for the external 
 world, and, after exhibiting it in the splendors of its 
 actual being, falls down and worships it, as though it 
 were identical with the divinity itself; or in Hegel, 
 who dresses up common truths in uncommon forms, 
 transposes ontology to logic, and constitutes the laws 
 of logic which to him are the laws of being, the minor 
 deities of a new religion ; or lastly, the pure and gentle 
 Jacobi, whose nature abhorred skepticism and specu 
 lative abstractions, and received the truths which he 
 vindicated, as well as his happy style, from the im 
 pulse of his heart. 
 
 THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 
 I. 
 
 Of the men of letters in Germany, who in the sec 
 ond great period of its literature contributed to elevate 
 the reputation and improve the taste of their country, 
 Herder was distinguished for variety of attainments, 
 industry and purity. 
 
 The son of a poor Prussian schoolmaster, he re 
 ceived his literary education in Konigsburg, at a time 
 when the chair of philosophy in that university was 
 filled by Kant ; and while he devoted himself especially 
 to the study of theology, he was deeply interested in 
 philosophy and elegant literature, felt the inspiration 
 which had been breathed into his country by Klopstock 
 
168 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 and Lessing, and was desirous of taking part in guiding 
 the taste and thoughts of the public. 
 
 While yet in the vigor of early manhood, after 
 travelling in his own country and a part of France, 
 and after having passed five years with the Prince of 
 Biickeburg, Herder was invited to accept a professor 
 ship in theology at Gottingen. But the reigning king 
 of England, George the Third, in the exertion of his 
 power as Elector of Hanover and Rector of its Univer 
 sity, negatived the appointment, on the ground that his 
 religious opinions were not orthodox. The more liber 
 al duke of Saxe Weimar placed him at the head of the 
 clergy in that Duchy ; and by the change of residence, 
 Herder became the companion of Goethe, Wieland, 
 and Schiller. 
 
 Without possessing great originality, he had that 
 power which gives life to acquisitions. Conscious of 
 his OWTI inability to tread firmly in the highest " heaven 
 of invention," he contented himself with occupations 
 suited to his capacities, taking the widest range 
 through the literature of almost every age and nation. 
 He knew how to enter upon the study of a foreign 
 work, as if he had been of the country and the time for 
 which it was originally designed, and he was able to 
 transfer into his OWTI language the lighter graces, no 
 less than the severe lessons of foreign poets ; the ballads 
 of Scotland, and the songs of Sicily ; the traditions of 
 the Spanish Cid, and the brilliant sayings of the Per- 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 169 
 
 sian Saadi. To turn over some parts of his works is like 
 walking in a botanical garden, where the rare and pre 
 cious plants of other countries, which thrive in climates 
 the most distant and most different, are artificially, yet 
 safely collected, and planted without injury in soils 
 suited to their natures. 
 
 In 1778 and 1779 he undertook to collect, and 
 faithfully transfer to his own language the most beau 
 tiful and most popular songs of all nations, and thus by 
 comparing the national feelings of different ages and 
 races to exhibit the identity of all. The noblest bards 
 were to be assembled, and each to express the genius of 
 the people to which he belonged, so that from the most 
 various national tones, the harmony of all with one 
 common nature might be apparent. These repre 
 sentatives of popular feeling from all parts of the 
 world and all periods of history, were to meet together 
 and unite in bearing testimony to humanity, the affec 
 tions, and moral rectitude. The design was not car 
 ried out in its full extent, but its spirit pervades the 
 volumes of Herder, some of which may be compared to 
 a fanciful piece of mosaic, composed of costly stones 
 from all parts of the world, and if not always arranged 
 in the very best taste, at least always rich in them 
 selves, and well fitted to instruct. He did more than 
 translate. Wherever he found a just and happy image 
 or allegory, he would interweave it gracefully into his 
 criticisms or essays ; or remarks on history and man. 
 
170 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 From the rubbish of verbal commentators and alle 
 gorical expositors, he has drawn many curious and in 
 structive fables, narratives*, proverbs, and comparisons ; 
 thus putting in currency again many a bright thought, 
 which* lay covered with the rust of learning. In fables, 
 dialogues, and familiar letters, in poems and allegories, 
 imitated, translated, or original, he alike endeavored to 
 please and to teach lessons of goodness. It may be 
 said of Herder, that he passed his life in tranquil indus 
 try, possessed of a delicate perception of the beautiful, 
 cherishing in himself and others a love of learning, 
 creating as it were anew the thoughts of the wise and 
 good, disseminating a knowledge of what seemed to 
 him the elements of virtue, and cherishing and pro 
 moting whatever can improve or adorn humanity. 
 
 In his prose, his thoughts are communicated under 
 the most various forms and images ; and his style 
 would seem gorgeous from excess of ornament, were it 
 not that for him a profusion of comparisons and figures 
 of rhetoric seems not the effort of art, but the most 
 natural mode of expression. Few of his works can be 
 recommended as finished performances, or of universal 
 interest. His philosophical reflections on the History 
 of Man are written in a solemn and contemplative 
 mood, and exhibit, perhaps, most fairly his private 
 character not less than his merits as a writer. 
 
 There are those who delight in poetry, because it 
 crowns enjoyment with, the most exquisite gaiety, 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 171 
 
 The muse that guided Herder s steps, showed him 
 the worm that gnaws at the bud of earthly joys, 
 till in bitterness of heart, he railed at the fools who 
 put their trust in them. She showed him the traces 
 of death in the very haunts of crowded existence, but 
 also led him to familiarity with the lessons of immor 
 tality, so that qualities apparently the most opposite 
 were united in him. He was heavenly-minded and se 
 rene in his own love of goodness ; but he hated all that 
 was opposed to the objects that he cherished. When 
 reproof was forced from him, his censure was not 
 measured. Dislike became antipathy ; and disdaining 
 all compromise, he loathed what he did not admire, 
 and detested even to injustice what was not in 
 harmony with his feelings. In this way his peace was 
 disturbed, and his life embittered. He held up the 
 torch to the defects and faults of others with an un 
 steady hand, and "the dark flame, throwing out 
 sparks in every direction, injured himself the worst." 
 
 Herder possessed vivacity, but not cheerfulness ; a 
 kind disposition, but not a happy one ; great suscep 
 tibility, but no content. Being of a glowing temper, 
 he carried his elegance of taste into mournful themes. 
 He muses on the grave, but covers it with flowers ; his 
 imaginings are of death, but he bodies forth its angel as 
 a beautiful youth, with whom he could even grow 
 familiar. He used to long to see a spirit, and was 
 
172 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 doubtless in earnest in the desire. His imagination 
 has been compared to the night-blooming Cereus. 
 
 He was fond of nature, for nature soothes irritable 
 men by her permanent loveliness. To his eye the 
 meanest floweret opened views into Paradise. But he 
 never was calmly contented. Wrong affected him, as 
 some lively poisons do the system. He would commit 
 acts of indiscretion in defending the side of good feeling 
 and truth ; and when the serpents of the age turned 
 and hissed at him, he kept his ground, in haughty 
 defiance, striking passionate blows, without good aim, 
 at those against whose venom he took no pains to pro 
 tect himself. All his intercourse with man was at 
 tended with excitability ; and he had little practical 
 talent, and no tact in the management of ordinary con 
 cerns. He grew to be dissatisfied with the whole age 
 in which he lived, not less than with his part in it ; 
 and one fine morning, as he heard the clear tones ef 
 the bells of the cathedral, he exclaimed, " Would that 
 I had been born in the middle ages ! " Nay, he was 
 dissatisfied with life itself, and at the close of it is re 
 ported to have said, " Thou Sim, I am weary of thy 
 beams ! " 
 
 His luxuriant and productive learning hung round 
 his melancholy nature like a vine with its delicious 
 clusters round a cypress tree. Yet the works of 
 Herder are so filled with lessons of benevolence, 
 and excellent examples, that they nourish the love 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 173 
 
 of virtuous action, and above all, the respect for 
 human nature. The admiration of moral beauty 
 was a part of his religion ; his faith in it lay en 
 shrined within him, with the love of God. His. mind 
 is earnest to gather together the scattered proofs of 
 human excellence, to discern, amidst the wrecks of 
 genius and the abuse of power, the marks of a better 
 nature, to form a beautiful ideal of humanity. The 
 most touching testimony to the personal excellence of 
 Herder, was given by the celebrated Amelia, dutchess 
 dowager of Weimar. On the morning of her own 
 death, she observed with serenity, " Now I shall soon 
 be with my dear Herder." 
 
 n. 
 
 Herder s friend and admirer, John Paul Richter, 
 at home called Jean Paul, was one of the most singular 
 and original writers of his age. His works are difficult 
 to read ; his character and place as an author not easy 
 to determine. In the old Spanish plays, the part of 
 the buffoon is conspicuous. He has the readiest wit, 
 the greatest shrewdness, the happiest invention. Not 
 a responsible actor in the drama, he is the coolest spec 
 tator, and all the while observes with judgment. He 
 sees all that there is that is ludicrous in connexion 
 with sublimity; he moralizes often in an elevated 
 strain, but his sentimental borders on the burlesque, 
 
174 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 and his sublimity partakes of rant. Does not the 
 world give cause for the existence of such a being? 
 Are not the grandest things which human power can 
 produce, found by the side of something inexpress 
 ibly mean? In the genuine Harlequin, the keen 
 sensibility to stiblime emotions, is united to a pow 
 erful talent at ridicule; and raillery and irony are 
 blended with sincere admiration and eloquence. Of 
 this character our English Milton has nothing ; Scott 
 has not much ; Moore a great deal ; Byron, except for 
 his misanthropy, most of all; especially in his later 
 period. Now, if we were to express our view of Jean 
 Paul s place in the great drama of letters, we should 
 call him the sublime Harlequin. He philosophizes as 
 wisely and as morally as Hamlet and the churchyard 
 clowns put together ; like them he is as likely to sing at 
 grave-making as at any time, and would be as ready to 
 defend religion with a jest as with an argument. He 
 is more nearly mad, and not less given to muse, 
 than the Prince of Denmark ; and poor Yorick could 
 not have surpassed him in infinite jest and excellent 
 fancy. The first impression produced by almost any 
 of his works, will be a bewildering one ; but he who is 
 once initiated into his manner, will readily acknowledge 
 him to be one of the most original and able writers of 
 his time. 
 
 Hoffmann followed in the steps of Jean Paul, but 
 had neither the deep philosophy, nor the fine moral 
 
THE AGE OP SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 175 
 
 sense of his master. His was at once the madness of 
 the musician, the man of letters, and the libertine; 
 his mind was as free from restraints, as his life from 
 rule ; and as he had few sympathies with man, he de 
 lighted in the terrors and excitements of supernatural 
 existences. Striving after terrific interest, he de 
 generates into common-places. His enthusiasm is 
 foaming and turbulent ; his eloquence is but in 
 flashes ; and his feverish fondness for unnatural ex 
 citement in literary composition, led him to fantastic 
 inventions. His life was the life of a spendthrift 
 Epicurean, his death the death of a- Stoic. Nothing 
 that he has written is of such terrific power, as his 
 own conduct in the illness which followed his ex 
 cesses and terminated his life. It was the criminal 
 grinning at the executioner, as the wheel crushed 
 him. 
 
 Of Biirger the best ballads are well known to the 
 English reader, for Scott has been willing to translate 
 them. His private history and character were too 
 wretched to admit of scorn, and too pitiful to win re 
 spect. His poems were made the subject of a review by 
 Schiller, in which the great bard has developed his own 
 views of his art, with too much, perhaps, of speculative 
 criticism, but with a noble sublimity of feeling. The 
 critique condemned Biirger, as deficient in delicacy 
 and the conception of ideal beauty, in every quality 
 which constitutes the essence of poetry. It is usual to 
 
176 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 charge Schiller with an error of judgment, resulting 
 from his temporary addiction to Kant s philosophy. 
 But whatever objections may be brought against his 
 abstract reasonings, his judgment on Burger s poetry 
 is in no wise too severe. 
 
 The Stolbergs have hardly a claim to be remem 
 bered out of their own country ; and the good, rural, 
 homely, plain-spoken Voss never tasted the stream of 
 Helicon, though he was a very learned and very accu 
 rate translator and editor. But as a man, he wins our 
 esteem for his simplicity and independence. The 
 manners and household of Voss were distinguished 
 for hospitable frugality. "I thank God," he would 
 say, "for leaving me cheerfulness in my old age." 
 And again : "I have lived a happy life, dividing 
 my tune between my books and my garden." He 
 even imagined himself to be possessed of philosophic 
 tranquillity, though he was the most contentious 
 scholar of his day. He was always ready for battle. 
 He foamed at the bare name of nobility ; at the mere 
 mention of feudal knights, he raised a hue and cry 
 after the thieves and robbers ; and as some men, 
 according to Shylock, cannot contain themselves if 
 they hear 
 
 " The bagpipe sing in the nose, 
 And some are mad if they behold a cat," 
 so the excellent and ingenuous Voss caught fire at the 
 name of a rival or an antagonist. 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 177 
 
 Whoever touched Voss on republicanism, struck 
 the key-note. A splendid eulogy of Washington and 
 Franklin would follow ; but the discourse would proba 
 bly terminate in a tirade against the caste of privileged 
 birth, of which the chief privilege, he would say, was, 
 never to.be hanged on the gallows. 
 
 Voss s hobby-horse was the danger impending over 
 the Protestant church. He would tell a long story 
 about secret societies for making proselytes to the 
 bosom of the Roman Catholic faith ; and rave against 
 mystical tendencies ; any one who lived on terms of 
 amity with a Roman Catholic, was to him already little 
 better than a renegade; and he had the most rare 
 talent at getting scent of a disguised .Jesuit. 
 
 He was a religious man ; but his religion partook 
 of the sternness of his own character. He pardoned 
 nothing to devout weakness, or to superstitious feelings. 
 " This life," said he, " is but the prelude ; action is 
 happiness here, and without action there can be no 
 Heaven." And then he would get into a passion and 
 hotly declare that he could not endure the thought of 
 Heaven as a place of absolute rest, or of blessedness, 
 where the blessed have nothing to do. But what 
 activity could such a man mean ? An English philos 
 opher avowed his hope, that his soul after death would 
 revisit the scenes of its earthly interests, and hover 
 with delight round his laboratory and his chemical 
 apparatus ; and they say Johann von Miiller trusted in 
 
 12 
 
178 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the next world to be able to continue making excerpta 
 for his universal history. The heroes of Greece be 
 lieved they should still, in the realm of spirits, pursue 
 each " his favorite phantom ; " and the Indian hunter 
 looks for ampler grounds for the chase, 
 
 " The hunter and the deer a shade." 
 
 By the same rule Voss might expect still to declaim 
 intolerantly against intolerance, still to oppose bigotry 
 with a bigotry yet more obstinate, to scold at rivals, to 
 unmask Catholics in disguise, to translate good verses 
 and write dull ones, and to live on for ever in the tur 
 moils of controversy. He has at last gone to his rest 
 with " the patriarchs of the infant world," and now we 
 trust he has found, that men of all religious sects, and 
 even Jesuits themselves, may reach the world of un 
 clouded truth ; that mistakes in literary opinions are 
 of no more moment than the dust we tread upon ; and 
 that all errors are terminated and forgiven in the re 
 gions of perfect knowledge. 
 
 Of the Schlegels, the successful founders of a criti 
 cal school, the extraordinary merit as critics, dis 
 played both in contributions to public journals and in 
 elaborate works, is cheerfully acknowledged. Still the 
 light of Lessing outshines them far, and not to them, 
 but to that great master, belongs the credit of having 
 given to the public mind in Germany the impulse 
 which has finally extended its influence through the 
 world. 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 179 
 
 Of Tieck, an industrious and gifted adherent of 
 the critical school of the Schlegels, the brightest poetical 
 side is the polemical. Whilst the Schlegels criticised, 
 he wrote humorous and ironical dialogues, poems, and 
 tales. He contributed essentially to the emancipation 
 of literature from pedantic rules, though at the same 
 time the tendency of his works, and of those of his 
 school generally, has likewise been to produce a feeble 
 and affected imitation of natural excellence. 
 
 The fragments of Hardenberg, who wrote under 
 the name of Novalis, abound in exaggerated opinions, 
 and also in flashes of real sagacity ; but a sickly hue 
 belongs both to his poetry and his prose. He is like 
 Laocoon whom the sculptor represents with the mouth 
 open, as if to shriek ; only in the statue, the agony of 
 the father excuses the expression of anguish ; but sym 
 pathy is not willingly extended to the melancholy of a 
 young man, with whom life had not dealt harshly. 
 Yet, in a serious hour, the detached thoughts and 
 mournful songs of Novalis, will be read with interest. 
 
 in. 
 
 We do not attempt an enumeration of even those men 
 of letters, who within the last fifty years have gained 
 success in Germany. That country boasts of more than 
 twelve thousand living authors, of whom more than a 
 thousand are female. In 1823, a curious observer 
 was able to count two hundred and eighty-seven 
 
180 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 dramatic poets alone. In the sciences, which are carried 
 forward by industry and research, no discovery may be 
 neglected; but in works of invention, the few great 
 masters of a foreign nation alone pass the boundary of 
 their native land to become denizens of the world. 
 
 Of these Schiller is one of the greatest. No poet 
 ever possessed more of the affection of his countrymen. 
 His fame has been cherished by them with a tender 
 ness approaching to a personal attachment. His 
 nature was frank, earnest, and virtuous ; and com 
 manded respect for the man, who sacrificed every 
 thing to his art and the culture of his genius. WJjen 
 the news of his untimely death was promulgated, men 
 mourned, as though each family had lost a favorite in 
 mate. His life was one continued struggle. The se 
 verest censures ever passed upon his faults, have been 
 pronounced by himself ; while he strove with unceas 
 ing zeal to emancipate himself from every influence 
 which could prevent his acquiring the highest moral 
 and poetic perfection. 
 
 His theory of poetry led him to consider beauty as 
 something independent of the passions which it can 
 excite ; and to be pursued in a sphere, elevated above 
 the common sympathies of mankind. The poet was, in 
 his mind, a superior being, upon whom the bright sun 
 shine of inspiration was the direct effluence of celestial 
 light ; he might, indeed, stoop to his fellow-mortals, 
 but only to lift them to the elevated regions of purity 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 181 
 
 in which he moved. These views were the result of 
 patient study ; they commended themselves to an acute 
 and speculative mind, which, from its own constitution, 
 took no part in the ordinary bustle of existence. But, 
 when Schiller came to write, he was not restrained by 
 cold rules within the icy limits of an austere, or meta 
 physical sublimity. In his theory he derided nature, 
 and longed to depict the ideal ; when he invented, his 
 theory gave him dignity, correctness, and a noble firm 
 ness of character ; but his feelings hurried him to 
 throw himself as a penitent at the feet of nature, 
 and she, like a doting mother, readily forgave him 
 his temporary absence, in joy at his return. 
 
 An only child of fond parents, Schiller was, from 
 early life, sensitive to every noble quality, and disdain 
 ful towards all that is common and mean. His educa 
 tion was military, and opposed to his natural tastes, 
 which he could nourish only in secret. Entirely cut 
 off from the world, confined within a school which was 
 governed by mechanism, knowing none but his fellow- 
 students, wholly unaccustomed to female society, he 
 ventured to write a play, while yet a minor, and to 
 publish it a few months after he came of age. " The 
 Robbers " is universally known. It is the marvellous 
 production of a schoolboy Titan, endeavoring to take 
 the heaven of invention by storm. Every thing is 
 sketched in strong and glaring colors; vices and 
 virtues are exhibited in their greatest light and dark- 
 
182 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ness, with no intermediate shades. It is a monstrous 
 production ; but spirit and genius move in it, and 
 impart to it permanent life. His maturer taste was not 
 able to improve it. The merits and faults are so 
 mingled, that it is now printed in its first and bold 
 est form. 
 
 Schiller attempted the career of an actor, but 
 without success. In the same period he published two 
 other tragedies, in one of which his burning zeal for 
 freedom expresses itself in a withering rebuke of the 
 German Princes who were then selling their troops to 
 fight against American independence. 
 
 After some years, he gave the world Don Carlos, 
 in which drama he unfolds his own heart, and gives 
 the noblest lessons of liberty and public justice. The 
 play is admirable, but has more of eloquence than of 
 action, and more of the careful and elaborate views of 
 a fine mind, than the passions of real life. 
 
 The course of Schiller s destiny led him next to the 
 pursuits of history, for he became the successor of 
 Eichhorn, at the University of Jena. Kant and 
 abstract philosophy also won his earnest attention. 
 He applied himself to these pursuits seriously, for 
 his object was to satisfy his inquisitive and impatient 
 spirit. His lyre lay by his side almost untouched, 
 while he was making every effort to acquire within 
 himself that harmony which can alone result from clear 
 convictions. At the same time his rejection of the 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 183 
 
 realities of being, and longing for ideal goodness, 
 wasted his physical powers; and the result of his 
 irregular and too great application, was an illness 
 from which he never entirely recovered, and which 
 contributed to impart more of gentleness to his intel 
 lectual character. He now strove to reconcile himself 
 with the world. At this period, his character was fully 
 established in its great outlines. In early life he had 
 broken away from all patronage. " The public," he 
 had exclaimed, " is alone my sovereign, and my con 
 fidant. I belong to it exclusively. Before this tribu 
 nal, and before none other, will I plead. This only do 
 I fear and reverence. I am elevated by the thought 
 of bearing no chains but the decision of the world, of 
 never again appealing to any other throne than the 
 soul of humanity." His noble nature, improved by 
 careful study of the records of mankind, and raised to 
 contemplative excellence by the zealous and solemn 
 study of philosophy, was now restored to the career of 
 poetry. A series of most beautiful lyrics, some 
 of which are among the best in the literature of the 
 world, were gradually published, and won universal 
 favor. But the results of his investigations in history 
 and speculative science were to be embodied in one 
 grand production. It is not in the narrative of the 
 Thirty Years War, but in the tragedy of Wallenstein, 
 that the peculiarities of Schiller, at this time, are most 
 clearly reflected. In the English drama, Macbeth 
 
184 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 is the production with which it has the nearest 
 analogies. In the display of men, hurried to their 
 ruin by a moral necessity existing in themselves, 
 they are alike. But the inimitable master has laid 
 his scene in remote and apocryphal history ; in 
 Wallenstein, we have real men, and events all too 
 true j and this union of historic dignity and dramatic 
 excellence was a triumph reserved for Schiller. 
 
 Mary Stuart, and the Maid of Orleans, rapidly 
 followed. In the first of these, Schiller has succeeded 
 better than in any of his works, in delineating woman. 
 It has in a less degree than Wallenstein the stem sub 
 limity which is imparted by the unseen influences of 
 an avenging destiny ; but it makes a more direct 
 appeal to the human heart. The Maid of Orleans is a 
 dramatic narrative written in the spirit of legendary 
 romance ; it is full of striking contrasts and marvellous 
 interpositions, rather than a careful representation of hu 
 man agencies and passions. One of its scenes furnished 
 to Scott the fine passage in Ivanhoe, where the Jewess 
 observes the battle, and describes its progress to the 
 imprisoned hero. 
 
 The speculative tendency of Schiller s mind led 
 him to make an experiment of introducing the Greek 
 chorus into modern tragedy. The experiment failed, 
 and the Bride of Messina is sustained by the splendor 
 of its several parts, not by its general merits. The 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 185 
 
 poet returned at once to the right path, and history 
 again lent itself to his genius. 
 
 The love of humanity, the zeal for freedom and 
 social progress, which pervade his lectures, essays, 
 tragedies and poems, made him restless and anxious, 
 in a season of deep dejection for the friends of liberty. 
 For him the French Revolution seemed to have failed 
 from the vices of its friends, and the despotism by which 
 it was succeeded. The eagle of Prance was invading 
 Germany ; public virtue in sovereigns seemed exhaust 
 ed ; the people had not yet been disciplined into inde 
 pendent action. A deep gloom was settling on the 
 prospects of his country. The darkness, which to him 
 overspread the civil world, was as thick as that which 
 shut the bard of Paradise from " the sight of vernal 
 bloom, or summer s rose ; " and, like Milton, Schiller 
 did but the more turn inward, preserving his trust un 
 impaired in the truths and in the providence which 
 were to rescue liberty, and peace and virtue. At the 
 opening of this century it had seemed to him that they 
 could nowhere find a refuge ; and reproving alike the 
 military ambition of Prance and the commercial avarice 
 of England, he complained despondingly that the search 
 on earth is vain for the happy region where freedom pre 
 serves its freshness, and the beautiful youth of hu 
 manity its bloom. But hope never expired within 
 him ; in his last great production, he sketches Switzer 
 land and the life of the Swiss in unaffected simplicity, 
 
186 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 and founds a work of the subliniest character on the 
 patriotism of a commonalty of peasants and herdsmen. 
 His heart in its anguish dwelt in the vales of Uri and 
 Unterwalden, the rocky shores of the lake of Lucerne, 
 among the consecrated scenes of Altorf and Kiissnacht 
 that had echoed the voice and borne the footsteps of 
 William Tell. The poem which conimemorates the 
 emancipation of the three cantons, is the masterpiece 
 of Schiller s genius. In it he gave lessons of national 
 independence, of resistance to tyrants, of the inalien 
 able right of the pure, laborious, peaceful husbandmen, 
 to govern themselves. The interest of the play rests 
 not on William Tell ; but with infinite skill, winch no 
 thing but affectionate sincerity could have inspired, it 
 is diffused through the little nations that were lifting 
 themselves into political independence, and gathers 
 round the action more than the man. In this Schiller 
 has not been surpassed by poet or historian. Such 
 was his last work, completed while the hour of death 
 was drawing near. 
 
 As the hart pants for the water brooks, he panted 
 for the realms of truth, which puny despots and time- 
 servers could not invade. He had studied the whole 
 history of man, and nowhere found his visions realized. 
 "It is the dove," says a French biographer, "that 
 quitted the ark to wander over ah 1 the earth, but find 
 ing nowhere rest for its wing, returned to its heaven- 
 appointed shelter." Just a few instants before his last 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 187 
 
 breath, a friend inquired of him how he was, and re 
 ceived the answer, " Calmer and calmer." * 
 
 "E en then," says our own Bryant, who is of a 
 kindred character, but born in a happier land, 
 
 " E en then he trod 
 The threshold of the world unknown ; 
 Already, from the seat of God, 
 
 A ray upon his garments shone 
 Shone and awoke that strong desire 
 
 For love and knowledge reached not here, 
 Till death set free his soul of fire, 
 To plunge into its fitter sphere. 
 Then who shall ten, how deep, how bright, 
 
 The abyss of glory opened round ; 
 
 How thought and feeling flowed, like light, 
 
 Through ranks of being without bound ! " 
 
 Thus he died ; just as the world was hoping from 
 
 his maturity a series of works that might be associated 
 
 with the best of the literary treasures which it has 
 
 taken ages for human genius to accumulate. And yet 
 
 he has been declared happy in the period of his death. 
 
 In the memory of coming generations, men live as they 
 
 are found when the angel of death summons them 
 
 away. Schiller will be ever present, as dying in the 
 
 noonday of his glory ; and to gratitude for all that he 
 
 was permitted to accomplish, there will ever be united 
 
 a regret for what humanity has lost. Yet to him 
 
 death was seasonable. Another year, and he would 
 
188 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 have seen the army of a detested enemy in his home, 
 and the flag .of foreign tyranny waving in triumph over 
 the fairest parts of the land of his nativity. 
 
 If we should compare any English poet with 
 Schiller, it would be Byron. And yet there is still 
 more room for contrast than comparison. Both were 
 restless, and found no happiness in the world ; but one 
 was happy in himself: both were of wild and irregular 
 habits of mind in early years ; but of one the life was 
 pure : both imparted the character of their respective 
 passions to all the objects which they represented ; but 
 the one was soured to misanthropy, while the other 
 glowed with benevolence. Schiller has produced no 
 thing like the narrative poems of Byron ; but Byron 
 must yield the palm in the drama. Both are among 
 the best lyric poets of modern times; but here too 
 Schiller is the superior. Both died in the vigor of 
 life, the one a martyr to his art, the other to his zeal 
 for liberty. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Goethe and Schiller are an antithesis. Schiller, 
 though ennobled, remained in sympathies essentially a 
 plebeian ; Goethe had the title and the views of a man 
 of rank : Schiller was proudly independent, exhausting 
 his life in unrelenting industry, rather than receive a 
 pension ; Goethe had no scruple in accepting from a 
 prince enough for wants which he declares were not 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 189 
 
 little. Schiller had a warm heart, and a mind which 
 would think and utter itself freely ; to Goethe the 
 affections were subjects for dissection, and he always 
 considered before he spoke. Schiller s writings bear 
 evidence of his discipline in the sublime lessons of 
 Kant ; Goethe rarely troubled himself about philosophy 
 or religion. 
 
 Of the value of Goethe s poetry and the result of 
 his influence different opinions exist ; but it is too late 
 to dispute his genius. Pericles is acknowledged to 
 have been a consummate statesman, because he for 
 forty years preserved his supremacy in the councils of 
 one city; in the German republic of letters, opinions 
 are as free and as fickle as was the popular voice at 
 Athens ; and he who has had them in his favor for 
 more than half a century, and has all that time been 
 hazarding his reputation by new efforts, has given the 
 clearest indications of unsurpassed power. Extensive 
 and lasting popularity is the least questionable testi 
 mony to poetic excellence. If the multitude and the 
 critic are at variance, the latter is in the wrong. The 
 poet reflects the passions and sentiments of men ; he 
 cannot please long and widely, unless he reflects them 
 with truth. 
 
 The literary history of Goethe is explained by his 
 private life. Frankfort, the place of his birth and early 
 residence, facilitated the acquisition of his native lan 
 guage in all its richness ; at the same time the free im- 
 
190 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 perial city, the theatre of the emperor s coronation, 
 imbued his imagination from childhood with mediaeval 
 images. At the university of Leipzig he found little 
 that was in harmony with his tastes ; he was there 
 fore driven to look into his own heart and intrust 
 its experiences to verse. His earliest productions 
 took the color of his studies and his emotions. The 
 strictly national drama of Goethe shows how fondly he 
 had looked into the antiquities of Germany ; and in 
 Werther he introduced all that observation and ex 
 perience had taught him of the wasting vehemence 
 of love. 
 
 Two years after the appearance of Werther, Goethe 
 is found at Weimar, in the full enjoyment of public ap 
 plause, possessed of the affectionate regard of the 
 prince, who had just inherited the ducal purple, sur 
 rounded by the best artists and scholars of Germany, 
 and admired at court by a circle celebrated for its 
 refinement. In due time he was honored with the 
 various civil titles which are most coveted by his coun 
 trymen. The pencil of Raphael almost made him 
 a cardinal ; skill in poetry introduced Goethe into the 
 council of his sovereign ; but he never was withdrawn 
 from literature by political ambition. 
 
 A change went forward in the character of Goethe s 
 mind. Though possessed of public favor, and con 
 scious of unexhausted resources, he for twelve years 
 published nothing of importance ; but the society of 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 191 
 
 Weimar, a tour in Switzerland, reflection and study, 
 contributed each in its degree to finish his education as 
 a poet. At last, in 1786, he was seized with an irre 
 sistible longing to go beyond the Alps, and his sovereign 
 enabled him to gratify the passion for travelling ; that 
 passion, which is stronger than ambition, and stronger 
 than love ; which has relieved dethroned monarchs of 
 their weariness, and allured statesmen from public life ; 
 which tempted Ca?sar from victory and Cleopatra 
 to gaze at the cataracts of the Nile, and drew an 
 illustrious Swedish queen from a reign of glory to 
 the ruins of Rome. Had Italy nothing but its sky 
 and its scenery, where nature has exhibited her love 
 liest forms ; or its poetry, which contains all that can 
 delight and elevate the imagination ; or its music, 
 chanted in the streets, given in full choirs in the 
 churches, charming the senses by the artful combina 
 tions of harmony in operas, and heard in all its ten 
 derness and perfection at the vespers in St. Peter s and 
 the choruses of the Holy Week ; or its buildings and 
 statues ; or its pictures, which exhibit not only all that 
 is most pleasing in real life, but all ideal loveliness ; or 
 its recollections, not of the ancient heroes of the com 
 monwealth only, but of Petrarch, Raphael and Michael 
 Angelo ; or lastly, the race which now dwells there ; it 
 would be a country fit to enrich the mind of the 
 traveller with images, excite and diversify his inventive 
 
192 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 powers, and impart a poetic impulse to all his faculties. 
 Goethe entered it in the best years of early manhood, 
 possessing a cultivated taste, a lively perception of the 
 beautiful, a judgment improved by study and fitted to 
 observe and compare. What wonder, then, that a resi 
 dence in Italy of two years should have formed an 
 epoch in his personal history. 
 
 At the period of his return from Italy, the intellec 
 tual character of Goethe was matured. His Faust had 
 been an invention of his youth, but was now finished 
 with the severest care. His Iphigenia, and his Tasso, 
 are monuments of industrious genius, which his coun 
 trymen admire with one voice, and which posterity will 
 not suffer to perish. His memory was all the while 
 acquiring new stores of thought, and his love of 
 art was gratified by the most varied studies. And 
 this is perhaps the only point, in which the inventive 
 writer has the advantage over the man of science. 
 The latter is more sure that industry will ultimately be 
 followed by reputation and opportunities of usefulness ; 
 yet he must limit his investigations, and subordinate 
 general culture to his particular pursuit. But it is the 
 duty of the former to roam wherever there are flowers, 
 to contemplate excellence of one particular class till 
 the mind has become enriched by it, arid then to pass 
 onwards to new stores of information and new sources 
 of beauty ; so that every principle of human nature, 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 193 
 
 every passion, feeling, and power may be developed, 
 disciplined, and brought to its highest perfection. 
 
 The later works of Goethe are characterized by 
 dignity, composure, and deliberation. Having ac 
 quired a knowledge of man by a ready talent at obser 
 vation, and having possessed himself of extensive learn 
 ing, which, though it may in itself be barren, fertilizes 
 and adorns, he continued to write with perfect self- 
 possession, to plan with coolness, and to finish with 
 effort and care. In a word, the years of his appren 
 ticeship were over, and he had become a consum 
 mate master in his art. Werther had been written 
 in four weeks. His productions were no longer 
 the accidental effusions of genius, but the finished 
 works of an artist, considerate in the use of his re 
 sources, and regularly and harmoniously advancing to 
 the accomplishment of his design. The dramatic poem, 
 Tasso, the performance in which, perhaps, the German 
 language appears in its most perfect state, bears the 
 marks of long study and care ; and Wilhelm Meister 
 occupied its author for more than fifteen years. 
 
 If Goethe, amidst his unequalled success in Ger 
 many, has not in the same degree obtained the suf 
 frages of other nations, the causes exist in the character 
 of his works. Instead of describing sentiments of ten 
 derness and true humanity, he has more frequently 
 sketched the sorrows which spring from the imagina 
 tion, and the vices of refinement. In Germany, the 
 13 
 
194 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 characters in the Elective Affinities are acknowledged 
 to be drawn with truth; in the United States, the 
 book would be thrown aside as a false and dangerous 
 libel on human nature. 
 
 Among the ancients we hear nothing of the tor 
 ments of a diseased or ill regulated mind, at least till 
 the age of Sappho. A man like Rousseau could not 
 have been formed under the institutions of Attica; 
 beings like Childe Harold and Lara of the English 
 poets, or Eaust and Tasso of the German, could not 
 have been invented by an early Greek writer. Human 
 nature, and usually under a cheerful aspect, as the dis 
 penser of social happiness and the mother of generous 
 actions, was the theme of the epic and tragic muse. 
 The bard of Chios was the friend of man ; and in the 
 spirit of cheerful benevolence exhibits Glaucus rejoicing 
 in his youth and glowing with generous emulation ; 
 Nestor, though he had seen three races of men fade 
 before him, still complacently contemplating the labors 
 and changes of being ; Hector, in the season of danger, 
 yielding for a moment to the softness of parental affec 
 tion. In Homer, the scenes are hopeful as on the 
 morning of a battle, when the war horse is prancing, 
 and the hero exulting as a strong man before a race. 
 But Goethe presents the field at evening, when the 
 weary are retiring from the conflicts of life, with 
 mangled limbs and heavy hearts. He depicts men 
 driven to despair and suicide by hopeless desire, women 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 195 
 
 languishing from a passion, which their own innocence 
 condemns ; persons of delicate sensibility brooding over 
 unreal pains, till they turn every object in nature into 
 nutriment for then weakness, and " drink misanthropy 
 even from the sources of love." 
 
 But not only has Goethe described the perverted 
 sentiments which grow out of vicious refinement. 
 Some of his works are offensive from the indifference 
 to moral effect, pervading both their plan and exe 
 cution. There is cause to express both surprise and 
 disgust, that a man of fine genius, conversant with the 
 sentiments and principles ichick are the living springs 
 of beauty ; a man, who, as he observes of himself, had 
 received the veil of poetry from the hand of truth, 
 should have stooped to win a disgraceful popularity by 
 appeals t to the weakness and unworthy passions of 
 human nature, and darkened the clear revelations of 
 celestial beauty by the mixture of earthly passions. 
 
 Tor derelictions like these a just indignation need 
 not spare its censure ; but it must still be acknowl 
 edged that Goethe has excelled all his countrymen in the 
 ease and grace of his style ; and his superiority is still 
 more conspicuous in his variety. Indeed, no two of his 
 works have the same character. Other writers multiply 
 their efforts on some oife congenial class of subjects ; 
 Goethe is universal. He delineates not a portion of the 
 world, but the whole. Misfortune moves freely over the 
 earth, and joy selects for itself no aristocracy ; in like 
 
196 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 manner, the poet has allowed himself to wander into aL 
 classes of society, and has brought back inspiration 
 from all. He treats successfully a multitude of sub 
 jects which would have bewildered inferior men. With 
 the step of serene activity and unimpassioned judg 
 ment, he walks, like the enchanted hero of an eastern 
 romance, through the hundred halls of the palace of in 
 vention, and all the gates fly open at his approach ; but 
 hardly has he entered, when the portals close again, so 
 that none can follow in his footsteps. 
 
 The character of Goethe s mind is that of self- 
 possession. No pining passion prostrates the energy 
 of will; no crazed imagination corrupts the healthy 
 exercise of judgment. The author of Werther is the 
 very last man who would have killed himself for love ; 
 the poet who has delineated Tasso s exquisite sensi 
 bility, w r as never a misanthrope or a hypochondriac. 
 The stream of life gushes for him from a clear fountain, 
 and during all its course has reflected the light of day. 
 Tin s it is, which distinguishes him from Rousseau and 
 Byron, from Tasso and Schiller. The peculiar mark set 
 upon all his writings is a placid contentment with nature 
 and reality. He never turned in disgust from the world 
 in which he has his being. Life and man are his 
 themes. He does not require to annihilate every thing 
 that is clear and individual around him, in order to 
 gain free exercise for fancy in an ideal world ; he is 
 like the fabled giants, who were strongest when their 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 197 
 
 feet touched the earth. There is in him no trace of 
 sickliness of mind, no lines worn by a diseased ima 
 gination. The beings who move, speak, and act in his 
 works, are men and women, of veriest flesh and blood. 
 It is of human life that he unfolds the panorama. 
 
 The manner of Goethe is generally elaborately 
 finished. Let every young ian take a lesson from the 
 master in this ; he always wrote with difficulty. He 
 held it a duty to labor, and did not take advantage of 
 his talent to write with slovenly facility. Yet he leaves 
 upon his works no traces of the toil which they cost 
 him; we are introduced at once to a splendid and 
 highly finished edifice, but all the instruments of 
 preparation are removed. 
 
 Hence it is that he does not excel in fragments 
 merely. His works, as such, merit admiration. It is 
 not in parts that he deserves praise, so much as in the 
 whole. To the reflecting reader he furnishes abundant 
 lessons ; those who clap their Lands only at fine lines, 
 and care little for complete perfection of workmanship, 
 Goethe takes no pains to please. He is uniform and 
 sustained ; and his best passages derive a peculiar 
 charm from their adaptation and fitness. 
 
 The drama of Faust is the production most nearly 
 exhibiting the general cast of thought which pervades 
 the writings of Goethe. All its scenes have an air of 
 reality ; and with much that is coarse and offensive, it 
 describes vice in the fathomless depths of its misery. 
 
198 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 But the greatness of the play consists in its faithful re 
 flection of the sensuality and skepticism which were 
 characteristic of the author s times. It is an age of 
 analysis confessing its want of all faith, and the preva 
 lence of that spirit of doubt, which would gladly drown 
 its troublesome restlessness in pleasures, but only finds 
 itself more and more disqijipted. Milton invests Satan 
 with the majesty of an archangel ; Mephistopheles is a 
 very devil, hideous and mean, ridiculing all noble feel 
 ing, scoffing at human knowledge and aspirations ; and 
 he holds Faust so riveted to him, that the poor victim 
 who had paid his own soul to purchase the right to 
 command, is neither able nor willing to free himself 
 from grovelling subjection to his base companion, who 
 hurries him from one excess to another, nearer and 
 nearer to the gloom of despair. 
 
 A great poet is the mirror of his time, just as a 
 great philosopher is the exponent of its general culture. 
 Goethe is in one sense the representative of his age. 
 The philosophy of Descartes had introduced the spirit 
 of skepticism ; Voltaire, beginning with skepticism, 
 had proceeded to the work of analysis ; and in the 
 general proving to which all things were subjected, a 
 generation seemed resolved on considering what was to 
 be thrown away, and not what was to be preserved. 
 The Titans went forth to destroy; and in the over 
 throw of ancient superstitions, forms of government and 
 thought, the old world seemed coming to an end. At 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 199 
 
 this period Goethe appeared. He lived before the 
 European mind was ready to rebuild, and after it 
 had caused the time-honored institutions to totter. 
 
 A 
 
 Faith in verbal inspiration was gone; and it was 
 still rather the fashion to deny the existence of the 
 soul, than to look for sources of truth within it. This 
 is the moral and political aspect of Goethe as a writer 
 He is not a destructive. He came into a world of 
 ruins ; but he had not vigor to continue the warfare, nor 
 creative power to construct anew. And thus he floated 
 down the current passively ; adhering to the past, yet 
 knowing that it was the past ; no iconoclast himself, 
 yet knowing that the old images, before which men 
 bowed down, were demolished. His works have no 
 glimmering of faith ; he cries hist ! and lets the multi 
 tude continue to adore the idol which he knows to be 
 broken. His infidelity reaches to the affections and to 
 intelligence. He writes of love ; and it is to recount its 
 sufferings, and leave the sincere lover to shoot himself. 
 He WTites of a hero, the liberator of his country, the 
 martyr for its independence ; and confounding patriot 
 ism with libertinism, he casts aside the father of a 
 family, whom history had extolled, to represent a reck 
 less seducer. He writes of a scholar, outwatching the 
 bear, becoming wise with stores of all knowledge, and 
 makes him so dissatisfied by his acquisitions, as to sell 
 himself to the Devil for the opportunity of sensual 
 
200 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 enjoyment. Every where the pages of Goethe are 
 stamped with evidence, that he has no faith in 
 reason, or in the affections in God, in man, or in wo 
 man. Will you have the type of Goethe s character ? 
 Behold it in his conduct. In his earlier life he joined 
 the army of Prussians, when it invaded France to 
 restore the Bourbons. He was no Roman Catholic ; 
 he knew that legitimacy was a worn-out superstition ; 
 he knew that the old noblesse of France had lost 
 its vitality- and yet he takes up arms to compel 
 the worship of the public at deserted shrines and 
 broken altars. Such was he in opening manhood; 
 such was he as a writer; such was he throughout 
 his pilgrimage. Goethe, who in youth was indif 
 ferent to God, and reverential only towards rank 
 and the Bourbons, Goethe, who, in his maturity, 
 while his country was trodden underfoot by foreign 
 invaders, quietly studied Chinese or made experiments 
 in natural philosophy, Goethe, who wrote a fulsome 
 marriage-song to grace the nuptials of Napoleon, 
 Goethe, the man of letters, who, in his age becoming a 
 Duke s minister, almost alone, with but one ally, stood 
 out against the freedom of the press, Goethe, is the 
 poet, who represents the morals, the politics, the ima 
 gination, the character, of the broken-down aristocracy, 
 that hovered on the skirts of defeated dynasties, and 
 gathered as a body-guard round the bier of legitimacy. 
 Goethe is inferior to Voltaire, not in genius and 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 201 
 
 industry only, but still more in morality. The French 
 man had humanity ; he avenged the persecuted ; he 
 had courage, and dealt vigorous blows for men who 
 were wronged. His influence was felt in softening the 
 asperity of codes, in asserting freedom of mind, in 
 denouncing the severity that could hate protestantism 
 and philosophy even to disfranchisement, exile, and the 
 shedding of blood. But Goethe never risked a frown 
 of a German prince for any body. He was a prudent 
 man, and, in the great warfare of opinion, kept quietly 
 out of harm s way. On religious subjects, he mys 
 tified; on political subjects, he was discreetly silent, 
 except that he adored rank; worshipping birth like 
 intellect, and ever ready with flattery for the ruling 
 powers. 
 
 Goethe has sometimes been the divinity of men, 
 who rely on the spontaneous action of human na 
 ture, and reverence impulse as the voice of God. 
 But a just analysis does not sustain their preference. 
 He never was carried away by a holy enthusiasm for 
 truth or freedom. On the contrary, Goethe was one 
 of the most wary, calculating, circumspect people of his 
 times. He did not speak unpleasant things in a tone 
 louder than a whisper ; he kept his thoughts to him 
 self, if his thoughts were likely to give offence in high 
 places. In all his works, except perhaps in some of 
 the feeble, rambling, ill-conceived, diffusely-executed 
 productions of his extreme age, there is not a line, 
 
202 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 which would by possibility excite the distrust, alarm 
 the sensitiveness, or twinge the conscience of the profli 
 gate aristocrat ; the empress of Austria will find in every 
 line of his poems to persons, that the poet knew the 
 awful distance between himself and the high per 
 sonages whom he flattered ; and the emperor Francis 
 could consider his politics orthodox. A free press was 
 to him not at all desirable. He had already so ruled 
 his own spirit, that the words it uttered had no need 
 to fear an imperial censor. " Royalists," he says, 
 " Royalists, who have the power in their hands, 
 should not talk, but act. They may march troops, 
 and behead, and hang. That is all right. But to 
 argue is not their proper way. I have always been 
 a royalist. I have let others babble. I understood 
 my course, and knew what my object was." In 
 history his judgments are analogous. Marathon 
 was a name that found no interpreter in his breast 
 The field on which the hopes of human freedom were 
 redeemed, was in his view eclipsed by Waterloo. 
 Or hear him explain the true foundation of parties. 
 " Much is said," exclaims the rival, as he calls himself, 
 of Napoleon, of Frederick II., and of Luther, " Much 
 is said of aristocracy and democracy ; but the whole 
 affair is simply this : In youth, when we possess 
 nothing, we are democrats ; but when we have come 
 to possess something of our own, we wish to be 
 secure." " Freedom," he says, " consists in knowing 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. .203 
 
 how to respect what is above us." And, again : " If a 
 man has freedom enough to live in health, and work at 
 his craft, he has enough." Goethe expresses his deep 
 sympathy for Lord Byron, who had the folly to speak 
 out all that he thought; and he entreats "pity" for 
 Lessing, because Lessing would speak his mind, would 
 "meddle," as he expresses it, would share the polem 
 ical character of his times would insist on taking oc 
 casion to "vent his pique against priests and against 
 princes." And Goethe sums up the whole mystery of 
 political wisdom in the foil owing maxims : " The art of 
 governing requires an apprenticeship; no one should 
 meddle with it before having learned it." >"Let the 
 shoemaker abide by his last, the peasant by his plough, 
 and the king by his sceptre." He condenses his sys 
 tem into three lines, which he puts into the mouth of 
 Tasso : 
 
 " Der Mensch ist nicht geboren frey zu seyn ; 
 Und fur den Edlen ist kein schoner Gliick, 
 Als einem Fiirsten, den er ehrt, zu dienen." 
 This was written in the period of the American Revo 
 lution, and is in plain English, " Man is not born to be 
 free." Mark the meaning ; man is not only not born 
 free, but not designed by Providence "to be free." 
 
 In morals and their theory, and in philosophy, 
 Goethe is true to the character which he displayed 
 in actual life. In every thing that relates to firmness 
 of principle, to love for truth itself, to humanity, to 
 
204 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 holiness, to love of freedom, he holds perhaps the 
 lowest place. Byron, Voltaire, Shelley, soar far above 
 him in generous feelings. 
 
 Yet Goethe has made an epoch. In the art of 
 writing German he has no superior. He entered 
 on the career of letters, at a time when his country 
 men had not obtained mastery over their language, 
 and in German style, he became the instructor of his 
 nation. It has been said of Dryden, that from his 
 writings sometimes not a word can be spared. The 
 admirer of Goethe may turn to his prose, where a 
 golden style, slightly tinged with mannerism, possesses 
 clearness, richness, moderation, and melody ; to his 
 smaller poems, where often for pages together no 
 word but the right one occurs ; where each word 
 is in its proper place ; and where the little song, 
 in its terseness, its completeness, and its felicity of 
 expression, leaves nothing to be desired. Coarseness 
 abounds ; but again there are poems which are of the 
 utmost delicacy, pure in the conception and harmonious 
 in the execution. His Herman and Dorothea is a 
 strictly national idyl, in which the German manners 
 are portrayed, in a plain and almost homely but grace 
 ful manner, with inimitable truth ; and again in his 
 drama of Tasso, which has no other object than to 
 depict a condition of mind, the nicest shades of senti 
 ment, and the most exquisitely refined tastes, are 
 described in language of perfect harmony. In Egmont 
 
THE AGE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 205 
 
 we find ourselves transported to the streets of Brussels, 
 mixing in the popular clamors and complaints of the 
 disaffected Netherlands ; and it would almost seem, 
 that the tragic muse of the Greeks had herself dictated 
 Iphigenia to a worthy disciple of Euripides. 
 
 At the close we must again concede to Goethe 
 that quality which distinguishes Scott, and in which 
 Shakspeare was of all English writers pre-eminent 
 Truth in his descriptions. This, combined with the 
 beautiful style and artistic skill of an accomplished 
 master, will preserve through all the vicissitudes of taste 
 the fame of a poet, whom universal consent would 
 revere as one of the greatest of all time, if he had con 
 nected the culture of art with the service of humanity. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 [THE few pieces which follow, were written at a 
 very early period of life ; some of them while the trans 
 lator was still a student.] 
 
 THE IDEALS. 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 Schiller having arrived at the age of five and thirty, 
 bids farewell to the illusions of his youth. 
 
 And wilt thou, fond deceiver, leave me, 
 With scenes that smiled in fancy s eye, 
 With ah 1 , that once could glad or grieve me, 
 With all inexorably fly ? 
 Can naught delay thy rapid motion? 
 Can naught life s golden season save? 
 Tis vain ; eternity s vast ocean 
 Receives the streamlet s hastening wave. 
 
 The dazzling light has long been spent, 
 Which round the paths of childhood shone ; 
 The chains of fancy all are rent, 
 And all her fair creations flown. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 207 
 
 The pleasing faith has passed away 
 In beings, which my visions bore ; 
 Reality has made its prey 
 Of what seemed beautiful before. 
 
 As once with vehement desire 
 Pygmalion held in warm embrace 
 The statue, till sensation s fire 
 Glowed in the marble s kindling face ; 
 I threw the arms of youthful love 
 Round nature, till I too was blest. 
 Till she began to breathe, to move. 
 To live on my poetic breast. 
 
 \ 
 
 The world, awakening, shared my bliss ; 
 Eor me the dumb possessed a voice, 
 Learned to return me love s warm kiss, 
 Peel my heart s music, and rejoice. 
 Then lived to me the tree, the rose, 
 Then sang the fountain s silver fall ; 
 And things, that spiritless repose, 
 Echoed with joy my spirit s call. 
 
 Itself a universe, the breast 
 Aspired with strong, resistless force, 
 To act and speak, and onward prest 
 To join in life s exciting course. 
 
208 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 While in the bud it lay concealed, 
 The world appeared a boundless scene ; 
 What have the opening leaves revealed? 
 How little ! and that little mean ! 
 
 By daring mind endued with wings, 
 Blest by his visions false but gay, 
 Untamed by anxious care, how springs 
 The youth along existence way ! 
 There s nought so lofty, nought so far, 
 To which his wishes may not rise ; 
 E en to the heaven s remotest star, 
 On wings of bold design he flies. 
 
 How swiftly was I borne along ! 
 
 And happy feared nor toil nor care ! 
 
 With winning grace a friendly throng 
 
 Before me danced of forms of air ; 
 
 Love with sweet looks that ne er could frown j 
 
 Joy with his golden garlands bright ; 
 
 Glory adorned with starry crown ; 
 
 And Truth, that blazed in solar light. 
 
 But ah ! how soon these guardians flew 
 Tar from my side, ere life s mid-day ; 
 The airy band became untrue, 
 And one by one they turned away. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 209 
 
 His rapid pinions Joy extended ; 
 The wells of Knowledge all were dry ; 
 Doubt s heavy clouds round Truth ascended, 
 And hid her light from mortal eye. 
 
 I saw, too, Glory s holy flowers 
 Round common brows profanely twined ; 
 And, Love, how swiftly flew thy hours ! 
 How soon I left thy spring behind ! 
 Still and more still the scene became ; 
 More lonely seemed the rugged way ; 
 And dying hope a pallid flame 
 Scarce threw across the darksome way. 
 
 Of all that gay and noisy crowd 
 Will none with faithful fondness wait, 
 To raise me when by sorrow bowed, 
 And follow me to death s dark gate ? 
 Friendship ! thou my age shalt brighten, 
 Thou, who dost heal our every wound, 
 With love the cares of life dost lighten, 
 Thou, whom I early sought and found. 
 
 And thou, whose spell like hers can charm 
 The spirit s storms, beloved Employ ; 
 Thou, who with strong, unwearied arm, 
 Dost hopeful raise, but ne er destroy ; 
 14 
 
210 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 The building of eternity 
 Slowly thy patient toil uprears, 
 From time s great debt before we die, 
 Strikes minutes, hours, and days, and years. 
 
 FRIDOLIN, OR THE JOURNEY TO THE FORGE. 
 
 SCIULLEB. 
 I. 
 
 A guileless page was Fridolin, 
 
 As from my tale ye ll learn ; 
 He served with heart, that knew no sin, 
 
 The Countess of Savern. 
 She was all gentleness to him ; 
 But any wish of hers, or whim, 
 The wayward bent of woman s will, 
 He would have hastened to fulfil. 
 
 ii. 
 From morning s dawn, when day first shone, 
 
 Till evening s twilight died, 
 He lived for her commands alone, 
 
 Yet ne er was satisfied ; 
 And if she bade him " Toil no more," 
 His glistening eye with tears ran o er ; 
 Nor e er from labor would he rest, 
 Till weariness his limbs opprest. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 211 
 
 III. 
 
 Therefore above the servant crowd, 
 
 She loved the youth to raise, 
 While from her beauteous lips there flowed 
 
 Incessantly his praise. 
 Nor of her servants seemed he one ; 
 Her heart esteemed him as a son ; 
 And oft her eye reposed with joy 
 On the sweet features of the boy. 
 
 IV. 
 
 For this there rose in Robert s breast, 
 
 The huntsman, deadly hate ; 
 His envious bosom never ceased 
 
 With malice to dilate. 
 And to the count, whose honest heart 
 Was open to the traitor s art, 
 And quickly kindled, he drew nigh, 
 To plant the seeds of jealousy. 
 
 v. 
 
 Thus with deceitful words he spake : 
 
 " count, I deem you blest ; 
 No jealous doubts your slumbers break, 
 
 Nor haunt your golden rest ; 
 For you so chaste a spouse possess ! 
 Discretion guards her loveliness ; 
 And all the wiles of wooing youth 
 Were vain against her virtue s truth." 
 
212 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 At tliis the count with frowning brow 
 
 Exclaimed " What say st thou, knave ? 
 
 I build no trust on woman s vow, 
 Unstable as the wave. 
 
 But though fair words their hearts allure, 
 
 My lady s troth I hold secure ; 
 
 Love s eye on her none dare to turn, 
 
 Or woo the spouse of Count Savern." 
 
 VII. 
 
 The wily keeper speaks " Tis clear, 
 
 Contempt the fool deserves, 
 Who, born to serve thee and to fear, 
 
 Thus from his duty swerves, 
 And to the lady he obeys, 
 An eye of longing dares to raise." 
 Trembling with wrath the count replies, 
 " The villain, that hath dared it, dies." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " And can it be ? the public tale 
 
 To thee hath ne er been told ? 
 Yet what my Lord desires to veil, 
 
 My lips shall ne er unfold." 
 " Speak, wretch, or die ; what hast thou seen ? " 
 Exclaims the count with threatening mien, 
 " Who hopes her favor to engage ? " 
 " I speak, sire, of the fair-haired page. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 213 
 
 IX. 
 
 The stripling hath a pleasing form." 
 
 Thus he deceives his lord, 
 Whose blood by turns ran cold and warm, 
 
 Thrilling at every word. 
 " And have you truly never known, 
 That he hath eyes for her alone, 
 Of you at table hath no care, 
 But languishes behind her chair ? 
 
 x. 
 Here in these verses is confessed 
 
 His passion s bold desire " 
 " Confessed !" " He hath the countess pressed 
 
 To love with equal fire. 
 The lady is discreet and good, 
 She feared for him your angry mood ; 
 Twere useless to repeat the tale ; 
 Tor what to you could that avail?" 
 
 XI. 
 
 At this the count grew wroth, and rode 
 
 To where a forest rose, 
 And fires in many a furnace glowed ; 
 
 There melted iron flows ; 
 Early and late with zealous speed 
 The glaring flames his servants feed ; 
 The sparks ascend ; the bellows play ; 
 As though the rocks would melt away. 
 
214 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 There might you see their wondrous force 
 
 Both fire and water blend ; 
 To urge the wheel s revolving course 
 Their power the torrents lend ; 
 The works keep up their ceaseless chime ; 
 The heavy hammers strike in time j 
 And e en the iron pliant grows, 
 Subdued and shaped by mighty blows. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Straight at then- master s beck there come 
 Two servants from their task ; 
 
 " The first, whom I shall send from home 
 To greet you, and to ask 
 
 If ye ve obeyed your master well, 
 
 Him seize, and throw in yonder hell; 
 
 The flaming furnace be his grave ; 
 
 I would not see again the slave." 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Infernal joy the demons feel, 
 To hear that dark behest ; 
 
 For hardened were their hearts like steel ; 
 
 No mercy touched their breast. 
 1 Aloft the smoking pile they raise ; 
 
 The flames ascend with crackling blaze ; 
 
 They thirst for crime, and long to slay, 
 
 With murderous will, their destined prey. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 215 
 
 XV. 
 
 Robert on this his comrade calls, 
 
 Who nought of malice knew ; 
 " Now haste thee to our master s halls ; 
 
 He needs thy service true." 
 The count then spake to Fridolin, 
 " Straight wend to where my forge s din 
 Is heard ; and of my slaves inquire, 
 If they ve fulfilled their lord s desire." 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " Tis mine," he answers, " to obey," 
 
 And hastes his will to do ; 
 Then paused " Perchance my mistress may 
 
 Have duties for me too." 
 Before the countess soon he bows ; 
 " Forth to the forge thy servant goes ; 
 Thine is my duty ; lady, say, 
 Thee can I serve upon the way ? " 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Thereat the countess called him near, 
 
 And spake with gentle tone ; 
 " The holy mass I long to hear, 
 
 But sickness wastes my son. 
 Go then, my child, and on thy way 
 For me in still devotion pray ; 
 With penitence thy sins efface ; 
 And then for me entreat heaven s grace." 
 
216 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The sacred charge was doubly sweet ; 
 
 He rose and journeyed fast ; 
 Yet through the neighboring village street 
 
 He had not fairly passed, 
 When on his ear distinctly swells 
 The solemn chime of matin bells, 
 Which summon sinners to repent, 
 And taste the holy sacrament. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 "To fly from God were surely sin 
 
 Wlien in the road we meet." 
 
 He sees the church, and enters in, 
 
 Yet hears few coming feet ; 
 For twas the harvest-tide, and then 
 Its toil detained the husbandmen ; 
 None came the sacred hymns to sing, 
 Or chant the mass, or censer swing. 
 
 xx. 
 
 At once the page resolves to stay 
 
 And serve as sacristan ; 
 " Sure this," thought he, " is no delay ; 
 
 First serve the Lord, then man." 
 The belt and stole, which priests should wear, 
 He hangs upon the priest with care ; 
 The burnished cups he next displays, 
 Preserved for mass on holy days. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 217 
 
 XXI. 
 
 When this with cautious hand was done, 
 
 Before the priest he stands ; 
 Devoutly to the shrine moves on, , 
 
 The mass-book in his hands. 
 And right and left he meekly kneels, 
 And careful at the signal wheels ; 
 And when the words of " Sanctus " came, 
 His bell thrice tinkled at the name. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Then as the priest with reverence bowed, 
 
 Kneeling before the shrine, 
 And high, with hands uplifted, showed 
 
 The Eucharist divine ; 
 The sacristan, observing well, 
 Rings loudly with his little bell ; 
 All cross their brows, their bosoms beat, 
 And Christ the Saviour kneeling greet. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Thus careful he performed each part 
 
 With readiness and skill ; 
 He knew the sacred rites by heart, 
 
 And served with cheerful will ; 
 Served till the close unwearied thus ; 
 Till with " Vobiscum Dominus " 
 The priest before the people bends, 
 The holy service blessing ends. 
 
218 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Then where the priests their vessels kept, 
 
 The sacred gear he laid ; 
 With busy hand the church he swept ; 
 
 This done, no longer stayed ; 
 But now with conscience in repose, 
 Straight to the forge with speed he goes ; 
 And yet his heart still bids him say 
 Twelve Pater-Nosters by the way. 
 
 xxv. 
 And as he sees the curling flames, 
 
 And near the workmen stand, 
 " Have ye obeyed," the youth exclaims, 
 
 " Our master s strict command ? " 
 The hateful demons grin at this, 
 And pointing to the hot abyss, 
 " We merit trust, the count will own, 
 For nothing s left of flesh or bone." 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 And swift the nearest pathway home 
 
 The page returning took ; 
 But as his master saw him come, 
 
 He gazed with doubting look. 
 "Whence com st thou, wretch? I fain would 
 
 know." 
 
 " I come from yonder forge." " Not so ; 
 Or hast thou loitered by the way ? " 
 " My lord, I tarried but to pray. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 219 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 As from thy face my steps I bent 
 
 This very morn, forgive, 
 To ask my duty first I went 
 
 To her, for whom I live. 
 Go, hear the mass/ my lady said ; 
 Her words I willingly obeyed ; 
 And thrice my sacred beads went through 
 For her salvation and for you." 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 The count was rapt in deep amaze, 
 
 And horror o er him fell ; 
 " What answer, where the forges blaze, 
 
 Was made thee ? Quickly tell." 
 " They pointed to the curling smoke, 
 And darkly thus the ruffians spoke ; 
 We merit trust, the count will own, 
 For nothing s left of flesh or bone/ 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 " And Robert ? " cold with curdling blood 
 
 The count impatient cried ; 
 " This morn I sent him to the wood ; 
 
 Hast thou his track espied ?" 
 " In field and forest, sire, I ve been, 
 But Robert s footsteps have not seen." 
 " Now," cries the count, and looks aghast, 
 " Our God himself hath sentence passed." 
 
220 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 The count, unused to actions bland, 
 Beyond his wont grew kind ; 
 
 And grasps his faithful servant s hand, 
 And hastes his spouse to find. 
 
 " I pray thy favor for this child ; 
 
 No angel is so undefiled ; 
 
 The traitor s malice is revealed ; 
 
 God and his hosts the guiltless shield." 
 
 THE DIVISION OP THE EAIITH. 
 
 SoniLLEE. 
 
 Take ye the world," cried Jove from heaven s far height 
 To mortals ; " take it all to keep, or spend ; 
 I give it for your heritance and right, 
 But share it wisely, friend with friend." 
 
 To seize his part, in busy haste, uprose 
 Both young and old, whoever had but hands ; 
 The hunter through the forest lordly goes, 
 The farmer grasps the fruit of lands. 
 
 His magazines with wares the merchant loads, 
 The abbot stores the choicest vineyards wine ; 
 The king bars up the bridges and the roads, 
 And loud proclaims The tithe is mine. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 221 
 
 At last, when the division long was o er, 
 Prom some far distant spot the poet came ; 
 He came too late ! for there was nothing more ; 
 Owners appeared each gift to claim. 
 
 " Alas ! Alas ! Shall I then, I of all, 
 Thy truest offspring, be forgot alone ?" 
 Thus to the God did he complaining call, 
 And threw himself before Jove s throne. 
 
 " If in the land of dreams thou wouldst delay," 
 Replied the God, " then quarrel not with me ; 
 Where wast thou when the world was given away ?" 
 " I was," replied the bard, " with thee. 
 
 " Mine eye hung dazzled on thy features bright, 
 Mine ear upon thy heavens sweet harmonies ; 
 Forgive the soul, that blinded with thy light, 
 Lost earth, to revel in the skies." 
 
 " What shall I do ? " says Jove ; " I ve nought to give, 
 The harvest, market, chase, no more are mine ; 
 But dost thou wish with me in heaven to live, 
 Come when thou wilt, that heaven is thine." 
 
 MY CREED. 
 
 SCHIIXEE. 
 
 What s my religion ? None of all the sects, 
 Which thou hast named. " And why not ? " From 
 religion. 
 
222 TRANSLATIONS-. 
 
 THE SKEPTICS. 
 
 SOHILLEB. 
 
 Men now prove all tilings, search within, without ; 
 Truth ! how canst thou escape the fierce pursuit ? 
 With staves and nets have they gone out to take thee ; 
 Thou, like a spirit, marchest through the crowd. 
 
 KANT AND HIS COMMENTATORS. 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 How one rich man so many beggars feeds ! 
 When monarchs build, the draymen find employ. 
 
 COLUMBUS. 
 
 SCHILLEE. 
 
 Sail, fearless mariner, though slower wits 
 
 Speak lightly of thy daring, and the hands 
 
 Of the spent helmsman sink so wearily. 
 
 Stih 1 to the west ; there shall the shore be found, 
 
 Distant, yet by thy reason clearly seen. 
 
 Trust in the God that guides thee ; follow still 
 
 The world s wide ocean, though its silent waves 
 
 Should nought reveal ; for did not yet the land 
 
 Exist, e en now twould rise for thee to being. 
 
 Nature and genius in eternal league 
 
 Are joined ; and one performs, what one has promised 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 223 
 
 THE WORDS OF FAITH. 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 Three words I repeat ; and then* meaning is high ; 
 
 From spirit to spirit they go ; 
 Though with us, they never are seen by the eye ; 
 
 Their truth can the heart only know ; 
 The glory of man overshadowed will be, 
 When he ceases to cherish and trust in the three. 
 
 For Liberty man was created ; in chains 
 
 His freedom he never can lose ; 
 Nor doubt, though the rabble her sanctity stains, 
 
 And fools the high watchword abuse ; 
 Should slaves burst their fetters, be glad without fear ; 
 Nor tremble at danger when freemen draw near. 
 
 And Virtue is more than a perishing sound ; 
 
 She can bloom in your deeds while ye live ; 
 The weakness of mortals your efforts may bound, 
 
 Yet man for perfection may strive ; 
 The wisdom that pride from the learned conceals, 
 The life of the guileless in action reveals. 
 
 And God lives ; his infinite spirit hath power, 
 
 Though man s fickle will is but nought ; 
 High rules above space and the hurrying hour 
 
 The Father of life and of thought. 
 While the world of decay and of changes complains, 
 Serene mid the changes his spirit remains. 
 
224 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 The three words ye should cherish ; their meaning 
 
 is high ; 
 
 Prom mind be they echoed to mind ; 
 They are with us, though ne er are they seen by the 
 
 eye, 
 
 But their witness within us they find. 
 The glory of man never darkened can be, 
 So long as he firmly believes in the three. 
 
 THE FLOWER ANGELS. 
 
 RlJEOKEET. 
 
 As delicate forms, as is thine, dearest love, 
 And beauty like thine have the angels above ; 
 Yet men cannot see them, tho often they come 
 On visits to earth from their heavenly home. 
 
 Thou ne er wilt behold them ; but if thou wouldst know 
 The houses, wherein, when they wander below, 
 The angels are fondest of passing their hours, 
 I ll tell thee, fair maiden ; they dwell in the flowers. 
 
 Each flower, as it blossoms, expands to a tent, 
 
 For the house of a visiting angel meant ; 
 
 From his flights o er the earth he may there find repose, 
 
 Till again to his sky -built pavilion he goes. 
 
 And the angel his resting-place keeps in repair, 
 As every good man of his mansion takes care ; 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 225 
 
 All around he adorns it and colors it well, 
 And much he s delighted within it to dwell. 
 
 True sunshine of gold from the splendor of day 
 He borrows, his roof all with light to inlay ; 
 The hues of each season to aid him he calls, 
 And stains with the brightest his bedchamber walls. 
 
 o 
 
 The bread angels eat, from the flowers finest meal 
 He bakes, so that hunger he never can feel ; 
 He brews from the dew-drops a drink fresh and good, 
 And every thing does which a housekeeper should. 
 
 And greatly the flowers as they blossom rejoice, 
 That the angel has made them the home of his choice , 
 And when from his roamings the angel ascends, 
 The flower falls asunder, the stalk downward bends. 
 
 If thou, my dear lady, in truth art inclin d 
 
 The spirits of paradise near thee to find, 
 
 Give thought to the flowers, and become their true 
 
 lover, 
 And angels around thee will constantly hover. 
 
 A flower do but plant near thy window-glass, 
 And through it no image of evil can pass ; 
 When thou goest abroad, on thy breast let appear 
 A nosegay, and trust me "an angel is near. 
 15 
 
226 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Do but water the lilies at breaking of day, 
 
 Through the hours of the morn thou lt be fairer than 
 
 they; 
 
 A rose at thy couch for a sentinel keep, 
 And angels will rock thee on roses to sleep. 
 
 No sorrowful dreams can approach to thy bed, 
 For round thee an angel his sentry will spread ; 
 And whatever visions thy watchman to thee 
 Permits to come in, very good ones they ll be. 
 
 When thus thou art kept by a flower- woven spell, 
 Shouldst thou now and then dream that I love thee 
 
 right well, 
 
 Be sure that with fervor and truth I adore thee, 
 Or the angel had ne er set mine image before thee. 
 
 TO A FLOWER. 
 
 ElST. 
 
 
 
 That thou bloomest in colors the fairest, 
 That the sun paints the garment thou wearest, 
 That thou rt splendid in purple and gold, 
 Can my Rose without envy behold. 
 
 That the bee so often caresses thee, 
 That the sick man so gratefully blesses thee, 
 And physicians report thou canst heal, 
 This my Rose hath no wish to conceal. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 227 
 
 For in these and in all things beside, 
 Her perfection can laugh at thy pride ; 
 Thou art first of the flowers of the field ; 
 All that s created to Rose must yield. 
 
 Thy fair clothes will wither away ; 
 Thy bright hues of what use are they ? 
 Oft lurks poison thy petals beneath ; 
 Often thy juices are laden with death. 
 
 What is beauty that never can speak ? 
 What are flowers which any may break ? 
 What is grace, that can carol no song ? 
 Nothing to Rose, to whom hearts belong. 
 
 What makes heaven of earthly hours, 
 What in beauty surpasses the flowers, 
 What with Philomel s voice may compare, 
 What is purer than pearls and more rare, 
 
 What hath friendliness winsornest art, 
 What by virtue can quicken the heart, 
 What hath attractions that never will fade, 
 Makes my Rose a faultless maid. 
 
 A SICILIAN SONG. 
 
 MELI. 
 
 Tell me, whither art thou going, 
 Where so early, little bee ? 
 
228 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Still no beam of day is glowing 
 On the hills so near to thee. 
 
 Still the dews of night are sparkling 
 Every where along the world ; 
 
 Heed thee, lest thou injure, darkling, 
 Thy bright wings, so fine with gold. 
 
 See, the languid flowers are sleeping, 
 Pillowing mid the leaves their heads, 
 
 Softly closed their eyelids keeping, 
 Rest upon their downy beds. 
 
 But still onwards thou art flying, 
 Onwards still, and far away ; 
 
 Tell me, whither art thou hieing, 
 Little bee, thus ere the day ? 
 
 Is t for honey ? Why this fleetness ? 
 
 Shut thy wings and roam no more ; 
 I will show thee where its sweetness 
 
 Lies in unexhausted store. 
 
 Little wanderer, hast thou never 
 Seen my Nice s beauteous eyes? 
 
 On her lips there s honey ever ; 
 Sweetness there for ever lies. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 229 
 
 On the lip of her, the fairest, 
 
 On my lovely maiden s lip, 
 There is honey, purest, rarest, 
 
 Couldst thou there but freely sip. 
 
 PERSIAN PROVERB. 
 
 The diamond s a jewel, in earth though it lie, 
 And dust still is dust, when tis blown to the sky. 
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 TAABBETA SHEBEAS. 
 
 Taabbeta Sherran wooed a girl of the family of the 
 Absites. And she, desiring to marry him, appointed 
 the wedding day but when he came to her alone, she 
 changed her mind and rejected him. Then said he, 
 " What hath changed thee ? " She answered : " By 
 Allah, thy renown is very greal, but my family says to 
 me, what will you do with a husband, who will be 
 killed to-day or to-morrow, and leave you a widow ? " 
 At this he turned away and spake these words : 
 
 " Espouse not the chieftain, in conflicts delighting," 
 They called to the maiden I panted to wed ; 
 
 " When next he shall share in the perils of fighting, 
 The blade of the sword with his blood shall be fed." 
 
230 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Then doubt seized the maiden; she trembled with 
 
 sorrow ; 
 She feared that the brave one who round him had 
 
 flung 
 
 The night for a robe, slain in battle to-morrow, 
 Would leave her to mourn as a widow while young. 
 
 His passions in slumber but seldom he hushes ; 
 
 The wrongs of his sires to avenge is his trade ; 
 And thirsting for prey like a whirlwind he rushes 
 
 To strike his dark foe, in full armor array d. 
 
 To cope with his arm strive the young men, who cherish 
 A wish for their prowess in war to be known, 
 
 And ennoble their tribe ; as beneath him they perish, 
 They cannot increase the renown he has won. 
 
 The caves of wild beaste give him shelter till morning j 
 The broods of the forest grow used to his ways ; 
 
 And as he goes forth at the light s early dawning 
 They heed not his presence but fearlessly graze. 
 
 They see the young archer who joys not in chases, 
 Nor loves gainst the beasts the sharp arrow to send; 
 
 And oh ! could they warm to affection s embraces, 
 The hand of affection they d reach to their friend. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 231 
 
 Oft lies he in waiting, then suddenly flashes 
 With might on the warriors he longs to engage ; 
 
 Down, down on his foes from the ambush he dashes, 
 And ever will dash, till he s chilled thro with age. 
 
 The masters of camels complain they have found him 
 A plague, ever seizing on herds not his own ; 
 
 Yet chase him they dare not when comrades are round 
 
 him ; 
 And chase him they dare not, e en when he s alone. 
 
 He, that clings to his enemy, yields up his breath 
 
 Or sooner or later on places of death ; 
 And long should I nourish, well know I, that yet 
 
 Death s blade, flashing brightly, must one day be met. 
 
 THE MOURNFUL HISTORY OF THE NOBLE WIFE OF 
 ASAN AGA. 
 
 What so whitely gleams in yonder wood ? 
 Is it snow ? or is t the swan s white brood ? 
 Were it snow, twould melt beneath the day ; 
 Were it swans, they would have flown away. 
 Tis not snow, nor swans, that hide the ground ; 
 Asan Aga s tents are spread around ; 
 Languishing of wounds he suffers there ; 
 Mother, sister, to his couch repair ; 
 
232 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 But liis cherished wife remains at home ; 
 Stayed by bashful love, she dares not come. 
 Healed his wounds ; yet ere he left his tent, 
 To his wife a hard behest he sent ; 
 " In my court with mine no longer wait ; 
 Thou shalt dwell no more within my gate." 
 
 
 
 When she heard her husband s stern commands, 
 Smote with grief, the faithful woman stands ; 
 Sounds of trampling horse anon were heard, 
 She foreboded, " Asan comes, my lord : " 
 Downward from the tower she runs to leap, 
 But her two fair daughters near her weep ; 
 Crying, Asan s horses draw not near ; 
 Comes thy brother Pintorovich here." 
 
 And to meet her brother she descends ; 
 Sobbing loudly o er his neck she bends ; 
 " See thy sister s shame ; my lord doth drive 
 From her home the mother of these five." 
 
 Silent was her brother ; forth he drew, 
 Bound in silk of deepest scarlet hue, 
 Her divorce, which, written with due care, 
 Bids her to her mother s house repair, 
 And dissolves her ancient nuptial vows, 
 That she s free to take another spouse. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 233 
 
 When the lady saw the fell divorce, 
 That dissolved her nuptial vows perforce, 
 Kissed she first the foreheads of her sons, 
 Kissed her daughters cheeks, the lovely ones, 
 But for grief she cannot turn away 
 From the babe that in the cradle lay. 
 
 And her brother bids the mourner speed, 
 Swings her lightly on the rapid steed ; 
 With the trembling lady forth he rode, 
 Hastening to his father s high abode. 
 
 Short the time, not seven days o er them ran, 
 
 Short the time, and many a princely man 
 
 Woos our lady in her widowed life, 
 
 Woos our lady for his wedded wife. 
 
 Most renowned, Imoski Cadi wooed ; 
 
 Of her brother thus the lady sued ; 
 
 " I conjure thee, brother, by thy life 
 
 Give me not to be another s wife, 
 
 Tor my poor, beloved children s sake, 
 
 Lest the sight of them my heart should break." 
 
 But her brother, on her nuptials bent, 
 Yields not her pure purpose his consent ; 
 Yet of prayers the good wife makes no end ; 
 Brother, at the least, a message send 
 
234 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 r 
 
 And Imoski Cadi thus entreat ; 
 " Thee, the widow doth in friendship greet, 
 And with reverence doth she earnest pray, 
 Hither when thy bands attend thy way, 
 Tell thy train an ample veil to bring, 
 That my face beneath it covering, 
 Asan s house concealed I may pass by, 
 Nor on my dear orphans cast mine eye." 
 
 Scarce this message had the Cadi read, 
 When he calls the horsemen whom he led, 
 And to journey towards his bride prepares, 
 And the veil she wished for, with him bears, 
 
 Safely to the princess house they come ; 
 Safely turn to gain Imoski s home ; 
 But when Asan s dwelling they drew nigh, 
 Lo ! the children saw the train pass by, 
 Saw their mother from above, and call ; 
 " Mother, come again to thine own hall ; 
 With thy children eat the evening meal." 
 Then did Asan s spouse deep anguish feel, 
 And she prays the prince to give command, 
 That awhile his men and horses stand, 
 " Till to my dear little ones I bring 
 Each a gift, my latest offering." 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 235 
 
 And they halted at the children s door ; 
 Gifts she gave these poor ones from her store ; 
 Gave the boys fine boots all worked with gold ; 
 Gave the maidens robes, rich to behold ; . 
 To the babe, that in the cradle lay, 
 Gave a small coat for a future day. 
 
 This saw Asan Aga from aside, 
 " Poor dear little ones," he mournful cried, 
 " Come to me ; your mother s breast is steel, 
 "Firmly locked can no compassion feel." 
 
 Asan s spouse heard that, could bear no more, 
 Pale and trembling sank upon the floor, 
 And her ransomed soul escaped on high, 
 When she saw her children from her fly. 
 
 MY GODDESS. 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 Who of Heaven s immortal train 
 Shall the highest prize obtain ? 
 Strife I would with all give o er, 
 But there s one I ll aye adore, 
 Ever new, and ever changing, 
 Through the paths of marvel ranging, 
 Dearest in her father s eye, 
 Jove s own darling, Fantasy. 
 
236 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 For to her, and her alone, 
 All his secret whims are known ; 
 And in all her faults despite 
 * Is the maid her sire s delight. 
 
 Oft with aspect mild she goes, 
 Decked with lilies and the rose, 
 Walks among the flowery lands, 
 Summer s insect swarm commands, 
 And for food with honeyed lips 
 Dew drops from the blossom sips. 
 
 Or with darker mien and hair 
 Streaming loose in murky air, 
 With the storm she rushes by, 
 Whistling, where the crags are high, 
 And with hues of thousand dyes 
 Like the late and early skies, 
 Changes and is changed again, 
 Fast as moons, that wax and wane. 
 
 Him, the ancient sire we ll praise, 
 Who, as partner of our days, 
 Hath to mortal man allied 
 Such a fair, unfading bride. 
 
 For to us alone she s given, 
 And is bound by bonds of heaven, 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 237 
 
 Still to be our faithful bride, 
 And though joy, or woe betide, 
 Ne er to wander from our side. 
 
 Other tribes, that have their birth 
 From the fruitful, teeming earth, 
 All, through narrow life remain 
 In dark pleasures, gloomy pain, 
 Live their being s narrow round, 
 To the passing moment bound, 
 And unconscious roam and feed, 
 Bent beneath the yoke of need. 
 
 But to us with kind intent 
 He his frolic daughter sent ; 
 Nursed with fondest tenderness, 
 Welcome her with love s caress ; 
 And take heed, that none but she 
 Mistress of the mansion be. 
 
 And of Wisdom s power beware, 
 Lest the old stepmother dare 
 Rudely harm the tender fair. 
 
 Yet I know Jove s elder child, 
 Graver, and serenely mild, 
 My belov d, my tranquil friend ; 
 From me never may she wend ; 
 
238 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 She, that knows with ill to cope, 
 And to action urges, Hope. 
 
 THE VIOLET. 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 A violet blossom d on the green, 
 With lowly stem, and bloom unseen ; 
 It was a sweet, wee flower. 
 A shepherd maiden came that way 
 With lightsome step and aspect gay, 
 Came near, came near, 
 Came o er the green with song. 
 
 Ah ! thought the violet, might I be 
 The fairest flower on all the lea, 
 Ah ! but for one brief hour j 
 And might be plucked by that dear maid, 
 And gently on her bosom laid, 
 Ah but, ah but, 
 A few dear moments long. 
 
 Alas ! the maiden as she passed, 
 No eye upon the violet cast ; 
 She crush d the poor, wee flower ; 
 It sank, and dying heaved no sigh, 
 And if I die, at least I die 
 By her, by her, 
 Beneath her feet I die. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 239 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 Man loves of a better existence to dream, 
 
 That may gladden a coming race ; 
 He sees the bright goal, and its glittering beam 
 
 He follows in restless chase. 
 
 The world may grow old, and grow youthful again, 
 But hopes in the future unclouded remain. 
 
 Tis by hope that man into life is led ; 
 
 She flutters round boyhood s bloom ; 
 O er youth all her brilliant enchantments are spread ; 
 
 She sleeps not with age in the tomb ; 
 Though life s weary labors are closed in the grave, 
 Still o er it the branches of hope greenly wave. 
 
 Tis no vain illusion from folly that came, 
 
 To natter and cheat the mind, 
 That man, as all hearts in their fervor proclaim, 
 - Eor a happier world is designed ; 
 And ne er will the voices within us deceive 
 The reason that hopes, or the souls that believe. 
 
 SONG OF THE CAPTIVE COUNT. 
 
 GOETHE. 
 Count. 
 
 A flower, that s wondrous fair I know, 
 My bosom holds it dear, 
 
240 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 To seek that flower I long to go, 
 But ain imprison d here. 
 Tis no light grief oppresses me ; 
 For in the days my steps were free, 
 I had it always near. 
 
 Far round the tower I send mine eye, 
 The tower so steep and tall ; 
 But nowhere can the flower descry 
 From this high castle wall ; 
 And him who ll brino- me mv desire, 
 
 o / 
 
 Or be he knight, or be he squire, 
 My dearest friend I ll call. 
 
 Eose. 
 
 My blossoms near thee I disclose, 
 And hear thy wretched plight ; 
 Thou meanest me, no doubt, the rose, 
 Thou noble, hapless knight. 
 A lofty mind in thee is seen, 
 And in thy bosom reigns the queen 
 Of flowers, as is her right. 
 
 Count. 
 
 Thy crimson bud I duly prize 
 In outer robe of green ; 
 For this thou rt dear in maiden s eyes, 
 As gold and jewels sheen ; 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 241 
 
 Thy wreath adorns the fairest brow, 
 And yet the flower it is not thou, 
 Whom my still wishes mean. 
 
 Lily. 
 
 The little rose has cause for pride, 
 And upwards aye will soar ; 
 Yet am I held by many a bride 
 The rose s wreath before. 
 And beats thy bosom faithfully, 
 And art thou true, and pure as I, 
 Thou lt prize the lily more. 
 
 Count. 
 
 I call myself both chaste and pure, 
 And free from passions low ; 
 And yet these walls my limbs immure 
 In loneliness and woe. 
 Though thou dost seem, in white array d, 
 Like many a fair and spotless maid, 
 One dearer thing I know. 
 
 Pink. 
 
 And dearer I, the pink, must be, 
 And me thou sure dost choose, 
 Or else the gardener ne er for me 
 Such watchful care would use ; 
 A crowd of leaves in circling bloom ! 
 And mine through life the sweet perfume, 
 
 And all the thousand hues ! 
 16 
 
242 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Count. 
 
 The pink can no one justly slight, 
 The gard ner s favorite flower ; 
 He sets it now beneath the light, 
 Now shields it from its power. 
 Yet tis not pomp, which o er the rest 
 In splendor shines, can make me blest 
 It is a still small flower. 
 
 Violet. 
 
 I stand concealed, and bending low, 
 And do not love to speak ; 
 Yet will I, as tis fitting now, 
 My wonted silence break. 
 For if tis I, thou gallant man, 
 Thy heart desires, thine, if I can, 
 My perfumes all I ll make. 
 
 Count. 
 
 The violet I esteem indeed, 
 So modest and so kind ; 
 Its fragrance sweet, yet more I need, 
 To soothe my anguish d mind. 
 To you the secret I confess ; 
 Here mid this rocky dreariness, 
 My love I ne er shall find. 
 
 The truest wife by yonder brook 
 Will roam the mournful day, 
 And hither cast the anxious look, 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 243 
 
 Long as immured I stay. 
 Whene er she breaks a small blue flower, 
 And says, Forget me not ! the power 
 I feel, though far away. 
 
 Yes, e en though far, I feel its might, 
 For true love joins us twain, 
 And therefore mid the dungeon s night 
 I still in life remain. 
 And sinks my heart at my hard lot, 
 I but exclaim, Forget me not ! 
 And straight new life regain. 
 
 JOY. 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 Where yonder fountain streams, 
 
 What fluttering insect gleams ? 
 
 She changes oft her hues, 
 
 As the chameleons use ; 
 
 Now white, now dark she seems ; 
 
 Now red, now blue, 
 
 Now blue, now green ; 
 
 How bright must she appear, 
 
 Could I behold her near ! 
 The Libellula sings, and flits, 
 In circles soars, nor rests her wing. 
 Hist ! on the willow now she sits 
 And now I ve caught the beauteous thing ; 
 
244 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 And gaze ; but ah ! what meets my view ? 
 Her brilliant tints a touch destroys, 
 And leaves a dark and cheerless blue. 
 This is thy fate, anatomist of thy joys. 
 
 THE DIVINE 
 
 GOETHB. 
 
 Let man, for highest ends designed, 
 Be just in action, generous, kind ; 
 He differs, by his heavenly birth, 
 From all the* tribes that roam the earth. 
 
 Hail to the spirits ! the unknown, 
 Sublime, revealed by Faith alone ; 
 Man, from his own example, learns 
 To trust in what no eye discerns. 
 
 Unfeeling nature, ruthless, cold, 
 
 Moves in her orbit, as of old ; 
 
 On just and unjust shines the sun, 
 
 And bright to all, who boldly run 
 
 Through crimes, and them who have no stain, 
 
 Glimmer the moon and all her train. 
 
 Thunder and hail, the stream, the breeze, 
 Rush onward in their course, and seize, 
 Resistless, as they haste along, 
 One and another weak and strong. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 245 
 
 And Fortune blindly gropes her way 
 Amid the crowd, nor fears to lay 
 Her hand upon the guileless boy, 
 With curling locks, (or to destroy 
 Or bless, she recks not,) and e en now 
 She smites the aged sinner s brow. 
 
 That mighty law, whose iron sway 
 Is boundless, endless, we obey ; 
 And, following nature s changeless will, 
 Existence high designs fulfil. 
 
 And man can do, and man hath done 
 The impossible ; tis he alone 
 Continuance can to moments lend, 
 Compare and choose the nobler end. 
 
 Tis he that gives the wise their meed, 
 He may avenge the evil deed, 
 Heal, save, and to good ends unite 
 The wayward force that strays from right. 
 
 And we revere the immortal powers, 
 As if their spirits were like ours ; 
 And they but widely do, what here 
 The best have done, in narrower sphere. 
 
 Let man be generous, just, and kind, 
 Unwearied do, with, willing mind, 
 
246 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Whate er is useful, pure, and right ; 
 Thus will he leave an image bright 
 Of beings, whom our hearts e en here, 
 Forebode, commune with, and revere. 
 
 THE SALUTATION OF A SPIRIT. 
 
 [Goethe illustrates by an allegory the vanity of life. 
 The ancient castle stands in its majesty ; the heroes, 
 who have ruled in it and returned to it in victory, are 
 now but shadows; the last survivor of the house is 
 just on the point of commencing in his turn the unsuc 
 cessful pursuit after glory and happiness, resolved to 
 run his course fearlessly and in the spirit of trust. ~| 
 
 High on the castle s ancient walls 
 The warrior s shade appears ; 
 Who to the bark that s passing calls, 
 And thus its passage cheers. 
 
 Behold ! these sinews once were strong ; 
 This heart was firm and bold ; 
 Mid war and glory, feast and song, 
 My earthly years were told. 
 
 Restless through half of life I ran, 
 
 In half have sought for ease ; 
 
 What then ? Thou bark ! that sails with man 
 
 Haste, haste to cleave the seas. 
 
STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 
 
 TIME can never efface the interest of mankind in the 
 nation which set the example ef intrusting supreme 
 power to the people. The democracy of Athens, with 
 all the imperfections in every part of its public service, 
 with the abuses attending its finances, and the corrup 
 tion which finally turned the elective franchise into a 
 source of personal revenue, maintains its dignity in the 
 eyes of the world ; for there the elements of civil liberty 
 were first called into action. 
 
 We are not the blind admirers of the Athenian 
 commonwealth. No tongue can adequately praise 
 many of the results of that State ; and it would also 
 be difficult fitly to display the deficiencies in its organ 
 ization, and the gross injustice of its foreign policy. 
 Our own confederacy does not more surpass the 
 Grecian in the extent of territory over which its 
 
248 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 liberties are diffused, than in the excellence of the 
 details of its laws. It is the genius of our institutions 
 to leave every thing to find its natural level, to throw no 
 obstacles in the way of the free progress of honest in 
 dustry, to melt all the old castes of society into one 
 mass, to extend the rights of equal citizenship with 
 perfect liberality, and to prevent every thing like a 
 privileged order in the State. The Athenian common 
 wealth was, on the contraiy, eminently artificial in its 
 character ; it conceded with a chary hand the advan 
 tages of citizenship to the strangers resident on its soil. 
 The elective franchise was, mainly, an inherited dig 
 nity; the government was a species of multitudinous 
 aristocracy, where the legislators by birthright, though 
 numerous, were limited, and political power was vested 
 in the hands of a special body of men, who consumed 
 what they did not produce. To this circumstance are to 
 be attributed the greatest abuses in ancient Attica. 
 The self-same principles in human nature, which in 
 England protect the hierarchy and the nobility, pro 
 duced in Athens public festivals at the common cost, 
 and led the multitude to get their living by enacting 
 laws in the assembly, or interpreting them in the halls 
 of judicature. 
 
 The student, who attempts to look minutely into 
 the secrets of the classic world, is baffled at every effort. 
 The accounts are almost always imperfect, sometimes 
 contradictory ; and the inquirer listens to an echo, that 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 249 
 
 comes but faintly from centuries so remote. Many parts 
 of Grecian history are preserved in the most graphic 
 sketches, yet the interior of a Grecian State is known 
 only in its leading features. . The picture is exhibited 
 in a dim and wavering light ; and can we wonder, that 
 so different views have been taken of it ? Is it strange, 
 that the scholar has invested Greece with the most 
 brilliant colors which imagination can lend ? that the 
 glories of Marathon and Plateee have shed a lustre over 
 centuries, when patriotism was nearly extinct? The 
 mind has been so filled with the productions of Grecian 
 art, that attention has been diverted from ordinary 
 concerns. 
 
 The admirable work of the learned Boeckh on the 
 Public Economy of the Athenians illustrates the pecu 
 liar excellence of the Germans in critical researches. It 
 contains not a word of vague declamation from be 
 ginning to end. No topic is avoided because it is 
 difficult, nor neglected because it is minute. Instead 
 of theories we have a series of facts, selected from the 
 whole circle of classic literature. Almost every surviv 
 ing author is made to contribute some instruction ; the 
 orators most of all. Nothing seems to have escaped the 
 patient labors of this distinguished Hellenist . Every 
 passage, from which an inference could be wrung, is 
 made the subject of his consideration ; and in this way 
 he has succeeded in illustrating the employments of 
 every-day life in the best days of Athens. His investiga- 
 
250 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 tions have never been baffled except by the want of suffi 
 cient materials. He has done all that was possible ; 
 but to represent life as it was in the happiest age of 
 the city of Minerva, imagination has yet to fill up the 
 outline; and the jests of the comic writers, and the 
 anecdotes of the lovers of marvels, though fruitful 
 sources of inference, tempt curiosity without fully 
 satisfying it. 
 
 A reference to Attica recalls all our classic asso 
 ciations, and concentres them 
 
 " "Where on the JEgean shore a city stands, 
 
 Built nobly ; pure the air, and light the soil ; 
 
 Athens," the eye of Greece, mother of arts 
 
 And eloquence." 
 
 It would seem as if there the passion for gain had 
 been lost in the strife for glory ; as though no avarice 
 but that of praise had been domesticated. Who asks, 
 out of what fund the Parthenon was built ? or inquires 
 into the cost of its sculptures ? or is curious to know 
 the income of Socrates, and at what rates of interest 
 Ins little patrimony may have been lent ? Who wishes 
 to ascertain how much would have constituted an inde 
 pendent fortune in the days of Lycurgus, the Athenian 
 financier? who demands if the Athenians practised 
 free trade ? 
 
 And yet in Athens, commerce was active ; manu 
 factures were not neglected ; houses were built to let ; 
 there were no joint-stock companies, yet insurance was 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 251 
 
 not unknown ; there were no banks of circulation, yet 
 money-lenders abounded. Following the guidance of 
 Boeckh, we intend to enter into some homely state 
 ments respecting life and business at Athens, such as 
 can neither kindle the imagination nor refine the taste, 
 but may yet throw light on an important chapter in 
 the history of the human race. Contentment with 
 our own political condition will certainly be increased 
 by a near contemplation of the free States of antiquity. 
 
 THE SUPPLY OF GOLD AND SILVER. 
 
 The ancients did not make a separate science of 
 political economy. Their treatises upon politics touch 
 upon it but incidentally ; and therefore information on 
 the condition of their finances must be gathered piece 
 meal, and by inductions. 
 
 The resources of Athens in its earlier days can 
 scarcely merit attention ; and after the loss of its inde 
 pendence, the inquiry would be less productive of 
 interest or instruction. Our discussion will chiefly 
 have reference to the time following the Persian wars, 
 and before the aggrandizement of Alexander. 
 
 In the early period of Grecian history, the quantity 
 of the precious metals increased very slowly. But 
 between the age of Solon and Demosthenes, such a 
 change was wrought by the nearer connection with 
 the East, that prices were affected in the proportion of 
 
252 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 one to five ; a change rapid beyond any thing i 
 modern history. In the days of Croesus gold could 
 hardly be purchased any where in Hellas. It was 
 more abundant in Africa and especially in Asia, where 
 the sands of Colchis, and the streams of Pactolus 
 glittered with treasure. The fable surrounded Midas 
 with nothing else ; and history keeps the record of the 
 amiable liberality as well as the hoarded treasures, and 
 pious offerings of Croesus ? The master of Celaense, a 
 town near the sources of the Maeander, himself pos 
 sessed about fifteen millions of dollars in gold. The 
 booty of Cyrus in Asia Minor was incalculably great. 
 The revenues of Darius, after defraying all the expenses 
 of the provinces and their satraps, amounted annually 
 to $12,191,400. India was ever famous for its wealth 
 in valuable ores ; and the tale of busy ants, that dug 
 for gold, is an allegory on the productiveness of her 
 mines. 
 
 The circulating medium did not increase in propor 
 tion with the quantity of bullion. The temples and 
 the public coffers were provided by a prudent super 
 stition or a grasping despotism with immense treasures 
 in the precious metals, either in massive bars, or 
 formed into works of art. The coinage was limited 
 by the seeming wants of commerce. Even in Greece 
 immense sums lay in deposit. The citadel of Athens 
 had a strong box with 87,300 dollars in cash, besides 
 many vessels of silver and gold. The treasures of 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 253 
 
 Delphi are notorious. The gifts of Croesus alone 
 amounted to not less than $3,600,000. The wealth 
 of the consecrated national isle increased with the na 
 tional victories. The Persian king entered on the 
 invasion of Greece w T ith one thousand two hundred 
 camels laden with money and precious things ; all of 
 which became the prey of the victors. When the 
 Phocians, of a later age, laid sacrilegious hands on the 
 treasures of Delphi, they coined from them about 
 $9,000,000 in value. 
 
 The currency of Greece received further additions 
 from the system of .bribery practised by Philip ; but 
 after the conquest of Asia by Alexander, coin flowed 
 in upon Europe in still broader channels. The trea 
 sures which he found collected in the Persian empire 
 were very considerable. The amount taken at Susa 
 and Persis was $45,000,000, at Pasargada $5,400,000, 
 and at Persepolis $108,000,000. The sum amassed 
 at Ecbatana, is said by Strabo, no contemptible au 
 thority, to have amounted to $162,000,000. 
 
 Alexander s liberality corresponded with this im 
 mense wealth. The expenses of his table were $1,500 
 daily ; and he paid the debts of his soldiers, amounting 
 to about $8,883,000. The funeral ceremonies of 
 Hephaestion are said to have cost $10,800,000. The 
 grateful, monarch deemed $720,000 no unreasonable 
 appropriation to further the investigations of Aristotle 
 in Natural History ; and it was an offer of $900,000 
 
254 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 which Phocion refused. His yearly revenue from Asia 
 was $27,000,000 ; and he left a treasure of no more 
 than $45,000,000. 
 
 His satraps must have been very rich. Harpalus, 
 who fled to Athens, was estimated to have amassed 
 $4,500,000, though he declared in Greece, that he had 
 but $674,000. 
 
 The wealth of the successors of Alexander was 
 equally extraordinary. A single festival of the Ptol 
 emies cost $2,000,000 ; and, at the lowest computa 
 tion, the treasure left by Ptolemy Philadelphus amount 
 ed to the enormous sum of $166,000,000. Some 
 estimate it four tunes as high. It is difficult to believe 
 the account, but not impossible. Egypt was at that 
 time the richest country in the world ; and had almost 
 a monopoly of the commerce with the East. Nor is it 
 half so strange, as that the debt of a modern nation 
 should have grown to be four thousand millions of 
 dollars. The revenue from the customs in Egypt was 
 $13,000,000 annually. The annual taxes in Ccelo- 
 Syria, Phenicia, Judea, and Samaria, were farmed out 
 for more than $14,000,000. 
 
 The precious metals existed in very great abun 
 dance in the Levant, but the custom of collecting great 
 masses of these treasures, tended to prevent the pro 
 portionate increase of the circulating medium. So 
 many temples, so many cities, so many provincial 
 satraps, so many despotic princes withdrew the com 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 255 
 
 from circulation to reserve it in deposits, that prices 
 were not reduced in the degree which we might -have 
 inferred from the mention of such enormous sums. 
 Great quantities also existed in the shape of works of 
 art ; and the shrines of many a Grecian Deity were 
 adorned with images and costly vessels wrought out of 
 " barbaric gold." 
 
 The amount of the coinage of Athens has been 
 variously estimated. The basis of calculation is the 
 weight of such pieces of money as have been preserved. 
 We find that as near an approximation as we can 
 make, gives fifteen cents for the drachma, and of course 
 for the mina $15, and $900 for the talent. This is the 
 basis which we follow. It is a little more than the one 
 usually given in English books ; yet a little below the 
 calculations of Barthelemy. An obolus is of course 
 taken to be two cents and a half. 
 
 The Greeks reckoned according to drachmas; as 
 the French according to francs. The usual idea has 
 been, as to the difference between ancient and modern 
 prices, that one dollar was worth in the best days of 
 Athens what ten dollars are now. Boeckh makes the 
 difference no greater than as one to three. We think 
 that he has not reduced it unreasonably. If prices at 
 modern Athens or at Naples are compared with the 
 statement which we shall presently give, the view of 
 the distinguished Hellenist will probably be confirmed. 
 
 The Athenian coinage, to which we have alluded, 
 
256 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 was the one established by Solon. Before his time the 
 drachma was worth more. Out of seventy-two and a 
 half drachmas of the old coin, he made one hundred. 
 In this change, creditors as well as debtors acquiesced. 
 
 The value of gold, as compared with silver, varied 
 with times and places. It was usually considered to be 
 as ten to one. In the time of Plato, it was as twelve to 
 one ; Herodotus says as thirteen to one. In the Bospho- 
 rus, in the age of Demosthenes, it was as fourteen to one. 
 Among the Romans, in the year 564 of Rome, that is, 
 190 years before Christ, one third of a sum of money 
 paid by the JEtolians was taken in gold, at the rate of 
 one for ten, to the grievance of the ^Etolians. Under 
 Caesar, the gold from Gaul reduced the rate so that it 
 became as one to eight and thirteen-fourteenths ; while 
 in the fifth century of the Christian era, it was as high 
 as one to eighteen. 
 
 The price of gold advanced in Greece with the 
 progress of business. It was much used in making 
 remittances. Soldiers were paid in it ; and Sparta 
 hoarded it in vast sums, never to be expended but for 
 warlike purposes. 
 
 Gold coin was early in use. Croesus corned the 
 golden stater. Darius, the son of Hystaspis, coined 
 darics of pure gold, equal in weight to thirty cents in 
 silver, and current for three dollars. Five therefore 
 made a mina ; three hundred a talent. The golden 
 darics were favorite coins in Hellas. 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 257 
 
 Some of the Grecian States had a debased coinage 
 for domestic circulation. Even the Athenians once en 
 gaged in that dishonest process, but it was soon put 
 down by public opinion ; and the coin of Athens main 
 tained in commerce a high character for intrinsic value. 
 
 BUSINESS IN ATHENS. 
 
 The nearest approximation we have been able to 
 make to the contents of Attica, would allow to that 
 country, including Salamis and Helena, no more than 
 from 640 to 656 square geographical miles. The an 
 cients called Athens the most populous city of Greece. 
 Its inhabitants were composed of three separate 
 classes; citizens, resident strangers, and slaves. Of 
 the former, the average number was 20,000. Allowing 
 the proportion of 4^ to include the women and minors, 
 we shall have 90,000 as the number of the free native 
 inhabitants of Attica. A similar mode of calculation 
 gives 45,000 for the number of free strangers, whom 
 business or pleasure had domiciliated. The census 
 taken by Demetrius gives 400,000 slaves. If we 
 consider this estimate as excessive, the number of slaves 
 may still have been 365,000. Thus 90,000 citizens, 
 45,000 sojourners, and 365,000 slaves, in all 500,000 
 souls, may have occupied the soil of Attica. 
 
 The free population was to the slave about as one 
 to four. The surprising disproportion between the 
 17 
 
258 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 free and the slave population is corroborated by 
 circumstantial as well as direct evidence. Every 
 body was served by slaves; even the poorer citizen 
 owned some miserable dru dge. The manufactories 
 were supplied by them; the rich had throngs of 
 attendants ; some philosophers were not content with 
 less than ten. The father of Demosthenes employed 
 more than fifty in his business, beside the female 
 slaves of his household. Plato says, that rich men 
 often had fifty slaves. 
 
 This immense number of slaves left the free citi 
 zens of Attica no occupation but politics. They were 
 literally crowded out of every other pursuit. Thus the 
 Athenians lived either on the revenues derived from 
 their possessions, or by serving in the courts and 
 popular assemblies, or by pursuing some of those 
 nobler arts, which genius exercised, and the popular 
 pride cultivated and gratified.- 
 
 Athens had 10,000 houses. Fourteen souls to a 
 house would seem too large an allowance; and yet 
 many of the houses were built on purpose to be occu 
 pied by several families. The mining district was also 
 very populous. The harbor of the Pirseeus was likewise 
 crowded with tenements. Allow then for the mining 
 district 20,000, for the city 140,000, for the harbor 
 40,000, and we shall have left for the country 300,000 
 souls ; or about 500 to the square geographical mile. 
 The number seems incredibly large; it is still more 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 259 
 
 difficult to disbelieve the estimate. We must remem 
 ber, that Attica was the head of a number of States, 
 the mistress of the sea, and the territory in which 
 wealth, manufactures and business were concentrated. 
 
 Its soil was not unproductive. The mild climate 
 ripened all excellent fruits ; the arts of agriculture 
 were greatly advanced ; the oil of Attica is famous even 
 to this day ; and its classic hills, of which every peak 
 has been the haunt of a god, or the theme of a poet, 
 are still crowned with rows of olives ; 
 
 " And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields." 
 Attica did not abound in horses. At the battle of 
 Marathon there was no cavalry. The fisheries were 
 good ; the mines of silver productive ; the quarries of 
 marble, which still gleam in the glare of the bright 
 day, even then constituted an important article of 
 export. 
 
 The mechanic arts were originally in low repute . 
 None of the ancient nobility were willing to engage in 
 them ; but the mechanics afterwards gained great 
 power in the commonwealth, and Cleon the tanner 
 was among the favored successors of Pericles. Yet 
 manufactures were liberally encouraged. Freedom of 
 competition was permitted ; strangers thronged to 
 Attica to engage in business, and their industry fur 
 nished a large amount of exports. Prices were kept 
 up by the great foreign demand, and the high rates 
 of interest exacted by the capitalist rendered large 
 
260 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 profits necessary. Great quantities of arms, various 
 kinds of cutlery, and cloths were exported. 
 
 Aitica was thus enabled to procure from abroad 
 the products which her own soil could not furnish in 
 sufficient abundance. No law prohibited the exporta 
 tion of specie. On the contrary, the purity of the 
 Attic coinage often made its export advantageous ; 
 the want of bills of exchange frequently rendered it 
 necessary. In the Pirseeus, as in the harbor of our own 
 splendid commercial emporium, the produce of every 
 clime was to be found. The dominion of the sea, says 
 Xenophon, secured to the Athenians the sweets of the 
 world. Nor would the Athenian ships in point of size 
 have suffered from a comparison with the New York 
 packets. Demosthenes speaks of one, which carried 
 three hundred men, besides its cargo, slaves, and com 
 plement of sailors. 
 
 That honorable employment, which has such an 
 absorbing charm to the lovers of intelligence, that 
 trade, which is emphatically THE TRADE, did not 
 nourish of yore in the city of Minerva. There was 
 indeed a book-maker in Athens ; and books were ex 
 ported even across the Euxine ; but they were chiefly 
 blank books ; the day of glory did not dawn on the 
 trade till the reign of Augustus. The sale of manu 
 scripts for profit was so uncommon in the time of 
 Plato, that Hermodoras of Sicily, the oldest bookseller 
 of whom we read, and who sold the writings of his 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 261 
 
 illustrious contemporary, came to be a proverb. In the 
 youth of Zeno, however, there were some incipient 
 establishments for vending books in Athens. 
 
 The credit system, so important in modern com 
 merce, was but partially understood by the ancients. 
 Hence there were none of those commotions and pres 
 sures in the money-market, to which our cities are ex 
 posed. The indorser was bound for a year. The laws 
 for collecting debts were very rigid ; and the rights of 
 capitalists were guarded with great strictness. The 
 rich were taxed, and taxed heavily; but they were 
 well protected. One class of frauds on the creditor 
 was punished with death. When money was lent, and 
 the proceeds of a voyage pledged as collateral security, 
 if the debtor secretly disposed of them to the injury 
 of his creditor, life was forfeited. 
 
 Commerce was suspended, or was at least inactive 
 in the winter season. That, therefore, was the time for 
 the sessions of the court which had maritime jurisdic 
 tion. If a cause was not brought to an issue, it lay 
 over to the next winter. But at a later time, the law- 
 assigned a month as the period within which an action 
 was required to be decided. 
 
 Commercial agents or consuls were not unknown. 
 The Athenians hardly had a systematized tariff; or 
 rather, then 1 position was such as to render the adop 
 tion of a protecting system wholly useless. The chief 
 commercial regulations related to the importation of 
 
262 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 corn ; of which great supplies were annually required 
 from abroad. There also occurred cases, where the 
 sale of a monopoly was made an expedient for obtain 
 ing revenue. But if Athens had no prohibitory duties, 
 because the first manufacturing district could defy 
 competition, it was not so with her neighbors. ^Egina 
 and Argos both became jealous of the wealth of Athens, 
 and the introduction of Attic manufactures was pro 
 hibited by then- laws. 
 
 The dominion of the sea was converted by Athens 
 into a despotism. She understood, no less than 
 modern England, the dismal doctrines of bloejlyide ; 
 and submission was almost the only security for a 
 commercial city, ^f a ship hoisted an independent 
 flag, it was sure to be pillaged by the Athenian 
 corsairs. Her maritime courts were as ready as ever 
 were those of the English to sustain the claim of the 
 privateer ; and it was equally difficult to get a decree 
 reversed, after a ship had been once condemned. 
 
 In the domestic market, the retail-trade was open 
 to all citizens ; foreigners might also come into compe 
 tition; though a tax, or caution-money, was exacted 
 of them. 
 
 The gains of mercantile operations were far greater 
 than at present. Yet it was unusual for a ship to 
 return with its capital doubled ; a result not at all un 
 common in the early stages of oiir own republic. A 
 Samian ship, which made for its owners a gain of 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 263 
 
 L<,000 in one voyage, was considered by Herodotus 
 something so extraordinary, that he has embalmed the 
 memory of it. 
 
 PRICES. 
 
 The fertility of the southern regions and the diffi 
 culty attending the exports to remote nations, re 
 duced the price of many commodities of easy produc 
 tion. Athens was a city, in which living was regarded 
 as expensive. We shall give some data in confir 
 mation of this opinion. But the low cost of some 
 articles, as compared with present prices, is often 
 to be attributed to a change in the state of the 
 markets, as much as to a change in the value of 
 money. 
 
 The nearest possible approximation gives thirty 
 dollars as the average price of an acre of good land 
 in Attica. In this computation, we allow four pletlira 
 to the acre ; which is nearly exact. Yet landed estates 
 were small and were greatly subdivided. Alcibiades 
 inherited no more than seventy acres ; and Phsenippus, 
 who owned three hundred and sixty, was esteemed an 
 immense landholder. 
 
 In consequence of the great extent of Athens, all 
 the land was not occupied. The houses w^ere un 
 sightly ; the streets narrow and crooked ; and the 
 Pirseeus was the only regularly built part of the city. 
 
264 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 The upper stories often overhung the street ; and stair 
 cases were generally on the outside. Private houses 
 were often built of unburnt brick. The whole expense 
 of building was inconsiderable. The prices of houses 
 varied from forty-five dollars to one thousand eight 
 hundred, according to their size, situation, and quality. 
 The latter price was unusually high ; half the sum 
 would purchase a very decant dwelling-house. 
 
 An able-bodied slave, not possessed of peculiar 
 skill, was worth not far from twenty dollars. The 
 price varied, according to his health and age, from 
 seven to thirty dollars. This proves how absurd, to say 
 nothing of its immorality, is the use of slave-labor in a 
 temperate clime. The labor of the slave would, as the 
 price proves, yield but little beyond his own support. 
 Yet a good mephanic was worth much more. The 
 better slaves, employed by the father of Demosthenes 
 in the manufacture of swords, were worth on an 
 average about seventy-five dollars ; and that sum was 
 no unusual price for a skilful workman. The divi 
 dends on the establishment of Demosthenes amounted 
 to a little less than sixteen per cent, annually; but 
 another branch of his business yielded him an annual 
 profit of thirty per cent. 
 
 A good horse was worth about forty-five dollars ; 
 but a handsome saddle, or carriage horse, would very 
 readily command one hundred and eighty dollars. Yet 
 who can set a limit to luxury in horses ? It may be 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 265 
 
 said of human nature, as of youth, gaudet equis. 
 Bucephalus brought nearly twelve thousand dollars. 
 The price of a pair of mules was from eighty to a 
 hundred and twenty dollars. In the good days of 
 Solon, before the precious metals were plenty, the pious 
 devotee could purchase an ox for the altar with sev 
 enty-five cents. But when Athens had grown rich, 
 the best beeves sold for seven and a half or even eleven 
 and a half dollars. A hecatomb cost, in one instance, 
 seven hundred and sixty-seven dollars ; in another, 
 eleven thousand and fifty-eight dollars. It is men 
 tioned as one of the expensive fooleries of Alci- 
 biades, that he gave one thousand and fifty dollars for 
 a dog. 
 
 The corn laws involve a great question in the 
 politics of Athens. Attica w r as by no means able to 
 supply its own demands for domestic consumption. 
 The residue was received partly from the Thracian 
 Chersonesus, partly from Pontus. Hence we see how 
 important was the possession of Byzantium to Athens. 
 There is reason to believe, that the annual importation 
 of bread-stuffs equalled one and a half million of 
 bushels. No corn was allowed to be exported; no 
 ship laden with it could touch at an Attic port, with 
 out selling at least two thirds of its cargo. The laws 
 threw hindrances in the way of buying up all that was 
 in the market ; the quantity which might be purchased 
 at once was limited, and the retailer was restricted to a 
 
266 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 profit of less than two cents on a bushel. All attempts 
 to forestall and monopolize were prohibited, under the 
 penalty of death. Yet the oppression of the corn 
 merchants was very great, in spite of the severity 
 of the laws, or perhaps in consequence of them. 
 
 As to prices, under Solon a bushel of wheat was 
 worth ten cents ; from 390 to 380 years before Christ, 
 about thirty cents ; in the age of Demosthenes, half a 
 dollar was esteemed a moderate demand. 
 
 The bakers of Athens carried their art to a high 
 degree of perfection ; but we have no direct criterion 
 to decide how much the good housekeepers of classic 
 name were obliged to pay for their loaves. The price 
 of corn furnishes some means of judging ; the dispro 
 portion, however, between the price of wheat and of 
 bread must have been greater than at present, in con 
 sequence of the high rates of interest. 
 
 The melretres of wine held about thirty-five quarts, 
 or (to state its contents exactly) 35 1452-10,000 
 quarts. The low price of wine in the ancient world is 
 astonishing. That produced in Attica, sold for less than 
 two cents a quart ; and very tolerable wine was often 
 sold for half that sum. Tin s proves, also, that in the 
 main the Athenians were not an intemperate race. The 
 Chian wine was worth forty-five cents a quart. In 
 upper Italy when a bushel of wheat brought ten cents, 
 a gallon of wine cost less than one. 
 
 Sweet oil was worth a little more than sixty cents 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 267 
 
 a gallon. Salt was easily imported into Athens ; it 
 was also manufactured. Of its price nothing is 
 known. Timber for building was imported ; but coals 
 and firewood were sent into the city on asses. Thirty 
 cents were asked for the quantity which an ass would 
 carry. 
 
 The style of living was as unequal as were the 
 degrees of wealth and extravagance. Alexander s 
 table cost for himself and his suite $1,500 daily, 
 and the miser in Theophrastus allowed his wife but 
 nine mills. The term opson embraced every thing but 
 bread; and seven or eight cents were considered a 
 small provision for it. Yet a slave in Terence buys a 
 meal for his old master for two and a half cents ; and 
 the lawyer Lysias complains of the guardian, who 
 charged for the opson of two boys and a little girl, the 
 extravagant sum of a New York shilling. The Athe 
 nians were very fond of fish ; and a great deal of salt- 
 fish was imported from Pontus and even from Cadiz. 
 
 The ancient world was ruled by the same human na 
 ture as the modern. The Wellington boots of modern 
 day remind us of the Alcibiades boots, and the Iphi- 
 crates shoes of antiquity. A good cloak might cost one 
 dollar and eighty cents ; and a dandy was willing to 
 give three dollars for a coat ; evidently, however, from a 
 fashionable tailor. A good pair of woman s shoes cost 
 no more than thirty cents. A very showy pair of 
 men s shoes may have cost one dollar and twenty cents 
 
268 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 Ointments were exceedingly expensive. The more 
 precious kinds brought from fifty dollars to one hun 
 dred for the gill. 
 
 There are no sufficient data on which to estimate 
 the cost of a ship. As to productiveness, we find that 
 the corn ship, Isis, of immense burden, yielded annu 
 ally for freight, $10,800. 
 
 The amount necessary for the maintenance of a 
 family, is not easily established. Socrates is supposed 
 to have lived upon an income of seventy-five dollars ; 
 but then, his manner of living was inferior to that of 
 the slaves. His coat was old and shabby, and he wore 
 the same garment both winter and summer ; he went 
 barefoot ; his chief food was bread and water ; and as 
 he engaged in no kind of business to mend his estate 
 or increase his income, it is not wonderful that his wife 
 scolded often. Demosthenes, his sister, and their 
 mother, paid for their board $105 for a year; and 
 provided the house into the bargain. A young man, 
 Mantitheus, could be educated and supported for $108 
 annually. The accounts furnish no means of arriving 
 at a definite conclusion. Who would limit at the pres 
 ent day the sum with which it is possible to preserve 
 life? 
 
 Death brought heavy expenses in its train. The 
 income of years was lavished upon the expenses of a 
 funeral ; which amounted to a sum varying from $45 
 to $1800. 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 269 
 
 The working classes received but moderate compen 
 sation. The great number of slaves, who came into 
 competition for labor, reduced the price exceedingly. 
 Mere manual labor could be procured for ten cents a 
 day ; that seems to have been the lowest rate, and is 
 not lower than the present price of labor in many parts 
 of Europe. 
 
 The fares in travelling were verysmall. From ^Egina 
 to the Piraeeus, a distance of sixteen miles, the fare was 
 but five cents. Prom Egypt to Pontus, not more than 
 thirty cents. This price is inexplicably low. A soldier 
 in the infantry received for pay and rations for himself 
 and attendant, thirty cents daily; the officers twice, 
 and the generals only four times as much. Here is a 
 great contrast with modern usage. 
 
 Public physicians were sometimes appointed. Hip 
 pocrates is t said to have received a stipend from Athens, 
 and to have been physician to the State. Democedes 
 in the 60th Olympiad, about 538 years before Christ, 
 received at ^Egina $900. He was invited to Athens 
 with a salary of $1,500 ; but Poly crates of Sarnos se 
 cured him for $1,800. In those days money was still 
 scarce. 
 
 The stars at the theatres received enormous com 
 pensation. The highest sum mentioned, is $900 for 
 two days ; which would nearly satisfy our most popu 
 lar players. 
 
 Protagoras, the Abderite, began teaching for mo- 
 
270 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 
 
 ney. He demanded for a complete course, $1,500. 
 Gorgias required as much, yet died poor. Some, find 
 ing the charges high, used to cheapen the wisdom of 
 the philosopher; just as now, copyrights are a sub 
 ject of discussion. But competition reduced prices. 
 Evenus asked only $150, in the age of Socrates ; and 
 at the same price, Isocrates taught the whole art 
 of rhetoric. Prodicus used to sell tickets for separate 
 lectures. 
 
 One per cent, a month, was the usual rate of inter 
 est ; yet there was no legal restriction of usury. The 
 trade in money, like every thing else, was left wholly 
 free, and the rates varied from ten to thirty-six per 
 cent. In cases of bottomry, this last rate was the 
 highest. It is plain, that insurance was in such cases 
 paid for, not less than the use of capital. The high 
 rates may be ascribed to the insecurity of the times ; 
 imperfect legislation ; the difficulty of pursuing a claim 
 in a foreign state ; and the faulty administration of 
 justice. 
 
 The brokers made their gain partly by exchanging 
 coin at a premium, but far more by receiving deposits 
 and lending them again at a higher rate than they 
 themselves agreed to pay. Some of them enjoyed the 
 best credit, and received money and notes on deposit. 
 Pasion, at once a banker and a broker, used to make a 
 clear profit of $1,500 annually. Bankruptcies among 
 the brokers, were not unknown. 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 271 
 
 
 
 Imprisonment for debt was not allowed. The 
 code of Solon, five hundred years before Christ, ter 
 minated at Athens that mortgaging of the body which 
 has so long deformed the codes of modern States. 
 
 It seems doubtful, whether investments in real 
 estate were profitable ones. In the cases of which 
 accounts are preserved, the returns seem not to have 
 exceeded eight or nine per cent. Yet the number of 
 those who lived in hired houses, was hardly less than 
 45,000, with a proportionate number of slaves. 
 
 
 
 PUBLIC EXPENSES. 
 
 Before the movement in favor of constitutional lib 
 erty, modern revolutions were often the result of finan 
 cial difficulties. In a democracy, no distinction can 
 possibly exist between the interests of the government 
 and the people; we find accordingly, in the ancient 
 republics, that fiscal embarrassments were not the 
 causes of civil commotions. Money was as highly 
 valued, and the expenses of Athens were proportionally 
 as great, as in modern governments ; but the an 
 cients had no public debt. They were often in distress 
 for funds ; but violent remedies were applied ; and the 
 oppression did not remain as a permanent and increas 
 ing burden on succeeding generations. 
 
 After the system of oppressing the allies was de 
 veloped, money became the chief lever in public affairs ; 
 
272 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 
 
 and the decline of the State was at hand. Yet pride 
 of character, ambition, and the hope of plunder after 
 victory, still preserved the spirit of enterprise. The 
 true policy of a popular State should be, to dimmish 
 the public expenses ; in Athens on the contrary, to the 
 great detriment of the people, new wants were contin 
 ually invented ; new sources of prodigal expenditure 
 were devised ; and the finances constantly increased in 
 political importance. 
 
 A regular annual estimate of the public revenue 
 and expenditure seems never to have been made in 
 Athens, nor to have been customary in antiquity. The 
 usual expenses were for public buildings, public 
 festivals, distributions and wages to the people for 
 legislative and judicial services, pay of the troops, 
 poor-rates, public rewards, purchases of arms, ships 
 and cavalry horses. The extraordinary expenses in 
 wars cannot be estimated. 
 
 The public buildings of Athens were, as all the 
 world knows, numerous, costly, and splendid. The 
 most opulent monarchs, the haughtiest princes, have 
 not been able to equal what the energies of the 
 Athenian multitude called into existence. The Ro 
 mans could do no more than imitate ; and when re 
 cently Prussia desired that the principal entrance into 
 its royal city might be worthy of the pride of a rising 
 power, its artists could propose nothing better than to 
 reproduce the Propylsea of Athens. The dockyard of 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 273 
 
 Athens alone cost $900,000. The fortifications were 
 on a gigantic scale. The city and its harbors were 
 protected by walls sixty feet five inches high, and broad 
 enough for two wagons to pass conveniently ; of faced 
 stone, bound by iron bolts. The city and the harbor 
 were connected by walls, one side of which measured 
 more than four and a half, the other nearly four, miles. 
 These were originally very expensive, and constantly 
 required large expenditures for repairs. The Propylasa 
 cost five years labor, and $1,810,800 in money. Add 
 to these the Odeon, the hippodromes, the aqueducts, 
 the fountains, the public baths, the ornaments of the 
 citadel, the temples of Victory, of Neptune, of Minerva, 
 all adorned with the costliest works of art, the pave 
 ments of the streets, the public road to Eleusis, the 
 numerous altars, which pious superstition prodigally 
 erected and endowed ; and it will be evident, that a 
 State of but half a million of souls must have practised 
 self-denial for the sake of public magnificence. Time 
 and the violence of man have indeed swept away most 
 of these visible representations of the power, piety, taste, 
 and luxury of the Attic democracy. Yet the ruins, 
 which remain, are the admiration of all beholders. 
 A few weather-beaten statues, a few mangled and 
 broken bas-reliefs, torn from Athens, now constitute 
 the chief wealth in sculpture, which the British empire 
 contains. Let two thousand years of adversity pass 
 over the decline of London, and what monuments 
 18 
 
274 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 would survive to tell the future inquirers, that it had 
 been the wealthiest metropolis of this age, and had 
 claimed the first rank also for intelligence as well as 
 for thrift ? Except St. Paul s (which has not the stamp 
 of eternity upon it like the Parthenon), and the Water 
 loo bridge, there is nothing which would bid defiance 
 to time, and bear testimony, to the latest generation, of 
 the grandeur of British power. The chief city of the 
 little democracy of Attica contained within its precincts 
 far more of those works of genius which elevate the 
 soul above the ordinary details of life, and quicken the 
 
 imagination. 
 
 The police of Athens seems to have been limited to 
 a patrol of armed watchmen, whose duty it was to pre 
 serve tranquillity in the streets, and to afford protection 
 to persons and property. 
 
 The festivals were a great source of extravagance. 
 The Athenians, in the early days of the republic, sacri 
 ficed liberally, to display their reverence for the gods ; 
 afterwards prodigally, that the people might riot on the 
 offerings. In the splendor and in the number of her 
 festivals, Athens surpassed all other Grecian States. 
 The poets were invited to produce their magnificent 
 dramas ; tragedy was evoked with its splendid pall and 
 its recollections of the days of demigods ; the youthful 
 beauty of the city appeared in the choirs ; music lent 
 its attractions to heighten the vivid interest of the 
 stage ; and splendid processions, with their glittering 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 275 
 
 pageantry and solemn trains, assisted in filling up a 
 holiday with spectacles that might attract and astonish 
 the rest of Greece. " You never postpone your fesfi- 
 vals," says Demosthenes, "and you lavish on them 
 larger sums than you expend for the naval service ; 
 but your fleets always arrive too late." " Count the 
 cost of their tragedies," says Plutarch, " you will find 
 that their (Edipuses, and Antigones, and Medeas, and 
 Electras, cost more than their wars for supremacy with 
 the other Greeks, and their struggles for freedom 
 against the barbarians." 
 
 But a still greater expense grew out of the direct 
 distribution of money to the people. The tribute, levied 
 from the allies, was divided among the poorer citizens, 
 whole talents at a time. Confiscated estates were 
 their plunder. The poor helped themselves out of the 
 public chest, and sometimes dined and always went to 
 the theatres at the cost of the State. 
 
 We pay our legislators, courts, and justices ; the 
 ancient Athenians went further ; they paid themselves 
 for attending town meetings. The whole number of 
 voters may have been twenty thousand, of whom the 
 majority managed all public affairs, but the rich and 
 the busy did not usually make their appearance in the 
 assemblies, where they were sure of being voted down ; 
 the needy never failed. In this way, the adminis 
 tration of Athenian affairs fell to some six or eight 
 thousand very poor men. Masters of the public 
 
276 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 treasury, and of the power of levying taxes, they 
 voted to themselves what sums they could ; till at 
 laSt they came to consider politics their trade, and 
 deemed it but fair that they should be compensated for 
 participating in legislation. As there was no represen 
 tation, and business was conducted as in our town 
 meetings, the plausible idea of paying for legislation 
 opened the way to a support for every citizen ; the rich 
 naturally declined the service as well as its emoluments, 
 and the poor citizens though very numerous, yet still 
 limited in comparison with the whole population of 
 Athens, obtained a monopoly of legislation and its 
 wages. Seven and a half cents was the liberal compen 
 sation which an Athenian citizen received for acting in 
 the supreme legislature of the State. We have reason 
 to suppose that 8,000 usually attended, so that each 
 Athenian town-meeting cost the State $600. There 
 were forty regular meetings in the year ; the annual 
 charge was therefore $24,000. 
 
 The Council of Five Hundred were paid fifteen 
 cents for every day of actual service. We see in 
 this the views of the Athenians in regard to the 
 compensation of public officers. They allowed them 
 but little more than the wages of a laborer. The rela 
 tive value of money we have stated to be as three to 
 one. Our House of Representatives would be as well 
 paid as the Athenian senate, if their pay were fixed at 
 forty-five cents a day. This may appear strange ; but 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 277 
 
 it is in conformity with the Grecian policy. The com- 
 mander-in-chief of an army received, as we have seen, 
 but four times the wages of a private. High salaries 
 are not at ah 1 classic. 
 
 Athens was the great shire-town, in which all the 
 courts of Attica were held, and where the causes of the 
 allies also were tried. There was more law business 
 done at Athens, than in all Greece besides. Nearly 
 one third of the whole number of citizens sat daily, as 
 judges, except on such days as were appropriated to 
 religion, or to general assemblies. Hence it was, that 
 Athens swarmed with half-bred lawyers, pettifoggers, 
 quarrelsome, litigious sophists. The daily pay of a 
 judge was seven and a half cents. Every one, on en 
 tering, received a ticket and a judge s staff. When 
 the day s work was done, he returned the ticket and 
 took his emolument. There were ten courts, each 
 composed of five hundred, and one regularly in session. 
 Mention is also made of larger courts, composed of ten, 
 fifteen, and even twenty hundred. Allowing 6,000 as 
 the average daily number of judges in Athens, they 
 must have cost the State $135,000 annually. 
 
 The public orators, advocates, and lawyers, em 
 ployed by the people, were ten in number. Their fee, 
 like that of the senators, was fifteen cents for each day s 
 service. Ambassadors were paid with equal frugality ; 
 their travelling expenses were also publicly defrayed, 
 though permanent embassies were unknown. Poets 
 
278 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 even received a public stipend. No person could draw 
 double pay for different service ; as, for example, no one 
 could claim a compensation as present at the town 
 meeting, and as judge, or orator, or senator, on the 
 same day. 
 
 The unfortunate, all those incapable of earning a 
 living, were sustained by the eleemosynary munificence 
 of the State. In this exercise of public philanthropy, 
 the Athenians were not imitated by the other Greeks ; 
 to them exclusively belongs the honor of providing for 
 the poor, the helpless, and the aged, at the common 
 charge. The Athenian State also supported and edu 
 cated the children of those who fell in battle. Those 
 who were crippled in war received a pension. Pisis- 
 tratus established a military hospital. As to the pro 
 vision for the poor, none could receive the benefit of it, 
 except they had less property than forty-five dollars. Yet 
 this restriction was liberally interpreted. The assistance 
 which was afforded, varied from two and a half to five 
 cents daily. 
 
 Public rewards and honors formed a charge upon 
 the State. Golden crowns were sometimes awarded, 
 or public statues erected. The dowry paid to each of 
 the daughters of Aristides, amounted to more than 
 $450. 
 
 That the Athenians were at considerable expense in 
 times of peace to colle t warlike stores, is in itself evi 
 dent. The revenue of Athens, in its days of prosperity, 
 
ECONOMY OF ATHENS. 279 
 
 was $1,800,000; a large income for so small a State, 
 and which could not have been collected, except by the 
 consent of the allies to oppression. 
 
 On the whole, we cannot but feel a strong partiality 
 for the Athenian democracy ; for though citizenship in 
 Athens was an inheritance, and the government was in 
 the hands of a minority, yet it was the nearest approx 
 imation to a perfectly popular State, of which ancient 
 history furnishes the example. Our own revolution 
 formed a new era. Our constitutions are an incompa 
 rably more perfect development of the principle of civil 
 equality, and therefore do not contain within them 
 selves the seeds of evil, which wrought the ruin of 
 the ancient States. Luxury may, with the increase of 
 wealth, diffuse itself among private individuals, but 
 frugality remains the true policy of the State. A 
 portion of a people, whether it be an aristocracy, 
 as in Venice or in England, or a separate multitude, 
 like the rulers of Attica, may, and probably will 
 become corrupt and unjust ; a nation, which acknow 
 ledges no political distinctions, can never be blind 
 to the principles of equity ; for justice becomes the evi 
 dent and permanent interest of all. With us, the great 
 body of the citizens is sure of remaining uncontarn- 
 inated ; we have far more to apprehend from the head 
 long ambition or downright corruption of those who 
 are the depositaries of power. 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE KOMAN PEOPLE. 
 
 I. 
 
 WHEN Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, on his way 
 to Spain, to serve in the army before Numantia, trav 
 elled through Italy, he was led to observe the impover 
 ishment of the great body of citizens in the rural dis 
 tricts. Instead of little farms, studding the country 
 with their pleasant aspect, and nursing an indepen 
 dent race, he beheld nearly all the lands of Italy en 
 grossed by large proprietors ; and the plough was 
 in the hands of the slave. In the early periods of 
 the State, Cincinnatus at work in his field was the 
 model of patriotism ; agriculture and war had been the 
 labor and office of freemen ; but of these the greater 
 number had now been excluded from employment by 
 the increase of slavery, and its tendency to confer the 
 exclusive possession of the soil on the few. The pal 
 aces of the wealthy towered in the landscape in solitary 
 grandeur ; the plebeians hid themselves in miserable 
 hovels. Deprived of the dignity of freeholders, they 
 could not even hope for occupation ; for the opulent 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE 11OMAN PEOPLE. 281 
 
 landowner preferred rather to make use of his slaves, 
 whom he could not but maintain, and who constituted 
 his family. Excepting the small number of the immeas 
 urably rich, and a feeble and constantly decreasing class 
 of independent husbandmen, poverty was extreme. The 
 king of Syria had reverenced the edicts of Roman 
 envoys, as though they had been the commands of 
 Heaven ; the rulers of Egypt had exalted the Romans 
 above the immortal Gods ; and from the fertile fields 
 of Western Africa, Masinissa had sent word that he 
 was but a Roman overseer. Yet a great majority of 
 the Roman citizens, now that they had become the 
 conquerors of the world, were poorer than their fore 
 fathers, who had extended their ambition only to the 
 plains round Rome. 
 
 The elder Gracchus, when his mind began to brood 
 over the disasters that were fast gathering in heavy 
 clouds round his country, was in the bloom of man 
 hood. Sprung from an honorable family, independent, 
 though not of the most opulent, connected with the 
 families of the most haughty patricians by the intermar 
 riages of his nearest kinsmen, the son of a hero who had 
 been censor, had twice been consul and had twice 
 gained the honors of a triumph, grandson of the elder 
 Scipio, the victor of Hannibal, brother-in-law of the 
 younger Scipio the destroyer of Carthage, he might 
 have entered the career of ambition with every as 
 surance of success. Endowed by the kindness of 
 
282 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 Heaven with admirable genius, he had also enjoyed an 
 education superior to that of any of his contemporaries. 
 His excellent mother, whom the unanimous testimony 
 of antiquity declares to have been the first woman of 
 her times, had assembled round his youth the best in 
 structors in the arts and in letters ; what was then a 
 rare thing in Rome, he had learned to rest his head on 
 the bosom of the Grecian Muse. Nor were the quali 
 ties of his heart inferior to his talents and his nurture. 
 His earliest appearance in the Roman army was in the 
 final war against Carthage, under the command of his 
 brother-in-law ; and when Carthage was taken by 
 storm, he, the impetuous soldier of eighteen, led 
 the onset, and was the first to ascend the walls of the 
 burning city. Yet he was gentle in all his dispositions ; 
 a maidenly modesty, and a peaceful composure distin 
 guished his character ; his purity obtained for him in 
 youth the unusual distinction of a seat among the 
 augurs. His truth and his moderation were cele 
 brated. Numantia, a city within the limits of the 
 modern kingdom of Castile, had resisted the Roman 
 arms with an invincible fortitude, which the com 
 panions of Palafox could imitate, but not equal. But 
 no sooner was it announced, that Tiberius Gracchus 
 had appeared as a messenger before its ramparts, than 
 the gates opened, the natives of Spain thronged round 
 his steps, hung on his arms, and clung to his hands. 
 They bade him take from their public stores whatever 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 
 
 treasures he desired ; he took but a handful of incense, 
 and offered it to the Gods. They requested him to 
 establish the basis of a peace, and he framed a treaty 
 on principles of mutual independence. 
 
 But, in the vain attempt to give quiet to Spain, 
 Tiberius Gracchus did not forget the miseries of Italy. 
 Who, that has reflected on the history of nations, has 
 not perceived how slow is the progress of change in the 
 condition of the laboring class of society ? It is three 
 centuries since the eloquent and disinterested Calvin 
 first attempted, in the language and on the soil of 
 France, to infuse into its peasantry an ameliorating 
 principle ; and in all that period, how little improve 
 ment has taken place in the physical condition and 
 the intellectual culture of the humbler classes of the 
 French ! If in the reign of Elizabeth millions of her 
 English subjects could not write nor read, it was hardly 
 less true of millions during the reign of George IV. 
 History has consisted mainly of the personal achieve 
 ments of a few individuals, the victories of armies, the 
 scandals of courts, the intrigues of the palace ; on the 
 character, rights, and progress of the great mass of the 
 people, it has been silent. The Greatest Number has 
 been forgotten by the annalist, as its happiness has been 
 neglected by the lawgiver. 
 
 Human nature was the same of old ; but Gracchus, 
 in hoping to improve the condition of the impoverished 
 majority of his countrymen, refused to indulge in the 
 
284 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 vain desires of an idle philanthropy. With the en 
 larged philosophy of an able statesman, he sought to 
 understand the whole nature of the evil, and to devise 
 efficacious measures for its remedy. 
 
 He saw the inhabitants of the Roman State divided 
 into the few wealthy nobles ; the many indigent citi 
 zens ; the still more numerous class of slaves. Rea 
 soning correctly, he perceived that it was slavery, 
 which crowded the poor freeman out of employment, 
 and barred the way to his advancement. It was the 
 aim of Gracchus not so much to mend the condition of 
 the slaves, as to lift the brood of idlers into dignity ; to 
 give them land, to make them industrious and useful, and 
 so to repose on them the liberties of the State. With 
 the fixedness of an iron will, he resolved to increase the 
 number of the landed proprietors of Italy, to create a 
 ROMAN YEOMANRY. This was the basis of his radical 
 reform. 
 
 The means were at hand. The lands in Italy were 
 of two classes ; private estates, and public domains. 
 With private estates, Gracchus had no thought to 
 interfere. The public domains, even though they had 
 been long usurped by the patricians, were to be re 
 claimed as public property, and to be appropriated to 
 the use of the people, under restrictions which should 
 prevent their future appropriation by the few. To ef 
 fect this object, required no new order ; the proper 
 decree was already engraved among the tablets of 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 285 
 
 the Roman laws. It was necessary only to revive the 
 law of Licinius, which had slumbered for two centuries 
 unrepealed. 
 
 In a republic, he that will execute great designs 
 must act with an organized party. Gracchus took 
 counsel with the most disinterested men of Rome ; 
 with A^pius Claudius, his father-in-law, a patrician of 
 the purest blood ; with the great lawyer Mutius Scse- 
 vola, who was of consular dignity ; and with Crassus, 
 the leader of the priesthood ; all of unimpeachable pa 
 triotism, and friends to the reform. But his supporters 
 at the polls could be none other than the common peo 
 ple, composed of the impoverished citizens, and the 
 very few husbandmen who had still saved some scanty 
 acres from the grasp of the aristocracy. 
 
 The people rallied to the support of their cham 
 pion; and Gracchus, being elected their tribune, was 
 able to bring forward his Agrarian Law. " The wild 
 beasts in your land," it was so he addressed the multi 
 tude, "have then- dens; but the soldiers of Italy have 
 only water and air. Without houses or property, they, 
 with their wives and children, are vagabonds. Your 
 commanders deceive you, when they bid you fight for 
 your hearths, and your gods ; you have no hearths, you 
 have no household gods. It is for the insolence and 
 luxury of others, that you shed your blood. You are 
 called the lords of the world, and you do not possess a 
 square foot of soil." 
 
286 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 The famed Agrarian Law, relating only to the pub 
 lic domain, was distinguished by mitigating clauses. 
 To each of those who had appropriated the land 
 without a right, it generously left five hundred acres ; 
 to each of their minor children, two hundred and fifty 
 more ; and it also promised to make from the public 
 treasury further remuneration for improvement. To 
 every needy citizen it probably allotted not more than 
 ten acres ; perhaps less. Thus it was designed to 
 create in Italy a yeomanry ; instead of slaves, to sub 
 stitute free laborers; to plant liberty firmly in the 
 land ; to perpetuate the Roman Commonwealth, by 
 identifying its principles with the culture of the soil. 
 Omnium rerum ex quibus aliquid adquiritur such were 
 long the views of intelligent Romans nihil est agri- 
 culturd melius, nihil uberius, nihil dukius, nihil homine, 
 NIHIL LIBERO DiGNius. No pursuit is more worthy 
 of the freeman than agriculture. Gracchus claimed it 
 for the free. 
 
 * 
 
 Philanthropy, when it contemplates a slaveholding 
 country, may have its first sympathies excited for the 
 slaves ; but it is a narrow benevolence which stops 
 there. The needy freeman is in a worse condition. 
 The slave has his task, and also his home and his 
 bread. He is the member of a wealthy family. The 
 indigent freeman has neither labor, nor house, nor 
 food; and, divided by a broad gulf from the upper 
 class, he has neither hope nor ambition. He is so 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 287 
 
 abject, that even the slave despises him. For the 
 interest of the slaveholder is diametrically opposite to 
 that of the free laborer. The slaveholder is the com 
 petitor of the free laborer, and by the lease of slaves, 
 takes the bread from his mouth. The wealthiest man 
 in Rome was the competitor of the poorest free car 
 penter. The patricians took away the business of the 
 sandal-maker. The existence of slavery made the 
 opulent owners of bondmen the rivals of the poor ; 
 greedy after the profits of their labor, and monopolizing 
 those profits through their slaves. In every community 
 where slavery is tolerated, the poor freeman will always 
 be found complaining of hard times. 
 
 The laws of Gracchus cut the patricians with a 
 double edge. Their fortunes consisted in land and 
 slaves ; it questioned their titles to the public terri 
 tories, and it tended to force emancipation, by making 
 their slaves a burden. In taking away the soil, it took 
 away the power that kept their live machinery in 
 motion. A real crisis had come, such as hardly occurs 
 to a nation in the progress of many centuries. Men 
 are in the habit of proscribing Julius Cesar as the 
 destroyer of the Commonwealth. The civil wars, the 
 revolutions of Cesar, the miserable vicissitudes of the 
 Roman emperors, the avarice of the nobles and the 
 rabble, the crimes of the forum and the palace, all have 
 their germ in the ill success of the reform of Grac 
 chus. 
 
288 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 We pass over the proofs of moderation which the 
 man of the people exhibited, by appearing in the 
 Senate, where he had hoped to obtain from the justice 
 of the patricians some reasonable compromise ; and 
 where he w r as received very much as O Connell was 
 received in the English Parliament, when he pleaded 
 for Ireland. The attempt of the aristocracy to 
 check all procedures in the assembly of the people, 
 by instigating another tribune to interpose his veto, 
 was defeated by the prompt decision of the citizens to 
 dismiss the faithless representative ; and the policy 
 of Gracchus seemed established by the unanimous 
 decision of the commons in favor of his decree. 
 
 Such delays had been created by his opponents, 
 that the year of his tribuneship was nearly passed ; his 
 re-election was needed in order to carry his decree 
 into effect. But the evil in Rome was already too 
 deep to be removed. The election day for tribunes 
 was in mid-summer; the few husbandmen, the only 
 shadow of a Roman yeomanry, were busy in the field, 
 gathering their crops, and failed to come to the sup 
 port of their champion. He was left to rest his 
 defence on the rabble of the city ; and though early 
 in the morning great crowds of the people gathered 
 together, and though, as Gracchus appeared in the 
 forum, a shout of joy rent the skies, and was redoubled 
 as he ascended the steps of the Capitol, yet when the 
 patricians, determined at every hazard to defeat the 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 289 
 
 * 
 
 assembly, came with the whole weight of their adhe 
 rents in a mass, the timid flock, yielding to the senti 
 ment of awe rather than of cowardice, fled like sheep 
 before wolves ; and left their defender, the incom 
 parable Tiberius, to be beaten to death by the clubs of 
 senators. Three hundred of his most faithful friends 
 were left lifeless in the market-place. In the fury of 
 triumphant passion, the corpse of the tribune was 
 dragged through the streets, and thrown into the Tiber. 
 
 n. 
 
 The deluded nobles raised the full chorus of victory 
 and joy. They believed that the Senate had routed 
 the people ; but it was the avenging spirit of slavery 
 that had struck the first deadly wound into the bosom 
 of Rome. When a funeral pyre was kindled to the 
 manes of Tiberius Gracchus, the retributive Nemesis 
 lighted the torch, which, though it burned secretly 
 for a while, at last kindled the furies of social war, 
 and involved the civilized world in the conflagra 
 tion. 
 
 The murder proved the weakness of the Senate; 
 they could defeat the people only by violence. But 
 the blood of their victim, like the blood of other mar 
 tyrs, cemented his party. It was impossible to carry 
 the Agrarian Law into execution ; it was equally im 
 possible to effect its repeal. 
 
 Gracchus had interceded for the unhappy indigent 
 19 
 
290 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 freemen, whose independence was crushed by the insti 
 tution of slavery. The slaves themselves were equally 
 sensible of their .wrongs ; and in the island of Sicily 
 they resolved on an insurrection. Differing in com 
 plexion, in language, in habits, the hope of liberty 
 amalgamated the heterogeneous mass. Eunus, their 
 wise leader, in the spirit of the East, employed the 
 power of superstition to rally the degraded serfs to his 
 banner, and, like Mahomet, pretended a revelation from 
 heaven. Sicily had been divided into a few great 
 plantations ; and now the voice of a leader, joining the 
 fanaticism of religion to the enthusiasm for freedom, 
 awakened the slaves, not in Sicily only, but in Italy, to 
 the use of arms, and the horrors of a servile war. 
 Cruel overseers were stabbed with pitchforks ; the de 
 fenceless were cut to pieces by scythes ; tribunals, 
 hitherto unheard of, were established, where each 
 family of slaves might arraign its master, and, counting 
 up his ferocities, adjudge punishment for every re 
 membered wrong. Well may the Latin historian grow 
 impatient as he relates the disgraceful tale. Quis 
 aequo animo ferat in principe gentium populo bella ser- 
 vorum ? The Romans had fought their allies, yet had 
 fought with freemen ; let the queen of nations blush, 
 for she must now contend with victorious slaves. 
 Thrice, nay, four times, were her armies defeated; 
 the insurrection spread into Italy; four times were 
 the camps of praetors stormed and taken ; the soldiers 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 291 
 
 of the republic became the captives of their bondmen. 
 The army of the slaves increased to 200,000. It is 
 said, that a million of lives were lost ; the statement is 
 exaggerated; but Sicily suffered more from the de 
 vastations of this, than of the Carthaginian war. 
 Twice were consuls unsuccessful. At length, after 
 years of defeat, the benefits of discipline gave success 
 to the Roman forces. The last garrison of the last 
 citadel of the slaves disdained to surrender, could no 
 longer resist, and escaped the ignominy of captivity 
 by one universal suicide. The conquerors of slaves, a 
 new thing in Rome, returned to enjoy the honors of an 
 ovation. 
 
 The object of Tiberius Gracchus, continued by his 
 eloquent and equally unhappy brother, who moreover 
 was the enlightened and energetic advocate of a system 
 of internal improvement in Italy, was the melioration 
 of the condition of the indigent freemen. The great 
 servile insurrection was designed to effect the emanci 
 pation of slaves ; and both were unsuccessful. But God 
 is just and his laws are invincible. The social evil next 
 made its effects apparent on the patricians, and began 
 with silent but sure influence to corrupt the virtue of 
 families, and even to destroy domestic life. Slavery 
 tends to diminish the frequency of marriages in the 
 class of masters. In a state where emancipation is 
 forbidden, the slave population will perpetually gain 
 in relative numbers. We will not stop to develope 
 
292 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 the three or four leading causes of this result, pride 
 and the habits of luxury, the facilities of licentious 
 gratification, the circumscribed limits of productive 
 industry; some of which causes operate exclusively, 
 and all of them principally, on the free. The position 
 is certain and is universal; nowhere was it more 
 amply exemplified than in Rome. The rich preferred 
 the dissoluteness of indulgence to marriage ; and celibacy 
 became so general, that the aristocracy was obliged by 
 law T to favor the institution, which, in a society where 
 all are free, constitutes the solace of labor and the orna 
 ment of life. A Roman censor, in an address to the 
 people, stigmatized matrimony as a troublesome com 
 panionship, and recommended it only as a patriotic 
 sacrifice of private pleasure to public duty. The de 
 population of the upper class was so considerable, that 
 the waste required to be supplied by emancipation; 
 and repeatedly there have been periods, when the 
 majority of the Romans had once been bondmen. 
 It was this extensive celibacy and the consequent want 
 of succession, that gave a peculiar character to the 
 Roman laws, relating to adoption. 
 
 The free middling class, which even to the time of 
 the younger Gracchus had retained dignity enough to 
 seek the amelioration of its condition by the action of 
 laws, was destroyed; society became hopelessly di 
 vided into the very rich and the very poor; and 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPIE. 293 
 
 slaves, who performed all the labor, occupied the in 
 termediate position between the two classes. 
 
 The first step in the progress of degradation con 
 stituted the citizens, by their own vote, a class of 
 .paupers. They called on the State to feed them from 
 the public granaries. We cheerfully sustain in decent 
 competence the aged, the widow, the cripple, the sick 
 and the orphan ; Rome supplied the great body of her 
 freemen. England, who also feeds a large proportion 
 of her laboring class, intrusts to her paupers no elective 
 franchise. Rome fed with eleemosynary corn the 
 majority of her citizens, who retained the privilege of 
 electing the government, and the right of supreme, 
 ultimate legislation. Thus besides the select wealthy 
 idlers, here was a new class of idlers, a multitudinous 
 aristocracy, having no estate but their citizenship, 
 no inheritance but their right of suffrage. Both 
 were to derive support from the slaves : the Senate 
 directly, through the revenues of their plantations ; the 
 commons indirectly, out of the coffers of the Com 
 monwealth. It was a burden greater than the fruits 
 of slave industry could bear ; the deficiency was sup 
 plied by the plunder of foreign countries. The Ro 
 mans, as a nation, became a horde of robbers. 
 
 This earliest measure was ominous enough ; the sec- 
 
 _ond was still more alarming. A demagogue appeared, 
 
 and gaining office and the conduct of a Avar, organized 
 
 these pauper electors into a regular army. The derna- 
 
294 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 gogue was Marius. Hitherto the Senate had exercised 
 an exclusive control over the brute force of the Com 
 monwealth ; the mob was now armed and enrolled, and 
 led by an accomplished chieftain. Both parties being 
 thus possessed of great physical strength, the civil 
 w T ars between the nobles and the impoverished free 
 men, the select aristocracy, and the multitudinous 
 aristocracy of Rome, could not but ensue. Marius and 
 Sylla were the respective leaders ; the streets of Rome, 
 and the* fields of Italy became the scenes of massacre ; 
 and the oppressed bondmen had the satisfaction of 
 beholding the jarring parties in the nation which had 
 enslaved them, shed each other s blood as freely as 
 water. They had, moreover, their triumph. Sylla se 
 lected ten thousand from their number, and to gain 
 influence for himself at the polls, conferred on them 
 freedom, and the elective franchise. 
 
 Of the two great leaders of the opposite factions, it 
 has been asserted that Sylla had a distinct purpose, 
 and that Marius never had. Sylla was the organ of the 
 aristocracy ; to the party which already possessed all the 
 wealth, he desired to secure all the political power. 
 This was a definite object, and in one sense was attain 
 able. Having effected a revolution, and having taken 
 vengeance on the enemies of the Senate, he abdicated 
 office. He could not have retained perpetual author 
 ity ; the forms of the ancient republic were then too 
 vigorous, and the party on which he rested for support, 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 
 
 would not have tolerated the usurpation. He estab 
 lished the supremacy of the Senate, and retired into 
 private life. Marius, as the leader of the people, was 
 met by insuperable difficulties. The existence of a 
 slave population rendered it impossible to elevate the 
 character of his indigent constituents ; nor were they 
 possessed of sufficient energy to grasp political power 
 with tenacity. He could therefore only embody them 
 among his soldiers. His partisans suffered from evils, 
 which it required centuries to ripen and more than a 
 thousand years to heal ; Marius could have no plan. 
 
 in. 
 
 Thus the want of a great middling class, consequent 
 on the monopoly of land and the institution of slavery, 
 had been the ultimate cause of two political revolutions. 
 The indigence of the commons had led the Gracchi 
 to appear as the advocates of reform, and had en 
 couraged Marius to become their military leader. In 
 the murder of the former, the Senate had displayed 
 their success in exciting mobs ; and in resistance to the 
 latter, they had roused up a defender of their usur 
 pations. The aristocracy was satisfied with its tri 
 umphs ; the impoverished majority, accustomed to 
 their abjectness, made only the additional demand 
 of amusements at the public expense ; and were also 
 ignobly content. The slaves alone murmured, and in 
 
296 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 Spartacus, one of their number, they found a man of 
 genius and courage, capable of becoming their leader. 
 Roman legislation had done nothing for them; they 
 determined upon a general insurrection, to be followed 
 by emigration. The cry went forth from the plains of 
 Lombardy, reached the fields of Campania, and was 
 echoed through every valley among the Apennines. 
 The gladiators burst the prisons of then- keepers ; the 
 field-servant threw down his manure-basket ; Syrian 
 and Scythian, the thrall from Macedonia and from 
 Carthage, the wretches from South Gaul, the Spaniard, 
 the African, awoke to resistance. The barbarian, who 
 had been purchased to shed his blood in the arena, re 
 membered his hut on the Danube ; the Greek, not yet 
 indifferent to freedom, panted for release. It was an 
 insurrection, as solemn in its object as it was fearful in 
 its extent. Rome was on the brink of ruin. Spartacus 
 pointed to the Alps ; beyond their heights were fields, 
 where the fugitives might plant their colony ; there 
 they might revive the practice of freedom ; there the 
 oppressed might found a new state on the basis of 
 benevolence, and in the spirit of justice. A common 
 interest would unite the bondmen of the most remote 
 lineage, the most various color, in a firm and happy 
 republic. Already the armies of four Roman generals 
 had been defeated ; already the immense emigration 
 was on its way to the Alps. 
 
 If a mass of slaves could, at any moment, on break- 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 297 
 
 ing their fetters, find themselves capable of establishing 
 a liberal government ; if they could at once, on being 
 emancipated, or on emancipating themselves, appear 
 possessed of civic virtue, slavery would be deprived of 
 more than half its horrors. But the institution, while 
 it binds the body, corrupts the mind. The outrages 
 which men commit when they first regain their free 
 dom, furnish the strongest argument against the con 
 dition which can render human nature capable of such 
 crimes. Idleness and treachery and theft, are the vices 
 of slavery. The followers of Spartacus, when the pin 
 nacles of the Alps were almost within their sight, 
 turned aside to plunder; and the Roman army was 
 able to gain the advantage, when the fugitive slave was 
 changed from a defender of personal liberty into a 
 plunderer. 
 
 The struggle took place precisely at a moment 
 when the Roman State was most endangered by foreign 
 enemies. But for the difficulties in the way of com 
 munication, which rendered a close coalition between 
 remote armies impossible, it would have sunk beneath 
 the storm ; and from the shattered planks of its noble 
 ruins, the slaves alone would have been able to build 
 themselves a little bark of hope, to escape from the 
 desolation, and occupy by right of conquest the future 
 heritage of the Cesars. 
 
298 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The suppression of the great insurrection of Spar- 
 tacus brings us to the age of the triumvirs, and the 
 approaching career of Julius Cesar. To form a proper 
 judgment of his designs and their character, we must 
 endeavor to gain some distinct idea of the condition of 
 the inhabitants of Italy during his time, as divided into 
 the three classes of nobles, indigent citizens, and slaves. 
 
 The ARISTOCRACY owned the soil and its cultivators. 
 The vast capacity for accumulation, which the laws 
 of society secure to capital in a greater degree than to 
 personal exertion, displays itself nowhere so clearly as 
 in slaveholding states, where the laboring class is but 
 a portion of the capital of the opulent. As wealth 
 consists chiefly in land and slaves, the rates of interest 
 are, from universally operative causes, always com 
 paratively high ; the difficulty of advancing with bor 
 rowed capital proportionably great. The small land 
 holder finds himself unable to compete with those who 
 are possessed of whole cohorts of bondmen ; his slaves, 
 his lands, rapidly pass, in consequence of his debts, into 
 the hands of the more opulent. The large plantations 
 are constantly swallowing up the smaller ones; and 
 land and slaves come to be engrossed by a few. Before 
 Cesar passed the Rubicon, this condition existed in its 
 extreme in the Roman State. The rural indigent crept 
 within the walls of Rome. A free laborer was hardly 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 299 
 
 known. The large proprietors of slaves not only tilled 
 their immense plantations, but also indulged their 
 avarice in training their slaves to every species of 
 labor, and letting them out, as horses from a livery 
 stable, for the performance of every conceivable species 
 of work. Four or five hundred were not an uncommon 
 number in one family ; fifteen or twenty thousand some 
 times belonged to one master. The immense wealth 
 of Crassus consisted chiefly in lands and slaves ; on the 
 number of his slaves we hardly (Jare hazard a con 
 jecture. Of joiners and masons he had over five hun 
 dred. Nor was this the whole evil. The nobles, 
 having impoverished their lands, became usurers, and 
 had their agents dispersed over all the provinces. The 
 censor Cato closed his career by recommending usury, 
 as more productive than agriculture ; and such was the 
 prodigality of the Roman planters, that, to indulge 
 their fondness for luxury, many of them mortgaged 
 their estates to the money-lenders. Thus the lands of 
 Italy, at best in the hands of a few proprietors, 
 became virtually vested in a still smaller number 
 of usurers. No man s house, no man s person, was 
 secure. Nulli est certa domus, nullum sine pig nor e 
 corpus. Hence corruption readily found its way into 
 the Senate ; the votes of that body, not less than the 
 votes of the poorer citizens, were a merchantable com 
 modity. Venalis Curia patrum. The wisdom and the 
 decrees of the Senate were for sale to the highest bidder. 
 
300 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 The FREE CITIZENS, who still elected tribunes and 
 consuls, and were still sometimes convened in a sort of 
 town-meeting, were poor and degraded. But the right 
 of suffrage insured them a maintenance. The petty 
 offices in the Commonwealth were filled with their 
 number, and such as retained some capacity for busi 
 ness found many a lucrative job, in return for their in 
 fluence and their votes. The custom-houses, the 
 provinces, the internal police, offered inviting situations 
 to moderate ambition. The rest clamored for bread 
 from the public treasury, for free tickets of admission 
 to the theatre and to gladiatorial shows, where men 
 were butchered at the cost of the office-seeking aris 
 tocracy for the amusement of the majority. But there 
 existed no free manufacturing establishments, no free 
 farmers, no free laborers, no free mechanics. The 
 State possessed some of the forms of a democracy; 
 but the life-giving principle of a democracy, prosperous 
 free labor, was wanting. 
 
 The third class was the class of SLAVES. It was 
 three times as numerous as both the others ; though, 
 as we have already observed, the whole body belonged 
 almost exclusively to the few very wealthy. Their 
 numbers excited constant apprehension ; but care was 
 taken not to distinguish them by a peculiar dress. 
 Their ranks were recruited in various ways. The 
 captives in war were sold at auction. Cicero, during the 
 little campaign in which he was commander, sold men 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 301 
 
 enough to produce at half price about half a million 
 dollars. When it was told in Rome that Cesar had 
 invaded Britain, the people, in the true spirit of 
 robbers, could not but ask one another, what plunder 
 he could hope to find there. " There is not a scruple 
 of silver," said they, " in the whole island ; " neque 
 argenti scrupulum in ilia insula, " Yes," it was truly 
 answered, " but he will bring slaves." 
 
 The second mode of supplying the slave market 
 was by commerce ; and this supply was so uniform and 
 abundant, that the price of an ordinary laborer hardly 
 varied for centuries. The reason is obvious ; where the 
 slave merchant gets his cargoes from kidnappers, the 
 first cost is inconsiderable. The great centres of this 
 traffic were in the harbors bordering on the Euxine ; 
 and Scythians were often stolen. Caravans penetrated 
 the deserts of Africa, and made regular hunts for 
 slaves. Blacks were highly valued; they were rare, 
 and therefore both male and female negroes were 
 favorite articles of luxury among the opulent Romans. 
 At one period, Delos was most remarkable as the em 
 porium for slavers. It had its harbors, chains, prisons, 
 every thing so amply arranged to favor a brisk traffic, 
 that ten thousand slaves could change hands and be 
 shipped in a single day ; an operation, which would 
 have required thirty-three or thirty-four ships of the 
 size of the vessel in which Paul the Apostle was wrecked. 
 There was hardly a port in the Roman empire, conve- 
 
302 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 nient for kidnapping foreigners, in which the slave- 
 trade was not prosecuted. In most heathen countries, 
 also, men would sell their own children into bondage. 
 The English continued to do so, even after the intro 
 duction of Christianity. In modern times, when men 
 incur debts, they have mortgaged their own bodies ; the 
 ancients mortgaged their sons and daughters. Kidnap 
 ping, and the sale of one s offspring, were so common, as 
 to furnish interesting incidents to the writers of novels. 
 
 Besides these sources, the offspring of every female 
 slave, whoever might be its father, was also a slave. 
 
 The legal condition of the slaves was extremely 
 abject. No protection was afforded his limb or his life, 
 against the avarice or rage of a master. The female 
 had no defence for her virtue and her honor. Instan 
 ces have occurred, where the young female convert to 
 Christianity was punished by being exposed to public 
 and legalized insults, the most odious to female purity. 
 A remnant of the abuse forms the plot of Shakspeare s 
 play of Pericles. No marriages could take place among 
 slaves ; they had no property ; they could make no 
 valid compact ; they could hardly give testimony, ex 
 cept on the rack. The ties of affection and blood were 
 disregarded. In the eye of the law a slave was nobody. 
 
 The manner in which the laborers on the great 
 plantations were treated, resembled the modern state- 
 prison discipline. They were sent out by day to labor 
 in chains, and at night were locked up in cells. 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 303 
 
 The refractory were confined in subterranean dungeons. 
 Worn out slaves were sold off, like old cattle from a farm. 
 The sick were often exposed and left to die. To 
 enforce industry, the hand, the lash, and the rod, were 
 the readiest instruments. Or domestic slaves were 
 sent to various, workshops, established on purpose 
 to tame the obstinate. Sometimes a fork, like the 
 yoke on a goose, was put round their necks ; they 
 were placed in the stocks ; they were chained. Every 
 expedient, that human cruelty could devise, was em 
 ployed to insure industry and docility: The runaway, 
 if retaken, was branded, or crucified ; or punished by 
 the loss of a leg ; or compelled to fight wild beasts ; or 
 sold for a gladiator. The slave was valued only as 
 property, and it was a question for ingenious dispu 
 tation, whether, in order to lighten a vessel in a storm 
 at sea, a good horse or a worthless slave should be 
 thrown overboard. 
 
 Slaves occupied every station, from the delegate 
 superintending and enjoying the rich man s villa, to 
 the meanest office of menial labor, or obsequious 
 vice; from the foster mother of the rich man s 
 child, to the lowest condition of degradation, to which 
 woman can be reduced. The public slaves handled 
 the oar in the galleys, or labored on the public works. 
 Some were lictors ; some were jailers. Executioners 
 were slaves ; slaves were watchmen, watermen, and 
 scavengers. Slaves regulated the rich palace in the 
 
304 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 city ; and slaves performed all the drudgery of the 
 farm. Nor was it unusual to teach slaves the arts. 
 Virgil made one of his a poet ; and Horace himself 
 was the son of a freedman. The Merry Andrew was a 
 slave. The physician, the surgeon, were often slaves. 
 So too the preceptor and the pedagogue ; the reader 
 and the stage player ; the clerk and the amanuensis ; 
 the buffoon and the mummer ; the architect and the 
 smith ; the weaver and the shoemaker ; the undertaker 
 and the bearer of the bier ; the pantomime and the 
 singer ; the rope-dancer and the wrestler, all were 
 bondmen. The armiger or squire was a slave. Not 
 an avocation, connected with agriculture, manufactures, 
 or public amusements, can be named, but it was the 
 patrimony of slaves. Slaves engaged in commerce ; 
 slaves were wholesale merchants ; slaves were retailers ; 
 slaves shaved notes ; and the managers of banks were 
 slaves. 
 
 Educated slaves exercised their profession for the 
 emolument of their masters. Their value varied with 
 their health, beauty, or accomplishments. The com 
 mon laborer was worth from seventy-five to one hun 
 dred dollars, the usual cost of a negro in the West 
 Indies, when the slave-trade was in vogue. A good 
 cook was worth almost any sum. An accomplished 
 play actor could not be valued at less than $8,000. A 
 good fool was cheap at less than $800. Beauty was a 
 fancy article, and its price varied. Mark Antony gave 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 305 
 
 $8,000 for a pair of beautiful youths ; and much higher 
 prices have been paid. About as much was given for 
 an illustrious grammarian. A handsome actress would 
 bring far more ; her annual salary might sometimes be 
 $13,000. The law valued a physician at $240. Lu- 
 cullus, having once obtained an immense number of 
 prisoners of war, sold them for sixty-five cents a head ; 
 probably the lowest price for which a lot of able-bodied 
 men was ever offered. 
 
 v. 
 
 Such was the character of the Italian population, 
 over which a government was to be instituted, at the 
 time when Cesar with his army approached the Rubi 
 con. In the contest which followed, it was the object 
 of Pompey to plunder, to devastate, and to punish. 
 " Should Pompey be successful, not one single tile will 
 be safe in an Italian roof," says Cicero ; " I know right 
 well, he desires a government like that of Sylla." There 
 did not exist any armed party in favor of a democratic 
 republic. The spirit of the democracy was gone ; and 
 its shade only moved with powerless steps through 
 the forum and the temples, which had once been the 
 scenes of its glory. 
 
 It was in the service of his country that Cesar car 
 ried his eagles beyond the Rubicon. The republican 
 poet, who represents Rome rising before the con- 
 20 
 
306 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 queror in a vision, and demanding of him the occasion 
 of his appearance in arms on her borders, describes 
 him as replying, 
 
 " Roma, fave cceptis ! Non te furialibus armis 
 
 Persequor; en adsum, ubique tuus." 
 In seasons of violence, despotism is the child of 
 anarchy. Men rush to any strong arm for protection. 
 Such despotism, like that of Cromwell or of Napoleon, 
 is transitory. Permanent despotism can grow only out 
 of fixed relations of society. Julius Cesar was a great 
 statesman, not less than a great soldier. His ambition 
 was in every thing gratified ; the noise of his triumphs 
 had filled the shores of England, the marshes of Bel 
 gium, and the forests of Germany. Any political dis 
 tinction was within his reach. He was childless ; and 
 therefore his pride hardly seemed to require a subver 
 sion of the Commonwealth. And yet, with all this, 
 he perceived that the continuance of popular liberty 
 was impossible in the actual condition of the Roman 
 State.; that a wasting, corrupt, and most oppressive 
 aristocracy was preparing to assume the dominion of 
 the world ; that this aristocracy threatened ruin to 
 the provinces, perpetual cruelty to the slaves, and 
 hereditary contempt to the people. Democracy had 
 expired ; and the worst form of aristocracy, far worse 
 than that of the Venetian nobles of a later day, 
 could be prevented only by a monarchy. Julius 
 Cesar resolved on the establishment of a monarchy; 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 307 
 
 for lie saw, that a monarchical form of government was 
 the only one which would endure in Rome. Had he 
 possessed the virtues of Washington, the democracy of 
 Jefferson, the legislative genius of Madison, he could 
 not have changed the course of events. The condition 
 of the Roman population demanded monarchy. This 
 was the third great revolution prepared by slavery, and 
 the consequent decay of the people. 
 
 Despotism, in the regular order of Divine Provi 
 dence, is the punishment of a nation for the institution 
 of slavery, and is the consolation or the cure of he 
 reditary bondage. The slave wears his chains with 
 composure, when he sees his owner also in chains. 
 The laborer felt less humiliation, when he beheld his 
 master cringing at the feet of a master. The despot 
 has no interest to invent charges of treason against any 
 but the very rich ; the peaceful poor man, the humble 
 slave, has nothing to fear from his rapacity. When, at 
 a later day in Roman history, a tyrant emperor made 
 his horse a consul, the slave could glory in the hu 
 miliation of his owners ; the people could laugh at the 
 degradation of their oppressors ; and the appointment, 
 after all, was probably a popular one. " That the con 
 dition of a slave is better under an arbitrary, than 
 under a free government, is supported by the history 
 of ah 1 ages and nations." It is common to say, that 
 the democracy introduces despotism and a strong 
 executive. It is true, that despotism is brought in by 
 the majority ; it is true, that when great extremes of 
 
308 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 fortune exist, it is the clear and well-understood interest 
 of the rich to prevent a despotism. But it is false, 
 that despotism is the child of democracy. Despotism 
 cannot take place until the spirit of democracy is ex 
 tinct. When by the progressive increase of differences 
 in the condition of men, society is hopelessly changed 
 into a few immensely rich and the many indigent ; 
 when the people can, from their humble condition 
 and the operation of the laws of property, no longer ex 
 ercise a regular influence on government ; when they are 
 bowed under the yoke of a few wealthy families, then 
 the people cure the evil which grew out of the ine 
 quality of conditions, by pushing that inequality to the 
 extreme ; and, in order to put down an insolent and 
 oppressive aristocracy, they, by a spasmodic effort, 
 create, or, obeying the natural course of events, 
 submit to a despotism. Thus the aristocracy brings 
 on the unjust inequalities for which despotism is the 
 remedy. The usurpations of a strong government, 
 with. the assent of the people, imply previous usur 
 pations in the aristocracy. Witness the despotism of 
 Denmark, established by the people for their protection 
 against the nobility. Witness the policy of Louis 
 XIV. and his predecessor ; witness Henry VII. and 
 Henry VIII. , in England, absolute monarchs, tolerated 
 in their extravagant usurpations, that so the power 
 of the great landed aristocracy might be restrained, 
 and the authority of the church subjected. Witness 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 309 
 
 the present constitution of the Russian empire, brought 
 about, in like manner, by the act of the nation, to 
 restrain the ambition of the nobles. 
 
 There remained no mode of establishing a fixed 
 government in Rome, but by the supremacy of one 
 man. In Italy, no opposition was made to Cesar on 
 the part of the people or of the slaves, but of the aris 
 tocracy alone ; and they could offer resistance only 
 in the remoter subjected districts, with the aid of hire 
 ling troops, sustained by the revenues of the provinces 
 which were still under the control of the Senate. The 
 people conferred on Cesar all the power which he 
 could desire ; he was created dictator for a year, that 
 he might subdue his enemies, and consul for five years, 
 that he might confirm his authority. The inviolability 
 of his person was secured by his election as tribune 
 for life. 
 
 What would have been the policy of Julius Cesar, 
 cannot be safely conjectured. To say that he had no 
 plan is absurd ; every step in his progress was marked 
 by consistency. The establishment of monarchy was 
 already an alterative to slavery. Cesar issued an 
 ordinance, not indeed of immediate abolition, but com 
 manding that one third part of the labor of Italy should 
 be performed by free hands. The command was ren 
 dered inoperative by his assassination, the greatest mis 
 fortune that could have happened to Rome. For who 
 were his murderers ? Not the people ; not the insur- 
 
310 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 gent bondmen ; but a portion of the aristocracy, to 
 whom the greatest happiness of the greatest number 
 was a matter of supreme indifference. 
 
 The great majority of the conspirators have never 
 found a eulogist. Every ancient writer speaks of them 
 with reprobation and contempt. Cassius, one of the 
 chief leaders, was notoriously selfish, violent, and dis 
 gracefully covetous, not to say dishonest. He is uni 
 versally represented as envying injustice rather than 
 abhorring it, and his conduct has ever been ascribed to 
 personal malevolence, and not to patriotism. But 
 Brutus ! History never manufactured him into a 
 hero, till he made himself an assassin. Of a head 
 strong, unbridled disposition, he displayed coolness 
 of judgment in no part of his career. It was his 
 misfortune to have been the son of an abandoned 
 woman, and to have been bred in a home, which 
 adultery and wantonness had defiled. The vices of 
 early indulgence may be palliated by his youth and the 
 licentiousness of his time ; but Brutus, while yet young, 
 was a merciless and exorbitant usurer, at the rate* of 
 four per cent, a month, or forty-eight per cent, a year. 
 When his debtors grew unable to pay, he obtained for 
 his agent an appointment to a military post, and ex 
 torted his claims by martial law. The town of 
 Salarnis, in the isle of Cyprus, owed him money on 
 the terms we have mentioned. He caused the mem 
 bers of its bankrupt municipal government to be con- 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 311 
 
 fined in their town-hall, in the hope that hunger would 
 quicken their financial skill ; and some of them were 
 starved to death. Such was Brutus at that ingenuous 
 period of life, when benevolence is usually most active. 
 He hated Pompey, yet after deliberating, he joined 
 the party of that leader, and remained true to it, so 
 long as it seemed to be the strongest ; but no sooner 
 was the battle of Pharsalia won, than Brutus gave in 
 his adhesion to Cesar, and to confer a value on his 
 conversion, he betrayed the confidence of the fugitive 
 whose cause he had abandoned ! In the plot against 
 Cesar, Brutus was the dupe of more sagacious men. 
 
 Cesar had received the Senate sitting ; this insult 
 required immediate vengeance. They murdered him, 
 not from public spirit, but from mortified vanity and 
 angry discontent. The people, who had been pleased 
 with the humiliation of their oppressors, were indignant 
 at the assassination, and the assassins themselves had 
 no ulterior plan. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Slavery, by the gradual extermination of free labor 
 and an industrious self-relying people, had poisoned 
 the Roman State to the marrow ; and though the con 
 spirators had no fixed line of policy, yet the condition 
 of the population of Italy led immediately to mon 
 archy. The young Octavian owed his elevation, not to 
 
312 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 his talents, but to the state of the times. Popular gov 
 ernment had become an impossibility, and monarchy 
 was the only mode of restraining the rapine of the 
 Senate. 
 
 Slavery prepared the way for Oriental despotism by 
 encouraging luxury. The genius of the Romans was 
 inventive ; but it was only to devise new pleasures of 
 the senses. The retinue of servants was unexampled ; 
 and the caprices to which men and women were sub 
 jected, were innumerable. The Roman writers are so 
 full of it, that it is unnecessary to draw the picture, 
 which would indeed represent humanity degraded by 
 the subserviency of slaves, and by the artificial desires 
 and vices of their masters. This detestable excess ex 
 tended through the upper class. Women ceased to 
 blush for vices which, in other times, render men infa 
 mous. Beneficium sexus sui vitiis perdiderunt, et quia 
 foeminam exuerunt, damnatae sunt morbis virilibus. 
 At Rome, the gout was a common disease in the cir 
 cles of female dissipation and fashion. The rage of 
 luxury extended also, in some sort, to the people. 
 For them, tens of thousands of gladiators were sacri 
 ficed without concern ; for them, the enslaved Jews 
 raised the gigantic walls of the Coliseum, the most 
 splendid monument of the corruptness of human na 
 ture ; for them, navies engaged in actual contests ; 
 and the sailors, as they prepared for battle, received 
 only an AVETE, on their way to death. 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 315 
 
 In like manner, the effect of slavery became visible 
 on public morals. Among the slaves there was no 
 such thing as the sanctity of marriage ; dissoluteness 
 was almost as general as the class. The slave was 
 ready to assist in the corruption of his master s family. 
 The virtues of self-denial were unknown. But the 
 picture of Roman immorality is too gross to be ex 
 hibited. Its excess can be estimated from the extrav 
 agance of the reaction. When the Christian religion 
 made its way through the oppressed classes of society, 
 and gained strength by acquiring the affections of the 
 miserable whose woes it solaced, the abandoned man 
 ners of the cities excited the reproof of fanaticism. 
 When domestic life had almost ceased to exist, the 
 universal lewdness could be checked only by the most ex 
 aggerated eulogies of absolute chastity. Convents and 
 nunneries grew up, at the time when more than half the 
 world were excluded from the rites of marriage, and were 
 condemned by the laws of the empire to promiscuous 
 indulgence. Vows of virginity were the testimony 
 which religion bore against the enormities of the age. 
 Spotless purity could alone fitly rebuke the shameless- 
 ness of excess. As in raging diseases, the most violent 
 and unnatural remedies need to be applied for a season, 
 so the transports of enthusiasm sometimes appear ne 
 cessary to stay the infection of a moral pestilence. 
 Thus riot produced asceticism ; and monks, and monk 
 ish eloquence, and monastic vows were the protest 
 against the general depravity of manners. 
 
314 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 The gradual decay of the class of ingenuous freemen 
 had been a conspicuous result of slavery. The cor 
 ruptions of licentiousness spared neither sex ; and the 
 consequence was so certain, that it was not long, 
 before the majority of the cohorts, of the priesthood, 
 of the tribes, of the people, nay of the Senate itself, 
 came to consist of emancipated slaves. But the sons 
 of slaves could have no capacity for defending freedom ; 
 and despotism was at hand when, beside the sove 
 reign, there were few who were not bondmen or the 
 children of bondmen. 
 
 Rome was sufficiently degraded, when the makers 
 of an emperor, stumbling upon Claudius, the wisest 
 fool of the times, proclaimed him the master of the 
 Roman empire. Slavery now enjoyed its triumph, for 
 a slave became prime minister. lo Saturnalia, shout 
 ed the cohorts, as Narcissus attempted to address 
 them. But the consummation of evil had not arrived. 
 The husband of Messalina had, naturally enough, taken 
 up a prejudice against matrimony ; the governors of 
 the weak emperor, who managed him as absolutely as 
 Buckingham managed James I., insisted upon his mar 
 rying Agrippina. He did so ; and Agrippina, assisted 
 by freedmen and slaves, disinherited his son, murdered 
 her husband, and placed Nero on the throne. Slaves 
 gave Nero the purple. 
 
 The accession of Nero is the epoch of the virtual 
 establishment of the fourth revolution. The forms of 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 315 
 
 ancient Home still continued, but Nero was the incar 
 nation of depravity ; the very name by which men are 
 accustomed to express the fury of unrestrained ma 
 lignity. Bad as he was, Nero was not worse than 
 Rome. She had but her due. Nay, when he died, 
 the rabble and the slaves crowned his statues with gar 
 lands, and scattered flowers over his grave. And why 
 not ? Nero never injured the rabble, never oppressed 
 the slave. He murdered his mother ; his brother ; 
 his wife ; and was the tyrant of the wealthy ; the 
 terror of the successful. He rendered poverty sweet, 
 for poverty alone was secure ; he rendered slavery 
 tolerable, for slaves alone, or slavish men, were pro 
 moted to power. The reign of Nero was the golden 
 reign of the populace, and the holiday of the bondman. 
 The death of Gracchus was avenged on the descendants 
 of his murderers. 
 
 Despotism now became the government of the Ro 
 man empire. Yet there was such a vitality even in 
 the forms of liberty, that they were still in some degree 
 preserved. . Two centuries passed away, before the last 
 vestiges of republican simplicity disappeared, and the 
 Eastern diadem was introduced with the slavish cus 
 toms of the East. Up to the reign of Diocletian, a 
 diadem had never been endured in Europe. Hardly 
 had this emblem of servility become tolerated, when 
 language also began to be corrupted ; and, within the 
 course of another century, the austere purity of the 
 
316 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 Greek and Roman tongues, the languages of Demos 
 thenes and of Gracchus, became for the first time 
 familiarized to the forms of Oriental adulation. Your 
 imperial Highness, your Grace, your Excellency, your 
 Immensity, your Honor, your Majesty, then first 
 became current in the European world ; men grew 
 ashamed of a plain name; and one person could not 
 address another without following the custom of the 
 Syrians, and calling him Rabbi, Master. 
 
 It is a calumny to charge the devastation of Ita 
 ly upon the barbarians. The large Roman planta 
 tions, tilled by slave labor, were its ruin. Verum 
 confitentibus, latifmidia Italiam perdidere. The care 
 less system impoverished the soil, and wore out even 
 the rich fields of Campania. Large districts were 
 left waste ; others had been turned into pastures ; and 
 grazing substituted for tillage. The average crops 
 hardly ever returned a fourfold increase. Nam frumenta 
 majore quidem parte Italiae, quando cum quarto respon- 
 derint, vix meminisse possumus. This is the confession 
 of the eulogist and the teacher of agriculture. Italy 
 was naturally a very fertile country ; but slave labor 
 could hardly wring from it a return one half, or even 
 one third so great, as free labor gets from the hills and 
 vales of New England. Eor centuries it did not pro 
 duce corn enough to meet the wants of its inhabitants. 
 Rome was chiefly supplied from Sicily and Africa, and 
 the largest number of its inhabitants had for centuries 
 been fed from the public magazines. 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 317 
 
 The Barbarians did not ruin Italy. The Romans 
 themselves ruined it. Slavery had effected the de 
 cline of the Roman people, and had wasted the land, 
 before a Scythian or a Scandinavian had crossed the 
 Alps. 
 
 When Alaric led the Goths into Italy, even after 
 the conquest of Rome, he saw that he could not sus 
 tain his army in the beautiful but desert territory, unless 
 he could also conquer Sicily and Africa, whence alone 
 daily bread could be obtained. His successor was, 
 therefore, easily persuaded to abandon the unpro 
 ductive region, and invade the happier France. 
 
 Attila had no other purpose, than a roving pilgrim 
 age after booty ; and as his cupidity was little excited, 
 and the climate was ungenial, the unlettered Calnfack 
 was overawed by the Roman priesthood, and diverted 
 from indigent Italy to the more prosperous North. 
 Rome still remained an object for plunderers, but none 
 of the barbarians were tempted to make Italy the seat 
 of empire, or Rome a metropolis. Slavery had de 
 stroyed the* democracy, had destroyed the aristocracy, 
 had destroyed the empire ; and at last it left the traces 
 of its ruinous power deeply furrowed on the face of 
 nature herself. 
 
RUSSIA. 
 
 THE origin of the Russian nation is involved in the 
 obscurity which hangs over most events belonging to a 
 remote antiquity. Even the question, to what race of 
 men the first inhabitants of European Scythia or Sar- 
 matia belonged, is one which the investigations of 
 modern inquirers have never been able to answer. 
 " Of Russia, strictly so called," says the indefatigable 
 Schlozer, "the ancients, from Herodotus to Charle 
 magne, knew as little as of Otaheite." Sarmatia and 
 Scythia are vague appellations, applied to unknown re 
 gions in the North. 
 
 It is therefore impossible for the historian to 
 derive the Russians from any race of the continent of 
 Asia. Whatever may have taken place in the period, 
 to which their annals do not ascend, and respecting 
 which no clear allusions are to be found in foreign his 
 torians, to us they appear in the light of aboriginal in 
 habitants of the provinces which now constitute the 
 centre of the empire. From the first they present 
 
RUSSIA. 319 
 
 themselves with a language and character of their own ; 
 they have no community with the Tartars, or with the 
 Goths ; they were distinct from the Huns, though they 
 may have served under the banners of Attila, in the 
 time of his glory, and may afterwards have received 
 among themselves the fragments of a nation, whose 
 season of power had been so short, and yet so de 
 structive. The remains or the exiles of other nations 
 are to be found in the central provinces of Russia ; but 
 the emigrants seem never to have even impaired the 
 nationality of the original inhabitants ; but rather to 
 have become incorporated with them to the entire loss 
 of their own distinctive character. The Russian, there 
 fore, is of all the present European peoples the one 
 which may lay the best grounded claims to antiquity 
 of residence in its present abodes. In the darkness of 
 ancient centuries, extended over vast plains, into which 
 the genius of Greece and the arms of Rome never pene 
 trated, this people were slowly ripening to nationality 
 during the ages of classic splendor, when Solon gave 
 laws to the Athenians, and Rome strove after principles 
 of public justice and liberty. If the Rhoxolani or 
 Rhossolani were a branch of them, they were not 
 wholly unknown during the wars of Mithridates ; 
 and in the period of the Roman emperors they some 
 times visited the mouths of the Danube, sometimes 
 scaled the Carpathian mountains ; and the province of 
 Mo3sia was not safe against their precipitate and care 
 less valor. 
 
320 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 Till the middle of the ninth century, it is on all 
 hands agreed that the history of the Russians has no 
 authenticity. But even the earliest season in which 
 some facts appear supported by various testimony, is 
 involved in an uncertainty, which nothing but the most 
 careful criticism can in any degree dispel. The ori 
 ginal manuscript of the chronicles of Nestor is no longer 
 to be found ; and its copies have undergone so many 
 alterations and interpolations, that it is difficult to 
 separate the genuine from the false. Besides, who was 
 this monk of the eleventh century, to whom Providence 
 has conceded the singular honor of being almost the 
 sole depositary of the early history of his nation ? 
 The accounts of the monk of Kiew coincide in many 
 things with those of the Byzantine historians. Did he, 
 then, draw his information exclusively from original 
 sources, or was he guided in his inquiries by the 
 writers of the eastern empire ? Could there have been 
 any written document in existence among the Russians 
 on which he may have founded his narrative ? Does 
 not the time which intervened between the age of 
 Nestor and that assigned for the foundation of the 
 Russian empire, leave room to doubt the security of 
 oral tradition ? And could a monk of Kiew be accu 
 rately informed of what passed at Novgorod ? It is 
 evident, that Nestor was not unacquainted with foreign 
 literature. Are we to infer from it, that he was the bet 
 ter able to register the course of events ? Or shall we 
 
, RUSSIA. 321 
 
 suppose that -he was led by the influence of foreign 
 forms to give to Russian history an aspect of greater 
 certainty than belonged to it ? The accounts of Nes 
 tor, therefore, while they have an uncertain value for 
 the whole period through which they extend, are of 
 less questionable credibility in all that relates to the 
 times immediately preceding his own. 
 
 Tradition traces the foundation of Kiew to the 
 middle of the fifth century ; the historians of the 
 eastern empire, not less than Nestor, have preserved 
 the accounts of an expedition, which is said to have 
 been made by its princes against Constantinople in the 
 ninth century. Nor does the commercial republic of 
 Novgorod lay claim to a less ancient existence. Estab 
 lished on the banks of the Volchova and not far from 
 Lake Ilmen, its situation explains its commerce with 
 the North along the coasts of the Baltic ; and its mer 
 chants exchanged at Constantinople their furs and 
 honey and wax, the produce of their fisheries, and 
 perhaps also slaves, for the wines and cloths of Grecian 
 manufacture. The power and the wealth of the repub 
 lic were conspicuous even in these earliest times. 
 Their successors reduced many of their neighbors 
 to subjection ; and of the surrounding nations, whom 
 they inspired with terror, they proudly demanded 
 " Who will dare to attack God and the great Nov 
 gorod ? " 
 
 But a change was impending, which seems to have 
 21 
 
322 STUDIES IN HISTQET. 
 
 proceeded from those domestic grievances and defects 
 which are the result of age. What an idea of the an 
 tiquity of the Russian nation do we thus receive ? Its 
 first distinct historical celebrity is connected with the 
 downfall of a republican state ; the new dynasty of 
 princes elevated its grandeur on the ruins of liberty. 
 It is said that in some of the oldest temples of Egypt, 
 the materials of the fabrics which are now standing 
 show signs of having been previously used, so that the 
 oldest buildings of the oldest civilized country are con 
 structed of ruins ; in like manner the history of modern 
 Russia begins with the subversion of an ancient system 
 by a domestic revolution. 
 
 The constitution of Novgorod is not known ; but 
 prosperity produced divisions, and divisions terminated 
 in weakness. The Varagians, the pirates of the Baltic, 
 men who seem rather to have been united by common 
 habits than by common descent, a people numerous 
 and warlike, attacked the republic from the north. At 
 the same time the Sclavonian tribes of the south saw 
 then* liberties endangered by the Khozares, who were 
 advancing from the shores of the Euxine. The citizens 
 of Novgorod, being thus reduced to a state of danger 
 and distress, voluntarily yielded up their liberties to 
 foreign masters. A solemn deputation was sent to the 
 sea-coast, and Riurick, or Rurik, with his two brothers 
 and a large train of countrymen, came to rescue the 
 Russian provinces from foreign invasion, and lay the 
 
RUSSIA. 323 
 
 foundations of an empire, which even yet does not seem 
 to have reached its limits. 
 
 It was in 862, or more probably in 852 (for Rus 
 sian chronology has little certainty before the year 879), 
 that the Russian throne was established. The history 
 of the kingdom of France dates from 843 ; but the 
 reign of Hugh Capet dates only from 987. England 
 was not united under one sovereign till 827. The 
 glory of the house of Hapsburg reaches no further than 
 1232 ; there was not even a duchy of Austria till 1156. 
 The Prussian monarchy is but of yesterday. Accord 
 ing to ancient chronicles, and the indirect evidence 
 of the Greek historians, the Russian throne extends 
 almost as far into the middle ages, as the establishment 
 of the French kingdom, or the union of the Heptarchy 
 of England ; while it surpasses in antiquity almost 
 every other existing government in Europe. 
 
 With respect to the earliest Russian dynasty, it 
 may be well to separate the doubtful from the certain. 
 That a republic should invite three brothers to anni 
 hilate its liberties and reign with unmitigated sovereign 
 ty is improbable, though not absolutely without exam 
 ple. It cannot be decided, nor is it of the least mo 
 ment for the subsequent events in Russian history to 
 decide, to what nation the family of Rurik originally 
 belonged., Nestor says they came from the north. In 
 that case they were kindred with the Normans, perhaps 
 were Swedes. That with Rurik two brothers should 
 
324 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 have come also and established principalities, should 
 have died within two years and thus left Rurik lord 
 of a vast and undivided territory, is not impossible, yet 
 in itself not natural. That some nobles of his retinue 
 should have gained of him permission to descend the 
 Dnieper and attack Constantinople, and should have 
 appeared before that city with two hundred vessels, is 
 inconsistent with the rest of the narration. The infer 
 ence is therefore forced upon the inquirer, that the Roses 
 of the Greeks were not the Russians of history. The 
 points on which reliance may be placed, are simple and 
 sufficient. In the course of the ninth century the 
 Sclavonian tribes in the heart of Russia were united 
 under one sovereign ; their dominion gradually ex 
 tended to Kiew; the name of Russians, which had 
 long existed, became a general appellation ; and finally, 
 the family which traces its origin from Rurik was 
 the ruling dynasty of Russia for more than seven hun 
 dred years. 
 
 Russia forms a connecting link between ancient 
 and modern history. France, Spain, and England, 
 were all conquered, and adopted the manners, the dia 
 lect, and the learning of their conquerors. In the 
 heart of Germany, the Teutonic race preserved itself 
 free from the loss of its language and its nationality, 
 Have not the nations of Teutonic descent proved, by 
 the results of their influence on human events and in 
 telligence, that, as a mercy and a benefit to the world, 
 
RUSSIA. 325 
 
 their name and nation were preserved unsubdued and 
 unmixed ? Have not some of the most valuable princi 
 ples in learning, in philosophy, in religion, and, we may 
 add, in the imaginative arts, been the results of their in 
 dependence ? Though it was long before they learned to 
 unite the elegances of other times with native dignity 
 and the acquisitions of knowledge, yet have they not at 
 last shown themselves strong in the depth of sentiment, 
 in earnest truth, and moral sublimity ? And is it going 
 too far to hope, that one branch of the great Sclavonic 
 family is yet to develop an independent character ; that 
 a nation, which has its unity and identity confirmed and 
 endeared by a community of language, of religious 
 faith, and of historical recollections, a nation placed on 
 lands which join the Caspian and the White Sea, the 
 Baltic, and the most important basin of the Mediter 
 ranean, a nation occupying a soil intersected by the 
 largest rivers of Europe, and offering great and increas 
 ing -facilities of navigation by canals, a nation which 
 reaches from the country of the vine and olive, to the 
 latitudes of perpetual frost, and thus unites within 
 itself all the conditions of national strength, commercial 
 independence, and intellectual energy, is it unreason 
 able to trust that the future course of such a nation is 
 to be marked by results favorable to the best interests 
 of humanity ? That its copious and harmonious lan 
 guage is to become the voice of the muses, and the 
 instrument of science ? That culture is to find a way 
 
326 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 into its healthful and fertile valleys, and that religion and 
 civil liberty are eventually to win new trophies in these 
 immense regions of ancient darkness ? The Russian em 
 pire, like the United States, if comparatively weak for 
 purposes of foreign aggression, is invincible within itself. 
 Its soil is capable of sustaining, without supposing an 
 uncommon degree of culture, a population of a hundred 
 and fifty millions ; the most vigorous government may 
 find enough to do in controlling the members of this 
 vast body politic ; the most ambitious can have with 
 in its limits the means of gratifying an unwearied 
 activity. It already covers a vaster extent of territory 
 than any which the annals of the world commemo 
 rate, except it be the transitory dominion of the 
 Zingis. Where every motive of philanthropy, and of 
 the true passion for glory, impels to the diffusion of 
 sciences and arts, the advancement of the purposes 
 of peace and intelligence, the full display of the great 
 and good qualities which exist in the ancient race that 
 has held the north from immemorial ages, it seems not 
 an unreasonable expectation, that the voice of humanity 
 and of justice will be heard. It may be within the 
 purposes of a controlling Providence, that the agency 
 of the Russian empire shall spread respect for Chris 
 tianity through the hearts of idolatrous nations. Its 
 emissaries have already reared the temples of a purer 
 religion among the Tartar states of Siberia, and planted 
 the cross on the mountains of Kamschatka. The 
 
RUSSIA. 327 
 
 traveller, as lie wanders towards the pole, in latitudes 
 where corn is ripened in a day (a day that extends 
 over, weeks), hears the sounds, and sees the character 
 of a Christian worship ; and monasteries are estab 
 lished even in the remote isles of the White Sea : the 
 shores of the Caspian have ceased to acknowledge a 
 Mahometan master, and the ancient fable of the 
 prisoner of Mount Caucasus, the purest and most 
 sublime invention of ancient mythology, has been but 
 the faint shadowing forth of more glorious truths, 
 which are making themselves felt and acknowledged 
 in the very heart of the mysterious land of classic 
 superstition. 
 
 But if, on the contrary, the form of autocracy 
 should prove incompatible with the diffusion of know 
 ledge, and if Russia should fail to attain to a govern 
 ment insuring the free development of national energy 
 and the strict accountability of public servants, there 
 may ensue a new migration of the nations and a 
 subversion of ancient order, like the terrible devas 
 tations of the great destroyer of the middle ages 
 What force could the western nations oppose to the 
 gradual advancement of Russian supremacy ? The 
 capital of Poland is nearly the centre of Europe, and 
 it is in the hands of the Russians ; Austria has posses 
 sions which are said to. sigh for the yoke of Sclavonic 
 masters, rather than yield allegiance to the house of 
 Hapsburg ; Prussia holds the ports through which 
 
328 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 provinces of the mighty state have their intercourse 
 with the sea ; and probably the prosperity of both 
 parts would be promoted by a union of the seaports and 
 the interior under the stronger government. The 
 Wallachians, the Moldavians, are of the same religious 
 faith. It is not many years since Europe shrieked at 
 the aggressions on Poland ; yet now a large part of the 
 old Polish provinces rejoice in being re-united to their 
 ancient brethren ; the heart of the kingdom, the grand 
 duchy of Warsaw, has not for centuries enjoyed such 
 tranquillity, such security, or such general prosperity, 
 as at present ; the Polish provinces of Prussia lament 
 their separation from their fellow-citizens of the old 
 republic. Where, then, is the barrier against Russia 
 on her frontiers ? On the north, she extends to the 
 poles, and the conquest of Finland has made her inac 
 cessible from the Scandinavian peninsula ; on the east, 
 her limit is the Pacific, unless, indeed, we take into 
 account her possessions in North America. On the 
 south, she is herself most formidable to every one of 
 her neighbors. Caucasian countries and the keys of 
 Persia are already hers ; no vessels sail on the Cas 
 pian but by her permission; she holds more than 
 half the shores of the Black Sea ; the Turkish power 
 may yet shine forth in temporary lustre before it 
 expires; but religious and national enthusiasm, and 
 personal bravery, cannot resist the influence of causes 
 which are constantly operating, and always increasing 
 
RUSSIA. 329 
 
 m strength. Thus, Russia, inaccessible on the south, 
 east, and north, stands in a menacing attitude towards 
 the south-east and the west of Europe. Did not Peter 
 the Great wish to become a state of the German 
 empire ? Has not a part of the Baltic coast belong 
 ing to Prussia been repeatedly grasped at ? Did not 
 the wise, the temperate, the forbearing Alexander, 
 accept from his suffering and prostrate ally a portion 
 of coveted territory in Galicia? Did he not, even 
 after the peace of Tilsit, partake in the spoils of his 
 unhappy associate in arms? The memory of these 
 things has not perished ; has justice intrenched herself 
 in firmer sanctuaries ? Has the consciousness of moral 
 obligation so far gained force, that the appearance 
 of a tyrant on a powerful throne would no longer 
 perplex monarchs with a fear of change ? 
 
 The statesman that believes in human virtue, may 
 still seek for a guarantee of right in permanent interests, 
 and in sufficient strength to repel unjust aggressions. 
 It is painful to suppose that the balance of power in 
 the north is so far destroyed, that the strongest hope 
 of security lies in the wisdom of governments, the per 
 sonal virtues of sovereigns, and the cordial union of the 
 weaker nations. 
 
 But it is said that the Russian empire is a huge 
 mass, which will of itself fall asunder. And why will 
 it fall asunder ? Is there not the tie of kindred in the 
 great nucleus of the empire ? Is not the whole well 
 
330 STUDIES IN HISTORY 
 
 annealed and firmly joined? Is it not cut off and 
 separated from trie rest of Christendom by its peculiar 
 church discipline ? Is it not one and undivided by its 
 descent ? Is it not bound together by having the same 
 military heroes, the same saints, the same recollections, 
 civil and sacred? Next to France, it is of ah 1 the states 
 of Europe the one which is safest against division. 
 How much more secure in its unity is Russia than 
 Austria, which yet is secure except from some general 
 convulsion. Of the Poles, the Russians, flie Hun 
 garians, the Bohemians, the Germans, the Illyrians, 
 and the Italians, which by their motley union con 
 stitute the ill-assorted mosaic of the great central 
 sovereignty, how many at present dislike the Austrian 
 supremacy ! Will Hungary submit to be a dependency 
 on a country of far less natural resources ? Will the 
 beautiful and fertile Bohemia consent to the anni 
 hilation of its language, its national laws and con 
 stitutions, its time-hallowed liberties ? Will Russians 
 prefer the sway of a foreign power to sharing the glory 
 of their kindred ? Will Poles desire to remain divided 
 from Poles ? Prussia labors under infinitely greater 
 danger of dismemberment than Russia. The idea, 
 that Russia will of itself break in pieces, is unfounded 
 in the history or the character of the component parts 
 of that empire. 
 
 But still it is so vast, so unwieldy ! And is it 
 more easy to tear a member from a leviathan than a 
 
RUSSIA. 331 
 
 fly? Are the limbs of a beast less firmly knit, 
 because they are huge and massive ? It is a clear 
 lesson of history that large states hold together, 
 long after wisdom has departed from, the councils of 
 their governors. The Roman empire never fell till it 
 was shaken from abroad. The Greek empire lasted a 
 thousand years longer, and would, in all probability, 
 have lasted to this day, had it not received an irresist 
 ible shock from a nation which as yet had no home. 
 Now the danger which is said to hang over Russia is 
 solely from within itself. 
 
 The history of the future cannot be read in the ex 
 perience of the past. We may trust that the new 
 relations, which are rising in the world, will yet lead to 
 a balance of power, dependent on the moral force of 
 intelligence. We can but hope that a bright and 
 peaceful futurity awaits a government, on which de 
 pends directly the happiness of sixty millions of men, a 
 fifteenth part of the human race ; a government which 
 holds under its sway a large portion of the whole 
 habitable globe ; a government whose soil is sus 
 ceptible of infinite improvements, and whose popu 
 lation is but just beginning to bear some reasonable 
 proportion to its natural abundance. The voice of 
 Sclavonic poetry has already been heard, and the 
 lessons of the Russian bards are full of the noblest 
 moral truths. The Russian press is active. Works 
 on domestic history are multiplying. The spirit of the 
 
332 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 nation is aroused by the recollections which go back for 
 so many centuries. The pride of national feeling is 
 deep and strong, and arts and letters are making their 
 way into the heart of a country which from its earliest 
 ages has possessed an aptitude for learning. 
 
 Nor should it be left out of view, that while the 
 general administration is autocratic, the municipal reg 
 ulations are free ; that local customs, constitutions, and 
 religious peculiarities, are preserved ; and that while 
 there is no legitimate guarantee of civil liberty, and no 
 exact limit to check the infringement of the imperial 
 authority on particular privileges, yet practically the 
 local institutions are respected ; and in an autocracy, 
 of which the territory is immense, the hand of the 
 sovereign is not felt in its rudeness except in his 
 personal vicinity. It is in a small kingdom that 
 a tyrant is the most dreaded monster. In a large 
 state the personal vices of the sovereign extend in 
 their direct influence hardly beyond his immediate 
 train. 
 
 They who limit their attention in Russian annals to 
 anecdotes which illustrate the debauchery of the court, 
 the ignorance of the nobles, or the superstitions of the 
 vulgar, close their eyes on one of the greatest specta 
 cles. The reception of the Russians into the pale of 
 civilized Christendom forms an epoch in civilization, so 
 wide are its influences, so powerful, grand, and benefi 
 cent the consequences to which it has led and may 
 
RUSSIA. 333 
 
 lead. How different would have been the future of 
 the world if the Russian state with its present power 
 had adopted the manners and the religion of the east ? 
 What safety would there now be to Christian Europe ? 
 What increased dangers would not hang over its liber 
 ties? He that can neglect such results in the de 
 lineation of strange and uncouth manners, or in the 
 scandalous chronicles of the licentiousness of an im 
 moral court, gives up the contemplation of the great 
 revolutions in national destinies, to the unworthy office 
 of analyzing the vices of individual profligates. One 
 of the noblest branches of knowledge, the history of 
 nations, loses its dignity and value. 
 
334 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 
 
 I. 
 
 SHORTLY before the discovery of America, the Rus 
 sian nation began to renew its glory. The victories 
 of Tamerlane, by weakening the enemies of the Grand 
 Prince of Moscow, had prepared the way for his suc 
 cessful refusal to send further tribute to the Golden 
 Horde ; and the great mass of Russian strength, reviv 
 ing after a servitude of almost two and a half centuries, 
 made conquests in every direction, under three suc 
 cessive princes of the house of Rurik. 
 
 Eor fifteen years of his reign, Ivan the Great had 
 paid tribute to the Tartars ; but in the year 1492, his 
 power was firmly established as an independent prince. 
 Some Russian merchants had been plundered by the 
 Turks of Caffa. Ivan expostulated in a letter to Bajazet. 
 " Whence arise these acts of violence ? Are you aware 
 of them, or are you not ? One word more : Mahomet, 
 your father, was a great prince ; he designed to send 
 ambassadors to compliment me ; God opposed the exe 
 cution of this project. Why should we not now see 
 the accomplishment of it ? " And in 1498, the ambas- 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 335 
 
 sador of the Grand Duke (the title of Czar had not yet 
 been assumedj was charged " to compliment the Sul 
 tan standing, and not on his knees ; to address his 
 speech only to that sovereign himself, and to yield pre 
 cedence to no other ambassador ; and not in any man 
 ner to compromise the dignity of his master." The 
 Russians, for another half century, remained unknown 
 to the western kingdoms of Europe. Even after their 
 conquests embraced Kazan and Lapland, they had no 
 maritime intercourse with the rest of the world. 
 
 It is our present purpose briefly to trace the origin, 
 the progress, and the political results of hostilities be 
 tween the Ottoman and the Muscovite empires. The 
 first rencounter of the Turks and Russians in a field of 
 battle is assigned by Karamsin to the year 1541, on 
 occasion of resistance shown to Sahib Gherai on the 
 banks of the Oka. "There," says the Russian his 
 torian, "we for the first time beheld Ottoman tro 
 phies in our hands." But Von Hammer explains, that 
 the trophies were those of a Tartar Khan, and not 
 of Turks. 
 
 In the year 1553, the English sent forth three ships 
 for the discovery of a Northeastern passage to Cathay 
 or China. Two of them were wrecked; the third, 
 commanded by Richard Chancellor, proceeded to " an 
 unknown part of the world," and reached a place where 
 there was " no night at all, but a continual light and 
 brightness of the sun shining clearly upon the huge 
 
336 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 and mighty sea." At length they came to a bay, and 
 the month of the Dwina, and report hating announced 
 them to the terrified natives as men of "a strange 
 nation, of singular gentleness and courtesy," Chancellor 
 was able to travel into the interior. He found that 
 the country was called Russia, or Muscovy, and that 
 Ivan Vassilievitch II. "ruled and governed far and 
 wide." This was " the discovery of Russia," of 
 which the fame spread through Spain the belief " of a 
 discovery of New Indies," and in England gave imme 
 diate impulse to mercantile adventure ; so completely 
 had Russia been withdrawn from the eye of the rest of 
 Europe, just as she was about to enter on a career of 
 splendid, permanent, and increasing conquest. 
 
 About the time that accident opened to the English 
 merchants the avenue of Archangel, the Ottoman 
 empire had attained its height under the sway of 
 Solyman the Magnificent. His private misfortunes, 
 his weakness as a lover, and his cruelty as a father, are 
 favorite historical topics for those who delight to ob 
 serve the workings of human passions on the arena of 
 the world. But Solyman also had courage, enterprise, 
 a love for letters, a fondness of magnificence in archi 
 tecture. He himself commanded in thirteen cam 
 paigns, and the terror of his name pervaded Asia and 
 Europe. His fleets besieged Marseilles, and alarmed 
 Rome by anchoring in the mouths of the Tiber, while 
 from the Persian Gulf they seized Bassora on the 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 337 
 
 Tigris ; on the Mediterranean Sea, pirates plundered in 
 his name, and the Ararat was hardly a limit to his 
 emissaries on land. He left to his successor, Selim II., 
 an empire extending in the east to Van and districts 
 which Russian arms subdued during the summer of 
 1829; in the west, to Gran, within less than a hun 
 dred miles of Vienna. The conquest of Algiers and 
 Tripoli had carried its dominion southerly to Nubia 
 and the deserts of Africa, while in the north, towards 
 Poland and Russia, the country of the Cossacks was 
 interposed, and the line of respective sovereignty was 
 still undetermined. The Nile and the Danube flowed 
 through the domains of the Grand Sultan ; the khan 
 of the Crimea was his tributary and ally; the rich 
 provinces which had witnessed and sustained the lux 
 ury of the Seleucidae, were his ; Palestine and a part 
 of Arabia had submitted to him ; Persia was overawed 
 by his superior power, just as it now lies at the mercy 
 of the Czar ; and the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azoph 
 were exclusively within his jurisdiction. The vast re 
 sources of these immense, populous, and opulent re 
 gions, were under the control of one will, and miglit 
 be called forth with secrecy and despatch ; his regular 
 troops were admirably disciplined; and his artillery 
 had been brought to a state of excellence by skil 
 ful engineers. Such was the Ottoman power, at the 
 period of its first aggression on Russia. 
 
 That aggression, the first war between Russia and 
 22 
 
338 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 the Porte, happened in the year 1569. Just thirteen 
 years before this invasion, the Russian Czar, Ivan the 
 Terrible, had succeeded in conquering the kingdom of 
 Astracan. The Porte on the contrary held Azoph, the 
 country round the mouth of the Don, and all the 
 neighboring coasts. The interest of Selim seemed to 
 require the possession of Astracan, that he might in 
 vade Persia from the north, while one oT his officers 
 suggested uniting the waters of the Don and the Volga 
 by a canal, for the purpose of facilitating the transpor 
 tation of munitions of war. The fourth of August was 
 the evil day for the Porte, when three thousand jani 
 zaries and twenty thousand horsemen moved against 
 Astracan ; while five thousand janizaries and three 
 thousand laborers made their way to Azoph. These 
 ascended the Don to the place where that river is less 
 than thirty miles from the Volga, and the excavations 
 were commenced with incredible zeal. But the Prince 
 Serebianow appeared with fifteen thousand Russians ; 
 and the janizaries and the workmen were massacred 
 or dispersed. Meantime the garrison of Astracan 
 made a successful sally upon their besiegers. The 
 Turks were compelled to retreat ; hoping still for the 
 speedy arrival of succor. But a part of the army of 
 the Tartars failed to appear, through jealousy of the 
 too great preponderance of the Porte, which compro 
 mised their independence ; a part had been attacked 
 and cut to pieces by the Russians. The Turks, in 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 339 
 
 despair, trusted themselves in their flight to Tartar 
 guides, who led them on purpose through destructive 
 morasses, from fear for the security of their own nation ; 
 and, finally, a miserable wreck only returned to Azoph, 
 of an army which had gone forth in the pride of certain 
 victory. The khan of the Crimea, who had anticipated 
 his own entire subjection from the success of the Turk 
 ish enterprise, filled the desponding army with super 
 stitious fears. His emissaries represented, that in the 
 regions on the Don and the Wolga, the winter extends 
 over nine months, and that in summer the night is 
 but three hours long ; while the law of the prophet ap 
 points the evening prayers two hours after sunset, and 
 the morning orisons at the break of day. Terrified at 
 the seeming contradiction between nature and the ordi 
 nances of their religion, they embarked at Azoph to re 
 turn ; but a storm at sea completed the ruin of the 
 expedition ; and of all who had been sent out on the 
 great design, hardly seven thousand came back to Con 
 stantinople. Peace was restored between Russia and 
 the Porte in 1570 by a Russian embassy. Yet it was 
 remarked and remembered, that Selim, in giving au 
 dience to the Muscovite envoy, neglected to inquire after 
 the health of the Czar, and took no concern for the hos- 
 pitable entertainment of his ambassador. 
 
340 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 II. 
 
 More than a century passed away before the 
 Russian and Turkish arms again met in battle. The 
 spirit of conquest had never carried the Mahometans 
 far to the north ; Muscovy offered no places of abode 
 which they coveted; and the Ukraine promised little 
 booty. Russia itself had also been suffering a series of 
 revolutions, which were finally to insure its prosperity. 
 The old line of Rurik had come to an end ; the throne 
 had been usurped by a tyrant, marked by every vice 
 and possessing no claim as a descendant of the ancient 
 race of monarchs. At length a fierce opposition left 
 the usurper no chance of escape, and he took poison. 
 His son survived him but a few weeks. A pretender 
 to the crown then entered the metropolis in triumph, 
 and the false Demetrius held the supreme authority for 
 a year and a month, till he too fell a victim to his own 
 intemperate cruelty. Foreign aggressions ensued. The 
 people proclaimed Shuskoi, a domestic prince, for their 
 sovereign ; but a succession of disasters placed the un 
 happy ruler at the mercy of Poland, while Sweden also 
 strove to get one of its princes proclaimed in his stead. 
 Absolute ruin seemed the inevitable doom of Russian 
 power. But of a sudden a few patriots collected an 
 army, rescued Moscow, and won a victory over the 
 Poles. Then the Russians assembled and proceeded to 
 the solemn election of a sovereign. The choice was 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 341 
 
 unanimous ; and the whole nation hailed as its chief 
 the youthful Michael, the first of the house of Ro- 
 manow. Thus after an interregnum and fifteen years 
 of disasters, the Russians were again united, and victory 
 returned to their standards. Michael struggled suc 
 cessfully against the Poles and the Swedes ; he entered 
 into a treaty of peace with Turkey, on terms of mutual 
 friendliness, obtaining the recognition of his authority, 
 and security against the incursions of the Tartars ; and 
 finally, he was the first European sovereign on record, 
 who sent a solemn embassy to China, and formed with 
 that power a treaty of amity and commerce. 
 
 The long and prosperous reign of Michael, from 
 1613 to 1645, was succeeded by a reign likewise long, 
 wise, and prosperous. The authority of Michael had 
 sprung from the pure source of a patriotic election ; his 
 son Alexei, who reigned from 1645 to 1676, confirmed 
 the interior of the state, reformed the laws, won back 
 from Poland many provinces, which had been extorted 
 from Russian weakness, and was indefatigable in pro 
 moting the general welfare of the state. The father of 
 Peter the Great was himself a man of justice and of 
 mildness. 
 
 His eldest son, Feodor, followed him as Czar from 
 1676 to 1689. He was of a weak constitution, yet of 
 an active mind and unwearied industry. It was soon 
 after his accession to the sovereign power, in the year 
 1677, that the second war between Russia and the 
 
342 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 Porte grew out of the fickleness of the Zaporagian Cos 
 sacks. That most singular race of men, either piqued 
 at the haughtiness of the Turks, or preferring the sove 
 reignty of those who were most ready and able to 
 give them aid, placed themselves under the protection 
 of the Russians. 
 
 The Cossacks, the mixed descendants of Russians, 
 Poles, and Tartars, had remained in subjection to 
 Poland since the fifteenth century, and had formed 
 an excellent bulwark against the Turks and Tartars. 
 They rebelled unsuccessfully in 1648, and again in 
 1651 ; and finally, in 1654, most of them sought pro 
 tection of Russia, though a part chose rather to acknow 
 ledge the supremacy of the Porte. A conflict ensued 
 between the Czar and the republic of Poland, ending 
 with a compromise exceedingly favorable to the Rus 
 sians. It remained to secure the country of those, 
 who, in the first instance, had submitted to the Sul 
 tan, but now desired to be incorporated with their 
 kindred. 
 
 The war was of three years duration ; the incidents 
 were few ; the results of lasting importance. An at 
 tack was ordered by the grand vizier upon Tchiriquin, 
 the chief place of the Zaporagians, on the banks of the 
 river Tiasmin. But the Russians were on their guard, 
 and repelled the Turks with their entire discomfiture. 
 The next year, the new grand vizier, the famous Cara 
 Mustapha, the same who afterwards besieged, and, but 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 343 
 
 for Sobieski, would have taken Vienna, renewed the at 
 tack with a host which, according to his own threats, 
 was " innumerable as the stars of the heavens." The 
 town of Tchiriquin was taken ; but the success was bar 
 ren of consequences; and Cara Mustapha retired to 
 seek a more conspicuous theatre of action. 
 
 A truce of twenty years was concluded at Radzyn, 
 m the year 1680. The Zaporagian Cossacks remained 
 under the Russians ; the Porte renounced every claim 
 to the Ukraine and to Tchiriquin, and guarantied Rus 
 sia against any invasion from the khan of the Crimea ; 
 and finally the Tartars ceded several places to Russia, 
 as dependencies of Kiev. The plain between the 
 Dnieper and the Dniester was declared to be an inde 
 pendent waste, in which no Tartars were to settle. 
 
 Such was the honorable peace, concluded by the 
 brother of Peter the Great. Peodor was a man of lofty 
 mind, and of great energy of will. It was he who col 
 lected the books, in which the records of the rank of 
 the several nobles were insciibed, and burnt them all 
 in the presence of an immense assembly. This having 
 been accomplished, he made proclamation, that " privi 
 leges and high offices are not the prerogatives of noble 
 birth, but are to be obtained by personal merit alone." 
 
 in. 
 
 The third war between Russia and the Porte, com 
 menced in 1686, and did not cease till 1698 ; nor was 
 
344 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 peace established till 1700. The early death of Feodor 
 II., in 1682, opened the supreme power of Russia to the 
 ambition of Sophia. During the first part of her reign, 
 her sway was undisputed alike by the weakness of her 
 elder brother, Ivan, or the boyhood of the younger, 
 Peter. The favorite of the female regent was the 
 Prince Galitzin, a statesman of laborious habits and 
 sagacity. The Austrian emperor was still engaged in 
 a protracted war with the Turkish power ; and Vienna 
 had been saved only by the magnanimous heroism of 
 the Polish king. It was seen, that in Russia an impor 
 tant auxiliary might be obtained ; and Polish and Aus 
 trian diplomacy were busy in seeking the alliance. 
 
 The wary Galitzin saw the advantages which Russia 
 might win by a rupture with Turkey. At that time 
 there was not one single harbor on the Black Sea be 
 longing to the Muscovite ; and the mouths of the Don 
 and the port of Azoph began to seem essential to Rus 
 sian advancement. But Galitzin did not engage im 
 petuously in the alliance. A treaty with Poland bearing 
 date May sixth, 1686, and denominated " The Perpetual 
 Peace," required that republic to resign all claims to 
 Smolensko and the Ukraine, as the preliminary to the 
 alliance which first united Austria and Russia against 
 the Porte, under the express condition that no separate 
 peace should be concluded. At the same time, the 
 relations of Russia .with western Europe were renewed. 
 Many centuries before, a Russian princess became the 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 345 
 
 mother of the French kings ; in 1687 the first embassy 
 of modern Russia appeared in Paris. 
 
 The campaigns of 1687 and 1688 were both unsuc 
 cessful. In the former, the failure was attributed to 
 the treachery of the Cossacks ; in consequence of 
 which, their Hetman was banished to Siberia, and the 
 notorious Mazeppa promoted to his place. In the sec 
 ond campaign, the Tartars being defeated, set fire to 
 the arid prairies, and the flames, as they spread widely 
 and continued long, involved many of the people and 
 their cattle in the conflagration, and destroyed all 
 means of forage. 
 
 But a new era was approaching for the internal re 
 lations of Russia. Peter had assumed his equal right 
 to sovereignty, at the age of sixteen ; a bloody revolu 
 tion secured the new Czar in power ; and the war with 
 the Turks was almost forgotten for a series of years. 
 The intrigues of the court and the interior of the 
 empire, had occupied the attention of the restless Czar. 
 But at length his ambition coveted an establishment on 
 the Black Sea, and the capture of Azoph was resolved 
 upon. In 1695, a fleet, built upon the Voronez, a 
 navigable branch of the Don, descended the stream, 
 and entered the Sea of Azoph. A numerous army was 
 provided to repel the invasions of the Tartars ; another 
 was employed in conducting the siege. Yet the first 
 efforts of the young Czar were rash and unsuccessful. 
 
346 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 He lost, during the campaign, many thousands of his 
 troops, and failed to take the city. 
 
 Great success is usually preceded by defeats. Peter 
 became more cautious ; he obtained from abroad better 
 engines and artillery, and when in the next spring the 
 siege was renewed, it was found impossible for the 
 Turkish garrison to hold out. The city surrendered ; 
 the fortifications were repaired; the harbor was im 
 proved; and the Russian standard was for the first 
 time planted in triumph on the shores of waters which 
 connect with the Mediterranean. Previously to the 
 surrender of the place, the small Russian fleet had en 
 gaged the Turkish squadron, and to the astonishment 
 of Europe, the fleet of a naval power which had been 
 the terror of the civilized world, especially of the 
 Mediterranean Sea, was vanquished by the boats of 
 Russian sailors, who had hardly before seen, much less 
 unfurled a sail, and whose only maritime commu 
 nication with the rest of mankind, had been through 
 the port of Archangel. The victorious army returned 
 in triumphal procession to Moscow. Peter modestly 
 joined in the crowd of gazers, took part in applauding 
 the merit of the conquerors, and himself appeared as a 
 private volunteer in the train of a superior officer. 
 
 On the continuance of the war, further advantages 
 were gained at Azoph, and Perecop was taken after a 
 murderous battle with the Tartars. But it was Eugene 
 who accelerated peace by his success with the Aus- 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 347 
 
 trian forces at Zenta. Intrusted for the first time with 
 the chief command, he dared to disobey the emperor s 
 orders, which prohibited an engagement, and attacked 
 the numerous Turkish army in the presence of the Sul 
 tan. Two hours, and a loss of five hundred men, pro 
 cured a complete and decisive victory. "The sun 
 seemed to linger on the horizon," said the youthful 
 hero, to whose enthusiasm a little glorying may be 
 pardoned, " to gild with his last rays the triumphant 
 standards of Austria." The peace of Carlovitz gave tc 
 Peter a truce of two years, and the possession of Azoph 
 with all its dependencies. The towns on the mouths 
 of the Dnieper were dismantled, but remained under 
 Turkish supremacy. This truce, entered into on the 
 twenty-fifth of January, 1699, was converted into a 
 definitive peace for thirty years, on the third of July, 
 1700. 
 
 Perhaps the reader is curious to know what honors 
 were lavished on the hero whose first command was 
 rendered illustrious by a victory, which gave repose to 
 Russia, Poland, and Austria ? It may be asked, what 
 artists were engaged to preserve his features in marble ? 
 What public distinctions marked the deliverer of his 
 sovereign? What rank, what estates, what triumphal 
 entries were awarded to the modest and valiant Eu 
 gene? When the hero delivered the great seal of the 
 Ottoman empire to the Austrian sovereign, he was 
 welcomed with no approbation. He was soon after 
 
348 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 arrested for fighting a battle against orders ; was de 
 prived of his sword ; and like a malefactor, put under 
 arrest. It was no new thing for Austria to be ungrate 
 ful. In September, 1683, during this same war of 
 Austria with Turkey, the Polish king had saved Vienna 
 from falling into the hands of the Turks. But John 
 Sobieski was an elective king ; and the cabinet of the 
 emperor gravely consulted, if such an one had ever had 
 access to the imperial presence, and in what manner he 
 ought to be received. The deliverer of Vienna, the 
 open, brave, chivalric Sobieski, was finally admitted to 
 an interview, the formalities of which had been settled 
 with ungrateful and pusillanimous punctiliousness. 
 
 On the other hand Peter the Great set at nought 
 the distinctions of decorum as well as the vain ones 
 of birth. He made of a baker s boy, who had once 
 cried bread in the streets of Moscow, but who had 
 abilities for rendering important services to the state, 
 a general, a prince, a companion, and a friend; and 
 raised to the rank of czarina a servant maid, whose 
 venal beauty had first attracted his desires, and whose 
 intellectual endowments and heroism had finally won 
 his esteem 
 
 IV. 
 
 Our design extends no further than to trace the 
 results of the successive wars which Russia waged with 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 349 
 
 her southern neighbor. We cannot even glance at the 
 succession of brilliant victories and strange disasters, 
 which made of the Swedish Charles at one moment the 
 dictator of the north, and not many years after, the 
 fugitive dependent on the charities of Turkey. The 
 Turks manifested admiration for the unbending ener 
 gies of this northern hero, and submitted to the influ 
 ence of one who had only his own haughty stubborn 
 ness to inspire respect. The fourth war of Russia and 
 the Porte was but an interlude to the grand drama 
 which the northern nations had been enacting along 
 the provinces on the Baltic. It is remarkable as the 
 only one of the whole series in which the crescent had 
 the superiority ; and it almost cost the reformer of the 
 Russian nation his liberty and the fruits of his la 
 borious life. 
 
 This war was one of aggression on the part of the 
 Porte. Peter strove hard to avoid it. It was declared 
 in Constantinople, on the twentieth of November, 
 1710 ; and the counter- declaration of Russia was 
 published at Moscow, in February, 1711. On the 
 side of the Porte, the intrigues of the Swedish king 
 had been seconded by the apprehensions of the khan 
 of the Crimea, who feared that his own territory would 
 next be coveted by his rapacious neighbor. The Sul 
 tan also heard with dismay of a Russian fleet in the 
 harbor of Taganrog, and of Russian fortifications and 
 artillery at Azoph. 
 
350 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 The Czar was attended during the campaign by the 
 woman, who, from a servant girl and captive, had risen 
 to be his wife. The hospodar of Moldavia, the unfor 
 tunate Cantemir, proved a faithful ally to the Russians ; 
 the hospodar of Wallachia had also sought a corre 
 spondence with Peter ; but finding a rival traitor in 
 favor, by a second infidelity he returned to his alle 
 giance to the Porte. Cantemir was unable to make 
 good the promises which he had given in sincerity, 
 while Brancovan, the hospodar of Wallachia, assisted 
 in decoying Peter into an inextricable position. 
 
 When the Czar found himself, with no more than 
 about twenty-two thousand men, encompassed by a 
 hostile army of two hundred and seventy thousand, 
 near the Pruth, suffering for want of water, without 
 strength to hazard a battle, or force a retreat, or make 
 good a defence, his magnanimity did not desert him. 
 A messenger was despatched to his senate, declaring 
 that his authority should cease with his liberty, and 
 that in case of his death, the senate should proceed to 
 elect the worthiest of their number his successor. 
 
 But the counsels of a woman saved him. The 
 czarina proposed negotiations ; and the grand vizier 
 deemed a peace the surest way of securing the interests 
 of his master. Its terms were, the restoration of 
 Azoph ; the destruction of the fortifications of Ta 
 ganrog ; the free return of the Swedish monarch 
 to his realm. The grand vizier had further demanded, 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 351 
 
 that the person of Caritemir, the rebellious subject of 
 the Porte, should be delivered up. "I would rather," 
 answered the Czar, " cede all the territory between this 
 and Kursk ; I should have the hope of some day re 
 covering it ; but my broken faith would be irreparable : 
 I cannot violate my promise ; honor is the only thing 
 that is peculiarly ours ; and to renounce it is to cease 
 to be a monarch." 
 
 Informed of the negotiation, Charles XII. hastened 
 to the Ottoman camp, to reproach and to question the 
 grand vizier. " How dare you," said the Swede, "how 
 dare you sign the peace without first having my royal 
 sanction, for whose interest the war was begun ? " 
 The grand vizier replied, " that his sublime master 
 had ordered him to combat for the interests of the 
 Ottoman empire." "You might have led the Czar and 
 his army captive to Constantinople," said the king. 
 " And if I had taken the Czar," replied the vizier, with 
 insulting apathy, " who would have governed his states 
 in his absence ? It is not well for all kings to live 
 abroad." 
 
 A delay in the surrender of Azoph had nearly 
 renewed the war ; but peace was finally established in 
 April, 1712, under English and Polish mediation. The 
 evacuation of Poland by the Russian armies was a new 
 condition. 
 
 Thus were the plans of Peter in the south entirely 
 frustrated. The acquisitions of his youth were lost ; 
 
352 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 the Russian fleets disappeared on the Sea of Azoph; 
 the Euxine remained wholly a Turkish sea ; and the 
 southern commerce of Russia was once more deprived 
 of all safe and natural issues. The Czar sought indem 
 nification in the north his affections were indeed more 
 fixed upon that region, since it brought him into im 
 mediate connexion with civilized Europe ; and Sweden 
 was at last compelled to cede even more than he had 
 demanded. 
 
 v. 
 
 It was on occasion of the peace with Sweden in 1721, 
 that the Czar was saluted by the Russian senate, the 
 synod, and the people, with the title of Emperor of all 
 Russia, which was at once acknowledged by Sweden, 
 the Netherlands, and Prussia; but which was not 
 adopted by the German empire till 1747, nor by 
 Spain till 1759. 
 
 Four and twenty years had elapsed since the disas 
 ters on the Pruth had left to the Turkish power the pride 
 of success. But the spirit of the Russians burned to 
 avenge then* reverses, and wipe away the recollection 
 of their last treaty of peace. In the field-marshal 
 Munich, the empress Anna found for her forces a 
 leader, whom Frederick the Great has called the 
 Eugene of the North. Thus in 1735, a fifth war 
 against the Porte was resolved upon, and Austria was 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 353 
 
 induced to take part in it, through the hope of aggran 
 dizement on her eastern frontier. 
 
 The war on the part of Russia was conducted with 
 glory. Azoph was besieged and taken ; and the 
 Crimea invaded, but not reduced. Otchakov was 
 conquered amid streams of blood, in 1737. The 
 following year was not without its disasters ; but in 
 1739 the Dniester was passed, the fortress of Choczim 
 reduced, and all Moldavia fell into the possession of 
 Russia. 
 
 On the part of Austria, there had, on the contrary, 
 been displayed a singular succession of ignorant and 
 pusillanimous leaders and statesmen. Modern history 
 hardly furnishes an example of such want of energy, 
 union, and ability, as was seen in the whole course of 
 the management of the war, and still more in the 
 negotiations for peace. The Austrian plenipotentiary 
 pleaded the express instructions of his sovereign ; the 
 emperor charged the envoy with treachery and weak 
 ness ; and the Austrian councils exhibited, in a season 
 of trial and danger, the loathsome spectacle of petty 
 minds, sacrificing the large interests of nations in the 
 pursuit of private intrigues, and the gratifications of a 
 mean-spirited, narrow, and quarrelsome ambition. 
 
 It was on that occasion, in 1739, that Austria sur 
 rendered Belgrade, and accepted the Danube, the Save, 
 and the Unna, for boundaries. The history of the 
 Austrian part of the war is a series of common events, 
 23 
 
354 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 rescued by no characteristics, except the magnitude of 
 the interests at issue, from the dull mediocrity of 
 ordinary routine. The Austrian plenipotentiary was 
 subjected in the Turkish camp to every kind of in 
 dignity. The grand vizier cut short all negotiation. 
 " There is. but one God," such was his style of diplo 
 macy, " and I have but one word ; and that is, 
 Belgrade." 
 
 Thus deserted, Russia was glad to withdraw from 
 the contest. The conditions which she obtained, re 
 trieved her honor. The treaty of the Pruth was 
 annulled ; the imperial dignity of the Russian monarch 
 was acknowledged ; Azoph remained this time to the 
 Russians ; the territory of Russia in the Ukraine was 
 extended. But it was also stipulated, that Russian 
 ships were not to sail on the waters of the Euxine. 
 The positive results of the war were considerable ; but 
 the moral influences on the tone of feeling in Russia, 
 were of vastly more moment. Henceforth the Turkish 
 power was regarded with comparative disdain. The 
 decisive superiority of Russian arms, and the perfected 
 organization of the Russian military forces, were due to 
 the genius of Munich. 
 
 And what was his reward ? He had hoped for an 
 independent principality, which he was to conquer from 
 the Porte. He subsequently devised the method of su 
 perintending the war department of the empire. Disap 
 pointed in his ambition, he resigned his public employ- 
 
THE WAIIS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 355 
 
 ments. At the end of a series of revolutions, he was 
 arraigned before an inquisitorial tribunal. Vexed at 
 their minute examinations, the veteran exclaimed, 
 "Write down what answers you please, and I will 
 sign them." They did so, and he was condemned to 
 death ; but the empress Elizabeth, who, during her long 
 reign permitted no capital punishment, would only ban 
 ish him to Siberia. There he occupied a house which he 
 had himself caused to be erected for the bloody Biren. 
 His residence, or rather his prison, was an isolated build 
 ing, situated on a morass, completely exposed to obser 
 vation. The income allowed for the maintenance of his 
 household was twelve shillings a day. He amused 
 himself with teaching boys geometry; and his name 
 was still a terror in all the neighboring provinces. The 
 reverses of fortune, which are frequent in Russian 
 history, surpass the succession of scenes in a masque 
 rade. The engineer who planned and executed the 
 canal of Ladoga was left to draw diagrams for children 
 in Siberia. He, whose voice had always rung like a 
 trumpet in the ears of his army, and poured an irre 
 sistible flood of troops to the assault of Otchakov and 
 Choczim, had no wider space for action than a marshy 
 farm, and was himself transformed to a herdsman, hal 
 looing to his cattle, on whose milk he in part depended 
 for the daily expenses of his household. 
 
 At the age of seventy-nine, the venerable old map 
 was recalled by Peter III. ; and one who knew him, 
 
356 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 describes him then to have been the model of aged, 
 manly beauty. As he returned from his exile, he 
 knew not if any one of his blood had been left alive ; 
 but a band of thirty-three of his descendants assembled 
 to welcome him back to society and civilization. 
 
 VI. 
 
 TJte sixth tear of Russia and the Porte was begun 
 by the latter power, and had for its immediate cause 
 the determination of the Porte to preserve the inde 
 pendence of Poland. Catharine was not averse to war. 
 The aged Munich had retained the fervor of his mind, 
 and during the first years of the reign of the empress, 
 she who was susceptible to every thing which promised 
 glory or accession of power, loved to hear the octo 
 genarian chief detail the plans which Peter had con 
 ceived, and the empress Anna well nigh executed. 
 
 The Porte strenuously demanded the evacuation of 
 Poland by the Russian armies. France encouraged 
 the sultan, who was a man of great firmness, to insist 
 on the demand. Catharine, on the contrary, was 
 determined by intrigues, divisions, and force of arms, 
 to control the Polish government. Prussia and Aus 
 tria acceded to her designs, and became partners in the 
 aggressions on a state, which, at that time, possessed a 
 territory not inferior in extent to Prance. 
 
 A peace of thirty years had diminished the military 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 357 
 
 zeal of the Ottomans. They began the war, and yet 
 were obliged to act on the defensive. Austra was a 
 quiet spectator ; Frederick of Prussia even paid sub 
 sidies to the new Semiramis. 
 
 On the other hand, Catharine was animated by 
 every motive which ambition and vanity could suggest. 
 All Europe seemed to rejoice that a woman was to 
 execute, what so many brave men had failed to carry 
 into effect. Voltaire nattered Catharine as though she 
 had been a goddess ; and expressed for her every sen 
 timent of adoration which courtly flattery could adopt. 
 "Barbarians," said he, "who despise the fine arts, and 
 shut up women, ought to be exterminated. It is fit 
 for a heroine to punish them for their want of deference 
 to the sex." When in the first year of the war, Choc- 
 zim was taken by the Russians, " Oh ! Minerva of 
 the North," cried Voltaire, " avenge the Greeks ; I go 
 to meet you on the plains of Marathon." " It is not 
 enough that the Turks should be humbled," thus he 
 cheered on the empress ; " their empire in Europe must 
 be annihilated. They must be banished and, for ever, to 
 Asia," He sounded " the tocsin of kings," in which 
 he devoted the Ottoman race to ruin ; advocating a 
 war of extermination sometimes with fanatical fervor, 
 sometimes with jests and gallantry. All Europe ap 
 plauded without asking if the design was just, or if 
 Russian despotism was less oppressive than the Turkish. 
 Religious sympathy was awakened : a hostile feeling to 
 
358 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 a foreign race revived ; and the thought of the resto 
 ration of Greece captivated the imagination. 
 
 Connexions were formed with the insurgent pacha 
 of Egypt ; an insurrection was promoted in the Morea ; 
 the war was carried beyond the Danube into the moun 
 tains of Bulgaria, to Chumla, and almost beyond the 
 Balkan ; while a Russian fleet was despatched from the 
 ports of the Baltic to the Cyclades. 
 
 The burning of the Turkish fleet at Tchesme was 
 the great event at sea. The Turks had occupied a 
 strong position in a strait between the island of Chios 
 and the Asiatic coast. Nevertheless, the Russian ad 
 miral deemed it fit to make an attack. The flag ship 
 of the Russians came into close contact with the largest 
 vessel of the Turks. After an obstinate engagement, 
 both took fire, and blew up ; the officers and a very 
 few men only having escaped. Upon this the Turks 
 cut their cables and retreated to the small bay of 
 Tchesme. Here they were closely huddled together, 
 and were immediately blockaded by the Russians. 
 Two fire ships were finally brought to communicate 
 flames to the Turkish fleet. " The earth and the 
 waves," says Catharine, "trembled from the great 
 number of the enemy s vessels which were blown up. 
 The sound reached to Smyrna, a distance of nearly 
 forty miles. The morning after the conflagration, the 
 water in the harbor of Tchesme was tinged with blood, 
 so many Turks had perished." And she adds, " as for 
 
THE WARS OF IIUSSIA AND TURKEY. 359 
 
 the taking of Constantinople, I do not believe it so near 
 yet we must despair of nothing." A few days after, 
 still dwelling on these scenes of horror, she expresses her 
 fear, that her deeds in war may seem fabulous to pos 
 terity. "Yet a little more of this good fortune and 
 the history of the Turks will furnish a new subject for 
 tragedy to future ages." She had told the defender of 
 toleration that twenty thousand Mussulmen had per 
 ished, and now she writes, " Really I think with you, 
 that it wnl soon be time for me to go study Greek at 
 some university." 
 
 By land, Romanzoff overran Moldavia and Walla- 
 chia in 1770, after conquering, on the river Kagul, 
 150,000 Turks, with an army of but fifteen thousand 
 Russians. In 1771, Dolgoruki succeeded in subdu 
 ing the Crimea which the Russians called Taurida, 
 and was rewarded with the name of Krimski. " You 
 will keep the Tauric Chersonesus," said Voltaire ; " but 
 if you make peace now, what will become of my poor 
 Greece." " If the war continues," wrote the empress, 
 " there will be nothing left for us to take but Byzan 
 tium, and in truth I begin to think that that is not 
 impossible." 
 
 Charmed with the flattery of the greatest writer of 
 the age, she believed in his visions of Olympian games 
 to be established anew, of Attica rising up again in its 
 ancient glory. A design for a medal, to celebrate the 
 taking of Constantinople, was got ready in anticipa- 
 
360 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 tion ; she would say, half in jest, half in earnest, " We 
 will have the ancient Greek tragedies enacted by 
 Grecian players on the theatre of Athens ; " and as 
 for the road from Moscow to Corinth, she had traced 
 it with her own hand on her maps. " But after ah 1 ," 
 said she as her finances became impaired, " I must 
 practise moderation, and say peace is better than the 
 finest war in the world." The year* 1773 passed in 
 negotiations. 
 
 There was not one of the European powers that 
 was willing to see the downfall of the Porte ; but the 
 English Ministry could not interfere, for it gave all its 
 energies to the repression of the spirit of liberty in 
 America; and was led by its jealousy of France to 
 seek the most intimate political connexion with Russia. 
 France was paralysed by the abject vices of her sove 
 reign. The king of Prussia clearly discerned how 
 adverse to his own interest would be the increase of 
 his neighbor, but he was bound by a treaty of alliance 
 to which he remained faithful. Austria alone under 
 took to prevent Russian aggrandizement at the expense 
 of Turkey. 
 
 On the sixth of July, 1771, her ambassador, Von 
 Thugut, signed at Constantinople a secret convention, 
 by which Austria, taking advantage of the necessities 
 of the Porte, made valuable acquisitions of money, 
 land, and commercial privileges, and in consideration 
 of these advantages, promised jointly with the Porte to 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 361 
 
 compel Russia to return all tlie Turkish provinces she 
 had conquered, and to secure the independence and 
 freedom of the republic of Poland, which would then 
 be a wall between Russia and the Porte. All the 
 while that in his negotiations with the Porte he was 
 assuming such obligations of hostility to Russia, he 
 was using towards that power the strongest assurances 
 of friendship, and engaged, with certain conditions, to 
 use his influence to procure for Russia an advantageous 
 peace. Meantime, the convention was kept a secret for 
 several months ; and Austria received a very accept 
 able strip of land as well as a large sum of money, 
 which was welcome to an exhausted treasury. 
 
 Hardly were these advantages secured from the 
 Porte, when Kaunitz, allured by the prospect of large 
 acquisitions from Poland, came to an understanding 
 with Russia, and expressed a willingness to assent to 
 those conditions of peace which Catharine desired. 
 Only he gave the crafty counsel, that she should first 
 make much more severe requisitions than she designed 
 to insist upon, to which Austria might earnestly 
 object. Then by degrees the terms being made milder, 
 as if by Austrian influence, both powers were to unite 
 in pressing them upon the Porte. 
 
 The plan for jointly plundering Turkey as well as 
 Poland, was madd just six months after the convention 
 by which Austria had pledged herself to take part with 
 the Porte till all its possessions should be recovered. 
 
362 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 The sympathy expressed by the European powers 
 in behalf of Turkey, served only to confirm it in 
 its disinclination to peace, and active operations were 
 earnestly renewed. " You will take Byzantium," wrote 
 Voltaire to the empress, " and you will cause the 
 (Edipus of Sophocles to be played at Athens." " If 
 the Turks continue the war," answered Catharine, 
 " your wishes to see us upon the Bosphorus will be very 
 near their fulfilment." In 1773 active operations were 
 renewed in good earnest. Romanzoff crossed the 
 Danube, which no Russian army had done before for 
 eight hundred years. Yet he was obliged to retreat 
 with great loss. The next year saw him again beyond 
 the Danube ; winning victories, and cutting off all com 
 munication between the grand vizier at Chumla and 
 Constantinople. Meantime, the persevering Mustapha 
 had been gathered to his fathers, and was succeeded by 
 the imbecile Abdul Hamid. The grand vizier had no 
 means of defence ; his troops, in their fury, only mas 
 sacred each other. The religious warlike enthusiasm 
 of the Ottomans seemed to be extinct, under rulers 
 educated in the seraglio to indulgence, not to the labors 
 of government. On the twenty-first of July, 1774, 
 sixty -three years almost to a day after the unfortunate 
 treaty, by which Peter the Great had saved himself 
 from a ruinous captivity, Romanzoff w*as able to dictate a 
 peace, which was hastily signed in the Russian camp 
 at Kutchuk-Kainardghi. 
 
THE WARS OP RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 363 
 
 Its conditions were of the utmost importance in 
 themselves and in then: consequences. 1. The Tartars 
 in the Crimea and the Kuban were to be independent, 
 under Russian protection. 2. The Porte retained 
 
 Moldavia and Wallachia, but Russia reserved the right 
 i 
 
 of interfering, by its ambassadors at Constantinople, in 
 their concerns. 3. Russia retained, of its conquests, 
 Kinburn and Azoph, and important fortresses in the 
 Crimea. 4. Commercial freedom was secured to the 
 Russians in the Euxine, and in ah 1 the Turkish waters. 
 
 Thus ended the six years contest. The coast from 
 the mouth of the Dnieper to the Kuban, was now 
 either Russian, or at the mercy of Russia. The Dar 
 danelles were open to its fleets, and the Euxine free to 
 its commerce. 
 
 The peace of Kainardghi had been dictated by 
 Catharine, unrestrained by any foreign mediation. At 
 the close of it, she found herself the arbitress of the 
 interests of the northern nations ; an object of distrust 
 to the Swedish Gustavus ; and of apprehension to the 
 aged Frederic ; while the Austrian emperor courted 
 her alliance, and the remnant of Poland was swayed 
 by her influence. By a wise organization of the states 
 of her boundless empire, she brought its entire re 
 sources within her immediate and easy control; its 
 moral strength was vastly increased by her arms ; and 
 now that her generals had been successful in Europe 
 and Asia Minor, her imperial vanity aspired to the dis- 
 
364 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 tinction of legislating for the high seas, and protecting 
 the rights of neutral flags against the aggressions of 
 maritime tyranny. Is it strange, then, that her mind 
 should have still fed on the hope of restoring the 
 Byzantine empire ? Is it wonderful, that she should 
 have aspired to connect herself with classic associations, 
 and have enjoyed, in anticipation, the flatteries that 
 would have waited on the female restorer of Greece, 
 and the female conqueror of Byzantium ? Up to the 
 last year of his life, Voltaire continued to use all his 
 arts of flattery to animate her purpose. " The secret," 
 said he, "of sending the Turks back to the coun 
 tries from which they came, is reserved for the first 
 woman of the human race, whose name is Catharine." 
 And he offers to prostrate himself at her feet, and in 
 his dying agony to implore victory for her arms. 
 
 The success of her first war with the Porte filled 
 Catharine with an exalted idea of her superior re 
 sources ; and she continued to aspire to an immor 
 tality of glory for her own name, by establishing a, 
 Grec-k or Oriental Empire. During her life it was her 
 intention herself to govern this new dominion, together 
 with her possessions at the North ; and to bequeath 
 the latter to her grandson Alexander, the former to 
 Constantine. The names of the children were tokens 
 of the high destiny that was preparing for them. 
 Constantine, from his birth, was treated as the future 
 emperor of Greece and the East. He was baptized 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 365 
 
 according to the rites of the Oriental Greek Church, 
 which differ somewhat from the Russian, and he had 
 Grecian nurses and attendants from the Archipelago. 
 Accident prevented his being nursed with Grecian 
 milk, but Grecian sounds were among the first which 
 he heard. He was called the Star of the East, and 
 while yet a child, Greeks were admitted to his presence 
 to do him homage. 
 
 But before engaging in a new war with the Turks, 
 Catharine secured the benefits of the recent pacification. 
 For the dominion of the Black Sea, the possession of 
 the Crimea was deemed essential ; and now the last, 
 shade of the successors of Genghis, the former triumph 
 ant lord of Russia, was to surrender his sceptre into 
 the hands of the empress. 
 
 In the treaty of Kainardghi, both parties bound 
 themselves in the most solemn manner, not to interfere, 
 on any pretext whatever, in the internal concerns of 
 the Crimea. Yet hardly had the parchments been in 
 terchanged, before Russia was already busy with its 
 intrigues. France was interested in behalf of the 
 Porte; both because it furnished occupation to her 
 enemies, and still more, for the immense injury which 
 her commerce would sustain, by its ruin. Into all the 
 Turkish possessions the French might import and 
 export every kind of raw or manufactured product, 
 paying a duty nominally of three, actually of two and 
 a half per cent. Not only other nations, the Turks 
 
366 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 themselves paid a double, and on some things, a 
 threefold greater duty. The coasting trade on the 
 Turkish coast was carried on in French ships, free 
 from any duty or tax whatever. The French residing 
 in Turkey, stood under the sole jurisdiction of their 
 own state. The commerce with France was constantly 
 on the increase. At the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century the annual exports from Turkey to France 
 amounted to about two millions of livres ; but in the 
 middle of that century to twenty-two millions ; and in 
 the year 1786 to thirty-eight millions eight hundred 
 thousand livres. 
 
 The diplomatic relations of the European powers 
 were at this time exceedingly complex. Prussia had an 
 intimate alliance with Russia, and having faithfully ful 
 filled its obligations in the first war between Russia 
 and Turkey, believed itself now fairly entitled to a 
 reciprocity of favor, to which it was reluctant to relin 
 quish its claim. But Austria, moved by the prospect of 
 aggrandizement alike in Bavaria and in European 
 Turkey, unfolded itself from the embrace of France s 
 and fell into the toils of Russia ; France, left thus 
 alone, endeavored to form a new combination with 
 Prussia, which must first set itself free from its 
 Northern ally. But insuperable difficulties stood in 
 the way of this last combination. 
 
 The principal aim of France was, to defeat the 
 schemes of aggrandizement formed by Russia and Aus- 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND . TURKEY. 367 
 
 tria ; the principal aim of Frederic, to dissolve the union 
 between- France and Austria, and till there should be a 
 rupture between those powers, he was too cautious to 
 trust himself in an alliance with France. Yet while he 
 avoided appearing to counteract the schemes of Cath 
 arine, he commanded his charge d affaires at Con 
 stantinople, Baron von Gaffron, not to lose a good 
 opportunity of stirring up the Porte to resist the 
 ceding of the Crimea to Russia, provided he could 
 do so without danger of being discovered. Accord 
 ingly the envoy indited a most private memoire for 
 the Turkish minister, and gave it to his drogoman to 
 translate and deliver. The drogoman, being bribed, 
 gave the memoire to the Russian ambassador. To 
 justify himself against complaint and preserve the 
 appearance of innocence, Frederic dismissed Von 
 Gaffron from office, and put him in prison. Such 
 were the contingencies of European diplomacy. Its 
 morality resembled the Spartan principle about steal 
 ing. To play a double part was held a duty ; to be 
 discovered, a crime. 
 
 While negotiations were conducted with careful 
 reserve between the Prussian and French govern 
 ments, the courts of Vienna and Petersburg!! were 
 not less active, though their progress towards an 
 alliance met with serious difficulties. To Catharine 
 the expulsion of the Turks was the great purpose; 
 to Joseph the Second it was a secondary consideration, 
 
368 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 to be made subservient to his views on Bavaria and 
 elsewhere in the West. He acceded to the Russian 
 policy to oblige the empress, that so the empress 
 might in turn favor him. He did not believe suc 
 cess against the Turks so sure or easy as was 
 imagined ; and acknowledged also, that the Austrian 
 interest would suffer from the capture of Constan 
 tinople by his northern rival. 
 
 While the great continental powers were wavenng 
 in their choice of alliances, Catharine gained possession 
 of the Crimea. The convention of the tenth of March, 
 1779, confirmed in the most solemn manner the inde 
 pendence of this sovereign state. No foreign power 
 should, under any circumstances whatever, demand of 
 it an account of its actions ; Russia and the Porte 
 each promised, by all that they acknowledged as holy, 
 never, under any pretence, to interfere in its concerns. 
 The spiritual supremacy of the Grand Seignior was 
 recognised, but was never to extend to other relations. 
 Should either party by any unforeseen accident become 
 entangled in the concerns of the Tartars, it was agreed, 
 that no step should be taken by it without consulting 
 the other. 
 
 Notwithstanding these obligations, Catharine took 
 part in the troubles which soon broke out in the 
 Crimea. The new khan, Schahin Gheray, was de 
 voted to the Russian empress, and trusting in her 
 protection, imposed unwonted burdens, violated estab- 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 369 
 
 iished usages, and pretended to be greatly enamored 
 of European culture. To diffuse this in all its lustre, 
 he formed the resolution of having the large Trench 
 Encyclopedia translated into the Tartar language. His 
 authority did not last long enough to execute his pur 
 pose ; and when Catharine was mistress of the destiny 
 of the Tartars, in a better spirit of toleration, she had 
 a beautiful edition of the Koran printed for the benefit 
 of her Mahometan subjects. 
 
 The Tartars revolted, and transferred their alle 
 giance to Dewlet Gheray. The Russians had not yet 
 withdrawn their forces ; the Turks, therefore, felt 
 themselves justified in sending troops to Taman, to 
 relieve those who were suffering for their religious 
 faith. This served Russia as a pretext for hostilities, 
 and Prince Potemkin undertook to conduct the affair 
 to its completion. Potemkin, the most powerful man 
 in Russia, was little suited to conciliate either love or 
 esteem. The Grand Duke, the Count Panin, and other 
 noblemen of the empire detested him. By persuading 
 Catharine that his services were indispensable to her 
 security, rather than by the influence of attachment, he 
 gained entire sway over the empress and the state, and 
 retained it till his death. He had no distinguished 
 talents as a commander; yet the whole army was 
 under his control ; and all the generals of greatest 
 experience and fame were subject to his caprice. He 
 understood but imperfectly the foreign relations of his 
 24 
 
370 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 country or the wants of the interior ; and yet it was he 
 who dictated to the vanity of the empress the measures 
 to be adopted within her immense dominions or towards 
 foreign powers. Without elevated ambition of any 
 kind, it never occurred to him, that he could do good 
 to mankind by wisely guiding the affairs of that large 
 portion that depended on him. To him nothing was 
 nobler than the honors that dazzle the beholder ; his 
 whole soul was in the gratification of his vanity. He 
 prided himself on his skill in regulating cavalry, and 
 used to boast of his regiment as the finest in the 
 universe. His love of display made him fond of giving 
 peculiar brilliancy to the ceremonies of the Greek 
 Church. Denying himself nothing, he indulged all 
 his whims, and wished to have it known that he could 
 do so. This was to him the great purpose of life. He 
 disregarded distinctions of birth, of rank, of wealth, and 
 was always bent on showing that he alone held the 
 control. Frederic the Second once directed his ambas 
 sador to offer Potemkin his influence in gaining for him 
 the crown of Poland ; Potemkin replied, that he had 
 never dreamed of such a matter, and did not respect 
 the Polish nation enough to be willing to be their king. 
 He treated the most distinguished foreigners with 
 contumely, and listened to the proposals of foreign 
 ambassadors with the contemptuous air of one who but 
 just condescends to hear the requests of his inferiors 
 and dependents. Sated with pleasure, he lavished the 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 371 
 
 public treasure with boundless prodigality in the grati 
 fication of his caprices. Catharine anticipated all his 
 wants that could be divined, and gave him incredibly 
 large sums ; nevertheless, he would pervert the funds 
 intrusted to him for public purposes, and even forge 
 orders of the empress, to get possession of money, 
 which he knew to be peculiarly needed by the state. 
 Poteml^n took bribes from foreign princes to promote 
 their objects ; and his views were so contracted, that 
 he could not judge of the true interests of the empire. 
 He used on all occasions to set in the most ridiculous 
 light Frederic s strict economy and simple mode of 
 living ; and once when that monarch opposed a second 
 division of Poland on account of its injustice, he read 
 the king s letter three several times and then gave it 
 back to the Prussian minister with the words, " I never 
 should have believed that King Frederic had such ro 
 mantic notions." 
 
 Though seizing immense treasures, which he care 
 lessly squandered at the gaming-table or for any fancy, he 
 was accustomed never to pay those who furnished him 
 with the necessaries of life. Merchants held them 
 selves ruined, when an order came to supply the wants 
 of Potemkin. He had no sentiment of mercy in his 
 nature, and would torment without any object, as if to 
 show that he could do so with impunity ; and he cared 
 as little for human life as for money, if the waste of it 
 pleased his capricious humor. 
 
372 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 Potemkin has been called a man of colossal great 
 ness. But he was in no wise great. His mind was 
 low and coarse. He began his career of success like 
 the other favorites, chance having made him known to 
 the empress ; and he confirmed his power by im 
 pudence, and insensibility to moral feeling and honor. 
 He cared neither for exercising a wide influence over 
 the destinies of men, nor for gaining an immortality of 
 fame but wished to live in splendor, have all near him 
 at his feet, and prove himself to be lifted above every 
 motive to fear. Such was the man who was employed 
 to annex the Crimea. 
 
 "Blood and booty" were the watchwords, as Po 
 temkin poured the Russian army into the heart of the 
 dominions of the khan. Thousands of families were 
 destroyed, or carried away into bondage in remote 
 Russian provinces; till finally, the khan and some 
 of the royal tribe declared "their conviction, that 
 happiness could be found only under the mild gov 
 ernment of the empress, and that they therefore 
 submitted themselves and their nation uncondition 
 ally and for ever to her authority." On the eighth 
 of April, 1783, the empress issued her manifesto, 
 that for sundry reasons therein given, " she had 
 been induced to receive under her authority the pen 
 insula of the Crimea, Kuban, and the island Taman. 
 Her new subjects were exhorted to fidelity and obe- 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 373 
 
 dience." The oath of allegiance to the empress was 
 administered ; every refusal was punished with death. 
 
 As if nothing had happened, Catharine taking ad 
 vantage of the alarm of the Porte at her alliance with 
 Austria, directly proposed and extorted a treaty 01 
 commerce and amity with Turkey, on conditions most 
 favorable to Russia. Hardly had this been effected, 
 when she proceeded still further, and demanded of the 
 Porte a recognition of her sovereignty over the Crimea ; 
 threatening war, and Austria joining her in the threat, 
 if she received a refusal. The Porte yielded, and the 
 river Kuban became the acknowledged boundary be 
 tween the Turkish and Russian empires. 
 
 Thus Russia tore from the Porte the granary of 
 Constantinople, and an outpost which had been im 
 portant as a resource in war, capable of furnishing 
 excellent soldiers. This province became at once of 
 vast importance to Russia, for it afforded the means 
 of conducting the most extensive commerce. But 
 Catharine and Potemkin both valued it chiefly as the 
 preparation for further conquest. At the mouth of 
 the Dnieper the empress caused a new city, Cherson, 
 to be built. The conquests received their ancient 
 name, the Tauric Chersonesus, or Taurida, and Potem 
 kin, who obtained the appellation of the Taurian, as 
 sumed the charge of changing the Tartars into good 
 Russian subjects. In the execution of his office he 
 
374 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 knew no purpose beyond gratifying his own rapacity 
 and the vanity of the empress. Constitution, manners, 
 and established customs were despised ; justice was 
 made a matter of purchase; the wealthy were plun 
 dered; many fled; many were driven into other Rus 
 sian provinces ; and foreigners were indiscriminately 
 invited from all quarters. In former times, the Tartar 
 khan had joined the Turkish army with fifty thousand 
 well equipped horsemen ; two years after the land had 
 become an integral part of the Russian empire, the 
 census of ah 1 the male inhabitants is said to have 
 amounted to but seventeen thousand. 
 
 In 1787, Catharine made to this part of her 
 dominions a journey which resembled a continued 
 triumphal procession. Potemkin wished to exhibit 
 proofs of the rapid prosperity of the Chersonesus, and 
 the newly acquired provinces. Palaces were therefore 
 erected, though to be occupied but for a night ; signs 
 of apparent prosperity and contentment were every 
 where hung out for show ; towns were built and 
 people assembled to play the part of inhabitants ; then 
 the houses were left vacant, and the same people, 
 having been carried forward by night, showed them 
 selves on the next day, ready to act the same thing 
 over on another spot. Music and dances enlivened 
 the hours ; the plains, over which the Tartars had so 
 recently sped their coursers amidst the loneliness 
 of rude nature, resounded with strange notes of 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 375 
 
 mirth, and glittered with the splendors of imperial 
 magnificence. The deputies of a hundred subject 
 nations stayed the steps of the Semiramis of the North, 
 who was come to receive their homage. The king 
 of Poland made his appearance to gaze at the novel 
 spectacle. Joseph the Second also hurried all the way 
 from Vienna to behold the show, and the newly built 
 city, Cherson, became brilliant with splendid festivals, 
 given in honor of his arrival. Never had the banks 
 of a river flowing through a wilderness been made the 
 scene of such revelry. And here in the solitary city 
 of the desert, intoxicated with triumph, viewing with 
 contempt the withered energies of the Porte, and hold 
 ing out greedy hands to seize on new diadems, the 
 German emperor and the Russian czarina perfected 
 their scheme for the dissolution of the Turkish empire, 
 and divided in anticipation their future conquests, 
 inscribing over one of the gates of Cherson, " This is 
 the way to Byzantium." "The Crimea," we quote 
 from a confidential letter, which Joseph II., immedi 
 ately after his visit to that province, wrote to his own 
 minister, Kaunitz, " Taurida, has not any thing so very 
 remarkable. But nevertheless, the advantages which 
 Russia derives from the acquisition of this province, 
 are very important. It can reduce the Osmanlis to 
 extremities, after the destruction of their fleet; it can 
 make Stamboul tremble ; it gains the way to Paros 
 and the Hellespont ; but there I must by all means 
 
376 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 come first on the side of Rumelia." The Austrian 
 emperor read the book of futurity well; but it was 
 only a glance of fruitless covetousness, which he was 
 allowed to cast on Rumelia and the Hellespont. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Porte was the aggressor in the seventh war, 
 which in August, 1787, the year of Catharine s visit to 
 Cherson, was declared against its overshadowing neigh 
 bor, and began with unusually favorable auspices. 
 Asia poured out its thousands to be arranged under 
 the banners of the grand vizier, and almost ten thou 
 sand seamen had been impressed from the islands 
 of the Archipelago alone. The army of the Turks 
 amounted to about 450,000 men, of whom about one 
 half were cavalry. Russia and Austria were, indeed, in 
 union ; but Poland, now in a state of anarchy and civil 
 feuds, engaged the immediate attention, and divided the 
 ambition of Catharine; Sweden assumed a lowering 
 aspect ; England and Prussia were averse to the 
 diminution of the Ottoman power; the reforms of 
 Joseph II. were exciting discontents throughout his 
 dominions ; and the Russian empress would gladly 
 have avoided a rupture, and foregone the gorgeous 
 vision of a Grecian empire. 
 
 The war opened with attempts of the Turks to 
 recover Kinburn, and thus reconquer the Crimea. 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 377 
 
 But Suwarrow was there, and their enthusiasm was 
 fruitless. Once, indeed, during the attack, the Rus 
 sians were obliged to fly ; but Suwarrow, who was in 
 the foremost ranks, galloped after the fugitives, and 
 throwing himself upon the earth, cried out, " Run, ye 
 rascals, do but run ; here will I alone be cut in pieces." 
 Fired by his words, the Russians rallied, the front was 
 formed anew, and the enemy s troops were dislodged 
 from their intrenchments with the loss of all but about 
 five hundred men. This was the only occasion, during 
 the war, on which the Turks were able to act as aggres 
 sors. 
 
 The Austrian campaign of 1788 was one of great 
 loss and disgrace. Joseph II., with a passion for being 
 esteemed a great warrior, had not one of the qualities 
 of a general; neither coolness, nor prompt decision, 
 nor firmness. A mistaken humanity left his army 
 to waste away by disease, without undertaking any 
 decisive exploit; and he is supposed to have lost 
 more men from his tenderness and irresolution, than a 
 bolder commander would have done in an active cam 
 paign. 
 
 The emperor was always employed, by day with 
 the concerns of war, by night with the civil adminis 
 tration. He exposed his own person fearlessly, but 
 spared his troops. His care for then supplies was 
 exemplary. His own dress was simple ; his table 
 
378 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 frugally supplied; and, as for his lodging, he some 
 times occupied an ordinary hut, sometimes slept upon 
 the ground. He made every personal sacrifice; but 
 the gallantry of his officers did not save him from the 
 results of his own want of judgment. The emperor 
 expected confidently a battle and a victory ; and in 
 stead of it, on the night following the twentieth of Sep 
 tember, he was involved in a disorderly retreat, which 
 quenched his military vanity, destroyed his reputation 
 as a commander, and left in him the seeds of a mortal 
 disease. 
 
 Quite different were the results in Moldavia, where 
 the Austrians, under Coburg, united with the Russians, 
 and reduced Choczim. Meantime, the attention of 
 Potemkin had been directed to Otchakov, at the mouth 
 of the Dnieper. In the naval battles which preceded 
 the siege, Paul Jones acted as rear-admiral, and ad 
 vanced his fame for coolness, intrepidity, and skill. 
 The possession of the place itself was important to 
 Russia, for its recent acquisitions would thus be effec 
 tually secured from attack. It was at last, after a siege 
 of nearly six months, taken by storm on the seven 
 teenth of December, the day of St. Nicholas. It cost 
 the lives of about 9,500 Turks and of 2,700 Russians. 
 The Russians obtained the entire mastery of the city in 
 about one hour and a quarter ; and it has ever since 
 constituted a portion of the Russian empire. 
 
 In the midst of this victorious career, Gustavus III., 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 379 
 
 instigated in part by his own ambition, in part by Eng 
 land and Prussia, made a sudden, and, to Catharine, a 
 most unexpected attack on Russia. This invasion 
 divided the forces of the empress, but was resisted with 
 admirable dignity ; and after a conflict of more than 
 two years, she compelled her voluntary aggressor to 
 recede. All the while the war against Turkey was 
 continued without interruption. 
 
 The campaign of 1789 was attended by great 
 results both for Austria and Russia. Gallatz, Acker- 
 mann, and Bender, were taken by the latter. But the 
 great event of the campaign, was the battle of Mar- 
 tinestie, on the Rimnik, in which about 21,000 Rus 
 sians and Austrians, after a fierce strife of eleven hours, 
 gained an entire victory over an army of nearly 100,000 
 Turks. Princs Coburg had been nearly surrounded. 
 He wrote a despatch to Suwarrow, and desired him to 
 effect a junction. Suwarrow tore a scrap from the 
 letter, scrawled the words, " I ll come," and in a 
 twinkling sent the messenger back, following just in 
 time to be present at the engagement. The prince 
 solicited him to allow his troops some rest before fight 
 ing. " My men," replied he, " need no repose ; St. 
 Nicholas before me, myself following the saint, and my 
 soldiers following me, let us attack the foe." The vic 
 tory was one of the greatest ever gained by an Austrian 
 general, and was won by a wise disposition of the artil 
 lery, and extraordinary coolness and rapidity in con- 
 
380 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 centrating forces on the disputed points. Coburg 
 spent the winter in Bucharest. London, on the other 
 side, succeeded in taking Belgrade ; the siege of Or- 
 sova was commenced, and the year came to an end 
 under circumstances which seemed to leave hardly one 
 strong place, or one effectual barrier, between Belgrade 
 and Constantinople. 
 
 The death of Joseph II., in the spring of 1790, left 
 Russia to continue her career of victory alone. Not 
 daunted by the desertion of its ally, Potemkin com 
 pleted the conquest of Bessarabia. The object of the 
 Russians, in this campaign, was to defend the Crimea, 
 and by driving the Turks from the right bank of the 
 Danube, to gain the ability of prescribing the terms of 
 peace. To this end Kilianova was taken, and the 
 mouth of the Danube occupied, and at last the siege of 
 Ismail was regularly commenced by the main army of 
 the Russians under Potemkin. It had lasted more 
 than seven months, and little impression was made. 
 Potemkin was with his women, who amused them 
 selves by drawing cards and telling fortunes. " I pre 
 dict," said one of them to him, " you will take Ismail 
 in ten days." " I know an oracle much surer than 
 that," said Potemkin, and issued an order to Suwarrow 
 to take it within three. On the evening before the 
 storming, Suwarrow addressed the .troops in these 
 words : " To-morrow early, an hour before day, I shall 
 get up, shall say my prayers, wash myself, dress myself, 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 
 
 
 
 then I shall crow like a cock, and do you storm accord 
 ing to my directions." It was done. The Russians lost 
 15,000 men in the assault of the city and avenged their 
 loss in the blood of 35,000 Turks. The Russian eagle 
 was finally planted in triumph on its walls, and Suwar- 
 row obtained a glory for the massacre of myriads, far 
 transcending that of the bloody Poliorcetes of antiquity. 
 At the negotiations for peace the diplomacy of 
 Russia and Austria were in contrast. A few months 
 before the death of Joseph II., Prussia formed a strict 
 alliance with the Porte, and assumed a menacing 
 attitude towards Austria. Thus, when Leopold II. 
 came to the throne of Austria, he found a hostile 
 spirit in Prussia, already ripe for action ; Hungary 
 was still heaving with discontent ; the Austrian 
 Netherlands were in open revolt ; in various parts 
 of his states, dissatisfaction prevailed ; the season was 
 one of scarcity ; the finances were exhausted ; his 
 own election as emperor of Germany not having 
 been secured, the German empire was without a head ; 
 France was in a state of revolution, which foreboded a 
 general crisis ; and England held a peace as the price 
 of its friendship. Besides, he was himself of a mild 
 character, and willing to give repose to the many 
 nations which now acknowledged his sway. At the 
 
 
 
 congress of Reichenbach, which opened in 1790, Prus 
 sia, England, and Holland, as mediating powers, dictated 
 to Leopold the strict status quo as the condition of the 
 
3S2 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 % 
 
 peace, which was concluded in the following year be 
 tween Austria and the Porte. What a contrast with 
 the proud anticipations of Joseph II., but three years 
 before, in his interviews with Catharine at Cherson ! 
 He had wasted the strength of his empire, sacrificed 
 his reputation as a military man, and prepared his own 
 grave, without securing to his successor one single ad 
 vantage, or bringing to reality any one of his schemes. 
 Deserted by Austria, Russia was left alone. Swe 
 den had been let loose upon her from the north ; Pitt 
 equipped a fleet to give force to the intervention of 
 England; Prussia had undertaken the guarantee *of 
 the possessions of Turkey ; France and Spain, so long 
 as they could, had likewise been active against the 
 empress ; her treasury was exhausted ; her general 
 issimo, Potemkin, enfeebled and dying ; and, what 
 interested the cabinet of Petersburgh most of all, 
 the anarchy of Poland had reached its crisis. Yet 
 in the midst of all these difficulties, the empress 
 maintained her purpose of terminating the contest 
 without foreign mediation. Preliminaries were signed 
 in August, 1791, and were changed into a definite 
 peace in January, 1792. Russia kept possession of 
 the district between the Dnieper and the Dniester, 
 retained the Crimea and Kuban, and on these condi 
 tions, consented to restore all other conquests. So 
 lightly did Catharine, even while she longed for peace, 
 hold the threats of England and the guaranties of 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 383 
 
 Prussia. Thus did she secure to her empire all the 
 coast from the Kuban to the Dniester, and annex to it 
 the deserts, where Odessa was soon to bloom. 
 
 Count Suwarrow, who with Potemkin conducted 
 the Russian armies during the war, was one of the 
 extraordinary men of his age. If he had not conjoined 
 the talent of inspiring unlimited confidence, his man 
 ners would have made him pass for a whimsical 
 buffoon; and had he not been successful, he would 
 have been known only for foolhardiness and savage 
 intrepidity. He was a powerful instrument in the 
 hands of others ; a soldier panting for bloodshed and 
 the honors of victory ; at Ismail, Warsaw, and among 
 the Alps, alike indifferent to the cause which he de 
 fended, or the lives which he sacrificed. He possessed 
 the great qualities of a soldier ; a keen eye, sagacity, 
 prompt decision, and unsuspected fearlessness. His 
 motto was, "Forwards and fight." "A general," he 
 would say, " should be at the head of an army, not at 
 its tail ; " and on the day of battle, he might be found 
 in the very hottest of the fray. He was of a restless 
 and feverish activity ; and in Italy, the French found 
 him equally fertile in invention and alert in execution. 
 
 His wrath was fierce and ungovernable, sometimes 
 bitterly insolent, sometimes passionately cruel. Yet he 
 loved freedom of speech in his intercourse with others ; 
 and it is related of him, that one day when in a 
 gust of anger he was beating a soldier unmercifully, a 
 
384 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 young officer, who stood near, cried out, " The field- 
 marshal Suwarrow commands us not to give way to 
 our anger." " The field-marshal Suwarrow must be 
 obeyed," replied he, and stopped cudgelling imme 
 diately. In his habits he was an ascetic. He slept on 
 straw, or on hay, even in the period of his princely 
 fortunes. Whatever furniture he found in a room 
 which he was to occupy, he was apt to dash in pieces. 
 Especially he would break all mirrors. Sometimes he 
 would take out the windows ; " Suwarrow is not afraid 
 of cold." Sometimes he would unhinge the doors and 
 throw them away ; " Nobody dares come into the 
 same apartment with Suwarrow." He respected Rus 
 sian usages. When Paul wished to change the uniform 
 of the Russian troops, and introduce the custom of 
 wearing long hair, Suwarrow would not co-operate in 
 effecting the change. " Cues are not pikes, nor curls 
 cannon," was his justification. On Sundays and on 
 holidays he would read to his men out of books of de 
 votion ; was himself exact in the duty of prayer ; and 
 if he met a monk or a priest, would kiss his hands 
 and beg a blessing. He never gave the signal for 
 battle without making the sign of the cross, and kiss 
 ing the image of St. Nicholas. He w T ould worship 
 relics; drink consecrated water; and eat consecrated 
 bread, yet with such gestures and grimaces, that his 
 devotion seemed the display of a merry-andrew. He 
 knew how to inspire his soldiers with a national fanat- 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 385 
 
 icism, and made them believe, that if they died in 
 fighting his battles, they would immediately return to 
 life without grief in the places that were dearest to 
 them. In his speech, Suwarrow was blunt and odd ; 
 was fond of short, pithy sayings ; and occasionally 
 issued orders in doggrel rhyme. Even his reports 
 and despatches to the empress were sometimes written 
 in a sort of jingle. His public honors were as sin 
 gular as his character. Beside magnificent presents 
 of diamonds, of which the ill-dressed warrior was very 
 proud, Catharine rewarded him, after the Roman 
 fashion, with the surname of Rimnitski ; and Paul 
 made him a prince, with the name of Italinski, just 
 as Scipio of old took the name of Africanus, from the 
 scene of his victories. An imperial ukase was also 
 issued, proclaiming him the greatest general of all 
 time. And yet to us Suwarrow seems no better than 
 an inferior Attila, who only needed to possess undis 
 puted power over another race of Huns, to have swept 
 from the world the fairest monuments of civil liberty. 
 His memory is perpetuated by the massacres of Ismail 
 and Praga ; and Carnage may claim him as her favor 
 ite son. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 We have spoken thus far only of wars between the 
 Turks and Russians. Did they never, during their 
 long course of existence, range themselves in union 
 
 under the same banners ? Has the silver crescent on 
 25 
 
386 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 its shield of green, never once been raised in harmony 
 with the triple crown of the two-headed eagle ? 
 Among the countless variety of human interests, was 
 there never one in which the ambition of both powers 
 found a common purpose ? Once, and yet only once, 
 the armies of the Czar and the caliph met in alliance, 
 achieved a joint victory and entered a city in company 
 and in triumph, to restore an exiled sovereign. That 
 city was Rome ; that sovereign was the Pope. An Eng 
 lish squadron appeared in the harbor of Civita Vecchia, 
 while Russians and Turks assisted at the siege of 
 Ancona. Success ensued on each side of the Ap 
 ennines, till all three nations, as they advanced from 
 either shore, assembled in the Eternal City ; and English, 
 Russians, and Turks, heretics, schismatics, and unbe 
 lievers, conspired to restore the apostolic see. 
 
 The last war of the Porte against Catharine had 
 cost the sublime sultan the lives of more than a million 
 of men, had spread discontent through his provinces, 
 and, finally, as we have seen, but for the influence of 
 Prussia on Austria, and but for the more inviting scene 
 of conquest opened in Poland, would have left his em 
 pire at the mercy of the victor. For some years, the 
 policy of France and England, and, we may add, 
 of Russia, towards the sovereign of Constantino 
 ple, was singularly wavering. A series of revolu 
 tions in the heart of Europe, far beyond the reach or 
 the cognizance of the Ottoman divan, had recovered 
 
THE WARS OP RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 387 
 
 Egypt from French dominion, and had contributed to 
 the erection of the republic of the seven islands, under 
 the protection of the Porte, and the guarantee of 
 Russia. At times, the three great powers, within 
 the short space of seven or eight years, stood, each 
 for itself, in a hostile attitude towards the sultan; 
 and, during the same period, had vied with each other 
 in courting his friendship, and offering strict guaran 
 tees of his entire possessions. 
 
 The peace of Presburgh, in 1805, between Austria 
 and Prance, gave up to Napoleon the province of Dal- 
 matia, bordering on the Turkish empire, and made the 
 condition of that empire more precarious than ever. 
 Yet, in the following year, the divan, influenced by 
 the successes of the French in the north of Europe, 
 abandoned its friendly connexion with Russia, which 
 had been renewed but the year before, and, despatch 
 ing a splendid embassy to Paris, courted an alliance 
 with France. 
 
 The presence of Sebastiani in Constantinople made 
 the influence of Napoleon paramount ; and brought in 
 its train the hostility of England. France and Tur 
 key having formed a connexion, England and Russia 
 were driven to an alliance by a common repulsion. 
 When hostilities between France and Prussia were 
 renewed, Russia s armies invaded Moldavia without 
 any previous announcement, and in the same year, 
 
388 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 1806, entered Bucharest in triumph; while the insur 
 gent Servians attacked and took Belgrade. 
 
 The divan made a formal declaration of war, the 
 eighth against Russia, on the seventh of January, 
 1807 ; and, encouraged by the rapid victories of 
 Napoleon, prohibited to all vessels the navigation 
 through the Dardanelles. The blow was aimed at 
 Great Britain, and brought a British fleet into the 
 harbor of Constantinople. The English admiral de 
 manded the surrender of the castles of the Dardanelles, 
 the surrender of the Turkish navy of twenty-one 
 ships of the line, a declaration of war against France, 
 and the cession of Moldavia and Wallachia to Russia. 
 Failing at Constantinople, the fleet withdrew, and sub 
 sequently made an adventurous and ultimately fruitless 
 invasion of Egypt. 
 
 But the course of the war was to be influenced by 
 other events than the issue of Russian and Turkish 
 arms. Of the fifteen grand sultans of the eighteenth 
 century, Selim III. was the most intelligent. He 
 knew the weakness of his empire, but desired to 
 renovate it. Peter I. of Russia had moulded the 
 rising energies of a nation ; Selim III. had the harder 
 task to check decay. Deficient in firmness of char 
 acter, he adopted a partial reform. He left to the 
 janizaries their strength, but formed also an army, 
 which was to exist by the side of the ancient forces, and 
 which was disciplined according to the rules of Euro- 
 
THE AVARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 389 
 
 pean tactics. He was also carried away by a romantic 
 admiration for Napoleon ; and his intimacy with Sebas- 
 tiani, whom he permitted to enter the sacred interior 
 of the seraglio, offended the stern pride of the con 
 firmed Mahometan bigots. Suddenly, on the twenty- 
 eighth of May, 1807, an insurrection began. On the 
 twenty-ninth the unhappy Selim endeavored to pacify 
 the wild mass of insurgents by concessions, assenting 
 even to the death of his ministers who were favorable 
 to reform. But he sacrificed his consistency without 
 securing his liberty. When the mufti joined in the 
 attempt to depose the sovereign, Selim, finding resist 
 ance useless, bade adieu to his attendants, and repairing 
 to the apartments which were henceforward to be his 
 prison, consoled his captivity by singing the story of 
 his fall. 
 
 The nephew of Selim, the weak and ignorant 
 Mustapha IV., was raised to the throne. The newly 
 organized army was disbanded ; and a reaction began 
 to exterminate every trace of reform. Thus, by an 
 archy, and the consequences of the disastrous tumults 
 in its interior, the Ottoman state lost the opportunity 
 of attacking Russia, at the time when she was suffering 
 from the battles of Eylau and Friedland. 
 
 The peace of Tilsit contained a clause providing 
 for an armistice with the Porte. The Russians were 
 immediately to evacuate Moldavia and Wallachia, into 
 which the Turks were not to enter till the conclusion 
 
390 STUDIES IN HISTORY. . 
 
 of the peace. In consequence of this clause, Russia 
 made a truce at Sloboja with the Porte, on the twenty- 
 fourth of August, 1807. But peace did not ensue on 
 the armistice, nor did Russia evacuate the provinces. 
 
 The truce continued, as if by common consent, and 
 without any express stipulations, till the year 1809. 
 During that period, a new, more fatal, and more 
 bloody revolution, had sent to the grave every male 
 descendant of Osman but one. 
 
 The pacha of Rutschuk, Mustapha Bairactar, a 
 personal friend of the deposed monarch, a strenuous ad 
 vocate for the party of reform, and enemy to the pre 
 vailing system of reaction, determined to set aside the 
 effeminate Mustapha IV. and raise Selim once more to 
 power. At Adrianople he was joined by the grand 
 vizier; and with about thirty-six thousand men they 
 marched upon the capital, under the banner of Ma 
 homet. The sultan endeavored to win Bairactar by 
 appointing him to the chief command of his armies. 
 But the leader of the invasion would not be diverted 
 from his purpose. Having first confirmed his military 
 strength, he assembled the divan, the mufti, the leader 
 of the janizaries, and the ulemas ; took from the hes 
 itating grand vizier the seals of office and put him in 
 chains; and then sent the mufti, and the aga of the 
 janizaries, to demand the restoration of the throne to 
 Selim. By the advice of the mufti, Mustapha IV. 
 immediately ordered Selim to be executed. When 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 391 
 
 Bairactar appeared at the inner gates of the seraglio, 
 and received the mangled and mutilated corpse of his 
 benefactor, whom he had expected to restore, grief 
 stayed his revenge but for a moment. Mustapha IV. 
 was deposed, and his younger brother Mahmoud II. 
 was girded with the sword of the Prophet. The grand 
 vizier and the mufti were thrown into the Bosphorus ; 
 the chief of the eunuchs, and those who assisted in 
 murdering Selim, were hanged. The remains of Se- 
 Km were interred with great pomp. 
 
 The office of grand vizier was conferred on the 
 author of the revolution ; and the way seemed open to 
 the regeneration of the state. Bairactar enjoined new 
 levies and warlike preparations. He restored in the 
 army European tactics and discipline ; he increased the 
 military subordination ; he allayed the private feuds of 
 the pachas, and made them all swear that they would 
 contend only for the defence of the empire. He 
 caused the youthful sultan to appear in the divan, 
 and take part in the public business ; and he spread 
 through the provinces a fear which promised the 
 restoration of order and the return of security. 
 
 Thus there were two parties at Constantinople. 
 The one favored an approximation to European 
 culture, and held office under a sultan who was a 
 creature of their own. But the advocates of unreformed 
 Mahometanism were still secretly active and powerful. 
 On the fourteenth of November, the anniversary of 
 
392 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 the day on which the Koran is said to have descended 
 from heaven, a counter-revolution -was begun. Bair- 
 actar, fearing he should be overpowered, put to death 
 the late sultan Mustapha IV. and his mother. He was 
 himself driven to his own palace ; and there, retiring 
 to a tower, blew himself into the air ; or, as some say, 
 was suffocated by the flames. A furious battle was 
 fought round the seraglio, between the supporters of the 
 ancient and the new order. Thrice the janizaries were 
 repelled with a loss of three thousand men. The 
 capudan pacha, taking sides with the party for reform, 
 bombarded the town. The palace of the sultan took 
 fire. The flames spread to the city. At last Mah- 
 mpud II., perhaps deserted by his counsellors, perhaps 
 concerned for his life, perhaps seeing no alternative, 
 yielded to the rebellion, and promised the janizaries all 
 they would ask. 
 
 Thus the great question of a change in the political 
 system of the Porte, was decided for the present by an 
 insurrection in the streets of Constantinople. The 
 fierceness of the contest proved that the friends of 
 reform were already numerous ; and they fell, rather 
 from too great confidence in their strength, and the 
 want of ability on the part of the sultan, than from an 
 actual inferiority in their resources. The person of Ihe 
 monarch was sacred, because he stood alone ; the sole 
 descendant of the race of Osman ; caliph and grand 
 sultan without a rival; and at that time without an 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 393 
 
 heir. The monarch of the Turks, in spite of the insti 
 tution of polygamy, was an isolated being. There 
 was not on earth one man in whose veins flowed the 
 blood of his family. 
 
 A sultan, ruled by a lawless body of military in 
 surgents, promised no great display of external strength. 
 The congress of Erfurt, and the events which preceded 
 it, changed the relative position of the powers of 
 Europe. When France formed an alliance with Russia, 
 the Porte, no longer attracted to Napoleon, was left 
 to a new combination with England, with which power 
 a treaty was concluded on the fifth of January, 1809. 
 The year 1808 had been signalized by a war between 
 Gustavus IV. of Sweden and Alexander. The peace 
 of 1809 gave to Russia the province of Finland, and 
 secured her for ever against invasion from the north. 
 
 Alexander, on his return from Erfurt, opened a 
 congress with the Porte. The Turks knew that they 
 were abandoned by France, when, the Russian embassy 
 demanded the cession of all the land beyond the 
 Danube ; but, trusting to the alliance with the Eng 
 lish, they ventured to renew the war for three cam 
 paigns. The political relations of the great powers 
 decided more than battles. The Danube and its 
 fortresses offered an obstacle to the Russian arms, far 
 less formidable than the mountains of the Ha3nms. In 
 1811, the Russians retreated beyond the Danube; the 
 Turks pursued, only to be entirely defeated; and 
 
394 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 their camp at Rutschuk was taken by storm. This led 
 to a peace, for Prance and Russia having again become 
 divided, the Porte was swayed by the counsels of Eng 
 land ; and in spite of the treaty, by which Prance and 
 Austria had mutually guarantied the integrity of the 
 dominions of Turkey, the Pruth and the Danube be 
 came the boundaries of Russia, which thus gained 
 Bessarabia, and the third part of Moldavia, together 
 with the control of the natural channel of Hungarian 
 commerce. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The ninth war between Russia and the Porte, 
 declared by Russia in April, 1828, was far less 
 protracted than those of the last century. Mag 
 nificent hopes of change and appalling victories had 
 prepared its way. It did, indeed, seem at first, 
 as if the civilized world were arming its moral force, 
 to rescue from an uncertain slavery Christian states 
 which had so long been the victims of despotism. 
 The insurrection of the Greeks gave a pious aspect 
 to the foreign influence which was invoked against 
 the ruthless revenge, attending Ottoman successes. 
 Philanthropists in both hemispheres almost persuad 
 ed themselves that the Turkish sovereignty stood 
 arraigned before the grand inquest of nations ; the 
 sentence of exclusion from the benefit of human 
 sympathies was pronounced; and the legions of the 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 395 
 
 north were summoned as the ministers of retributive 
 justice. 
 
 But as the contest advanced, a consideration of im 
 portant interests, such as had led, in the former centu 
 ries, to repeated collisions, began to resume and to 
 exercise an overwhelming influence. The eyes of men 
 had been dazzled, and their hearts confounded, by the 
 protracted wars and intricate negotiations which had 
 grown out of the French revolution. That momentous 
 event had seemed to interrupt the continuity of his 
 tory ; and appeared, like a dark and unexplored gulf, 
 separating the past and the future. But at last the 
 nations came to be at rest ; and even the tremulous 
 motions, which had followed the fierce agitation, began 
 to be tranquillized. Old sympathies and objects of 
 ambition revived ; and purposes, which Russia had for 
 more than a century been desirous of executing, were 
 hurried to maturity by fortunate circumstances, and a 
 dexterous use of unforeseen opportunities. 
 
 Not the failure of an entire compliance with some 
 points in the treaty of Bucharest, not the frustrated 
 negotiations of Ackermann, not a returning sympathy 
 with the subjugated and dismembered kingdom of 
 , Servia, not an enthusiasm for enfranchising Greece, 
 precipitated the struggle. The main terms of the 
 treaty of Bucharest had been fulfilled ; the Servians, 
 however reluctantly, had been abandoned to them 
 selves ; and insurgent Greece could for a long time 
 
396 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 find no hearing in the cabinets of legitimate sove 
 reignty. 
 
 But for more than a century, it had been the 
 deliberate aim of Russia, to command the Euxine, 
 to have an absolutely free communication with the 
 Mediterranean, and to wrest from the Turkish sceptre 
 its provinces beyond the Danube. 
 
 Alexander, in his day, steadily pursued it, when 
 ever his relations with Prance permitted ; and during 
 his war with Turkey, repeatedly refused to make 
 peace, except it were purchased with the cession of 
 the Principalities. It was under the auspices of 
 Nicholas that the Ottoman territory was actually 
 invaded, after nine years of preparation. 
 
 The events attending the short struggle, proved 
 alike the desire and the inability of some of the leading 
 European powers to interfere. England was never so 
 much at a loss for instruments to check Russian 
 aggrandizement. Prussia, which had used its influ 
 ence against Joseph II. with so much success, was 
 now in close alliance with the Russian emperor ; and 
 Sweden, which, under the bold and inflexible G.us- 
 tavus, had almost planted its standards on St. Peters 
 burg, has, since the loss of Finland, been effectually 
 separated, by a sea, from the powerful empire which it 
 at one time rivalled and attempted to subdue. 
 
 It is one of the peculiar advantages of the Russian 
 position, that with the largest territory, it has a frontier 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 
 
 nowhere peculiarly open to invasion. In Warsaw, the 
 centre of Europe, the Russian armies are stationed as 
 an advanced guard. * On the north, it has, with respect 
 to Sweden, every advantage of an ultra-marine posi 
 tion. Prussia, from the facility with which its provinces 
 might be invaded from Poland, will never seek a dispute 
 with its overshadowing neighbor. There remains, 
 therefore, Austria only, with whom England could 
 concert an opposition toRussian success in Turkey. 
 But for purposes of foreign aggression, Austria is pecu 
 liarly weak, and, most of all, is weak on the side 
 of Russia. Every page of its history shows how 
 hard it was obliged to contend for Hungary ; how 
 earnestly it has desired to secure the adjoining pro 
 vinces on either side of the Danube ; and the history 
 which has occasion to record its longing and repeated 
 efforts to acquire the latter provinces, has also to add 
 its disappointment and defeat. 
 
 There was therefore no help for Turkey, but 
 in its own resources, and the personal character of .its 
 sovereign. The world has, during the summer of 
 1829, had occasion to see what they could accomplish. 
 It seemed doubtful, whether it was easier to win from 
 him provinces in Asia or in Europe. 
 
 Having thus sought for the origin of the late w r ar 
 in the hereditary policy of the Russian government, 
 and having explained its rapid issue, from a consider 
 ation, first of the difficulties which checked foreign in- 
 
398 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 fluence, then of the weakness of the Turkish power in 
 consequence of domestic factions, and lastly, of the 
 personal debility of the reigning * sultan ; it only re 
 mains to enumerate the terms on which peace was 
 finally conceded. The conclusion of the contest 
 has been aptly compared to the termination of the 
 second Carthaginian war with Rome. The cases have 
 many points of analogy. The Russian general, like the 
 Roman commander, was still a young man ; the peace 
 in each case was concluded, just as the capital of the 
 conquered country was on the point of being attacked. 
 The provinces beyond the Danube are lost to the 
 Porte, as much as Spain was to the Carthaginians. 
 Greece is to Turkey, what Numidia was to Carthage. 
 But if Diebitsch shall be Scipio, where is our Han 
 nibal ? On the whole, the Roman conqueror pre 
 scribed less degrading terms, and acknowledged less 
 equivocally the independence of Carthage. 
 
 The commerce of the Turkish empire is surren 
 dered to the Russians. They may go to all ports, and 
 conduct their traffic almost on their own terms, inde 
 pendent of any plenary exercise of Turkish sovereignty. 
 Every Russian who treads on the Turkish soil is pos 
 sessed of immunities which the law of nations has 
 heretofore hardly conceded to ambassadors. The 
 Turk who may murder a Russian cannot avert from 
 the Porte a war of annihilation. The Roman tribunes 
 were, in their persons, hardly held as sacred, or pro- 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 399 
 
 tccted by as severe threats, as is every Russian subject 
 who may henceforth pass the Danube. The Russian 
 government retains the privilege of watching over 
 every one of its citizens, even after they have entered a 
 foreign territory ; and it thus acquires a conditional 
 right of inquest into every nook and hamlet, every city 
 and harbor, every bazaar and encampment of the 
 Turks. The precincts of the seraglio, and the re 
 cesses of the mosques, nay, for aught we see, the 
 presence-chamber of the Sultan, and even the sanctuary 
 of Mecca itself, are no longer sacred, except by courtesy. 
 
 These points, rendering Russians, and Russian 
 commerce in Turkey, amenable only to Russian au 
 thorities, are inconsistent with independence. But 
 this is not all. By the peace of Adrianople, the Porte 
 is deprived, effectually, though indirectly, of the 
 sovereignty of at least eight parts in nineteen of all 
 its European possessions. The Peloponnesus with 
 large additions, Servia, and the Principalities of Mol 
 davia and Wallachia, are severed, we trust for ever, 
 from the Ottoman sway. 
 
 Whatever relation Greece may bear to the Porte 
 and to the rest of Europe, it will stand virtually under 
 the guardianship of Russia, and, for the present, will 
 have with it a community of interests, as of religion 
 and of enemies. Statesmen have not forgotten that 
 the sovereignty of the Ionian Isles was transferred to 
 Great Britain through the hands of Russia ; the re- 
 
400 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 maining isles and the main land still offer every facility 
 for contesting, with English ambition, the commerce 
 of the Levant, and the supremacy in the ^Egean 
 sea. Some protection from abroad is essential to the 
 new state. Bene vixit, qui bene latuit. Greece will 
 probably be to Russia what Florence was to Austria. 
 
 To Servia, the peace of Adrianople brings hardly 
 fewer advantages than to Greece. That country, in 
 extent about as large as Denmark, or as Vermont and 
 New Hampshire, has been long swept by the besom of 
 war, and will probably have to encounter one struggle 
 more, previous to its entire emancipation. On com 
 paring the conditions of the several treaties of Bucha 
 rest, Ackermann, and Adrianople, we find that the 
 Porte retains the citadels of Servia (of which Belgrade 
 is the chief), and is to receive from the Servians a 
 moderate tribute. The Russians guaranty, that it shall 
 not be excessive. The more vague the expression, 
 the more room is allowed for the interference of the 
 stronger party. To the Servians are further conceded 
 privileges equal to those enjoyed by the most favored 
 provinces, and a right of negotiating under Russian 
 auspices, to secure to themselves the liberty of worship, 
 the choice of their own chiefs, freedom of commerce with 
 all parts of the Turkish territory, the entire domestic 
 administration, even over property belonging to Mus 
 sulmans, and a prohibition to Mussulmans, other than 
 those appertaining to the garrisons, to establish them- 
 
THE WAIIS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 401 
 
 selves in Servia. Has not Servia, then, ceased to be 
 a Turkish province? Is the sovereignty of the Sultan 
 any thing more than nominal ? Or, rather, where 
 does, in truth, the ultimate sovereignty reside ? The 
 Porte holds the fortresses ; Russia guaranties the liber 
 ties of Servia ; the Porte levies a tribute of money ; 
 Russia has on the affections of the people a hold, which 
 can open their most secret coffers ; the Porte is ever 
 ready to prove its power by oppression ; and Russia 
 confirms to each Christian inhabitant of Servia, the 
 peaceful enjoyment of his property and its rights. 
 
 Respecting the noble provinces of Wallachia and 
 Moldavia, jointly equal in extent to about three fourths 
 of Florida, Russia, delaying for the present to claim 
 them in fee simple, has entered into actual possession, 
 under a mortgage which will probably never be dis 
 charged. Henceforward Austria has every thing to 
 fear and nothing to hope from a war with her neigh 
 bor, wno now controls the great highway of Hungarian 
 commerce, and has easy access to almost one half of 
 her frontier. The schemes of Peter the Great are 
 accomplished. He found an empire which had no- 
 communication with the great seas of commerce but 
 through Archangel. His successor is master of the 
 Baltic, the Caspian, and the Euxine ; and is preparing 
 to struggle with the English for the ascendency in the 
 ^Egean. 
 
 The results of the late war have excited apprehension 
 26 
 
402 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 in England ; but not because the British empire in India 
 has been endangered by it. The alarm about India 
 is a mere chimera ; and ages must roll away, and one 
 career of wild ambition be succeeded bjfc another, 
 before a Russian Genghis would venture to stray into 
 India with countless hosts of vagrant conquerors. No ! 
 The points of collision are much nearer, less magnifi 
 cent in extent, but yet immediate and important. 
 The command of the Archipelago may be disputed 
 between those who protect the Ionian Isles and the 
 fosterer of independent Greece. England and Russia, 
 the great European rivals, are, indeed, themselves at 
 the extremes of the continent; but the states which 
 are their respective clients, are situated almost side by 
 side, and a predominant influence in the Ionian Isles is 
 more than counterbalanced by the cluster of Greek 
 islands in the ^Egean, and the deep harbors and noble 
 bays of continental Greece. 
 
 On the whole, the peace of Adrianople is favorable 
 to the best interests of civilization. Some portions 
 of regions, on which nature in her kindest mood 
 has lavished all the elements of prosperity, are now 
 permitted in security to profit by their natural advan 
 tages. Servia gains a respite from oppression ; the 
 means of eventually securing her independence; and 
 an opportunity of developing her vast, and, as yet, 
 almost wholly unexplored resources. The principalities 
 may now prosper, and the desolate majesty of those 
 
THE WARS OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 403 
 
 rich but wasted countries yield to the gentle influ 
 ences of accumulated wealth and protected industry. 
 But above all, Greece is restored to the affections 
 of humanity. Favored by Providence in its situation 
 and climate beyond any portion of Europe, its pros 
 perity must be rapid and cheering. If local influ 
 ences, the temperature and soil of a country, decide on 
 the occupations, and in some measure on the character 
 of its inhabitants, the virtues and genius of antiquity 
 will under some aspect reappear. However much the 
 forms of empires may have changed, the great features 
 of nature remain unimpaired. The same bright sun, 
 which shone on Plato and Phidias, on the heroes of 
 Salamis and the orators of the Athenian democracy, 
 still rolls with undiminished splendor through the clear 
 sky of Hellas. The streams of the Ilyssus and the 
 Eurotas flow in their wonted channels. The olive of 
 Minerva still ripens its fruits, and ripens them once 
 more for peaceful citizens, who, in their turn, have 
 struggled against the barbarian for their domestic 
 liberties. It is, indeed, Greece, and living Greece. 
 She reappears to take her place in the family of na 
 tions. Her star ascends brightly through a sky that 
 no longer lowers. 
 
 The remainder of European Turkey lies at the 
 mercy of its great adversary. If it had . strength to 
 commence the recent struggle, it has, in the present 
 treaty of Adrianople, resigned every hope of future 
 
404 STUDIES IN HISTORY. 
 
 successful resistance. Indeed, the whole empire of 
 Turkey is as prostrate before the Czar, as Persia has 
 been since the termination of its late war with Russia^ 
 The influence of Nicholas prevails from the frozen 
 sources of the Torneo to the Persian Gulf. His ships 
 ride triumphantly in all the Turkish waters ; the lives 
 of his subjects are charmed against every aggression 
 and violence throughout the Ottoman dominion. He 
 has won every thing which was essential to the pros 
 perity of the provinces which acknowledge his sway. 
 He has done something for the cause of humanity. 
 But now the world has a yet deeper interest in the 
 wise administration of the internal concerns of Russia, 
 and in the personal character of her sovereign. Since 
 it would be idle to wish for her many provinces that 
 highest good which comes from the conflict of free 
 opinions, we will hope that he may emulate the mild 
 virtues of an Antonine, rather than the less arduous 
 and less rare distinction of extensive conquest. 
 
OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 A WORD ON CALVIN, THE REFORMER. 
 
 NOBTHAMPTON, Oct. 22, 1834. 
 
 IT is intolerance only, which would limit the praise 
 of Calvin to a single sect, or refuse to reverence his vir 
 tues and regret his failings. He lived in the time 
 when nations were shaken to their centre by the ex 
 citement of the reformation ; when the fields of Holland 
 and France were wet with the carnage of persecution ; 
 when vindictive monarchs on the one side threatened 
 all protestants with outlawry and death, and the Vatican 
 on the other sent forth its anathemas and its cry for 
 blood. In that day, it is too true, the influence of an 
 ancient, long established, hardly disputed error, the 
 constant danger of his position, the intense desire to 
 secure union among the antagonists of popery, the 
 engrossing consciousness that his struggle was for the 
 emancipation of the Christian world, induced the great 
 reformer to defend the use of the sword for the extirpa 
 tion of heresy. Reprobating and lamenting his adhe 
 sion to the cruel doctrine, which all Christendom had 
 
406 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 for centuries implicitly received, we may, as repub 
 licans, remember that Calvin was not only the founder 
 of a sect, but foremost among the most efficient of 
 modern republican legislators. More truly benevolent 
 to the human race than Solon, more self-denying than 
 Lycurgus, the genius of Calvin infused enduring ele 
 ments into the institutions of Geneva, and made it for 
 the modern world, the impregnable fortress of popular 
 liberty, the fertile seed-plot of democracy. 
 
 We boast of our common schools ; Calvin was the 
 father of popular education, the inventor of the system 
 of free schools. We are proud of the free States that 
 fringe the Atlantic. The pilgrims of Plymouth were 
 Calvinists ; the best influence in South Carolina came 
 from the Calvinists of France. William Penn was the 
 disciple of the Huguenots ; the ships from Holland 
 that first brought colonists to Manhattan were filled 
 with Calvinists. He that will not honor the memory, 
 and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little 
 of the origin of American liberty. 
 
 If personal considerations chiefly win applause, 
 then no one merits our sympathy and our admiration 
 more than Calvin ; the young exile from Prance, who 
 achieved an immortality of fame before he was twenty- 
 eight years of age ; now boldly reasoning with the king 
 of Prance for religious liberty ; now venturing as the 
 apostle of truth to carry the new doctrines into the heart 
 of Italy, and hardly escaping from the fur} 7 of papal 
 
CALVIN, THE REFORMER. 407 
 
 persecution ; the purest writer, the keenest dialectician 
 of his century ; pushing- free inquiry to its utmost verge, 
 and yet valuing inquiry solely as the means of arriving 
 at fixed conclusions. The light of his genius scattered 
 the mask of darkness which superstition had held for 
 centuries before the brow of religion. His probity was 
 unquestioned, his morals spotless. His only happiness 
 consisted in his " task of glory and of good ;" for sor 
 row found its way into all his private relations. He 
 was an exile from his country ; he became for a season 
 an exile from his place of exile. As a husband he was 
 doomed, to mourn the premature loss of his wife ; as a 
 father, he felt the bitter pang of burying his only child. 
 Alone in the world, alone in a strange land, he went 
 forward in his career with serene resignation and in 
 flexible firmness ; no love of ease turned him aside 
 from his vigils ; no fear of danger relaxed the nerve of 
 his eloquence; no bodily infirmities checked the in 
 credible activity of his mind; and so he continued, 
 year after year, solitary and feeble, yet toiling for 
 humanity, till after a life of glory, he bequeathed 
 to his personal heirs, a fortune, in books and furniture, 
 stocks and money, not exceeding two hundred dollars, 
 and to the world a purer reformation, a republican 
 spirit in religion, with the kindred principles of repub 
 lican liberty. 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE IN ART, GOVERN- 
 MENT, AND RELIGION. 
 
 AN OEATION DELIVEEED BEFOEE THE ADELPHI SOCIETY OF WIL- 
 LIAMSTOWN COLLEGE, IN AUGUST, 1835. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE material world does not change in its masses 
 or in its powers. The stars shine with no more lustre 
 than when they first sang together in the glory of their 
 birth. The flowers that gemmed the fields and the 
 forests, before America was discovered, now bloom 
 around us in their season. The sun that shone on 
 Homer shines on us in unchanging lustre. The bow 
 that beamed on the patriarch ,still glitters in the 
 clouds. Nature is the same. For her no new forces 
 are generated ; no new capacities are discovered. The 
 earth turns on its axis, and perfects its revolutions, and 
 renews its seasons, without increase or advancement. 
 
 But a like passive destiny does not attach to 
 the inhabitants of the earth. For them the expecta 
 tions of social improvement are no delusion ; the hopes 
 of philanthropy are more than a dream. The five 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 409 
 
 senses do not constitute the whole inventory of our 
 sources of knowledge. They are the organs by 
 which thought connects itself with the external uni 
 verse; but the power of thought is not merged in 
 the exercise of its instruments. We have functions 
 which connect us with heaven, as well as organs 
 which set us in relation with earth. We have not 
 merely the senses opening to us the external world, 
 but an internal sense, which places us in connexion 
 with the world of intelligence and the decrees of God. 
 
 There is a spirit in man: not in the privileged 
 few; not in those of us only who by the favor of 
 Providence have been nursed in public schools : IT is 
 IN MAN : it is the attribute of the race. The spirit, 
 which is the guide to truth, is the gracious gift to each 
 member of the human family. 
 
 Reason exists within every breast. I mean not 
 that faculty which deduces inferences from the expe 
 rience of the senses, but that higher faculty, which 
 from the infinite treasures of its own consciousness, 
 originates truth, and assents to it by the force of 
 intuitive evidence ; that faculty which raises us beyond 
 the control of time and space, and gives us faith in 
 things eternal and invisible. There is not the difference 
 between one mind and another, which the pride of 
 philosophers might conceive. To them no faculty is 
 conceded, which does not belong to the meanest of 
 their countrymen. In them there can not spring up a 
 
410 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 truth, which does not equally have its germ in every 
 mind. They have not the power of creation ; they can 
 but reveal what God has implanted in every breast. 
 
 The intellectual functions, by which relations are 
 perceived, are the common endowments of the race. 
 The differences are apparent, not real. The eye in one 
 person may be dull, in another quick, in one distorted, 
 and in another tranquil and clear ; yet the relation of 
 the eye to light is in all men the same. Just so 
 judgment may be liable in individual minds to the 
 bias of passion, and yet its relation to truth is immu 
 table, and is universal. 
 
 In questions of practical duty, conscience is God s 
 umpire, whose light illumines every heart. There is 
 nothing in books, which had not first, and has not still 
 its life within us. Religion itself is a dead letter, 
 wherever its truths are not renewed in the soul. 
 Individual conscience may be corrupted by interest, 
 or debauched by pride, yet the rule of morality is 
 distinctly marked ; its harmonies are to the mind like 
 music to the ear ; and the moral judgment, when care 
 fully analyzed and referred to its principles, is always 
 founded in right. The eastern superstition, which bids 
 its victims prostrate themselves before the advancing 
 car of their idols, springs from a noble root, and is but 
 a melancholy perversion of that self-devotion, which 
 enables the Christian to bear the cross, and subject his 
 personal passions to the will of God. Immorality of 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 41] 
 
 itself never won to its support the inward voice ; con 
 science, if questioned, never forgets to curse the guilty 
 with the memory of sin, to cheer the upright with the 
 meek tranquillity of approval. And this admirable 
 power, which is the instinct of Deity, is the attribute 
 of every man ; it knocks at the palace gate, it dwells in 
 the meanest hovel. Duty, like death, enters every 
 abode, and delivers its message. Conscience, like 
 reason and judgment, is universal. 
 
 That the moral affections are planted every where, 
 needs only to be asserted to be received. The savage 
 mother loves her offspring with all the fondness that a 
 mother can know. Beneath the odorous shade of the 
 boundless forests of Chili, the native youth repeats the 
 story of love as sincerely as it was ever chanted in the 
 valley of Vaucluse. The affections of family are not 
 the growth of civilization. The charities of life are 
 scattered every where ; enamelling the vales of human 
 being, as the flowers paint the meadows. They are 
 not the fruit of study, nor the privilege of refinement, 
 but a natural instinct. 
 
 Our age has seen a revolution in works of ima 
 gination. The poet has sought his theme in common 
 life.. Never is the genius of Scott more pathetic, than 
 when, as in the Antiquary, he delineates the sorrows 
 of a poor fisherman, or as in the Heart of Mid Lothian, 
 he takes his heroine from a cottage. And even Words 
 worth, the purest and most original poet of the day, in 
 
412 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 spite of the inveterate character of his political predi 
 lections, has thrown the light of genius on the walks of 
 commonest life ; he finds a lesson in every, grave of the 
 village churchyard ; he discloses the boundless treasures 
 of feeling in the peasant, the laborer and the artisan ; 
 the strolling peddler becomes, through his genius, a 
 teacher of the sublimest morality; and the solitary 
 wagoner, the lonely shepherd, even the feeble mother 
 of an idiot boy, furnishes lessons in the reverence for 
 Humanity. 
 
 If from things relating to truth, justice, and 
 affection, we turn to those relating to the beautiful, we 
 may- here still further assert, that the sentiment for the 
 beautiful resides in every breast. The lovely forms of 
 the external world delight us from their adaptation to 
 our powers. 
 
 Yea, what were mighty Nature s self ? 
 Her features could they win us, 
 
 Unhelped by the poetic voice 
 
 That hourly speaks within us r 
 
 The Indian mother, on the borders of Hudson s 
 Bay, decorates her manufactures with ingenious de 
 vices and lovely colors, prompted by the same instinct 
 which guided the pencil and mixed the colors of 
 Raphael. The inhabitant of Nootka Sound tattoos 
 his body with the method of harmonious Arabesques. 
 Every form, to which the hands of the artist have ever 
 given birth, sprung first into being as a conception 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 413 
 
 of his mind, from a natural faculty, which belongs not 
 to the artist exclusively, but to man. Beauty, like 
 truth and justice, lives within us ; like virtue and like 
 moral law, it is a companion of the soul. The power 
 which leads to the production of beautiful forms, or to 
 the perception of them in the works which God has 
 made, is an attribute of Humanity. 
 
 But I am asked if I despise learning ? Shall one 
 who has spent much of his life in schools and univer 
 sities plead the equality of uneducated nature ? Is 
 there no difference between the man of refinement and 
 the savage ? 
 
 "I am a man," said Black Hawk nobly to the 
 chief of the first republic in the w r orld; " I am a man," 
 said the barbarous chieftain, "and you are another." 
 
 I speak for the universal diffusion of human 
 powers, not of human attainments; for the capacity 
 for progress, not for the perfection of undisciplined 
 iifstincts. The fellowship which we should cherish with 
 the race, receives the Comanche warrior and the 
 Cafrre within the pale of equality. Their functions 
 may not have been exercised, but they exist. Immure 
 a person in a dungeon ; as he comes to the light of 
 day, his vision seems incapable of performing its office. 
 Does that destroy your conviction in the relation be 
 tween the eye and light? The rioter over his cups 
 resolves to eat and drink and be merry ; he forgets his 
 spiritual nature in his obedience to the senses ; but 
 
A 
 414 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 does that destroy the relation between conscience and 
 eternity? "What ransom shall we give? " exclaimed 
 the senators of Rome to the savage Attila. " Give," 
 said the barbarian, " all your gold and jewels, your 
 costly furniture and treasures, and set free every 
 slave." "Ah," replied the degenerate Romans, 
 " what then will be left to us ? " "I leave you 
 your souls-," replied the unlettered invader from the 
 steppes of Asia, who had learnt in the wilderness 
 to value the immortal mind, and to despise the servile 
 herd, that esteemed only their fortunes, and had no 
 true respect for themselves. You cannot discover a 
 tribe of men, but you also find the charities of life, and 
 the proofs of spiritual existence. Behold the ignorant 
 Algonquin deposit a bow and quiver by the side of the 
 departed warrior; and recognise his faith in immor 
 tality. See the Comanche chieftain, in the heart of our 
 continent, inflict on himself severest penance ; and 
 reverence his confession of the needed atonement &r 
 
 
 
 sin. The Barbarian who roams our western prairies 
 has like passions and like endowments with ourselves. 
 He bears within him the instinct of Deity ; the con 
 sciousness of a spiritual nature; the love of beauty; 
 the rule of morality. 
 
 And shall we reverence the dark-skinned Caflre ? 
 Shall we respect the brutal Hottentot ? You may read 
 the right answer written on every heart. It bids me 
 not despise the sable hunter, that gathers a livelihood 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 415 
 
 in the forests of Southern Africa. All are men. 
 When we know the Hottentot better, we shall despise 
 him less. 
 
 ii. 
 
 If it be true, that the gifts of mind and heart are 
 universally diffused, if the sentiment of truth, justice, 
 love, and beauty exists in every one, then it follows, as 
 a necessary consequence, that the common judgment in 
 taste, politics, and religion, is the highest authority on 
 earth, and the nearest possible approach to an infallible 
 decision. From the consideration of individual powers 
 I turn to the action of the human mind in masses. 
 
 If reason is a universal faculty, the universal de 
 cision is the nearest criterion of truth. The common 
 mind winnows opinions ; it is the sieve which separates 
 error from certainty. The exercise by many of the same 
 faculty on the same subject would naturally lead to 
 the same conclusions. But if not, the very differences 
 of opinion that arise prove the supreme judgment 
 of the general mind. Truth is one. It never con 
 tradicts itself. One truth cannot contradict another 
 truth. Hence truth is a bond of union. But 
 error not only contradicts truth, but may contra 
 dict itself; so that there may be many errors, and 
 each at variance with the rest. Truth is therefore 
 of necessity an element of harmony; error as neces 
 sarily an element of discord. Thus there can bo 
 
416 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 no continuing universal judgment but a right one. 
 Men cannot agree in an absurdity ; neither can they 
 agree in a falsehood. 
 
 If wrong opinions have often been cherished by 
 the masses, the cause always lies in the complexity of 
 the ideas presented. Error finds its way into the soul 
 of a nation, only through the channel of truth. It 
 is to a truth that men listen ; and if they accept er 
 ror also, it is only because the error is for the time 
 so closely interwoven with the truth, that the one 
 cannot readily be separated from the other. 
 
 Unmixed error can have no existence in the public 
 mind. Wherever you see men clustering together to 
 form a party, you may be sure that however much 
 error may be there, truth is there also. Apply this 
 principle boldly ; for it contains a lesson of candor, 
 and a voice of encouragement. There never was 
 a school of philosophy, nor a clan in the realm of 
 opinion, but carried along with it some important 
 truth. And therefore every sect that has ever flour 
 ished has benefited Humanity; for the errors of a 
 sect pass away and are forgotten; its truths are re 
 ceived into the common inheritance. To know the 
 seminal thought of every prophet and leader of a 
 sect, is to gather all the wisdom of mankind. 
 " By heaven ! there should not be a seer, who left 
 The world one doctrine, but I d task his lore, 
 And commune with his spirit. All the truth 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 417 
 
 Of all the tongues of earth, I d have them all, 
 Had I the powerful spell to raise their ghosts." 
 
 The sentiment of beauty, as it exists in the human 
 mind, is the criterion in works of art, inspires the con 
 ceptions of genius, and exercises a final judgment on 
 its productions. For who are the best judges in mat 
 ters of taste ? Do you think the cultivated individual ? 
 Undoubtedly not ; but the collective mind. The pub 
 lic is wiser than the wisest critic. In Athens, the arts 
 were carried to perfection,, when "the fierce demo- 
 cracie " was in the ascendant ; the temple of Minerva 
 and the works of Phidias were planned and perfected to 
 please the common people. When Greece yielded to 
 tyrants, her genius for excellence in art expired ; or 
 rather, the purity of taste disappeared ; because the 
 artist then endeavored to gratify a patron, and there 
 fore, humored his caprice ; while before he had en 
 deavored to delight the race. 
 
 When, after a long eclipse, the arts again burst into 
 a splendid existence, it was equally under a popular 
 influence. During the rough contests and feudal 
 tyrannies of the middle age, religion had opened in 
 the church an asylum for the people. There the serf 
 and the beggar could kneel ; there the pilgrim and the 
 laborer were shrived ; and the children of misfortune 
 not less than the prosperous were welcomed to the 
 house of prayer. The church was, consequently, at 
 once the guardian of equality, and the nurse of the 
 27 
 
418 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 arts; and the souls of Giotto, and Perugino, and 
 Raphael, moved by an infinite sympathy with the 
 crowd, kindled into divine conceptions of beautiful 
 forms. Appealing to the sentiment of devotion in the 
 common mind, they dipped their pencils in living 
 colors, to decorate the altars where man adored. By 
 degrees the wealthy nobility desired in like manner to 
 adorn their palaces ; but at the attempt, the quick 
 familiarity of the artist with the beautiful declined 
 Instead of the brilliant works which spoke to the 
 soul, a school arose, who appealed to the senses ; 
 and in the land which had produced the most moving 
 pictures, addressed to the religious feeling, and instinct 
 with the purest beauty, the banquet halls were covered 
 with grotesque forms, such as float before the imagina 
 tion, when excited and bewildered by sensual indul 
 gence. Instead of holy families, the ideal repre 
 sentations of the virgin mother and the godlike child. 
 of the enduring faith of martyrs, of the blessed 
 benevolence of evangelic love, there came the motley 
 group of fawns and satyrs, of Diana stooping to Encly- 
 mion, of voluptuous beauty, and the forms of licentious 
 ness. Humanity frowned on the desecration of the 
 arts; and painting, no longer vivified by a fellow- 
 feeling with the multitude, lost its greatness in the 
 attempt to adapt itself to personal humors. 
 
 If with us the arts are destined to a brilliant 
 career, the inspiration must spring from the vigor of 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 419 
 
 the people. Genius will not create, to natter patrons 
 or decorate saloons. It yearns for larger influences ; 
 it feeds on wider sympathies ; and its perfect display 
 can never exist, except in an appeal to the general sen 
 timent for the beautiful. 
 
 Again. Italy is famed for its musical compositions, 
 its inimitable operas. It is a well-known fact, that the 
 best critics are often deceived in their judgment of 
 them; while the pit, composed of the throng, does, 
 without fail, render a true verdict. 
 
 But the taste for music, it may be said, is favored 
 by natural organization. Precisely a statement that 
 sets in a clearer light the natural capacity of the race ; 
 for taste is then not an acquisition, but in part a gift. 
 But let us pass to works of literature. 
 
 Who are by way of eminence the poets of all man 
 kind? Surely Homer and Shakspeare. Now Homer 
 formed his taste, as he wandered from door to door, a 
 vagrant minstrel, paying for hospitality by a song ; and 
 Shakspeare wrote for an audience, composed in a great 
 measure of the common people. 
 
 The little story of Paul and Virginia is a universal 
 favorite. When it was first written, the author read it 
 aloud to a circle in Paris, composed of the wife of the 
 prime minister, and the choicest critics of Prance. 
 They condemned it, as dull and insipid. The author 
 appealed to the public ; and the children of all Europe 
 reversed the decree of the Parisians. The judgment 
 
420 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 of children, that is, the judgment of the common mind 
 under its most innocent and least imposing form, was 
 more trustworthy than the criticism of the select 
 refinement of the most polished city in the world. 
 
 Demosthenes of old formed himself to the perfection 
 of eloquence by means of addresses to the crowd. The 
 great comic poet of Greece, emphatically the poet of the 
 vulgar mob, is distinguished above all others for the 
 incomparable graces of his diction ; and it is related of 
 one of the most skilful writers in the Italian, that 
 when inquired of where he had learned the purity and 
 nationality of his style, he replied, from listening to 
 the country people, as they brought their produce 
 to market. 
 
 At the revival of letters a distinguishing feature of 
 the rising literature was the employment of the dialect 
 of the vulgar. Dante used the language of the popu 
 lace and won immortality ; Wickliffe, Luther, and at a 
 later day Descartes, each employed his mother tongue, 
 and carried truth directly to all who were familiar 
 with its accents. Every beneficent revolution in letters 
 has the character of popularity; every great reform 
 among .authors has sprung from the power of the 
 people in its influence on the development and activity 
 of mind. 
 
 The same influence continues unimpaired. Scott, in 
 spite of his reverence for the aristocracy, spurned a draw 
 ing-room reputation ; the secret of Byron s superiority 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 421 
 
 lay in part in the agreement which existed between his 
 muse and the democratic tendency of the age. Ger 
 man literature is almost entirely a popular creation. 
 It was fostered by no monarch ; it was dandled by no 
 aristocracy. It was plebeian in its origin, and therefore 
 manly in its results. 
 
 in. 
 
 In like manner the best government rests on the 
 people and not on the few, on persons and not on 
 property, on the free development of public opinion and 
 not on authority ; because the munificent Author of our 
 being has conferred the gifts of mind upon every mem 
 ber of the human race without distinction of outward 
 circumstances. Whatever of other possessions, may be 
 engrossed, mind asserts its own independence. Lands, 
 estates, the produce of mines, the prolific abundance of 
 the seas, may be usurped by a privileged class. 
 Avarice, assuming the form of ambitious power, may 
 grasp realm after realm, subdue continents, compass 
 the earth in its schemes of aggrandizement, and sigh 
 after other worlds ; but mind eludes the power of ap 
 propriation ; it exists only in its own individuality ; it 
 is a property which cannot be confiscated and cannot 
 be torn away ; it laughs at chains ; it bursts from im 
 prisonment; it defies monopoly. A government of 
 equal rights must, therefore, rest upon mind ; not 
 wealth, not brute force, the sum of the moral intel- 
 
422 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 ligence of the community should rule the State. Pre 
 scription can no more assume to be a valid plea for 
 political injustice; society studies to eradicate estab 
 lished abuses, and to bring social institutions and 
 laws into harmony with moral right ; not dismayed by 
 the natural and necessary imperfections of all human 
 effort, and not giving way to despair, because every 
 hope does not at once ripen into fruit. 
 
 The public happiness is the true object of legis 
 lation, and can be secured only by the masses of 
 mankind themselves awakening to the knowledge and 
 the care of their own interests. Our free institutions 
 have reversed the false and ignoble distinctions between 
 men ; and refusing to gratify the pride of caste, have 
 acknowledged the common mind to be the true mate 
 rial for a commonwealth. Every thing has hitherto 
 been done for the happy few. It is not possible to 
 endow an aristocracy with greater benefits than they 
 have already enjoyed ; there is no room to hope that 
 individuals will be more highly gifted or more fully 
 developed than the greatest sages of past times. The 
 world can advance only through the culture of the 
 moral and intellectual powers of the people. To 
 accomplish this end by means of the people themselves, 
 is the highest purpose of government. If it be the 
 duty of the individual to strive after a perfection like 
 the perfection of God, how much more ought a nation 
 to be the image of Deity. The common mind is the 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 423 
 
 true Parian marble, fit to be wrought into likeness to a 
 God. The duty of America is to secure the culture 
 and the happiness of the masses by their reliance on 
 themselves. 
 
 The absence of the prejudices of the old world 
 leaves us here the opportunity of consulting inde 
 pendent truth ; and man is left to apply the instinct of 
 freedom to every social relation and public interest. 
 We have approached so near to nature, that we can 
 hear her gentlest whispers ; we have made Humanity 
 our lawgiver and our oracle ; and, therefore, the nation 
 receives, vivifies and applies principles, which in Europe 
 the wisest accept with distrust. Freedom of mind and 
 of conscience, freedom of the seas, freedom of industry, 
 equality of franchises, each great truth is firmly grasped, 
 comprehended and enforced ; for the multitude is 
 neither rash nor fickle. In truth, it is less fickle than 
 those who profess to be its guides. Its natural dia~ 
 lectics surpass the logic of the schools. Political action 
 has never been so consistent and so unwavering, as 
 when it results from a feeling or a principle, diffused 
 through society. The people is firm and tranquil in 
 its movements, and necessarily acts with moderation, 
 because it becomes but slowly impregnated with new 
 ideas ; and effects no changes, except in harmony with 
 the knowledge which it has acquired. Besides, where 
 it is permanently possessed of power, there exists 
 neither the occasion nor the desire for frequent change. 
 
4:24 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 It is not the parent of tumult ; sedition is bred in the 
 lap of luxury, and its chosen emissaries are the beg 
 gared spendthrift and the impoverished libertine. The 
 government by the people is in very truth the strong 
 est government in the world. Discarding the imple 
 ments of terror, it dares to rule by moral force, and 
 has its citadel in the heart. 
 
 Such is the political system which rests on reason, 
 reflection, and the free expression of deliberate choice. 
 There may be those who scoff at the suggestion, that 
 the decision of the whole is to be preferred to the judg 
 ment of the enlightened few. They say in their hearts 
 that the masses are ignorant ; that farmers know 
 nothing of legislation ; that mechanics should not quit 
 their workshops to join in forming public opinion. But 
 true political science does indeed venerate the masses. 
 It maintains, not as has been perversely asserted, that 
 " the people can make right," but that the people can 
 DISCERN right. Individuals are but shadows, too often 
 engrossed by the pursuit of shadows ; the race is im 
 mortal : individuals are of limited sagacity ; the com 
 mon mind is infinite in its experience : individuals are 
 languid and blind ; the many are ever wakeful : indi 
 viduals are corrupt; the race has been redeemed: 
 individuals are time-serving ; the masses are fearless : 
 individuals may be false, the masses are ingenuous and 
 sincere : individuals claim the divine sanction of truth 
 for the deceitful conceptions of their own fancies ; the 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 425 
 
 Spirit of God breathes through the combined intelli 
 gence of the people. Truth is not to be ascertained by 
 the impulses of an individual ; it emerges from the 
 contradictions of personal opinions; it raises itself in 
 majestic serenity above the strifes of parties and the 
 conflict of sects ; it acknowledges neither the solitary 
 mind, nor the separate faction as its oracle ; but owns 
 as its only faithful interpreter the dictates of pure 
 reason itself, proclaimed by the general voice of man 
 kind. The decrees of the universal conscience are the 
 nearest approach to the presence of God in the soul 
 of man. 
 
 Thus the opinion which we respect is, indeed, 
 not the opinion of one or of a few, but the sa 
 gacity of the many. It is hard for the pride of culti 
 vated philosophy to put its ear to the ground, and 
 listen reverently to the voice of lowly humanity ; yet the 
 people collectively are wiser than the most gifted indi 
 vidual, for all his wisdom constitutes but a part of 
 theirs. When the great sculptor of Greece was en 
 deavoring to fashion the perfect model of beauty, he 
 did not passively imitate the form of the loveliest 
 woman of his age ; but he gleaned the several linea 
 ments of his faultless work from the many. And so it 
 is, that a perfect judgment is the result of comparison, 
 when error eliminates error, and truth is established by 
 concurring witnesses. The organ of truth is the in 
 visible decision of the unbiased world; she pleads 
 
426 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 before no tribunal but public opinion; she owns no 
 safe interpreter but the common mind ; she knows no 
 court of appeals but the soul of humanity. It is 
 when the multitude give counsel, that right purposes 
 find safety ; theirs is the fixedness that cannot be 
 shaken ; theirs is the understanding which exceeds in 
 wisdom ; theirs is the heart, of which the largeness is 
 as the sand on the sea-shore. 
 
 It is not by vast armies, by immense natural re 
 sources, by accumulations of treasure, that the greatest 
 results in modern civilization have been accomplished. 
 The traces of the career of conquest pass aw^ay, hardly 
 leaving a scar on the national intelligence. The famous 
 battle grounds of victory are, most of them, comparative 
 ly indifferent to the human race ; barren fields of blood, 
 the scourges of their times, but affecting the social con 
 dition as little as the raging of a pestilence. Not one 
 benevolent institution, not one ameliorating principle 
 in the Roman state, was a voluntary concession of the 
 aristocracy; each useful element was borrowed from 
 the Democracies of Greece, or was a reluctant con 
 cession to the demands of the people. The same is 
 true in modern political life. It is the confession of an 
 enemy to Democracy, that " ALL THE GREAT AND NOBLE 
 
 INSTITUTIONS OF THE WORLD HAVE COME FROM POPULAR 
 EFFORTS." 
 
 It is the uniform tendency of the popular element 
 to elevate and bless Humanity. The exact measure 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 427 
 
 of the progress of civilization is the degree in which 
 the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over 
 wealth and brute force ; in other words, the measure 
 of the progress of civilization is the progress of the 
 people. Every great object, connected with the be 
 nevolent exertions of the day, has reference to the 
 culture of those powers which are alone the common 
 inheritance. For this the envoys of religion cross seas, 
 and visit remotest isles ; for this the press in its free 
 dom teems with the productions of maturest thought ; 
 for this the philanthropist plans new schemes of educa 
 tion ; for this halls in every city and village are open to 
 the public instructor. Not that we view with indif 
 ference the glorious efforts of material industry; the 
 increase in the facility of internal intercourse ; the accu 
 mulations of thrifty labor ; the varied results of concen 
 trated action. But even there it is mind that achieves 
 the triumph. It is the genius of the architect that 
 gives beauty to the work of human hands, and makes 
 the temple, the dwelling, or the public edifice, an out 
 ward representation of the spirit of propriety and order. 
 It is science that guides the blind zeal of cupidity to 
 the construction of the vast channels of communication, 
 which are fast binding the world into one family. 
 And it is as a method of moral improvement, that these 
 swifter means of intercourse derive their greatest 
 value. Mind becomes universal property ; the poem 
 that is published on the soil of England, finds its 
 
428 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 response on the shores of lake Erie and the banks of 
 the Missouri, and is admired near the sources of the 
 Ganges. The defence of public liberty in our own 
 halls of legislation penetrates the plains of Poland, is 
 echoed along the mountains of Greece, and pierces the 
 darkest night of eastern despotism. 
 
 The universality of the intellectual and moral 
 powers, and the necessity of their development for the 
 progress of the race, proclaim the great doctrine of the 
 natural right of every human being to moral and intel 
 lectual culture. It is the glory of our fathers to have 
 established in their laws the equal claims of every child 
 to the public care of its morals and its mind. Prom 
 this principle we may deduce the universal right to 
 leisure ; that is, to time not appropriated to material 
 purposes, but reserved for the culture of the moral 
 affections and the mind. It does not tolerate the ex 
 clusive enjoyment of leisure by a privileged class ; but 
 defending the "rights of labor, would suffer none to 
 sacrifice the higher purposes of existence in unceasing 
 toil for that which is not life. Such is the voice of 
 nature ; such the conscious claim of the human mind. 
 The universe opens its pages to every eye ; the music 
 of creation resounds in every ear ; the glorious lessons 
 of immortal truth, that are written in the sky and on 
 the earth, address themselves to every mind, and claim 
 attention from every human being. God has made 
 man upright, that he might look before and after ; and 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 429 
 
 lie calls upon every one not merely to labor, but to 
 reflect ; not merely to practise the revelations of divine 
 will, but to contemplate the displays of divine power. 
 Nature claims for every man leisure, for she claims 
 every man as a witness to the divine glory, manifested 
 in the created world. 
 
 " Yet evermore, through years renewed 
 In undisturbed vicissitude 
 Of seasons balancing their flight 
 On the swift wings of day and night, 
 Kind nature keeps a heavenly door 
 Wide open for the scattered poor, 
 Where flower-breathed incense to the skies 
 Is wafted in mute harmonies ; 
 And ground fresh cloven by the plough 
 Is fragrant with an humbler vow ; 
 Where birds and brooks from leafy dells 
 Chime forth unwearied canticles, 
 And vapors magnify and spread 
 The glory of the sun s bright head ; 
 Still constant in her worship, still 
 Conforming to the Almighty Will, 
 Whether men sow or reap the fields, 
 Her admonitions nature yields ; 
 That not by bread alone we live, 
 Or what a hand of flesh can give ; 
 That every day should leave some part 
 Free for a sabbath of the heart ; 
 
430 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 So shall the seventh be truly blest, 
 Prom morn to eve, with hallowed rest." 
 
 The right to universal education being thus ac 
 knowledged by our conscience, not less than by our 
 laws, it follows, that the people is the true recipient of 
 truth. Do not seek to conciliate individuals ; do not 
 dread the frowns of a sect ; do not yield to the pro 
 scriptions of a party ; but pour out truth into the com 
 mon mind. Let the waters of intelligence, like the 
 rains of heaven, descend on the whole earth. And 
 be not discouraged by the dread of encountering 
 ignorance. The prejudices of ignorance are more 
 easily removed than the prejudices of interest ; the 
 first are blindly adopted ; the second wilfully preferred. 
 Intelligence must be diffused among the whole people ; 
 truth must be scattered among those who have no 
 interest to suppress its growth. The seeds that fall on 
 the exchange, or in the hum of business, may be 
 choked by the thorns that spring up in the hotbed 
 of avarice ; the seeds that are let fall in the saloon, 
 may be like those dropped by the wayside, which take 
 no root. Let the young aspirant after glory scatter 
 the seeds of truth broadcast on the wide bosom of Hu 
 manity ; in the deep, fertile soil of the public mind. 
 There it will strike deep root and spring up, and bear 
 an hundred-fold, and bloom for ages, and ripen fruit 
 through remote generations. 
 
 It is alone by infusing great principles into the 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 431 
 
 common mind, that revolutions in human society are 
 brought about. They never have been, they never can 
 be, effected by superior individual excellence. The age 
 of the Antonines is the age of the greatest glory of the 
 Roman empire. Men distinguished by every accom 
 plishment of culture and science, for a century in suc 
 cession, possessed undisputed sway over more than a 
 hundred millions of men ; till at last, in the person of 
 Mark Aurelian, philosophy herself seemed to mount the 
 throne. And did she stay the downward tendencies 
 of the Roman empire ? Did she infuse new elements 
 of life into the decaying constitution ? Did she com 
 mence one great, beneficent reform ? Not one perma 
 nent amelioration was effected ; philosophy was -clothed 
 with absolute power ; and yet absolute power accom 
 plished nothing for Humanity. It could accomplish 
 nothing. Had it been possible, Aurelian would have 
 wrought a change. Society can be regenerated, the 
 human race can be advanced, only by moral prin 
 ciples diffused through the multitude. 
 
 And now let us take an opposite instance ; let us 
 see, if amelioration follows, when in despite of tyranny 
 truth finds access to the common people ; and Chris 
 tianity itself shall furnish my example. 
 
 When Christianity first made its way into Rome, 
 the imperial city was the seat of wealth, philosophy, and 
 luxury. Absolute government was already established ; 
 and had the will of Claudius been gained, or the con- 
 
432 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 science of Messalina been roused, or the heart of Nar 
 cissus, once a slave, then prime minister, been touched 
 by the recollections of his misfortunes, the aid of the 
 sovereign of the civilized world would have been 
 engaged. And did the messenger of divine truth 
 make his appeal to them? Was his mission to the 
 emperor and his minions ? to the empress and her 
 flatterers ? to servile senators ? to wealthy favorites ? 
 Paul preserves for us the names of the first converts ; 
 the Roman Mary and Junia; Julia and Nerea; and 
 the beloved brethren ; all plebeian names, unknown to 
 history. " Greet them," he adds, " that be of the 
 household of Narcissus." Now every Roman house 
 hold was a community of slaves. Narcissus himself, a 
 freedman, was the chief minister of the Roman em 
 pire ; his ambition had left him no moments for the 
 envoy from Calvary ; the friends of Paul were a freed- 
 man s slaves. When God selected the channel by 
 which Christianity should make its way in the city of 
 Rome, and assuredly be carried forward to acknow 
 ledged supremacy in the Roman empire, he gave to the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles favor in the household of Nar 
 cissus ; he planted truth deep in the common soil. Had 
 Christianity been received at court, it would have been 
 stifled or corrupted by the prodigal vices of the age ; it 
 lived in the hearts of the common people ; it sheltered 
 itself against oppression in the catacombs and among 
 tombs ; it made misfortune its convert, and sorrow its 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPEE. 433 
 
 companion, and labor its stay. It rested on a rock, 
 for it rested on the people ; it was gifted with immor 
 tality, for it struck root in the hearts of the million. 
 
 So completely was this greatest of all reforms 
 carried forward in the vale of life, that the great moral 
 revolution, the great step of God s Providence in the 
 education of the human race, was not observed by the 
 Roman historians. Once, indeed, at this early period 
 Christians are mentioned; for in the reign of Nero, 
 their purity being hateful to the corrupt, Nero aban 
 doned them to persecution. In the darkness of mid 
 night, they were covered with pitch and set on fire to 
 light the streets of Rome, and this singularity has been 
 recorded. But their system of morals and religion, 
 though it was the new birth of the w^orld, escaped 
 all notice. 
 
 Paul, who was a Roman citizen, was beheaded, 
 just outside of the walls of the eternal city ; and Peter, 
 who was a plebeian, and could not claim the distinction 
 of the axe and the block, was executed on the cross, 
 with his head downwards to increase the pain and the 
 indignity. Do you think the Roman emperor took 
 notice of the names of these men, when he signed their 
 death- warrant ? And yet, as they poured truth into 
 the common mind, what series of kings, what lines of 
 emperors can compare with them, in their influence on 
 the destinies of mankind ? 
 
 Yes, reforms in society are only effected through the 
 28 
 
434 -OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 masses of the people, and through them have continually 
 taken place. New truths have been successively devel 
 oped, and, becoming the common property of the human 
 family, have improved its condition. This progress is 
 advanced by every sect, precisely because each sect, to 
 obtain vitality, does of necessity embody a truth ; by 
 every political party, for the conflicts of party are the 
 war of ideas ; by every nationality, for a nation cannot 
 exist as such, till humanity makes it a special trustee 
 of some part of its wealth for the ultimate benefit of 
 all. The irresistible tendency of the human race is 
 therefore to advancement, for absolute power has never 
 succeeded, and can never succeed, in suppressing a 
 single truth. An idea once revealed may find its 
 admission into every living breast and live there. 
 Like God it becomes immortal and omnipresent. The 
 movement of the species is upward, irresistibly upward. 
 The individual is often lost ; Providence never disowns 
 the race. No principle once promulgated, has ever 
 been forgotten. No " timely tramp " of a despot s 
 foot ever trod out one idea. The world cannot retro 
 grade j the dark ages cannot return. Dynasties perish ; 
 cities are buried ; nations have been victims to 
 error, or martyrs for right ; Humanity has always been 
 on the advance ; gaining maturity, universality, and 
 power. 
 
 Yes, truth is immortal ; it cannot be destroyed ; it 
 is invincible, it cannot long be resisted. Not every 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE PEOPLE. 435 
 
 great principle has yet been generated ; but when once 
 proclaimed and diffused, it lives without end, in the safe 
 custody of the race. States may pass away; every 
 just principle of legislation which has been once estab 
 lished will endure. Philosophy has sometimes forgot 
 ten God; a great people never did. The skepticism 
 of the last century could not uproot Christianity, be 
 cause it lived in the hearts of the millions. Do you 
 think that infidelity is spreading ? Christianity never 
 lived in the hearts of so many millions as at this mo 
 ment. The forms under which it is professed may de 
 cay, for they, like all that is the work of man s hands, 
 are subject to the changes and chances of mortal being ; 
 but the spirit of truth is incorruptible ; it may be de 
 veloped, illustrated, and applied ; it never can die ; it 
 never can decline. 
 
 No truth can perish; no truth can pass away. 
 The flame is undying, though generations disappear. 
 Wherever moral truth has started into being, Human 
 ity claims and guards the bequest. Each generation 
 * gathers together the imperishable children of the past, 
 and increases them by new sons of light, alike radiant 
 with immortality. 
 
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1842. 
 
 LET us rejoice, that in our own day the great doc 
 trine of Free Inquiry has been renewed, upheld, and 
 more widely applied, by the refined intelligence and 
 genial benevolence of William Ellery Channing. Free 
 Inquiry was the great rule which he inculcated, not for 
 the maturity of age only, but for the ardent curiosity 
 of youth ; for he knew that Freedom, far from leading 
 to infidelity, strives for certainty, and is restless in 
 pursuit of a well-grounded conviction. Freedom of 
 mind he claimed, therefore, for every pursuit of the 
 human faculties ; not for professors only, but for 
 scholars; not in material science alone, but where* 
 authority had been most revered, in theology and the 
 church. 
 
 Nor did he confine this liberty to theoretic specu 
 lations ; he claimed it also in politics, and the theory 
 of social relations. Not that he was a politician ; Chan 
 ning could be classed with no political party. He stood 
 aloof from them all ; and sought rather behind the 
 
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNltfG. 437 
 
 clouds of party strife, to discover the universal princi 
 ples that sway events and guide the centuries. He 
 turned from men to the central light ; he looked towards 
 the region of absolute truth, of perfect justice. The 
 laws of the moral world, as they come from the Eter 
 nal Mind, were the objects of his study; and he 
 claimed for every man the right of calmly, fearlessly 
 contemplating them, and of seeking to carry them into 
 the affairs of life. What though enthusiasts might 
 misunderstand and misapply them? His only cure 
 for impetuous fanaticism, was to seize* clearly on the 
 great precept which it blindly adopted ; to substitute 
 for the hastiness of zeal the persuasion of sincerity and 
 the calmer conduct of wisdom. There is not a mo 
 ment, when the tendencies to reform do not assume a 
 thousand visionary, strange and fantastic shapes. All 
 this could not startle the purposes or alarm the serene 
 mind of Channing. He knew that there was no way 
 to dispel these forms of terror but by the light of chari 
 ty and reason ; and he never swerved from his high 
 career, whether of subjecting the institutions of our 
 times to discussion, or applying the rules of universal 
 morality to the business of the nation. 
 
 With powers of such astonishing brilliancy as those 
 which Channing possessed, united with his determined 
 purpose of never allowing himself to be blinded to the ab 
 stract right by the fact of the existing law, it is not won 
 derful that his career should, by many, have been con- 
 
438 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 templated with apprehension and even with dread. 
 For who could say to what revolutions the manly 
 assertion of natural right might conduct ? Who could 
 set a limit to the purposes of reform, when it demanded 
 immediately the application of absolute truth? But 
 death annihilates that alarm. The fear of sudden 
 change by his agency, vanishes; and, from the re 
 cesses of conscience, immortal witnesses rise up to 
 confirm his thrilling oracles. Prejudice before might 
 confine his influence ; by death prejudice is annihilated, 
 and the echoes of his eloquence are heard beyond its 
 former bounds ; as the fragrance of precious perfumes, 
 when the vase that held them is broken, diffuses itself 
 abroad without limits. 
 
 And yet, while we lift up our own minds to receive 
 the sublime lessons which he uttered, if we look back 
 upon his life, we shall find his love of reform balanced 
 by a love of order, and the expansive energies of his 
 benevolence restrained by a spirit of conservatism. 
 He was not the mariner who eagerly lifts the anchor, 
 spreads all his canvas, and embarks on the ocean 
 of experiment; he resembled rather the seer, who 
 stands on the high cliff along the shore, and gazes 
 to see what wind is rising, and gives his prayers, and 
 his counsels and benedictions to the more adventurous, 
 who set sail. And sometimes he would call back the 
 enterprising reformer ; nor would he attempt progress 
 
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 439 
 
 by methods of disorder and riot, or even of party 
 organization; he would rather postpone the estab 
 lishment of a right than seek to assert it by blood 
 shed and violence ; like the Jewish mother who sub 
 mitted to be withheld from her offspring for a season, 
 through fear lest, otherwise, her child should be rent 
 in twain. 
 
 And yet this abhorrence of violence hardly partook 
 of timidity, certainly did not spring from a deficiency 
 of decision. Did you consider his delicate organ 
 ization, his light and frail frame, his sensitiveness to 
 agreeable impressions, the exquisite culture of his taste, 
 you might apprehend a want of firmness ; but it was 
 not so. He towered above the mediocrity of society, 
 like the delicate and airy shafts of Melrose Abbey, of 
 which the foliaged tracery seems woven of osier 
 wreaths, and yet, as if changed by a fairy s spell, 
 proves to be of stone. Like them his purposes 
 were durable, unyielding, and aspiring to the skies. 
 Even sympathy, that which he loved most, he sacrificed 
 to duty ; and gave up the present applause of those 
 by whom he was surrounded, rather than fail to win 
 the world for his audience, and coming generations for 
 his fame. 
 
 This firmness rested in an entire faith in moral 
 power to renovate the race. Not the organized 
 union of men, not temperance societies, not abolition 
 
440 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 societies, not conventions ; MORAL POWER was to him 
 the Egeria that dictated, the energy that accomplished 
 reform. Hence, while he objected to associations, he 
 was ever ready to advocate the great moral purposes 
 for which men come together. Was he not among the 
 first to rebuke the international selfishness that has so 
 long held the commerce of the world in bonds ? Was 
 he not among the first to raise his voice against the 
 criminality of war, the opprobrium of humanity ? Who 
 like him gathered the crowd to recognise the great 
 lesson of temperance, carrying restoration to the de 
 sponding and feeble of will ? Wlio like him asserted 
 the moral dignity of man, irrespective of wealth and 
 rank? Indeed, one could hardly hear him on any 
 public occasion, or even in private, but the great truth 
 of man s equality, as a consequence of his divine birth, 
 struggled for utterance. He knew that man was made 
 in the image of God ; that the gift of reason opened to 
 him the path to the knowledge of creation, and to mas 
 tery over its powers. Having the highest reverence 
 for genius, he yet acknowledged the image of the divine 
 original in every human being ; and how often have his 
 teachings repeated to many of us the doctrine so well 
 expressed by one of our own poets : 
 
 " Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, 
 A poet or a friend to find ; 
 Behold, he watches at the door, 
 Behold his shadow on the floor ; 
 
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 44] 
 
 * * * the Pariah hind 
 Admits thee to the Perfect Mind." 
 Hence Channing became the advocate of equality ; 
 recognised the power of the people as the great result 
 of the modern centuries ; and, knowing well that labor 
 is the lot of man, that every mechanic art must be ex 
 ercised, everv service in life fulfilled, he sought to 
 
 i/ 
 
 dignify labor and exalt its character ; not to lift the 
 laborer out of his class, but to elevate that class into 
 the highest regions of moral culture and enjoyment. 
 And his efforts were in part at least rewarded. His 
 words reached those for whose benefit they were 
 spoken ; and at his funeral, next to the fortitude with 
 which his immediate friends had learned from him to 
 bear affliction, the most touching spectacle was to see 
 the laborers gathering near the aisles to pay one last 
 tribute of gratitude to the remains of their counsellor. 
 
 Nor could the clear mind of Channing turn from 
 following his convictions to their results, with all the 
 power of dialectics that gained its warmth from be 
 nevolence, its energy from moral conviction. I remem 
 ber well the day when he first publicly appeared as the 
 advocate of the negro slave ; after a discourse of 
 heart-rending eloquence, he did not so much complain 
 of, as regret the want of sympathy. His gentle voice 
 is hushed ; his eye will not again flash on us indigna 
 tion; the spiritual life that beamed from him is re 
 moved. Now that he is in his grave, now that the most 
 
442 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 timid can no longer fear from his influence divisions in 
 church or in society, let us honor his memory by own 
 ing, that, in his main doctrine, he was in the right. 
 Nor was his declaration respecting slavery an accidental 
 phenomenon in his career ; it lay at the very heart and 
 core of his whole ^system of theology. His was a spirit 
 that in its rapt trances sought intimate communion 
 with the Divine ; yet, shrinking alike from the terror of 
 
 fixed decrees and the fatalism of Pantheism, binding 
 
 
 
 alike destiny and chance to the footstool of God s throne, 
 he was from the first an advocate for the free agency of 
 man. This was the great central point of his theology, 
 his morals, his metaphysics, his politics. Human free 
 dom under the sanction of moral power, human freedom 
 as the prerogative of mind, human freedom as the ne 
 cessity of consciousness, human freedom as the in 
 destructible principle in the citadel of conscience, this 
 was his whole theoiy ; this animated his life ; this 
 alone led him into the fields of controversy ; and in the 
 full maturity of years, with that faith, and with the 
 deep reverence for the Deity, which contemplates him 
 always, and sees him every where, he could not but 
 rush to the conclusion that slavery is a wrong ; a crime 
 against humanity as well as a crime against God. 
 
 It was by degrees, after a struggle of years, 
 that he burst the limits of social and sectarian narrow 
 ness, and rising ever higher and higher, became the 
 advocate of universal truths and the champion of hu- 
 
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 443 
 
 manity. Not a city, not a faction, the mystic voice of 
 the universe inspired him ; as I have seen an ^Eolian 
 harp placed at first where it failed to respond to the 
 air, then lifted from bough to bough, higher and still 
 higher, till at last it reached a point, where the winds 
 of heaven breathed through it freely, and called forth 
 music that seemed to descend from above. Channing 
 was at first touched by the influence of a sect and a 
 party, by the spirit of locality and narrower engage 
 ments; but he moved ever upward; till soaring far 
 beyond a parish or a caste, a political faction or a lim 
 ited polemical theology, in the higher sphere of his 
 existence, the spirit of the world rushed fervidly amidst 
 the trembling strings ; and 
 
 From his sweet harp flew forth 
 
 Immortal harmonies, of power to still 
 All passions born on earth, 
 And draw the ardent will 
 Its destiny of goodness to fulfil. 
 
ORATION, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE COMMEMORATION, IN WASHINGTON, Of THE 
 DEATH OF ANDREW JACKSON, JUNE 27, 1845. 
 
 THE men of the American revolution are no more. 
 That age of creative power has passed away. The 
 last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence 
 has long since left the earth. Washington lies near 
 his own Potomac, surrounded by his family and his 
 servants. Adams, the colossus of independence, re 
 poses in the modest grave-yard of his native region 
 Jefferson sleeps on the heights of his own Monticello, 
 whence his eye overlooked his beloved Virginia. Mad 
 ison, the last survivor of the men who made our con 
 stitution, lives only in our hearts. But who shall say 
 that the heroes, in whom the image of God shone most 
 brightly, do not exist for ever ? They were filled with 
 the vast conceptions which called America into being ; 
 they lived for those conceptions ; and their deeds 
 praise them. 
 
 We are met to commemorate the virtues of one 
 who shed his blood for our independence, took part in 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 445 
 
 winning the territory and forming the early institutions 
 of the West, and was imbued with all the great ideas 
 which constitute the moral force of our country. On 
 the spot where he gave his solemn fealty to the peo 
 ple here, where he pledged himself before the world 
 to freedom, to the constitution, and to the laws we 
 meet to pay our tribute to the memory of the last great 
 name, which gathers round itself all the associations 
 that form the glory of America. 
 
 South Carolina gave a birth-place to ANDREW 
 JACKSON. On its remote frontier, far up on the 
 forest-clad banks of the Catawba, in a region where 
 the settlers were just beginning to cluster, his eye first 
 saw the light. There his infancy sported in the an 
 cient forests, and his mind was nursed to freedom by 
 their influence. He was the youngest son of an Irish 
 emigrant, of Scottish origin, who, two years after the 
 great war of Frederic of Prussia, fled to America for 
 relief from indigence and oppression. His birth was in 
 1767, at a time when the people of our land were but 
 a body of dependent colonists, scarcely more than two 
 millions in number, scattered along an immense coast, 
 with no army, or navy, or union ; and exposed to the 
 attempts of England to control America by the aid of 
 military force. His boyhood grew up in the midst of 
 the contest with Great Britain. The first great politi 
 cal truth that reached his heart, was, that all men are 
 
446 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES, 
 
 free and equal ; the first great fact that beamed on his 
 understanding, was his country s independence. 
 
 The strife, as it increased, came near the shades of 
 his own upland residence. As a boy of thirteen, he 
 witnessed the scenes of horror that accompany civil 
 war ; and when but a year older, with an elder brother, 
 he shouldered his musket, and went forth to strike a 
 blow for his country. 
 
 Joyous era for America and for humanity ! But 
 for him, the orphan boy, the events were full of agony 
 and grief. His father was no more. His oldest 
 brother fell a victim to the war of the revolution ; 
 another, his companion in arms, died of wounds 
 received in their joint captivity ; his mother went 
 down to the grave a victim to grief and efforts to 
 rescue her sons ; and when peace came, he was alone 
 in the world, with no kindred to cherish him, and 
 little inheritance but his own untried powers. 
 
 The nation which emancipated itself from British 
 rule organizes itself; the confederation gives way to 
 the constitution ; the perfecting of that constitution 
 that grand event of the thousand years of modern his 
 tory is accomplished; America exists as a people, 
 gains unity as a government, and assumes its place 
 among the nations of the earth. 
 
 The next great office to be performed by America, 
 is the taking possession of the wilderness. The mag 
 nificent western valley cried out to the civilization of 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 447 
 
 popular power, that the season had come for its occu 
 pation by cultivated man. 
 
 Behold, then, our orphan hero, sternly earnest, 
 consecrated to humanity from childhood by sorrow, 
 having neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor sur 
 viving brother, so young and yet so solitary, and 
 therefore bound the more closely to collective man 
 behold him elect for his lot to go forth and assist in 
 laying the foundations of society in the great valley of 
 the Mississippi. 
 
 At the very time when Washington was pledging his 
 own and future generations to the support of the 
 popular institutions which were to be the light of the 
 human race at the time when the governments of the 
 Old World were rocking to their centre, and the 
 mighty fabric that had come down from the middle 
 ages was falling in the adventurous Jackson, in the 
 radiant glory and boundless hope and confident in 
 trepidity of twenty-one, plunged into the wilderness, 
 crossed the great mountain-barrier that divides the 
 western waters from the Atlantic, followed the paths of 
 the early hunters and fugitives, and, not content with 
 the nearer neighborhood to his parent State, went still 
 further and further to the west, till he found his home 
 in the most beautiful region on the Cumberland. 
 There, from the first, he was recognised as the great 
 pioneer ; and in his courage, the coming emigrants 
 were sure to find a shield. 
 
448 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 The lovers of adventure began to pour themselves 
 into the territory, whose delicious climate and fertile 
 soil invited the presence of social man. The hunter, 
 with his rifle and his axe, attended by his wife and 
 children; the herdsman, driving the few cattle that 
 were to multiply as they browsed ; the cultivator of 
 the soil, all came to the inviting region. Wherever 
 the bending mountains opened a pass wherever the 
 buffaloes and the beasts of the forest had made a trace, 
 these sons of nature, children of humanity, in the 
 highest sentiment of personal freedom, came to oc 
 cupy the lovely wilderness, whose prairies blossomed 
 every where profusely with wild flowers whose 
 woods in spring put to shame, by their magnificence, 
 the cultivated gardens of man. 
 
 And now that these unlettered fugitives, educated 
 only by the spirit of freedom, destitute of dead letter 
 erudition, but sharing the living ideas of the age, had 
 made their homes in the West, what would follow? 
 Would they degrade themselves to ignorance and infi 
 delity ? Would they make the solitudes of the desert ex 
 cuses for licentiousness ? Would the hatred of exces 
 sive restraint lead them to live in unorganized society, 
 destitute of laws and fixed institutions ? 
 
 At a time when European society was becoming 
 broken in pieces, scattered, disunited, and resolved 
 into its elements, a scene ensued in Tennessee, than 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON 449 
 
 which nothing more beautifully grand is recorded in 
 the annals of the race. 
 
 These adventurers in the wilderness longed to 
 come together in organized society. The overshadow 
 ing genius of their time inspired them with good 
 designs, and filled them with the counsels of wisdom. 
 Dwellers in the forest, freest of the free, bound in the 
 spirit, they came up by their representatives, on foot, 
 on horseback, through the forest, along the streams, by 
 the buffalo traces, by the Indian paths, by the blazed 
 forest avenues, to meet in convention among the moun 
 tains of Knoxville, and devise for themselves a consti 
 tution. Andrew Jackson was there, the greatest man 
 of them all modest, bold, determined, demanding 
 Nothing for himself, and shrinking from nothing that 
 his heart approved. 
 
 The convention came together on the eleventh day 
 of January, 1796, and finished its work on the sixth 
 day of February. How had the wisdom of the Old 
 World vainly tasked itself to devise constitutions, that 
 could, at least, be the subject of experiment. The men 
 of Tennessee, in less than twenty-five days, perfected a 
 fabric, which, in its essential forms, was to last for 
 ever. They came together, full of faith and reverence, 
 of love to humanity, of confidence in truth. In the 
 simplicity of wisdom they constructed their system, 
 acting under higher influences than they were con 
 scious of; 
 
 29 
 
450 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 They wrought in sad sincerity, 
 
 Themselves from God they could not free ; 
 
 They builded better than they knew ; 
 
 The conscious stones to beauty grew. 
 In the instrument which they adopted, they em 
 bodied their faith in God, and in the immortal nature 
 of man. They gave the right of suffrage to every 
 freeman ; they vindicated the sanctity of reason, by 
 securing freedom of speech and of the press ; they 
 reverenced the voice of God, as it speaks in the soul, 
 by asserting the indefeasible right of man to worship 
 the Infinite according to his conscience ; they estab 
 lished the freedom and equality of elections ; and they 
 demanded from every future legislator a solemn oath, 
 " never to consent to any act or thing whatever that 
 shall have even a tendency to lessen the rights of the 
 people." 
 
 These majestic lawgivers, wiser than the Solons, 
 and Lycurguses, and Numas of the Old World, these 
 prophetic founders of a State, who embodied in their 
 constitution the sublimest truths of humanity, acted 
 without reference to human praises. They took no 
 pains to vaunt their deeds ; and when their work was 
 done, knew not that they had finished one of the sub 
 limest acts ever performed among men. They left no 
 record, rs to whose agency was conspicuous, whose 
 eloquence swayed, whose generous will predominated ; 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 451 
 
 nor should we know, but for tradition, confirmed by 
 what followed among themselves. 
 
 The men of Tennessee were now a people, and 
 they were to send forth a man to stand for them in the 
 Congress of the United States that avenue to glory- 
 that liome of eloquence the citadel of popular power ; 
 and, with one consent, they united in selecting the 
 foremost man among their lawgivers ANDREW 
 JACKSON. 
 
 The love of his constituents followed him to the 
 American Congress ; and he had served but a single 
 term when the State of Tennessee made him one of 
 its representatives in the American Senate, of which 
 Jefferson was at the time the presiding officer. 
 
 Thus, when he was scarcely more than thirty, he 
 had guided the settlement of the wilderness; swayed 
 the deliberations of a people in establishing their fun 
 damental laws ; acted as their representative, and again 
 as the representative of his organized commonwealth, 
 disciplined to a knowledge of the power of the people 
 and the power of the States ; the associate of repub 
 lican statesmen, the friend and companion of Jefferson. 
 
 The men who framed the Constitution of the United 
 States, many of them did not know the innate life and 
 self-preserving energy of their work u They fearetl that 
 freedonfc could not endure, and they planned a strong 
 government for its protection. . During his short career 
 in Congress, Jackson showed his quiet, deeply-seated, 
 
452 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 innate, intuitive faith in human freedom, and in the in 
 stitutions which rested on that faith. He was ever, by 
 his votes and opinions, found among those who had con 
 fidence in humanity ; and in the great division of minds, 
 this child of the woodlands, this representative of forest 
 life in the West, appeared modestly and firmly on the 
 side of liberty. It did not occur to him to doubt the 
 right of man to the free development of his powers ; it 
 did not occur to him to place a guardianship over the 
 people ; it did not occur to him to seek to give dura 
 bility to popular institutions, by conceding to govern 
 ment a strength independent of popular will. 
 
 From the first, he was attached to the fundamental 
 doctrines of popular power, and of the policy that 
 favors it; and though his reverence for Washington 
 surpassed his reverence for any human being, he voted 
 against the address from the House of Representatives 
 to Washington on his retirement, because its language 
 appeared to sanction the financial policy which he be 
 lieved hostile to the true principles of a republic. 
 
 During his period of service in the Senate, Jackson 
 was elected major general by the brigadiers and field 
 officers of the militia of Tennessee. Resigning his 
 place in the Senate, he was made judge of the supreme 
 court in law and equity ; such was the confidence in 
 his clearness of judgment, his vigor of will, anc^ his in 
 tegrity of purpose, to deal justly among the turbulent 
 who crowded into the new settlements of Tennessee. 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 453 
 
 Thus, in the short period of nine years, Andrew 
 Jackson was signalized by as many evidences of public 
 esteem as could fall to the lot of man. The pioneer 
 of the wilderness, the defender of its stations, he was 
 the lawgiver of a new people, then sole representative 
 in Congress, the representative of the State in the 
 Senate, the highest in military command, the highest 
 in judicial office. He seemed to be recognised as the 
 first in love of liberty, in the science of legislation, in 
 sagacity, and integrity. 
 
 Delighting in private life, he would have resigned his 
 place on the bench ; but the whole country demanded 
 his continued service. " Nature," they cried, " never 
 designed that your powers of thought and indepen 
 dence of mind should be lost in retirement." But 
 after a few years, relieving himself from the cares of 
 the court, he gave himself to the activity and the inde 
 pendent life of a husbandman. He carried into retire 
 ment the fame of natural intelligence, and was cher 
 ished as "a prompt, frank, and ardent soul." His 
 vigor of character gave him the lead among all with 
 whom he associated, and his name was familiarly spo 
 ken round every hearth-stone in Tennessee. Men 
 loved to discuss his qualities. All discerned his power, 
 and when the vehemence and impetuosity of his nature 
 were observed upon, there were not wanting those who 
 saw, beneath the blazing fires of his genius, the solidity 
 of his judgment. 
 
454 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 His hospitable roof sheltered the emigrant and the 
 pioneer; and, as they made their way to their new 
 homes, they filled the mountain sides and the valleys 
 with his praise. 
 
 Connecting himself, for a season, with a man of 
 business, Jackson soon discerned the misconduct of his 
 associate. It marked his character, that he insisted, 
 himself, on paying every obligation that had been con 
 tracted; and, rather than endure the vassalage of 
 debt, he instantly parted with the rich domain which 
 his early enterprise had acquired with his own man 
 sion with the fields which he himself had first tamed 
 to the ploughshare with the forest whose trees were 
 as familiar to him as his friends and chose rather to 
 dwell, for a time, in a rude log cabin, in the pride 
 of independence and integrity. 
 
 On all great occasions, his influence was deferred 
 to. When Jefferson had acquired for the country 
 the whole of Louisiana, and there seemed some 
 hesitancy, on the part of Spain, to acknowledge our 
 possession, the services of Jackson were solicited by 
 the national administration, and would have been called 
 into full exercise, but for the peaceful termination of 
 the incidents that occasioned the summons. 
 
 In the long series of aggressions on the freedom of 
 the seas, and the rights of the American flag, Jackson, 
 though in his inland home the roar of the breakers 
 was never heard and the mariner never was seen, re- 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 455 
 
 sentecl the injuries wantonly inflicted on our commerce 
 and on our sailors, and adhered to the new maritime 
 code of republicanism. 
 
 When the continuance of wrong compelled the 
 nation to resort to arms, Jackson, led by the instinctive 
 knowledge of his own greatness, yet with true modesty 
 of nature, confessed his willingness to be employed on 
 the Canada frontier ; and aspired to the command to 
 which Winchester was appointed. We may ask, what 
 would have been the result, if the conduct of the 
 north-western army had, at the opening of the war, 
 been intrusted to a man who, in action, was ever so 
 fortunate, that he seemed to have made destiny capitu 
 late to his vehement will ? 
 
 The path of duty led him in another direction. On 
 the declaration of war, twenty-five hundred volunteers 
 had risen at his word to follow his standard ; but, by 
 countermanding orders from the seat of government, 
 the movement was without effect. 
 
 A new and greater danger hung over the West. 
 The Indian tribes were to make one last* effort to 
 restore it to its solitude, and recover it for savage life. 
 The brave, relentless Shawnees who, from time im 
 memorial, had strolled from the waters of the Ohio to 
 the rivers of Alabama were animated by Tecumseh 
 and his brother the Prophet, speaking to them as 
 with the voice of the Great Spirit, and urging the 
 Creek nation to desperate massacres. Their ruthless 
 
456 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 cruelty spared neither sex nor age ; the infant and 
 its mother, the planter and his family, who had fled 
 for refuge to the fortress, the garrison that capitu 
 lated, all were slain, and not a vestige of defence was 
 left in the country. The cry of the West demanded 
 Jackson for its defender ; and though his arm was then 
 fractured by a ball, and hung in a sling, he placed him 
 self at the head of the volunteers of Tennessee, and 
 resolved to terminate for ever the hereditary struggle. 
 
 Who can tell the horrors of that campaign ? Who 
 can paint rightly the obstacles which Jackson over 
 came mountains, the scarcity of untenanted forests, 
 winter, the failure of supplies from the settlements, the 
 insubordination of troops, mutiny, menaces of deser 
 tion? Who can measure the wonderful power over 
 men, by which his personal prowess and attractive 
 energy drew them in midwinter from their homes , 
 across mountains and morasses, and through trackless 
 deserts ? Who can describe the personal heroism of 
 Jackson, never sparing himself, beyond any of his men 
 encountering toil and fatigue, sharing every labor of the 
 camp and of the march, foremost in every danger ; 
 giving up his horse to the invalid soldier, while he 
 himself waded through the swamps on foot? None 
 equalled him in power of endurance ; and the private 
 soldiers, as they found him passing them on the march, 
 exclaimed, " He is as tough as the hickory." " Yes," 
 they cried to one another, " there goes Old Hickory ! " 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 457 
 
 Then followed the memorable events of the double 
 battles of Emuckfaw, and the glorious victory of Tolio- 
 peka, where the anger of the general against the falter 
 ing was more appalling than the war-whoop and the 
 rifle of the savage ; the fiercely contested field of 
 Enotochopco, where the general, as he attempted to 
 draw his sword to cut down a flying colonel who 
 was leading a regiment from the field, broke again the 
 arm which was but newly knit together ; and, quietly 
 replacing it in the sling, with his commanding voice 
 arrested the flight of the troops, and himself led them 
 back to victory. 
 
 In six short months of vehement action, the most 
 terrible Indian war in our annals was brought to a 
 close ; the prophets were silenced ; the consecrated 
 region of the Creek nation reduced. Through scenes 
 of blood, the avenging hero sought only the path to 
 peace. Thus Alabama, a part of Mississippi, a part 
 of his own Tennessee, and the highway to the Eloridas, 
 were his gifts to the Union. These were his trophies. 
 
 Genius as extraordinary as military events can call 
 forth, was summoned into action in this rapid, effi 
 cient, and most fortunately conducted Avar. The hero 
 descended the water-courses of Alabama to the neigh 
 borhood of Pensacola, and longed to plant the eagle of 
 his country on its battlements. 
 
 Time would fail, and words be wanting, were I to 
 dwell on the magical influencee of his appearance in 
 
458 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 New Orleans. His presence dissipated gloom and 
 dispelled alarm ; at once lie changed the aspect of 
 despair into a confidence of security and a hope of 
 acquiring glory. Every man knows the tale of the 
 sudden, and yet deliberate daring which led him, on 
 the night of the twenty-third of December, to precipi 
 tate his little army on his foes, in the thick darkness, 
 before they grew familiar with then: encampment, scat 
 tering dismay through veteran regiments of England, 
 defeating them, and arresting their progress by a 
 far inferior force. 
 
 Who shall recount the counsels of prudence, the 
 kindling words of eloquence, that gushed from his lips 
 to cheer his soldiers, his skirmishes and battles, till 
 that eventful morning when the day at Bunker Hill 
 had its fulfilment in the glorious battle of New Or 
 leans, and American independence stood before the 
 world in the majesty of triumphant power ! 
 
 These were great victories for the nation; over 
 himself he won a greater. Had not Jackson been 
 renowned for the impetuosity of his passions, for his 
 defiance of others authority, and the unbending vigor 
 of his self-will? Behold the savior of Louisiana, all 
 garlanded with victory, viewing around him the city he 
 had preserved, the maidens and children whom his 
 heroism had protected, yet standing in the presence of 
 a petty judge, who gratifies his wounded vanity by an 
 abuse of his judicial power. Every breast in the 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 459 
 
 crowded audience heaves with indignation. He, the 
 passionate, the impetuous, he whose power was to 
 be humbled, whose honor questioned, whose laurels 
 tarnished, alone stood sublimely serene ; and when the 
 craven judge trembled, and faltered, and dared not 
 proceed, himself, the arraigned one, bade him take 
 courage, and stood by the law even when the law was 
 made the instrument of insult and wrong on himself 
 at the moment of his most perfect claim to the highest 
 civic honors. 
 
 His country, when it grew to hold many more mil 
 lions, the generation that then was coming in, has risen 
 up to do homage to the magnanimity of that hour. 
 Woman, whose feeling is always right, did honor from 
 the first to the purity of his heroism. The people of 
 Louisiana, to the latest age, will cherish his name as 
 their greatest benefactor. 
 
 The culture of Jackson s mind had been much pro 
 moted by his services and associations in the war. 
 His discipline of himself as the chief in command, his 
 intimate relations with men like Livingston, the won 
 derful deeds in which he bore a part, all matured his 
 judgment and mellowed his character. 
 
 Peace came with its delights ; once more the coun 
 try rushed forward in the development of its powers ; 
 once more the arts of industry healed the wounds 
 that war had inflicted ; and, from commerce and 
 agriculture and manufactures, wealth gushed abun- 
 
460 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 dantly under the free activity of unrestrained enter 
 prise. And Jackson returned to his own fields and his 
 own pursuits, to cherish his plantation, to care for his 
 servants, to enjoy the affection of the most kind and 
 devoted wife, whom he respected with the gentlest 
 deference, and loved with a spotless purity. 
 
 There he stood, like one of the mightiest forest 
 trees of his own West, vigorous and colossal, sending 
 its summit to the skies, and growing on its native soil 
 in wild and inimitable magnificence, careless of behold 
 ers. From every part of the country he received ap 
 peals to his political ambition, and the severe modesty 
 of his well-balanced mind turned them all aside. He 
 was happy in his farm, happy in seclusion, happy in 
 his family, happy within liimself. 
 
 But the passions of the southern Indians were not 
 allayed by the peace with Great Britain ; and foreign 
 emissaries were still among them, to inflame and direct 
 their malignity. Jackson was called forth by his 
 country to restrain the cruelty of the treacherous and 
 unsparing Seminoles. It was in the train of the events 
 of this war that he placed the American eagle on St. 
 Mark s and above the ancient towers of St. Augustine. 
 His deeds in that war, of themselves, form a monument 
 to human power, to the celerity of his genius, to the 
 creative fertility of his resources, to his intuitive 
 sagacity. As Spain, in his judgment, had committed 
 aggressions, he would have emancipated her islands ; of 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 461 
 
 the Havana, lie caused the reconnaissance to be 
 made ; and, with an army of five thousand men, he 
 stood ready to guaranty her redemption from colonial 
 thraldom. 
 
 But when peace was restored, and his office was 
 accomplished, his physical strength sunk under the 
 pestilential influence of the climate, and, fast yielding 
 to disease, he was borne in a litter across the swamps 
 of Florida towards his home. It was Jackson s char 
 acter that he never solicited aid from any one ; but he 
 never forgot those who rendered him service in the 
 hour of need. At a tune when all around him believed 
 him near his end, his wife hastened to his side ; and, 
 by her tenderness and nursing care, her patient as 
 siduity, and the soothing influence of devoted love, 
 withheld him from the grave. 
 
 He would have remained quietly at his home, 
 but that he was privately informed, his conduct 
 was to be attainted by some intended congres 
 sional proceedings ; he came, therefore, into the pres 
 ence of the people s representatives at Washington, 
 only to vindicate his name ; and, when that was 
 achieved, he once more returned to his seclusion 
 among the groves of the Hermitage. 
 
 It was not his own ambition which brought nim 
 again to the public view. The affection of Tennessee 
 compelled him to resume a seat on the floor of the 
 American Senate, and, after a long series of the in- 
 
462 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 tensest political strife, Andrew Jackson was elected 
 President of the United States. 
 
 Far from advancing his own pretensions, he always 
 kept them back, and had for years repressed the 
 solicitations of his friends to become a candidate. 
 He felt sensibly that he was devoid of scientific 
 culture, and little familiar with letters ; and he never 
 obtruded his opinions, or preferred claims to place. 
 But, whenever his advice was demanded, he was 
 always ready to pronounce it ; and whenever his 
 country invoked his services, he did not shrink even 
 from the station which had been filled by the most 
 cultivated men our nation had produced. 
 
 Behold, then, the unlettered man of the West, the 
 nursling of the wilds, the farmer of the Hermitage, 
 little versed in books, unconnected by science with the 
 traditions of the past, raised by the will of the people to 
 the highest pinnacle of honor, to the central post in the 
 civilization of republican freedom, to the office where 
 all the powers of the earth would watch his actions 
 where his words would be repeated through the world, 
 and his spirit be the moving star to guide the nations. 
 What policy will he pursue? What wisdom will he 
 bring with him from the forest ? What rules of duty 
 will he evolve from the oracles of his own mind ? 
 
 The man of the West came as the inspired prophet 
 of the West ; he came as one free from the bonds of 
 hereditary or established custom ; he came with no su- 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 463 
 
 perior but conscience, no oracle but his native judg 
 ment ; and, true to his origin and his education, true 
 to the conditions and circumstances of his advance 
 ment, he valued right more than usage ; he reverted 
 from the pressure of established interests to the energy 
 of first principles. 
 
 We tread on ashes, where the fire is not yet extin 
 guished ; yet not to dwell on his career as President, 
 were to leave out of view the grandest illustrations of 
 his magnanimity. 
 
 The legislation of the United States had followed 
 the precedents of the legislation of European mon 
 archies ; it was the office of Jackson to lift the coun 
 try out of the European forms of legislation, and to 
 open to it a career resting on American sentiment and 
 American freedom. He would have freedom every 
 
 where freedom under the restraints of right : freedom 
 
 % 
 
 of industry, of commerce, of mind, of universal action ; 
 freedom, unshackled by restrictive privileges, unre 
 strained by the thraldom of monopolies. 
 
 The unity of his mind and his consistency were with 
 out a parallel. Guided by natural dialectics, he devel 
 oped the political doctrines that suited every emergency, 
 with a precision and a harmony that no theorist could 
 hope to equal. On every subject in politics, he was 
 thoroughly and profoundly and immovably radical; 
 and would sit for hours, and in a continued flow of 
 remark make the application of his principles to every 
 
464 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 question that could arise in legislation, or in the inter 
 pretation of the constitution. 
 
 His expression of himself was so clear, that his in 
 fluence pervaded not our land only, but all America 
 and all mankind. They say that, in the physical 
 world, the magnetic fluid is so diffused, that its vibra 
 tions are discernible simultaneously in every part of the 
 globe. So it is with the element of freedom. And as 
 Jackson developed its doctrines from their source in the 
 mind of humanity, the popular sympathy was moved 
 and agitated throughout the world, till his name grew 
 every where to be the symbol of popular power. 
 
 Himself the witness of the ruthlessness of savage 
 life, he planned the removal of the Indian tribes 
 beyond the limits of the organized States ; and it is 
 the result of his determined policy that the region east 
 of the Mississippi has been transferred to the exclusive 
 possession of cultivated man. 
 
 A pupil of the wilderness, his heart was with the 
 pioneers of American life towards the setting sun. 
 He longed to secure to the emigrant, not pre-emp 
 tion rights only, but more than pre-emption rights. 
 He longed to invite labor to take possession of the un 
 occupied fields without money and without price ; with 
 no obligation except the perpetual devotion of itself by 
 allegiance to its country. Under the beneficent influ 
 ence of his opinions, the sons of misfortune, the chil 
 dren of adventure, find their way to the uncultivated 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 465 
 
 West. There in some wilderness glade, or in the thick 
 forest of the fertile plain, or where the prairies most 
 sparkle with flowers, they, like the wild bee which sets 
 them the example of industry, may choose their home, 
 mark the extent of their possessions by driving stakes 
 or blazing trees, shelter their log-cabin with boughs 
 and turf, and teach the virgin soil to yield itself to the 
 ploughshare. Theirs shall be the soil ; theirs the beau 
 tiful farms which they teach to be productive. Come, 
 children of sorrow ! you on whom the Old World 
 frowns; crowd fearlessly to the forests; plant your 
 homes in confidence, for the country watches over you ; 
 your children grow around you as hostages, and the 
 wilderness, at your bidding, surrenders its grandeur of 
 useless luxuriance to the beauty and loveliness of 
 culture. Yet beautiful and lovely as is this scene, it 
 still by far falls short of the ideal which lived in the 
 affections of Jackson. 
 
 It would be a sin against the occasion, were I to 
 omit to commemorate the deep devotedness of Jackson 
 to the cause and to the rights of the laboring classes. 
 It was for their welfare that he defied all the 
 storms of political hostility. He desired to ensure to 
 them the fruits of their own industry ; and he unceas 
 ingly opposed every system which tended to lessen 
 their reward, or which exposed them to be defrauded 
 of their dues. They may bend over his grave with 
 affectionate sorrow; for never, in the tide of time, 
 30 
 
466 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 did a statesman exist more heartily resolved to protect 
 them in their rights, and to advance their happiness. 
 For then- benefit, he opposed partial legislation; for 
 their benefit, he resisted all artificial methods of con 
 trolling labor, and subjecting it to capital. It was 
 for their benefit that he loved freedom in all its 
 forms freedom of the individual in personal inde 
 pendence, freedom of the States as separate sovereign 
 ties. He never would listen to counsels which tended 
 to the concentration of power, the subjecting general 
 labor to a central will. The true American system 
 presupposes the diffusion of freedom organized life 
 in all the parts of the American body politic, as there 
 is organized life in every part of the human system. 
 His vindication of the just principles of the constitution 
 derived its sublimity from his deep conviction, that this 
 strict construction is required by the lasting welfare of 
 the great laboring classes of the United States. 
 
 To this end, Jackson revived the tribunicial power 
 of the veto, and exerted it against the decisive action 
 of both branches of Congress, against the votes, the 
 wishes, the entreaties of personal and political friends. 
 " Show me," was his reply to them, " show me an 
 express clause in the constitution, authorizing Congress 
 to take the business of State legislatures out of their 
 hands." " You will ruin us all," cried a firm partisan 
 friend ; " you will ruin your party and your own pros 
 pects." "Providence," answered Jackson, "will take 
 care of me ; " and he persevered. 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 467 
 
 In proceeding to discharge the debt of the United 
 States a measure thoroughly American Jackson fol 
 lowed the example of his predecessors ; but he followed 
 it with the full consciousness that he was rescuing the 
 country from the artificial system of finance which had 
 prevailed throughout the world ; and with him it 
 formed a part of a system by which American legis 
 lation was to separate itself more and more effectually 
 from European precedents, and develope itself more and 
 more, according to the vital principles of our political 
 existence. 
 
 The discharge of the debt brought with it a great 
 reduction of the public burdens, and brought, of 
 necessity, into view, the question, how far America 
 should follow, of choice, the old restrictive policy of 
 high duties, under which Europe had oppressed Ameri 
 ca; or how far she should rely on her own freedom, 
 enterprise, and power, defying the competition, seeking 
 the markets, and receiving the products of the world. 
 
 The mind of Jackson on this subject reasoned 
 clearly, and without passion. In the abuses of the 
 system of revenue by excessive imposts, he saw evils 
 which the public mind would remedy ; and, inclining 
 with the whole might of his energetic nature to the 
 side of revenue duties, he made his earnest but tranquil 
 appeal to the judgment of the people. 
 
 The portions of country that suffered most severely 
 from a course of legislation, which, in its extreme char- 
 
468 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 acter as it then existed, is now universally acknow 
 ledged to have been unequal and unjust, were less 
 tranquil ; and rallying on those doctrines of freedom, 
 which make our government a limited one, they saw 
 in the oppressive acts an assumption of power which 
 of itself was nugatory, because it was exercised, as 
 they held, without authority from the people. 
 
 The contest that ensued was the most momentous 
 in our annals. The greatest minds of America en 
 gaged in the discussion. Eloquence never achieved 
 sublimer triumphs in the American Senate than on 
 those occasions. The country became deeply divided ; 
 and the antagonist elements were arrayed against each 
 other under forms of clashing authority menacing civil 
 4 war; the freedom of the several States was invoked 
 against the power of the United States ; and under the 
 organization of a State in convention, the reserved 
 rights of the people were summoned to display their 
 energy, and balance the authority and neutralize the 
 legislation of the central government. The States 
 were agitated with prolonged excitement ; the friends 
 of liberty throughout the world looked on with divided 
 sympathies, praying that the American Union might 
 be perpetual, and also that the commerce of the world 
 might be free. 
 
 Fortunately for the country, and fortunately for 
 mankind, Andrew Jackson was at the helm of state, 
 the representative of the principles that were to allay 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 469 
 
 the storm, and to restore the hopes of peace and free 
 dom. By nature, by impulse, by education, by con 
 viction, a friend to personal freedom by education, 
 political sympathies, and the fixed habit of his mind, a 
 friend to the rights of the States unwilling that the 
 liberty of the States should be trampled underfoot 
 unwilling that the government should lose its vigor or 
 be impaired, he rallied for the constitution ; and in its 
 name he published to the world, " THE UNION : IT 
 MUST BE PRESERVED." The words were a spell to 
 hush evil passion, and to remove oppression. Under 
 his effective guidance, the favored interests, which had 
 struggled to perpetuate unjust legislation, yielded to 
 the voice of moderation and reform ; and every mind 
 that had for a moment contemplated a rupture of the 
 States, discarded it for ever. The whole influence of 
 the past was invoked in favor of the federal system ; 
 from the council chambers of the fathers, who moulded 
 our institutions -from the hall where American inde 
 pendence was declared, the clear, loud cry was uttered 
 " the Union : it must be preserved." Prom every 
 battle field of the revolution from Lexington and Bun 
 ker Hill from Saratoga and Yorktown from the fields 
 of Eutaw and King s Mountain from the cane-brakes 
 that sheltered the men of Marion the repeated, long- 
 prolonged echoes came up " the Union : it must be pre 
 served." From every valley in our land from every 
 cabin on the pleasant mountain sides. from the ships at 
 
470 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 our wharves from the tents of the hunter in our west 
 ernmost prairies from the living minds of the living 
 millions of American freemen from the thickly coming 
 glories of futurity the shout went up, like the sound 
 of many waters, ""the Union: it must be preserved." 
 The friends of the protective system, and they who 
 had denounced the protective system the statesmen 
 of the North, that had wounded the constitution in 
 their love of increased power at the centre the states 
 men of the South, whose ingenious acuteness had carried 
 to its extreme the theory of State rights all conspired 
 together ; all breathed prayers for the perpetuity of the 
 Union. Under the prudent firmness of Jackson, by 
 the mixture of justice and general regard for all 
 interests, the greatest danger to our country was turned 
 aside, .and mankind was encouraged to believe that our 
 Union, like our freedom, is imperishable. 
 
 The moral of the great events of those days is this : 
 that the people can discern right, and will make their 
 way to a knowledge of right ; that the whole human 
 mind, and therefore with it the mind of the nation, 
 has a continuous, ever improving existence ; that the 
 appeal from the unjust legislation of to-day must be 
 made quietly, earnestly, perseveringly, to the more en 
 lightened collective reason of to-morrow ; that submis 
 sion is due to the popular will, in the confidence that 
 the people, when in error, will amend their doings ; 
 that in a popular government injustice is neither to be 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 471 
 
 established by force, nor to be resisted by force ; in a 
 word, that the Union, which was constituted by con 
 sent, must be preserved by love. 
 
 It rarely falls to the happy lot of a statesman to 
 receive such unanimous applause from the heart of a 
 nation. Duty to the dead demands that, on this occa 
 sion, the course of measures should not pass unnoticed, 
 in the progress of which, his vigor of character most 
 clearly appeared, and his conflict with opposing parties 
 was most violent and protracted. 
 
 From his home in Tennessee, Jackson came to the 
 presidency, resolved to lift American legislation out of 
 the forms of English legislation, and to place our laws 
 on the currency in harmony with the principles of our 
 republic. He came to the presidency of the United 
 States determined to deliver the government from the 
 Bank of the United States, and to restore the regu 
 lation of exchanges to the rightful depository of that 
 power the commerce of the country. He had de 
 signed to declare his views on this subject in his 
 inaugural address, but was persuaded to relinquish 
 that purpose, on the ground that it belonged rather to 
 a legislative message. When the period for addressing 
 Congress drew near, it was still urged, that to attack 
 the bank would forfeit his popularity and secure his 
 future defeat. "It is not," he answered, "it is not 
 for myself that I care." It was urged that haste was 
 unnecessary, as the bank had still six unexpended 
 
472 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 years of chartered existence. " I may die," lie replied, 
 " before another Congress comes together, and I could 
 not rest quietly in my grave, if I failed to do what I 
 hold so essential to the liberty of my country." And 
 his first annual message announced to the people 
 that the bank was neither constitutional nor expedient. 
 In this he was in advance of the friends about him, in 
 advance of Congress, and in advance of his party. 
 This is no time for the analysis of measures or the 
 discussion of questions of political economy ; on the 
 present occasion, we have to contemplate the character 
 of the man. 
 
 Never, from the first moment of his administration 
 to the last, was there a calm in the strife of parties on 
 the subject of the currency ; and never, during the 
 whole period, did he recede or falter. Remaining 
 always in advance of his party, always having near 
 him friends who cowered before the hardihood of 
 his courage, he himself was unmoved, from the first 
 suggestion of the unconstitutionally of the bank, 
 to the moment when first of all, reasoning from the 
 certain tendency of its policy, he with singular sagacity 
 predicted to unbelieving friends the coming insolvenc} 
 of the institution. 
 
 The storm throughout the country rose with unex 
 ampled vehemence ; his opponents were not satisfied 
 with addressing the public, or Congress, or his cabinet ; 
 they threw their whole force personally on him. From 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 473 
 
 all parts men pressed around him, urging him, entreat 
 ing him to bend. Congress was flexible ; many of his 
 personal friends faltered ; the impetuous swelling wave 
 rolled on, without one sufficient obstacle, till it reached 
 his presence ; but, as it dashed in its highest fury at 
 his feet, it broke before his firmness. The command 
 ing majesty of his will appalled his opponents and 
 revived his friends. He, himself, had a proud con 
 sciousness that his will was indomitable. Standing 
 over the Rip Raps, and looking out upon the 
 ocean, "Providence," said he to a friend, "Provi 
 dence may change my determination ; but man no 
 more can do it than he can remove these Rip Raps, 
 which have resisted the rolling of the ocean from the 
 beginning of time." And though a panic was spread 
 ing through the land, and the whole credit system as it 
 then existed was crumbling to pieces and crashing 
 around him, he stood erect, like a massive column, 
 which the heaps of falling ruins could not break, nor 
 bend, nor sway from its fixed foundation. 
 
 In the relations of this country to the world, Jack 
 son demanded for America equality. The time was 
 come for her to take her place over against the most 
 ancient and most powerful states of the Old World, 
 and to gain the recognition of her pretensions. He 
 revived the unadjusted claims for injuries to our com 
 merce, committed in the wantonness of European hos 
 tilities ; and he taught the American merchant and 
 
474 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 the American sailor to repose confidingly under the 
 sanctity of the American flag. Nor would he con 
 sent that the payment of indemnities which were 
 due, should be withheld or delayed. Even against 
 France, the veteran of the West enforced the just 
 demand of America, with a heroic vigor which 
 produced an abiding impression on the world. He 
 did this in the love of peace. "You have set your 
 name to the most important document of your public 
 life," said one of his cabinet to him, as he signed the 
 annual message that treated of the unpaid indemnity. 
 " This paper may produce a war." " There will be no 
 war," answered Jackson, decisively ; and rising on his 
 feet, as was his custom when he spoke warmly, he ex 
 pressed with solemnity his hatred of war, bearing 
 witness to its horrors, and protesting against its 
 crimes. He loved peace ; and to secure permanent 
 tranquillity, he made the rule for his successors, as 
 well as for himself, in the intercourse of America with 
 foreign powers, " to demand nothing but what is right, 
 and to submit to nothing that is wrong." 
 
 People of the District of Columbia : I should fail 
 of a duty on this occasion, if I did not give utterance 
 to your sentiment of gratitude which followed General 
 Jackson into retirement. This beautiful city, sur 
 rounded by heights the most attractive, watered by a 
 river so magnificent, the home of the gentle and the cul 
 tivated, not less than the seat of political power this 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 475 
 
 city, whose site Washington had selected, was dear to 
 his affections ; and if he won your grateful attachment 
 by adorning it with monuments of useful architecture, 
 by establishing its credit, and relieving it of its burdens, 
 he regretted only that he had not the opportunity to 
 have connected himself still more intimately with your 
 prosperity. When he took leave of the District, the 
 population of this city, and the masses from its vi 
 cinity, followed his carriage in crowds. All in silence 
 stood near him, to wish him adieu ; and as the cars 
 started, and lifting his hat in token of farewell, he 
 displayed his gray hairs, you stood around with heads 
 uncovered, too full of emotion to speak, in solemn 
 silence gazing on him as he went on his way to be 
 seen of you no more. 
 
 Behold the warrior and statesman, his work well 
 done, retired to the Hermitage, to hold converse with 
 his forests, to cultivate his farm, to gather around him 
 hospitably his friends ! Who was like HIM ? He was 
 the load-star of the American people. His fervid 
 thoughts, frankly uttered, still spread the flame of 
 patriotism through the American breast ; his counsels 
 were still listened to with reverence ; and, almost alone 
 among statesmen, he in his retirement was in harmony 
 with every onward movement of his time. His pre 
 vailing influence assisted to sway a neighboring nation 
 to desire to share our institutions ; his ear heard the 
 footsteps of the coming millions that are to gladden 
 
476 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 our western shores ; and his eye discerned in the dim 
 distance the whitening sails that are to enliven the 
 Pacific with the social sounds of our commerce. 
 
 Age had whitened his locks, and dimmed his eye, 
 and spread round him the infirmities and venerable 
 emblems of many years of toilsome service ; but his 
 heart beat warmly as in his youth, and his courage 
 was firm as it had ever been in the day of battle. 
 His affections were still for his friends and his coun 
 try, his thoughts were already in a better world. He 
 who in active life had always had unity of perception 
 and will, in action had never faltered from doubt, and 
 in council had always reverted to first principles and 
 general laws, now gave himself to communing with 
 the Infinite. He was a believer; from feeling, from 
 experience, from conviction. Not a shadow of skepti 
 cism ever dimmed the lustre of his mind. Proud 
 philosopher ! will you smile to know that Andrew 
 Jackson perused reverently his Psalter and Prayer- 
 book and Bible? Know that he had faith in the 
 eternity of truth, in the imperishable power of freedom, 
 in the destinies of humanity, in the virtues and ca 
 pacity of the people, in his country s institutions, in 
 the being and overruling providence of a merciful and 
 ever-living God. 
 
 The last moment of his life on earth is at hand. 
 It is the Sabbath of the Lord; the brightness and 
 beauty of summer clothe the fields around him; na 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 477 
 
 ture is in her glory; but the sublimest spectacle on 
 that day, was the victory of his unblenching spirit over 
 death itself. 
 
 When he first felt the hand of death upon him, 
 " May my enemies," he cried, " find peace ; may the 
 liberties of my country endure for ever." 
 
 When his exhausted system, under the excess of 
 pain, sunk, for a moment, from debility, "Do not 
 weep," said he to his adopted daughter ; " my suffer 
 ings are less than those of Christ upon the cross ; " for 
 he, too, as a disciple of the cross, could have devoted 
 himself, in sorrow, for mankind. Peeling his end 
 near, he would see all his family once more ; and he 
 spoke to them, one by one, in words of tenderness and 
 affection. His two little grandchildren were absent at 
 Sunday-school. He asked for them; and as they 
 came, he prayed for them, and kissed them, and 
 blessed them. His servants were then summoned; 
 they gathered, some in his room, and some on the out 
 side of the house, clinging to the .windows, that they 
 might gaze and hear. And that dying man, thus 
 
 O t/ O 
 
 surrounded, in a gush of fervid eloquence, spoke with 
 inspiration of God, of the Redeemer, of salvation 
 through the atonement, of immortality, of heaven. 
 For he ever thought that pure and undefiled religion 
 was the foundation of private happiness, and the bul 
 wark of republican institutions. "Dear children," 
 such were his final words, "dear children, servants, 
 
478 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 and friends, I trust to meet you all in heaven, both 
 white and black all, both white and black." And 
 having borne his testimony to immortality, he bowed 
 his mighty head, and, without a groan, the spirit of the 
 greatest man of his age escaped to the bosom of 
 his God. 
 
 In life, his career had been like the blaze of the 
 sun in the fierceness of its noonday glory ; his death 
 was lovely as the summer s evening, when the sun goes 
 down in tranquil beauty without a cloud. To the 
 majestic energy of an indomitable will, he joined a 
 heart capable of the purest and most devoted love, 
 rich in the tenderest affections. On the bloody battle 
 field of Tohopeca, he saved an infant that clung to 
 the breast of its dying mother; in the stormiest 
 season of his presidency, he paused at the imminent 
 moment of decision, to counsel a poor suppliant 
 that had come up to him for relief. Of the strifes 
 in which he was engaged in his earlier life, not 
 one sprung from himself, but in every case he 
 became involved by standing forth as the champi 
 on of the weak, the poor, and the defenceless, to 
 shelter the gentle against oppression, to protect the 
 emigrant against the avarice of the speculator. His 
 generous soul revolted at the barbarous practice of 
 duels, and by no man in the land have so many been 
 prevented. 
 
 The sorrows of those that were near to him went 
 
COMMEMORATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. 479 
 
 deeply into his soul ; and at the anguish of the wife 
 whom he loved, the orphans whom he adopted, he 
 would melt into tears, and weep and sob like a child. 
 No man in private life so possessed the hearts of all 
 around him ; no public man of this century ever re 
 turned to private life with such an abiding mastery 
 over the affections of the people. No man with truer 
 .instinct received American ideas ; no man expressed 
 them so completely, or so boldly, or s6 sincerely. He 
 was as sincere a man as ever lived. He was wholly, 
 always, and altogether sincere and true. 
 
 Up to the last, he dared do any thing that it was 
 right to do. He united personal courage and moral 
 courage beyond any man of whom history keeps the 
 record. Before the nation, before the world, before 
 coming ages, he stands forth the representative, for his 
 generation, of the American mind. And the secret of 
 his greatness is this : by intuitive conception, he shared 
 and possessed all the creative ideas of his country 
 and his time ; he expressed them with dauntless in 
 trepidity ; he enforced them with an immovable 
 will; he executed them with an electric power that 
 attracted and swayed the American people. The 
 nation, in his time, had not one great thought, of 
 which he was not the boldest and clearest expositor. 
 
 Not clanger, not an army in battle array, not 
 wounds, not wide-spread clamor, not age, not the 
 anguish of disease, could impair in the least degree 
 
480 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 the vigor of his steadfast mind. The heroes of an 
 tiquity would have contemplated with awe the un 
 matched hardihood of his character ; and Napo 
 leon, had he possessed his disinterested will, could 
 never have been vanquished. Jackson never was van 
 quished. He was always fortunate. He conquered 
 the wilderness ; he conquered the savage ; he con 
 quered the bravest veterans trained in the battle fields 
 of Europe ; he conquered every where in statesman 
 ship ; and, when death came to get the mastery over 
 him, he turned that last enemy aside as tranquilly as 
 he had done the feeblest of his adversaries, and passed 
 from earth in the triumphant consciousness of im 
 mortality. 
 
 His body has its fit resting-place in the great 
 central valley of the Mississippi ; his spirit rests upon 
 our whole territory ; it hovers over the vales of Oregon, 
 and guards, in advance, the frontier of the Del Norte. 
 The fires of party strife are quenched at his grave. 
 His faults and frailties have perished. Whatever of 
 good he has done, lives, and will live for ever. 
 
ORATION, 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AT ITS 
 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, NOVEMBER 20, 1854. 
 
 BROTHERS, GUESTS, AND FRIENDS OP THE NEW YORK 
 HISTORICAL SOCIETY : 
 
 WE are assembled to celebrate the completion of a 
 half century, unequalled in its discoveries and its deeds. 
 Man is but the creature of yesterday, and fifty years 
 form a great length in the chain of his entire existence. 
 Inferior objects attract the inquirer who would go back 
 to remotest antiquity. The student of the chronology 
 of the earth may sit on the bluffs that overhang the 
 Mississippi, and muse on the myriads of years during 
 which the powers of nature have been depositing the 
 materials of its delta. He may then, by the aid of in 
 duction, draw nearer to the beginnings of time, as he 
 meditates on the succession of ages that assisted to 
 construct the cliffs which raise their bastions over the 
 stream ; or to bury in compact layers the fern-like 
 forests that have stored the bosom of the great valley 
 with coal ; or to crystallize the ancient limestone into 
 31 
 
482 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 marble ; or, at a still earlier epoch, to compress liquid 
 masses of the globe into seams of granite. But the 
 records of these transitions gain their chief interest 
 from their illustrating the revolutions through which 
 our planet was fashioned into a residence for man. 
 Science may roam into the abysses of the past, when 
 the earth moved silently in its course without ob 
 servers ; just as it may reach those far-off regions of 
 nebular fields of light, whose distance no numbers that 
 the human faculties may grasp can intelligibly express. 
 But as the sublime dwells not in space, so it dwells not 
 in duration. To search for it aright, we must contem 
 plate the higher subject of man. It is but a few cen 
 turies since he came into life ; and yet the study of his 
 nature and his destiny surpasses all else that can en 
 gage his thoughts. At the close of a period which has 
 given new proof that unceasing movement is the law 
 of whatever is finite, we are called upon to observe the 
 general character of the changes in his state. Our 
 minds irresistibly turn to consider the laws, the cir 
 cumstances and the prospects of his career ; we are led 
 to inquire whether his faculties and his relations to the 
 universe compel him to a steady course of improve 
 ment ; whether, in the aggregate, he has actually made 
 advances ; and what hopes we may cheiish respecting 
 his future. The occasion invites me to speak to you 
 of the NECESSITY, the REALITY, and the PROMISE of the 
 progress of mankind. 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 483 
 
 Since every thing that is limited suffers perpetual 
 alteration, the condition of our race is one of growth 
 or of decay. It is the glory of man that he is conscious 
 of this law of his existence. He alone is gifted with 
 reason which looks upward as well as before and after, 
 and connects him with the world that is not discerned 
 by the senses. He alone has the faculty so to combine 
 thought with affection, that he can lift up his heart 
 and feel not for himself only, but for his brethren and 
 his kind. Every man is in substance equal to his 
 fellow-man. His nature is changed neither by time 
 nor by country. He bears no marks of having risen 
 to his present degree of perfection by successive trans 
 mutations from inferior forms ; but by the peculiarity 
 and superiority of his powers he shows himself to have 
 been created separate and distinct from all other classes 
 of animal life. He is neither degenerating into such 
 differences as could in the end no longer be classified 
 together, nor rising into a higher species. Each mem 
 ber of the race is in will, affection, and intellect, con- 
 substantial with every other ; no passion, no noble or 
 degrading affection, no generous or selfish impulse, has 
 ever appeared, of which the germ does not exist in 
 every breast. No science has been reached, no thought 
 generated, no truth discovered, which has not from all 
 time existed potentially in every human mind. The 
 belief in the progress of the race does not, therefore, 
 spring from the supposed possibility of his . acquiring 
 
484 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 new faculties, or coining into the possession of a new 
 nature. 
 
 Still less does truth vary. They speak falsely who 
 say that truth is the daughter of time ; it is the child 
 of eternity, and as old as the Divine mind. The per 
 ception of it takes place in the order of time ; truth 
 itself knows nothing of the succession of ages. Neither 
 does morality need to perfect itself ; it is what it 
 always has been, and always will be. Its distinctions 
 are older than the sea or the dry land, than the earth or 
 the sun. The relation of good to evil is from the 
 beginning, and is unalterable. 
 
 The progress of man consists in this, that he 
 himself arrives at the perception of truth. The Divine 
 mind, which is its source, left it to be discovered, 
 appropriated and developed by finite creatures. 
 
 The life of an individual is but a breath ; it comes 
 forth like a flower, and flees like a shadow. Were no 
 other progress, therefore, possible than that of the in 
 dividual, one period would have little advantage over 
 another. But as every man partakes of the same 
 faculties and is consubstantial with all, it follows that 
 the race also has an existence of its own; and this 
 existence becomes richer, more varied, free and com 
 plete, as time advances. COMMON SENSE implies by its 
 very name, that each individual is to contribute some 
 share toward the general intelligence. The many are 
 wiser than the few; the multitude than the philos- 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 485 
 
 oplier ; the race than the individual ; and each suc 
 cessive generation than its predecessor. 
 
 The social condition of a century, its faith and its 
 institutions, are always analogous to its acquisitions. 
 Neither philosophy, nor government, nor political insti 
 tutions, nor religious knowledge, can remain much 
 behind, or go much in advance, of the totality of con 
 temporary intelligence. The age furnishes to the 
 master- workman the materials with which he builds. 
 The outbreak of a revolution is the pulsation of the 
 time, healthful or spasmodic, according to its harmony 
 with the civilization from which it springs. Each new 
 philosophical system is the heliograph of an evanescent 
 condition of public thought. The state in which we 
 are, is man s natural state at this moment; but it 
 neither should be nor can be his permanent state, for 
 his existence is flowing on in eternal motion, with 
 nothing fixed but the certainty of change. Now, by 
 the necessity of the case, the movement of the human 
 mind, taken collectively, is always toward something 
 better. There exists in each individual, alongside of 
 his own personality, the ideal man who represents the 
 race. Every one bears about within himself the con 
 sciousness that his course is a struggle ; and per 
 petually feels the contrast between his own limited 
 nature and the better life of which he conceives. He 
 cannot state a proposition respecting a finite object, 
 but it includes also a reference to the infinite. He 
 
486 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 cannot form a judgment, but it combines ideal truth 
 and partial error, and, as a consequence, sets in action 
 the antagonism between the true and the perfect on 
 the one side, and the false and the imperfect on the 
 other; and in this contest the true and the perfect 
 must prevail, for they have the advantage of being 
 perennial. 
 
 In public life, by the side of the actual state of the 
 world, there exists the ideal state toward which it 
 should tend. This antagonism lies at the root of all 
 political combinations that ever have been or ever can 
 be formed. The elements on which they rest, whether 
 in monarchies, aristocracies, or in republics, are but 
 three, not one of which can be wanting, or society falls 
 to ruin. The course of human destiny is ever a rope 
 of three strands. One party may found itself on things 
 as they are, and strive for their unaltered perpetuity ; 
 this is conservatism, always appearing wherever estab 
 lished interests exist, and never capable of unmingled 
 success, because finite things are ceaselessly in motion. 
 Another may be based on theoretic principles, and 
 struggle unrelentingly to conform society to the abso 
 lute law of Truth and Justice ; and this, though it 
 kindle the purest enthusiasm, can likewise never per 
 fectly succeed, because the materials of which society is 
 composed partake of imperfection, and to extirpate all 
 that is imperfect would lead to the destruction of 
 society itself. And there may be a third, which 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 487 
 
 seeks to reconcile the two, but which yet can never 
 thrive by itself, since it depends for its activity on 
 the clashing between the fact and the higher law. 
 Without all the three, the fates could not spin their 
 thread. As the motions of the solar world require the 
 centripetal force, which, by itself alone, would con 
 solidate ah 1 things in one massive confusion ; the centri 
 fugal force, which, if uncontrolled, would hurl the 
 planets on a tangent into infinite space ; and lastly, 
 that reconciling adjustment, which preserves the two 
 powers in harmony ; so society always has within itself 
 the elements of conservatism, of absolute right, and 
 of reform. 
 
 The present state of the world is accepted by the 
 wise and benevolent as the necessary and natural result 
 of ah 1 its antecedents. But the statesman, whose heart 
 has been purified by the love of his kind, and whose 
 purpose solemnized by faith in the immutability of 
 justice, seeks to apply eveiy principle which former 
 ages or his own may have mastered, and to make 
 every advancement that the culture of his time will 
 sustain. In a word, he will never omit an opportunity 
 to lift his country out of the inferior sphere of its 
 actual condition into the higher and better sphere 
 that is nearer to ideal perfection. 
 
 The merits of great men are to be tested by this 
 criterion. I speak of the judgment of the race, not 
 of the opinion of classes. The latter exalt, and even 
 
488 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 deify the advocates of their selfishness ; and often pro 
 portion their praise to the daring, with which right and 
 truth have been made to succumb to their interests. 
 They lavish laurels all the more profusely to hide the 
 baldness of then* heroes. But reputation so imparted 
 is like every thing else that rests only on the finite. 
 Vain is the applause of factions, or the suffrages of 
 those whose fortunes are benefited ; fame so attained, 
 must pass away like the interests of classes ; but the 
 name of those who have studied the well-being of their 
 fellow-men, and in their generation have assisted to 
 raise the world from the actual toward the ideal, is 
 repeated in all the temples of humanity, and lives not 
 only in its intelligence, but in its heart. These are 
 they, whose glory calumny cannot tarnish, nor pride 
 beat down. Connecting themselves with * man s ad 
 vancement, their example never loses, its lustre ; and 
 the echo of their footsteps is heard throughout all time 
 with sympathy and love. 
 
 The necessity of the progress of the race follows, 
 therefore, from the fact, that the great Author of all 
 life has left truth in its immutability to be observed, 
 and has endowed man with the power of observation 
 and generalization. Precisely the same conclusions 
 will appear, if we contemplate society from the point 
 of view of the unity of the universe. The unchanging 
 character of law is the only basis on which continuous 
 action can rest. Without it man would be but as the 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 489 
 
 traveller over endless morasses ; the builder on quick 
 sands ; the mariner without compass or rudder, driven 
 successively whithersoever changing winds may blow. 
 The universe is the reflex and image of its Creator. 
 " The true work of art," says Michael Angelo, " is but 
 a shadow of the Divine perfections." We may say in 
 a more general manner, that BEAUTY ITSELF is BUT THE 
 
 SENSIBLE IMAGE OF THE INFINITE ; that all Creation is 
 
 a manifestation of the Almighty ; not the result of 
 caprice, but the glorious display of his perfection ; and 
 as the universe thus produced, is always in the course 
 of change, so its regulating mind is a living Providence, 
 perpetually exerting itself anew. If his designs could 
 be thwarted, we should lose the great evidence of his 
 unity, as well as the anchor of our own hope. 
 
 Harmony is the characteristic of the intellectual 
 system of the universe ; and immutable laws of moral 
 existence must pervade all time and all space, all ages 
 and all worlds. The comparative anatomist has stu 
 died, analysed and classified every species of vertebrate 
 existence that now walks, or flies, or creeps, or swims, 
 or reposes among the fossil remains of lost forms of 
 being ; and he discovers that they all, without excep 
 tion, are analogous ; so that the induction becomes 
 irresistible, that an archetype existed previous to the 
 creation of the first of the kind. Shall we then hesitate 
 to believe that the fixedness of law likewise pervades 
 the moral world? We cannot shut our eyes to the es- 
 
490 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 tablislied fact, that an ideal, or archetype, prescribed 
 the form of animal life ; and shall we not believe that 
 the type of all intellectual life likewise exists in the 
 Divine mind ? 
 
 I know that there is a pride which calls this fatal 
 ism, and which rebels at the thought that the Father 
 of life should control what he has made. There are 
 those who must needs assert for their individual selves 
 the constant possession of that power which the great 
 English poet represents the bad angels to have lost 
 heaven for once attempting to usurp; they are not 
 content with being gifted with the faculty of discerning 
 the counsels of God, and becoming happy by conform 
 ing to his decrees, but claim the privilege of acting 
 irrespective of those decrees. Unsatisfied with having 
 been created in his image, they assume the liberty to 
 counteract his will. They do not perceive that cos- 
 mical order depends on the universality and absolute 
 certainty of law; that for that end, events in their 
 course are not merely as fixed as Ararat and the 
 Andes, but follow laws that are much older than 
 Andes or Ararat, that are as old as those winch up 
 heaved the mountains. The glory of God is not con- 
 
 
 
 tingent on man s good will, but all existence subserves 
 his purposes. The system of the universe is as a 
 celestial poem, whose beauty is from all eternity, and 
 must not be marred by human interpolations. Things 
 proceed as they were ordered, in their nice, and well- 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 491 
 
 adjusted, and perfect harmony ; so that as the hand of 
 the skilful artist gathers music from the harp-strings, 
 history calls it forth from the well-tuned chords of time. 
 Not that this harmony can be heard during the tumult 
 of action. Philosophy comes after events, and gives 
 the reason of them, and describes the nature of their 
 results. The great mind of collective man may, one 
 day, so improve in self-consciousness as to interpret 
 the present and foretell the future ; but as yet, the end 
 of what is now happening, though we ourselves partake 
 in it, seems to fall out by chance. All is nevertheless 
 one whole ; individuals, families, peoples, the race, 
 march in accord with the Divine will ; and when any 
 part of the destiny of humanity is fulfilled, we see the 
 ways of Providence vindicated. The antagonisms of 
 imperfect matter and the perfect idea, of liberty and 
 necessary law, become reconciled. What seemed 
 irrational confusion, appears as the web woven by 
 light, liberty and love. But this is not perceived till 
 a great act in the drama of life is finished. The 
 prayer of the patriarch, when he desired to behold the 
 Divinity face to face, was denied; but he was able to 
 catch a glimpse of Jehovah, after He had passed by \ 
 and so it fares with our search for Him in the wrest 
 lings of the world. It is when the hour of conflict is 
 over, that history comes to a right understanding of 
 the strife, and is ready to exclaim : " Lo ! God is 
 here, and we knew it not." At the foot of every page 
 
49.2 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 in the annals of nations, maybe written, " God reigns." 
 Events, as they pass away, "proclaim their Great 
 Original;" and if you will but listen reverently, you 
 may hear the receding centuries as they roll into the 
 dim distances of departed time, perpetually chanting 
 " TE DEUM LAUDAMUS," with all the choral voices of 
 the countless congregations of the ages. 
 
 It is because God is visible in History that its 
 office is the noblest except that of the poet. The poet 
 is at once the interpreter and the favorite of Heaven. 
 He catches the first beam of light that flows from its 
 uncreated source. He repeats the message of the 
 Infinite, without always being able to analyze it, and 
 often without knowing how he received it, or why he 
 was selected for its utterance. To him and to him 
 alone, history yields in dignity ; for she not only watches 
 the great encounters of life, but recalls what had van 
 ished, and partaking of a bliss like that of creating, 
 restores it to animated being. The mineralogist takes 
 special delight in contemplating the process of crystal 
 lization, as though he had caught nature at her work 
 as a geometrician ; giving herself up to be gazed at 
 without concealment such as she appears in the very 
 moment of exertion. But history, as she reclines in 
 the lap of eternity, sees the mind of humanity itself 
 engaged in formative efforts, constructing sciences, 
 promulgating laws, organizing commonwealths, and 
 displaying its energies in the visible movement of its 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 493 
 
 intelligence. Of all pursuits that require analysis, 
 history, therefore, stands first. It is equal to philoso 
 phy ; for as certainly as the actual bodies forth the 
 ideal, so certainly does history contain philosophy. It 
 is grander than the .natural sciences ; for its study is 
 man, the last work of creation, and the most perfect in 
 its relations with the Infinite. ^ 
 
 In surveying the short period since man was 
 created, the proofs of progress are so abundant, that 
 we do not know with which of them to begin, or how 
 they should be classified. He is seen in the earliest 
 stages of society, bare of abstract truth, unskilled in the 
 methods of induction, and hardly emancipated from 
 bondage to the material universe. How wonderful is 
 it, then, that a being whose first condition was so weak, 
 so humble, nnd so naked, and of whom no monument 
 older than forty centuries can be found, should have 
 accumulated such fruitful stores of intelligence, and 
 have attained such perfection of culture ! 
 
 Look round upon this beautiful earth, this " tem 
 perate zone of the solar system," and see how much man 
 has done for its subjection and adornment ; making 
 the wilderness blossom with cities, and the seemingly 
 inhospitable sea cheerfully social with the richly 
 freighted fleets of world-wide commerce. Look also 
 at the condition of society, and consider by what 
 amenities barbarism has been softened and refined; 
 what guarantees of intelligence and liberty have su- 
 
494 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 perseded the lawlessness of brute force, and 
 copious interchanges of thought and love have taken 
 the place of the- sombre stolidity of the savage. The 
 wanderings of the nations are greater now than ever in 
 time past, and productive of happier results. Peaceful 
 emigration sets more myriads in motion than all the 
 hordes of armed barbarians, whether Gauls or Scyth 
 ians, Goths or Huns, Scandinavians or Saracens, that 
 ever burst from the steppes of Asia and the Northern 
 nurseries of men. Our own city gives evidence that 
 the civilized world is becoming one federation ; for its 
 storehouses exhibit all products, from furs that are 
 whitened by Arctic snows, to spices ripened under the 
 burning sun of the equator ; and its people is the 
 representative of all the cultivated nations of Europe. 
 
 Every clime is tasked also to enlarge the boundaries 
 of knowledge. Minerals that lie on the peaks of the 
 Himalayas, animals that hide in the densest jungles 
 of Africa, flowers that bloom in the solitudes of Su 
 matra, or the trackless swamps along the Amazon, are 
 brought within the observation and domain of science. 
 
 With equal diligence the internal structure of plants 
 and animals has been subjected to examination. We 
 may gaze with astonishment at the advances which the 
 past fifty years have made in the science of comparative 
 physiology. By a most laborious and long-continued 
 use of the microscope, and by a vast number of careful 
 and minute dissections, man has gained such insight 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 495 
 
 into animal being, as not only to define its primary 
 groups, but almost to draw the ideal archetype that 
 preceded their creation. Not content with the study 
 of his own organization and the comparison of it with 
 the Fauna of every zone, he has been able to count 
 the pulsations of the heart of a caterpillar ; to watch 
 the flow of blood through the veins of the silkworm ; 
 to enumerate the millions of living things that dwell in 
 a drop of water ; to take the census of creatures so 
 small, that parts of their members remain invisible to 
 the most powerful microscope ; to trace the lungs of 
 the insect which floats so gayly on the limber fans 
 of its wings, and revels in the full fruition of its tran 
 scendent powers of motion. 
 
 The astronomer, too, has so perfected his skill, that 
 he has weighed in the balance some, even, of the stars, 
 and marked the course and the period of their revolu 
 tions ; while, within the limits of our own system, he 
 has watched the perturbations of the wandering fires, 
 till he has achieved his crowning victory by discovering 
 a priori the existence and the place of an exterior 
 planet. 
 
 I have reminded you of the few hundreds of years 
 during which man has been a tenant of earth, and of 
 the great proportion that the last half century bears to 
 the whole of his existence. Let us consider this more 
 closely; for I dare assert that, in some branches of 
 human activity, the period we commemorate has done 
 
496 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 more for his instruction and improvement than all 
 which went before. 
 
 I do not here refer to our own country, because it 
 is altogether new, though its growth merits a passing 
 remark ; for within this time the area of our land has 
 been so extended that a similar increase, twice repeated, 
 would carry THE STARS AND STRIPES to the polar ice 
 and to the isthmus ; while our population now exceeds 
 fivefold all who existed at the end of the two previous 
 centuries, and probably outnumbers all the generations 
 that sleep beneath the soil. I speak rather of results, 
 in which the old world takes its share; and I will 
 begin the enumeration by reference to an improvement 
 which we may delight to consider our own. Your 
 thoughts go in advance of me to recall the fact, that 
 since our Society was organized, steam was first em 
 ployed for both interior and oceanic navigation. We, 
 
 BROTHERS of the NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 remember with pride that this great achievement in 
 behalf of the connection and the unity of the world, is 
 due to the genius of one of our members, and the en 
 couragement of another ; to ROBERT FULTON and to 
 ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. 
 
 The same superiority belongs to this age in refer 
 ence to the construction of the means of internal com 
 munication. What are all the artificial channels of 
 travel and of commerce that previously existed, com 
 pared with the canals and railroads constructed in our 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 497 
 
 time ? I shall not pause to estimate the number of 
 these newly made highways ; their collective length ; 
 their capacity for journeyings and for trade : I leave to 
 others to contrast the occasional Oriental or African 
 caravan with the daily freight-train on one of our iron 
 pathways ; the post-chaise, the stage-coach, and the 
 diligence, with the incessant movement in the canal 
 boats and the flying cars of the railroad. Yet in your 
 presence, MY BROTHERS, remembering the eleven men 
 who, fifty years ago, met and organized our ^society, I 
 must for an instant direct attention to the system which 
 connects our own Hudson with the basins of the St. 
 Lawrence, of the Delaware, of the Susquehanna and 
 of the Mississippi. This magnificent work, one of the 
 noblest triumphs of civilized man, so friendly to peace 
 and industry, to national union and true glory, was 
 effected through the special instrumentality of one of 
 our original founders and most active members ; the 
 same DE WITT CLINTON, who in days when the city 
 of New York was proud of her enlightened magistracy, 
 was at the head of her municipal government, esteem 
 ing it a part of his public duty to care disinterestedly 
 for the welfare of science, and the fame of the great 
 men of the country. 
 
 The half century which now closes, is likewise 
 
 found to surpass all others, if we consider the extent 
 
 of its investigations into the history of the earth. 
 
 Geology, in that time, has assumed a severe scientific 
 
 32 
 
498 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 form, doing the highest honor, not merely to the indi 
 vidual men who have engaged in the pursuit, but to 
 human nature itself, by the persevering application of 
 inductive reasoning, and the imperturbable serenity with 
 which seeming contradictions have been studied till 
 they have been found to confirm the general laws. Thus 
 the geologist has been able to ascertain, in some 
 degree, the chronology of our planet ; to demonstrate 
 the regularity of its structure where it seemed most 
 disturbed ; and where nature herself was at fault, and 
 the trail of her footsteps broken, to restore the just 
 arrangement of strata that had been crushed into 
 confusion, or turned over in apparently inexplicable 
 and incongruous folds. He has perused the rocky 
 tablets on which time-honored nature has set her in 
 scriptions. He has opened the massive sepulchres of 
 departed forms of being, and pored over the copious 
 records preserved there in stone, till they have revealed 
 the majestic march of creative power, from the organism 
 of the zoophyte entombed in the lowest depths of 
 Siluria, through all the rising gradations of animal life, 
 up to its sublimest result in Godlike man. 
 
 Again : It is only in our day that the sun has been 
 taught to do the work of an artist, and in obedience to 
 man s will, the great wave of light in its inconceivable 
 swiftness, is compelled to delineate^ with inimitable 
 exactness, any object that the eye of day looks upon. 
 
 Of the nature of electricity, more has been discov- 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 499 
 
 ered in the last fifty years than in all past time, not 
 even excepting the age when our own Franklin called 
 it from the clouds. This aerial, invisible power, has 
 learnt to fly as man s faithful messenger, till the mystic 
 wires tremble with his passions and bear his errands 
 on the wings of lightning. He divines how this agency, 
 which holds the globe in its invisible embrace, guides 
 floating atoms to their places in the crystal ; or teaches 
 the mineral ores the lines in which they should move, 
 where to assemble together, and where to lie down and 
 take their rest. It whispers to the meteorologist the 
 secrets of the atmosphere and the skies. For the 
 chemist in his laboratory it perfects the instruments 
 of heat, dissolves the closest affinities, and reunites the 
 sundered elements. It joins the artisan at his toil, and 
 busily employed at his side, this subtlest and swiftest 
 of existences tamely applies itself to its task, with 
 patient care reproduces the designs of the engraver or 
 the plastic art, and disposes the metal with a skilful 
 delicacy and exactness which the best workman cannot 
 rival. Nay more : it enters into the composition of 
 man himself, and is ever present as the inmost witness 
 of his thoughts and volitions. These are discoveries of 
 our time. 
 
 But enough of this contrast of the achievement of 
 one age with that of all preceding ones. It may seem 
 to be at variance with our theme, that as republican 
 institutions gain ground, WOMAN appears less on the 
 
500 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSEES. 
 
 theatre of events. She, whose presence in this briery 
 world is as a lily among thorns, whose smile is pleasant 
 like the light of morning, and whose eye is the. gate of 
 heaven ; she, whom nature so reveres, that the lovely 
 veil of her spirit is the best terrestrial emblem of 
 beauty, must cease to command armies or reign su 
 preme over nations. Yet the progress of liberty, 
 while it has made her less conspicuous, has redeemed 
 her into the possession of the full dignity of her nature, 
 has made her not man s slave, but his companion, his 
 counsellor, and fellow-martyr; and, for an occasional 
 ascendency in political affairs, has substituted the 
 uniform enjoyment of domestic equality. The avenue 
 to active public life seems closed against her, but 
 without impairing her power over mind, or her fame. 
 The lyre is as obedient to her touch, the muse as 
 coming to her call, as to that of man ; and truth in its 
 purity finds no more honored interpreter. 
 
 When comparisons are drawn between longer pe 
 riods, the progress of the race appears from the change 
 in the condition of its classes. Time knows no holier 
 mission than to assert the rights of labor, and it has, in 
 some measure, been mindful of the duty. Were Aris 
 totle or Plato to come among us, they would find no 
 contrast more complete than between the workshops of 
 their Athens, and those of New York. In their day 
 the bondmen practised the mechanic arts ; nor was it 
 conceived that the world could do its work except by 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 501 
 
 the use of slaves. But labor deserves and has the 
 right to be dignified and ennobled, and the auspicious 
 revolution in its condition has begun. Here the me 
 chanic, at the shipyard, or the iron-works, or wherever 
 may be the task of his choice, owns no master on 
 earth ; and while, by the careful study and employment 
 of the forces of nature, he multiplies his powers, he 
 sweetens his daily toil by the consciousness of personal 
 independence, and the enjoyment of his acknowledged 
 claim to honor no less than to reward. 
 
 The fifty years which we celebrate, have taken 
 mighty strides toward the abolition of servitude. Prus 
 sia, in the hour of its sufferings and its greatest calami 
 ties, renovated its existence partly by the establishment 
 of schools, and partly by changing its serfs into a pro 
 prietary peasantry. In Hungary, the attempt toward 
 preserving the nationality of the Magyars may have 
 failed ; but the last vestiges of bondage have been 
 effaced, and the holders of the plough have become the 
 owners of themselves and of its soil. 
 
 If events do, as I believe, correspond to the Divine 
 idea ; if God is the fountain of all goodness, the in- 
 spirer of true affection, the source of all intelligence; 
 there is nothing of so great moment to the race as the 
 conception of his existence ; and a true apprehension 
 of his relations to man must constitute the turning 
 point in the progress of the world. And it has been 
 so. A better knowledge of his nature is the dividing 
 
502 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 line that separates ancient history from modern ; the 
 old time from the new. The thought of Divine unity 
 as an absolute cause was familiar to antiquity ; but the 
 undivided testimony of the records of all cultivated 
 nations shows that it took no hold of the popular 
 affections. Philosophers might conceive this Divine 
 unity as purest action, unmixed with matter ; as fate, 
 holding the universe in its invincible, unrelenting 
 grasp ; as, reason, going forth to the work of creation ; 
 as the primal source of the ideal archetypes, according 
 to which the world was fashioned ; as boundless power, 
 careless of boundless existence ; as the infinite one, 
 slumbering unconsciously in the infinite all. Nothing 
 of tin s could take hold of the common mind, or make 
 " Peor and Baalim 
 
 Forsake their temples dim," 
 or throw down the altars of superstition. 
 
 For the regeneration of the world, it was requisite 
 that the Divine Being should enter into the abodes and 
 the hearts of men, and dwell there; that a belief in 
 him should be received, which should include all truth 
 respecting his essence ; that he should be known not 
 only as an abstract and absolute cause, but as the 
 infinite fountain of moral excellence and beauty ; not as 
 a distant Providence of boundless power and uncertain 
 or inactive will, but as God present in the flesh ; not 
 as an absolute lawgiver, holding the material world 
 and all intelligent existence in the chains of necessity, 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 503 
 
 but as a creative spirit, indwelling in man, his fellow- 
 worker and guide. 
 
 When the Divine Being was thus presented to the 
 soul, he touched at once man s aspirations, affections, 
 and intelligence, and faith in him sunk into the inmost 
 heart of humanity. In vain did restless pride, as that 
 of ARIUS, seek to paganise Christianity and make it 
 the ally of imperial despotism ; to prefer a belief resting 
 on authority and unsupported by an inward witness, 
 over the clear revelation of which the millions might 
 see and feel and know the divine glory ; to substitute 
 the conception, framed after the pattern of heathenism, 
 of an agent, superhuman yet finite, for faith in the 
 ever-continuing union of God with man ; to wrong the 
 majesty and holiness of the Spirit of God by represent 
 ing it as a birth of time. Against these attempts to 
 subordinate the enfranchising virtue of truth to false 
 worship and to arbitrary power, reason asserted its 
 supremacy, and the party of superstition was driven 
 from the field. Then mooned Ashtaroth was eclipsed, 
 and Osiris was seen no more in Memphian grove ; then 
 might have been heard the crash of the fauing temples 
 of Polytheism ; and, instead of them, came that har 
 mony which holds Heaven and Earth in happiest union. 
 
 Amid the deep sorrows of humanity during the sad 
 conflict which was protracted through centuries for the 
 overthrow of the past and the reconstruction of society, 
 the consciousness of an incarnate God carried peace 
 
504 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 into the bosom of mankind. That faith emancipated 
 the slave, broke the bondage of woman, redeemed the 
 captive, elevated the low, lifted up the oppressed, con 
 soled the wretched, inspired alike the heroes of thought 
 and the countless masses. The down-trodden nations 
 clung to it as to the certainty of their future emanci 
 pation ; and it so filled the heart of the greatest poet 
 of the Middle Ages perhaps the greatest poet of all 
 time that he had no prayer so earnest as to behold in 
 the profound and clear substance of the eternal light, 
 that circling of reflected glory which showed the image 
 of man. 
 
 From the time that this truth of the triune God 
 was clearly announced, he was no longer dimly con 
 ceived as a remote and shadowy causality, but appeared 
 as all that is good and beautiful and true ; as goodness 
 itself, incarnate and interceding, redeeming and in 
 spiring ; the union of liberty, love, and light ; the in 
 finite cause, the infinite mediator, the infinite in and 
 with the universe, as the paraclete and comforter. The 
 doctrine once communicated to man, was not to be 
 eradicated. It spread as widely, as swiftly, and as 
 silently as light, and the idea of GOD WITH us dwelt 
 and dwells in every system of thought that can pretend 
 to vitality ; in every oppressed people, whose struggles 
 to be free have the promise of success ; in every soul 
 that sighs for redemption. 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 505 
 
 This brings me to the last division of my subject. 
 That God has dwelt and dwells with humanity is not 
 only the noblest illustration of its nature, but the per 
 fect guarantee for its progress. We are entering on a 
 new era in the history of the race, and though we can 
 not cast its horoscope, we at least may in some meas 
 ure discern the course of its motion. 
 
 Here we are met at the very threshold of our argu 
 ment by an afterbirth of the materialism of the last 
 century. A system which professes to re-construct 
 society on the simple observation of the laws of the 
 visible universe, and which is presented with arrogant 
 pretension under the name of the "Positive Philos 
 ophy," scoffs at all questions of metaphysics and reli 
 gious faith as insoluble and unworthy of human atten 
 tion ; and affects to raise the banner of an affirming 
 belief in the very moment that it describes its main 
 characteristic as a refusal to recognise the infinite. 
 How those who own no source of knowledge but 
 the senses, can escape its humiliating yoke, I leave them 
 to discover. But it is as little entitled fo be feared as 
 to be received. When it has put together all that it 
 can collect of the laws of the material universe, it can 
 advance no further toward the explanation of existence, 
 morals, or reason. 
 
 Philosophy which leaned on Heaven before, 
 Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. 
 They who listen to the instructions of inward expe- 
 
506 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 rience, may smile at the air of wisdom with which a 
 scheme that has no basis in the soul is presented to the 
 world as a new universal creed, the Catholic Church 
 of the materialist. Its handful of acolytes wonder why 
 they remain so few. But Atheism never holds sway 
 over human thought except as a usurper ; no child of 
 its own succeeding. Error is a convertible term with 
 decay. Falsehood and death are synonyms. False 
 hood can gain no permanent foothold in the immortal 
 soul ; for there can be no abiding or real faith, except 
 in that which is eternally and universally true. The 
 future will never produce a race of atheists, and their 
 casual appearance is but the evidence of some ill-under 
 stood truth; some mistaken direction of the human 
 mind; some perverse or imperfect view of creation. 
 The atheist denies the life of life, which is the source 
 of liberty. Proclaiming himself a mere finite thing 
 of to-day, he rejects all connection with the infinite. 
 Pretending to search for truth, he abjures the spirit of 
 truth. Were it possible that the world of mankind 
 could become* without God, that greatest death, the 
 death of the race would ensue. It is because man 
 cannot separate himself from his inward experience 
 and his yearning after the infinite, that he is capable 
 of progress ; that he can receive a religion whose his 
 tory is the triumph of right over evil, whose symbol is 
 the resurrection. 
 
 The reciprocal relation between God and humanity 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 507 
 
 constitutes the UNITY of the race. The more complete 
 recognition of that unity is the first great promise 
 which we receive from the future. Nations have, 
 indeed, had their separate creeds and institutions and 
 homes. The commonwealth of mankind, as a great 
 whole, was not to be constructed in one generation. 
 But the different peoples are to be considered as its 
 component parts, prepared, like so many springs and 
 wheels, one day to be put together. 
 
 Every thing tends to that consummation. Geo 
 graphical research has penetrated nearly every part 
 of the world, revealed the paths of the ocean, and 
 chronicled even the varying courses of the winds ; 
 while commerce circles the globe. At our Antipodes, 
 a new continent, lately tenanted only by the wildest of 
 men and the strangest products of nature, the kangaroo 
 and the quadruped with the bill of a bird, becomes an 
 outpost of civilization, one day to do service in regen 
 erating the world. 
 
 In this great work our country holds the noblest 
 rank. Rome subdued the regions round the Mediter 
 ranean and the Euxine, both inland seas ; the German 
 Empire spread from the German Ocean to the Adriatic. 
 Our land extends far into the wilderness, and beyond 
 the wilderness ; and while on this side the great moun 
 tains it gives the Western nations of Europe a theatre 
 for the renewal of their youth, on the transmontane 
 side, the hoary civilisation of the farthest antiquity 
 
508 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 leans forward from Asia to receive the glad tidings 
 of the messenger of freedom. The islands of the 
 Pacific entreat our protection, and at our suit the 
 Empire of Japan breaks down its wall of exclusion. 
 
 Our land is not more the recipient of the men of 
 all countries than of their ideas. Annihilate the past 
 of any one leading nation of the world, and our destiny 
 would have been changed. Italy and Spain, in the per 
 sons of COLUMBUS and ISABELLA, joined together for 
 the great discovery that opened America to emigration 
 and commerce ; Prance contributed to its independence ; 
 the search for the origin of the language we speak car 
 ries us to India ; our religion is from Palestine ; of the 
 hymns sung in our churches, some were first heard in 
 Italy, some in the deserts of Arabia, some on the banks 
 of the Euphrates ; our arts come from Greece ; our 
 jurisprudence from Rome ; our maritime code from 
 Russia; England taught us the system of Represen 
 tative Government ; the noble Republic of the United 
 Provinces bequeathed to us, in the world of thought, 
 the great idea of the toleration of all opinions ; in the 
 world of action, the prolific principle of federal union. 
 Our country stands, therefore, more than any other, as 
 the realisation of the unity of the race. 
 
 There is one institution so wide in its influence and 
 its connections, that it may already be said to repre 
 sent the intelligence of universal man. I have reserved 
 to this place a reference to the power, which has 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 509 
 
 obtained its majestic development within the last fifty 
 years, till it now forms the controlling agency in reno 
 vating civilisation ; surpassing in the extent and effect 
 iveness of its teachings the lessons of the Academy and 
 of the pulpit. The invisible force of the magnetic ether 
 does not more certainly extend throughout the air and 
 the earth, than the press gives an impulse to the wave 
 of thought, so that it vibrates round the globe. The 
 diversity of nationalities and of governments continues ; 
 the press illustrates the unity of our intellectual world, 
 and constitutes itself the organ of collective humanity. 
 
 By the side of the press, the system of free schools, 
 though still very imperfectly developed, has made such 
 progress since it first dawned in Geneva and in parishes 
 of Scotland, that we claim it of the future as a univer 
 sal institution. 
 
 The moment we enter upon an enlarged consider 
 ation of existence, we may as well believe in beings 
 that are higher than ourselves, as in those that are 
 lower ; nor is it absurd to inquire whether there is a 
 plurality of worlds. Induction warrants the opinion, 
 that the planets and the stars are tenanted, or are to be 
 tenanted, by inhabitants endowed with reason ; for 
 though man is but a new comer upon earth, the lower 
 animals had appeared through unnumbered ages, like 
 a long twilight before the day. Some indeed tremu 
 lously inquire, how it may be in those distant spheres 
 with regai d to redemption ? But the scruple is un- 
 
510 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 called for. Since the Mediator is from the beginning, 
 he exists for all intelligent creatures not less than for 
 all time. It is very narrow and contradictory to con 
 fine his office to the planet on which we dwell. In 
 other worlds the facts of history may be, or rather, by 
 all the laws of induction, will be different ; but the 
 essential relations of the finite to the infinite are, and 
 must be invariable. It is not more certain that the 
 power of gravity extends through the visible universe, 
 than that throughout all time and all space, there is 
 but one mediation between God and created reason. 
 
 But leaving aside the question, how far rational life 
 extends, it is certain that on earth the capacity of 
 coming into connection with the infinite is the distin 
 guishing mark of our kind, and proves it to be one. 
 Here, too, is our solace for the indisputable fact, that 
 humanity in its upward course passes through the 
 shadows of death, and over the relics of decay. Its 
 march is strown with the ruins of formative efforts, 
 that were never crowned with success. How often 
 does the just man suffer, and sometimes suffer most for 
 his brightest virtues ! How often do noblest sacrifices 
 to regenerate a nation seem to have been offered in 
 vain ! How often is the champion of liberty struck 
 down in the battle, and the symbol which he uplifted, 
 trampled underfoot ! But what is the life of an indi 
 vidual to that of his country ? of a state, or a nation, 
 at a given moment, to that of the race ? The just man 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 511 
 
 would cease to be just, if he were not willing to perish 
 for his kind. The scoria that fly from the iron at the 
 stroke of the artisan, show how busily he plies his task ; 
 the clay which is rejected from the potter s wheel, 
 proves the progress of his work ; the chips of marble 
 that are thrown off by the chisel of the sculptor, leave 
 the miracle of beauty to grow under his hand. No 
 thing is lost. I leave to others the questioning of 
 Infinite power, why the parts are distributed as they 
 are, and not otherwise. Humanity moves on, attended 
 by its glorious company of martyrs. It is our conso 
 lation, that their sorrows and persecution and death 
 are encountered in the common cause, and not in vain. 
 
 The world is just beginning to take to heart this 
 principle of the unity of the race, and to discover how 
 fully and how beneficently it is fraught with inter 
 national, political, and social revolutions. Without 
 attempting to unfold what the greater wisdom of 
 coming generations can alone adequately conceive and 
 practically apply, we may observe, that the human 
 mind tends not only toward unity, but UNIVERSALITY. 
 
 Infinite truth is never received without some ad 
 mixture of error, and in the struggle which necessarily 
 ensues between the two, the error constantly undergoes 
 the process of elimination. Investigations are con 
 tinued without a pause. The explanatory hypothesis, 
 perpetually renewed, receives perpetual correction. 
 Fresh observations detect the fallacies in the former 
 
512 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 hypothesis; again, mind, acting a priori, revises its 
 theory, of which it repeats and multiplies the tests. 
 Thus it proceeds from observation to hypothesis, and 
 from hypothesis to observation, progressively gaining 
 clearer perceptions, and more perfectly mastering its 
 stores of accumulated knowledge by generalisations 
 which approximate nearer and nearer to absolute truth. 
 
 With each successive year, a larger number of 
 minds in each separate nationality inquires into man s 
 end and nature ; and as truth and the laws of God are 
 unchangeable, the more that engage in their study, the 
 greater will be the harvest. Nor is this all ; the 
 nations are drawn to each other as members of one 
 family; and their mutual acquisitions become a com 
 mon property. 
 
 In this manner, truth, as discerned by the mind of 
 man, is constantly recovering its primal lustre, and is 
 steadily making its way toward general acceptance. 
 Not that greater men will appear. Who can ever 
 embody the high creative imagination of the poet more 
 perfectly than HOMER, or DANTE, or SHAKESPEARE? 
 Who can discern " the ideas " of existences more 
 clearly than PLATO, or be furnished with all the 
 instruments of thought and scientific attainment more 
 completely than ARISTOTLE ? To what future artist 
 will beauty be more intimately present, than to PHIDIAS 
 or RAPHAEL ? In universality of mind, who will sur 
 pass BACON, or LEIBNITZ, or KANT ? Indeed, the 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 513 
 
 world may never again see their peers. There are not 
 wanting those who believe, that the more intelligence is 
 diffused, the less will the intelligent be distinguished 
 from one another ; that the colossal greatness of indi 
 viduals implies a general inferiority ; just as the solitary 
 tree on the plain alone reaches the fullest development ; 
 or as the rock that stands by itself in the wilderness, 
 seems to cast the widest and most grateful shade ; in a 
 word, that the day of mediocrity attends the day of 
 general culture. But if wiser men do not arise, there 
 will certainly be more wisdom. The collective man 
 of the future will see further, and see more clearly, 
 than the collective man of to-day, and he will share his 
 superior power of vision and his attainments with every 
 one of his time. Thus it has come to pass, that the 
 child now at school could instruct COLUMBUS respecting 
 the figure of the earth, or NEWTON respecting light, or 
 FRANKLIN on electricity ; that the husbandman or the 
 mechanic of a Christian congregation solves questions 
 respecting God and man and man s destiny, which 
 perplexed the most gifted philosophers of ancient 
 Greece. 
 
 Finally, as a consequence of the tendency of the 
 race towards unity and universality, the organization 
 of society must more and more conform to the princi 
 ple of FREEDOM. This will be the last triumph ; partly 
 because the science of government enters into the 
 sphere of personal interests, and meets resistance from 
 33 
 
514 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 private selfishness ; and partly because society, before 
 it can be constituted aright, must turn its eye upon 
 itself, observe the laws^of its own existence, and arrive 
 at the consciousness of its capacities and relations. 
 
 The system of political economy may solve the 
 question of the commercial intercourse of nations, by 
 demonstrating that they all are naturally fellow-workers 
 and friends ; but its abandonment of labor to the un 
 mitigated effects of personal competition can never be 
 accepted as the rule for the dealings of man with man. 
 The love for others and for the race is as much a part 
 of human nature as the love of self 5 it is a common in 
 stinct that man is responsible for man. The heart has 
 its oracles, not less than the reason, and this is one of 
 them. No practicable system of social equality has 
 been brought forward, or it should, and it would have 
 been adopted; it does not follow that none can be 
 devised, for there is no necessary opposition between 
 handcraft and intelligence ; and the masses themselves 
 will gain the knowledge of their rights, courage to 
 assert them, and self-respect to take nothing less. The 
 good time is coming, when humanity will recognise all 
 members of its family as alike entitled to its care ; 
 when the heartless jargon of over-production in the 
 midst of want will end .in a better science of distri 
 bution; when man will dwell with man as with his 
 brother ; when political institutions will rest on the 
 basis of equality and freedom. 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 515 
 
 But this result must flow from internal activity, 
 developed by universal culture ; it cannot be created by 
 the force of exterior philanthropy ; and still less by the 
 reckless violence of men whose desperate audacity 
 would employ terror as a means to ride on the whirl 
 wind of civil war. Where a permanent reform appears 
 to have been instantaneously effected, it will be found 
 that the happy result was but the sudden plucking of 
 fruit which had slowly ripened. Successful revolutions 
 proceed like all other formative processes from inward 
 germs. The institutions of a people are always the 
 reflection of its heart and its intelligence ; and in pro 
 portion as these are purified and enlightened, must its 
 public life manifest the dominion of universal reason. 
 
 The subtle and irresistible movement of mind, 
 silently but thoroughly correcting opinion and chang 
 ing society, brings liberty both to the soul and to the 
 world. All the despotisms on earth cannot stay its 
 coming. Every fallacy that man discards is an eman 
 cipation ; every superstition that is thrown by, is a re 
 deeming from captivity. The tendency towards uni 
 versality implies necessarily a tendency towards free 
 dom, alike of thought and in action. The faith of the 
 earliest ages was of all others the grossest. Every 
 century of the Christian Church is less corrupt and less 
 in bondage than its predecessor. The sum of spiritual 
 knowledge as well as of liberty is greater, and less 
 mixed with error now, than ever before. The future 
 
516 OCCASIONAL ADDEESSES. 
 
 sliall surpass the present. The senseless strife between 
 rationalism and supernaturalism will come to an end ; 
 an age of skepticism will not again be called an age of 
 reason ; and reason and religion will be found in 
 accord. 
 
 In the sphere of politics the Republican Govern 
 ment has long been the aspiration of the wise. " The 
 human race," said DANTE, summing up the experience 
 of the Middle Age, " is in the best condition, when it 
 has the greatest degree of liberty; " and KANT, in like 
 manner, giving utterance to the last word of Protes 
 tantism, declared the republican government to be " the 
 only true civil constitution." Its permanent establish 
 ment presupposes meliorating experience and appro 
 priate culture ; but the circumstances under which it 
 becomes possible, prevail more and more. Our coun 
 try is bound to allure the world to freedom by the 
 beauty of its example. 
 
 The course of civilization flows on like a mightv 
 
 o </ 
 
 river through a boundless valley, calling to the streams 
 from every side to swell its current, which is always, 
 growing wider, and deeper, and clearer, as it rolls 
 along. Let us trust ourselves upon its bosom without 
 fear ; nay, rather with confidence and joy. Since the 
 progress of the race appears to be the great purpose 
 of Providence, it becomes us all to venerate the future. 
 We must be ready to sacrifice ourselves for our suc 
 cessors, as they in their turn must live for their posterity. 
 
THE PROGRESS OF MANKIND. 517 
 
 We are not to be disheartened, that the intimate con 
 nection of humanity renders it impossible for any one 
 portion of the civilised world to be much in advance of 
 all the rest ; nor are we to grieve because an unalter 
 able condition of perfection can never be attained. 
 Every thing is in movement, and for the better, except 
 only the fixed eternal law by which the necessity of 
 change is established ; or rather except only God, who 
 includes in himself all being, all truth, and all love. 
 The subject of man s thoughts remains the same, but 
 the sum of his acquisitions ever grows with time ; so 
 that his last system of philosophy is the best, for it in 
 cludes every one that went before. The last political 
 state of the world, likewise, is ever more excellent than 
 the old, for it presents in activity the entire inheritance 
 of truth, fructified by the living mind of a more en 
 lightened generation. 
 
 You, BROTHERS, who are joined together for the 
 study of history, receive the lighted torch of civilisation 
 from the departing half-century, and hand it along to 
 the next. In fulfilling this glorious office, remember 
 that the principles of justice and sound philosophy are 
 but the inspirations of common sense, and belong of 
 right to all mankind. Carry them forth, therefore, to 
 the whole people ; for so only can society build itself up 
 on the imperishable groundwork of universal freedom. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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