^z- ^'^ /->' Sf-c. Sf-c. Sf-c. By S. T. COLERIDGE, Esq. THE FRIEND: 3 ^ A SERIES OF ESSAYS, IN THREE VOLUMES, TO AID IN THE FORMATION OP FIXED PRINCIPLES IN POLITICS, MORALS, AND RELIGION, WITH LITERARY AMUSEMENTS INTERSPERSED. By S. T. COLERIDGE, Esq. A NEW EDITION. Accipe principium rursus, formamque coactain Desere: mutatS, melior precede figura. CLAUDIAN. VOL. I. LONDON : PRINTED FOR REST FENNER. PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1818. 2wyuart BrjTlvarae cVt ra^tf, a^' ijg eijpvtrBrjQ, Av'^jc ayaHjaeig, lipa AOFft ipyov Ivuxtuq. ZftPOATTPOY Aoy/a. n ^ LIBRARY ? ^ UNIVERSTTY OF r M.TFORNIA 4^3(3 SANTA BARBARA n ^' ^ ADVERTISEMENT. ^.l The Friend was originally printed on stamped paper, and circulated exclusively, by the gene- ral post, among the scanty number of sub- scribers : with what advantage to himself the Author has already related in bis Literary Life. Subscriptions still out-standing may be sent to the Author by the post, if there should be no means of conveying the sum without that draw- back ; or left for him at Messrs. Boosey and Sons, Booksellers, Broad-street. The present volumes are rather a rifacciameiiio than a new edition. The additions forming so large a pro- portion of the whole work, and the arrange- ment being altogether new, I might indeed hesitate in bestowing the title of a republica- tion on a work, which can scarcely be said to have been ever published, in the ordinary trade acceptation of the word. S. T. Coleridge. Highgate. Vol. L b ipRiENp! were an Author privileged to name his own judge — in addition to moral and intellectual competence I should look round for some man, whose knowledge and opinions had for the greater part been acquired experimentally : and the prac- tical habits of whose life had put him on his guard with respect to all speculative reasoning, without rendering him insen- sible to the desirableness of principles more secure than the shifting rules and theories generalized from observations merely empirical, or unconscious in how many departments of knowledge, and with how large a portion even of professional b 2 Vlll men, such principles are still a desidera- tum. I would select too one who felt kindly, nay, even partially, toward me ; but one whose partiality had its strongest found- ations in hope, and more prospective than retrospective would make him qivick- sighted in the detection, and unreserved in the exposure of the deficiencies and defects of each present work, in the an- ticipation of a more developed future. In you, honored Friend! I have found all these requisites combined and realized : and the improvement, which these Essays have derived from your judgment and judicious suggestions, would, of itself, have justified me in accompanying them with a public acknowledgment of the the same. But knowing, as you cannot IX but know, that I owe in great measure the power of having written at all to your medical skill, and to the characteristic good sense which directed its exertion in my behalf ; and whatever I may have written in happier vein to the influence of your society and to the daily proofs . of your disinterested attachment — know- ing too, in how entire a sympathy with your feelings in this respect the partner of your name has blended the affectionate regards of a sister or daughter with almost a mother's watchful and unwearied soli- citudes alike for my health, interest, and tranquilhty; — you will not, I trust, be pained, you ought not, I am sure, to be surprised that MR. AND xMRS. GILLMAN, OF HICHGATE, THESE VOLUMES ARE DEDICATED, IN TESTIMONY OF HIGH RESPECT AND GRATEFUL AFFECTION, BY THEIR FRIEND, S. T. COLERIDGE. October- 7, 1018. HiMhsate. ERRATA. VOL. I. Page 31 line 11. a period after olim. — — 12. iorftator, r. fateor. 13. after literaritm, insert prudentia. 65 — 2. omit sucvTa. 80 — ■ 9. {or fars, r. fans. 139 — 18. for f/iem,,r. tliis. 189 — 16. after world, insert " may opine." VOL. IL Page 306 line 7. for and, repeat " the means" with a comma after " language" 315 — 7. for navis, r. " naris." 332 — 9. for set, r. " sate." VOL. III. Page 2 line 2. for re, r. " ac." 77 — 17. Begin the second paragraph with the fol- lowing sentences. But such sentiments, it will be said, are the flifjhts of Spe- culative Minds. Be it so ! Yet to soar is nobler than to creep. We attach, likewise, some value to a thing on the mere score of its rarity ; and Speculative Minds, alas ! have been rare, &c. Page 90, line 14, r. Ideas are here out of the question. I had almost said, that Ideas and a Parisian Philosopher are incompatible terms, since the latter half, I mean, of the reign of Lewis XIV. But even the Conceptions of a Frenchman, whatever he admits to be conceivable, must, fee. Page 168, liae 6. Here a new Essay (VI.) should have begun, with the motto : — 'ATTavrajy ^>it5vt6J Xiyov (faiQiy, avaijas-i Xoyor. Seeking the reason of all things from without, they preclude reason. — Theoph. in Mel. Thii Essays following to be counted accordingly, viz. VII, VIIL&c. THE FRIEND. ESSAY 1. Crede mihi. non est parca: fiducia. polliceri opem decertantibus, consilium dubiis, lumen cacis, spent dejectis, rcfrigerium fessis. Magna quidem ha c sunt si fiant ; parva, si promittuntur. ferum ego non tarn aliis legem ponanu quam legem robis meet proprice mentis ejcponum: quam qui probaverit, teneat ; cui non placuerit, abjiciat. Opturem, fateor^ talis esse, qui prodesse possem quam plurimis. Tetrarch: "De Vita Solilaria.'" Antecedent to all History, and long glimmering through it as a holy Tradition, there presents itself to our imagination an inde- finite period, dateless as Eternity, a State rather Vol. I. B than a Time. For even the sense of succession is lost in the uniformity of the stream. It was toward the close of this golden age (the memory of which the self-dissatisfied Race of Men have everywhere preserved and che- rished) when Conscience acted in Man with the ease and uniformity of Instinct; when Labor was a sweet name for the activity of sane Minds in healthful Bodies, and all en- joyed in common the bounteous harvest pro- duced, and gathered in, by common effort ; when there existed in the Sexes, and in the Individuals of each Sex, just variety enough to permit and call forth the gentle restlessness and final union of chaste love and individual attachment, each seeking and finding the be- loved one by the natural affinity of their Beings ; when the dread Sovereign of the Universe was known only as the universal Parent, no Altar but the pure Heart, and Thanksgiving and grateful Love tiie sole Sacrifice— In this blest age of dignified Innocence one of their honored Elders, whose absence tliey were beginning to notice, entered wjth hurrying steps the place of tlieir common as- 3 semblage at noon, and instantly attracted the general attention and wonder by the pertur- bation of his gestures, and by a strange trouble both in his eyes and over his whole coun- tenance. After a short but deep silence, whea the first buz of varied inquiry was becoming audible, the old man moved toward a small eminence, and having ascended it, he thus addressed the hushed and listening company. " In the warmth of the approaching mid-day as I was reposing in the vast cavern, out of which, from its northern portal, issues the river that winds through our vale, a voice powerful, yet not from its loudness, suddenly hailed rae. Guided by my ear I looked toward the sup- posed place of the sound for some Form, from which it had proceeded. I beheld nothing but the glimmering walls of the cavern. Again, as I was turning round, the same voice hailed me: and whithersoever I turned my face, thence did the voice seem to proceed. I stood still therefore, and in reverence awaited its continu- ation. ' Sojourner of Earth ! (these were its words) hasten to the meeting of thy Brethren, and the words which thou now hearest, the b2 4 same do thou repeat unto them. On the thirtieth morn from the morrow's sun-rising, and during the space of thrice three days and thrice three nights, a thick cloud will cover the sky, and a heavy rain fall on the earth. Go ye therefore, ere the thirtieth sun ariseth, retreat to the cavern of the river and there abide, till the clouds have passed away and the rain be over and gone. For know ye of a certainty that whomever that rain wetteth, on him, yea, on him and on his children's children will fall — the spirit of Madness.' Yes ! Madness was the word of the voice: what this be, I know not! But at the sound of the word trembling came upon me, and a feeling which I would not have had ; and I remained even as ye beheld and now behold me." The old man ended, and retired. Confused murmurs succeeded, and wonder, and doubt. Day followed day, and every day brought with it a diminution of the awe impressed. They could attach no image, no remembered sensations to the threat. The ominous morn arrived, the Prophet had retired to the ap- pointed cavern, and there remained alone dur- ing the appointed time. On the tenth morn- ing, he emerged from his place of shelter, and sought his friends and bretiiren. But alas! how affrightful the change ! Instead of the common children of one great family, working towards the same aim by reason, even as the bees in their hives by instinct, he looked and beheld, here a miserable wretch watching over a heap of hard and unnutritious small sub- stances, which he had dug out of the earth, at the cost of mangled limbs and exhausted facul- ties. This he appeared to worship, at this he gazed, even as the youths of the vale had been accustomed to gaze at their chosen virgins in the first season of their choice. There he saw a former companion speeding on and panting after a butterfly, or a withered leaf whirling onward in the breeze ; and another with pale and dis- torted countenance following close behind, and still stretching forth a dagger to stab his precur- sor in the back. In another place he observed a whole troop of his fellow-men famished and in fetters, yet led by one of their brethren who had enslaved them, and pressing furiously on- wards in the hope of famishing and enslaving another troop moving in an opposite direction. For the first time, the Prophet missed his ac- customed power of distinguishing between his dreams and his waking perceptions. He stood gazing and motionless, when several of the race gathered around him, and enquired of^ each other, Who is this man ? how strangely he looks! how wild! — a worthless idler! ex- claims one : assuredly, a very dangerous mad- man ! cries a second. In short, from words they proceeded to violence : till harrassed, en- dangered, solitary in a world of forms like his own, without sympathy, without object of love, he at length espied in some foss or furrow a quantity of the maddening water still un- evaporated, and uttering the last words of reason, It is in vain to be sane in a world OF madmen, plunged and rolled himself in the liquid poison, and came out as mad and not more wretched than his neighbours and acquaintance. The plan of The Friend is comprized in the motto to this Essay.* This tale or allegory • (Translation.) — Believe me, it requires no little con- fidence, to promise Help to the Struggling, Counsel to the Sf^ms to me to contain the objections to its practicability in all their strength. Either says the Sceptic, you are the Blind offering to lead the Blind, or you are talking the language of Sight to those who do not possess the sense of Seeing. If you mean to be read, try to entertain and do not pretend to instruct. To such objections it would be amply suffi- cient, on my system of faith, to answer, that we are not all blind, but all subject to dis- tempers of " the mental sight," differing in kind and in degree ; that though all men are in error, they are not all in the same error, nor at the same time ; and that each therefore may possibly heal the other, even as two or more Doubtful, Light to the Blind, Hope to the Despondent, Re- frejihment to the Weary. These are indeed great things, if they be accomplished ; trifles if they exist but in a pre- mise. I however aim not so much to prescribe a Law for others, as to set forth the Law of my own Mind; which let the man, who shall have approved of it, abide by; and let him, to whom it shall appear not reasonable, re- ject it. It is my earnest wish, I confess, to employ my understanding and acquirements in that mode and dii-ec- tiou, in which I may be enabled to benefit the largest number possible of my fellow-creatures. 8 physicians, all diseased in their general health yet under the immediate action of the disease on diiferent days, may remove or alleviate the com- plaints of each other. But in respect to the enter- tainingness of moral writings, if in entertain- ment be included whatever delights the imagi- nation or affects the generous passions, so far from rejecting such a mean of persuading the human soul, my very system compels me to defend not only the propriety but the absolute necessity of adopting it, if we really intend to render our fellow-creatures better or wiser. But it is with dullness as with obscurity. It may be positive, and the author's- fault; but it may likewise be relative, and if the author has presented his bill of fare at the portal, the reader has himself only to blame. The main question then is, of what class are the persons to be entertained ? — " One of the later schools of the Grecians (says Lord Bacon) is at a stand to think what should be in it that men should love lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets ; nor for advantage, as with the merchant ; but for the lie's sake. I cannot tell why, this same truth is a naked and open day-light, that doth not shew the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the present world half so stately and daintily, as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that sheweth best by day ; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, which sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of lies doth ev^er add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken from mens' minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like vinum Daemonum (as a Father calleth poetry) but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?" A melancholy, a too general, but not, I trust, a universal truth I — and even where it does apply, yet hi many instances not irremediable. Such at least must have been my persuasion : or the present volumes must have been wittingly written to no purpose. If I believed our nature fettered to all this wretchedness of head and ID heart by an absolute and innate necessity, at least by a necessity which no human power, no efforts of reason or eloquence could remove or lessen ; I should deem it even presumptuous to aim at other or higher object than that of ainusing a small portion of the reading public. And why not? whispers worldly prudence. To amuse though only to amuse our visitors is wisdom as well as good-nature, where it is presumption to attempt their amendment. And truly it would be most convenient to me in respects of no trifling importance, if I could persuade myself to take the advice. Relaxed by these principles from all moral obligation, and ambitious of procuring pastime and self- oblivion for a race, which could have nothing noble to remember, nothing desirable to anti- cipate, I might aspire even to the praise of the critics and diletanti of the higher circles of society ; of some trusty guide of blind fashion ; some pleasant Analyst of Taste, as it exists both in the palate and the soul ; some living guage and mete-wand of past and present genius. But alas! my former studies would aiill have left a wrong bias ! If instead of 11 perplexing my common sense with the flights of Plato, and of stiffening over the meditations of the Imperial Stoic, I had been labouring to imbibe the gay spirit of a Casti, or had employed my erudition, for the benefit of the favoured few, in elucidating the interesting deformities of ancient Greece and India, what might I not have hoped from the suffrage of those, who turn in weariness from the Paradise Lost, because compared with the prurient heroes and grotesque monsters of Italian Romance, or even with the narrative dialogues of the melodious Metastasio, that — " Adven- turous Song, " Which justifies the ways of God to Man" has been found a poor substitute for a Grimaldi, a most inapt medicine for an occasional pro- pensity to yawn? For, as hath been decided, to fill up pleasantly the brief intervals of fashionable pleasures, and above all to charm away the dusky Gnome of Ennui, is the chief and appropriate business of the Poet and — the Novellist ! This duty unfulfilled, 12 Apollo will have lavished his best gifts ia vain ; and Urania henceforth must be content to inspire Astronomers alone, and leav€ the Sons of Verse to more amusive Patronesses. And yet — and yet— but it will be time to be serioas, when my visitors have sat down. ESSAY II. Sic oportet ad librum,presertiin miscellanei generis., legendum accedere leetorem, ut solet ad convivium conciva civilis. Convivator annititur omnibus satis- faeere : et tamen si quid apponitur, quod hujus aut illius prJato non respondeat^ et hie et ilia urbane dissimulunt^ et alia fercula probant, ne quid con^ tristent comicatorem. Quis enim cum eonv icam ferat., qui iuntum hoc nnimo veniat ad mensam^ ut carpens quae apponuntur nee vescutur ipse, nee alios reset sinat ? et tamen his quoque reperias inciviliores, qui palam, qui sine fine dumnent ac laeerent opus, quod nunquam legerint. Ast hoc plusquum sycophant iciiin est damnare quod nescias. ERASMUS. The musician may tune his instrument in private, ere his audience have yet assembled : the architect conceals the foundation of his building beneath the superstructure. But an author's harp must be tuned in the hearing of those, who are to understand its after harmonies ; 14 the foundation stones of his edifice must lie open to common view, or his friends will hesitate to trust themselves beneath the roof. From periodical Literature the general Reader deems himself entitled to expect amusement, and some degree of information, and if the Writer can convey any instruction at the same time and without demanding any additional thought (as the Irishman, in the hackneyed jest, is said to have passed off a light guinea between two good halfpence) this supererogatory merit will not perhaps be taken amiss. Now amuse- ment in and for itself may be afforded by the gratification either of the curiosity or of the passions. I use the former word as distin- guished from the love of knowledge, and the latter in distinction from those emotions which arise in well-ordered minds, from the percep- tion of truth or falsehood, virtue or vice : — ' emotions, which are always preceded by though tj and linked with improvement. Again, all in- formation pursued without any wish of becom- ing wiser or better thereby, I class among the gratifications of mere curiosity, whether it be sought for in a light Novel or a grave History. 15 We may therefore omit the word Information, as included either in Amusement or Instruction. The present Work is an experiment; not whether a Writer may honestly overlook the one, or successfully omit the other, of the two elements themselves, which serious Readers at least persuade themselves, they pursue; but whether a change might not be hazarded of the usual order, in which periodical writers have in general attempted to convey them. Having myself experienced that no delight either in kind or degree, was equal to that which accom- panies the distinct perception of a fundamental truth, relative to our moral being; having, long after the completion of what is ordinarily called a learned education, discovered a new world of intellectual profit opening on me — not from any new opinions, but lying, as it were, at the roots of those which I had been taught in childhood in my Catechism and Spelling-book; there arose a soothing hope in my mind that a lesser Public might be found, composed of persons susceptible of the same delight, and desirous of attaining it by the same process. I heard a whisper too from within, (I trust that it proceeded from Conscience not Vanity). 16 that a duty was performed in the endeavour to render it as much easier to them, than it had been to me, as could be effected by the united efforts of my understanding and imagination.* * In eonforniily with tbis anxious wish I shall make no apology for subjoining a Translation of n)y ilotto to this Essay. (Translation.) A reader should sit down to a book, especially of the miscellaneous kind, as a well-behaved visitor does to a banquet. The master of the feast exerts himself to satisfy all his guests; but if after all his care and pains there should still be something or other put on the table thatdoes not suit this or that person's taste, they politely pass it over without noticing the circumstance, and commend other dishes, that they may not distress their kind host, or throw any damp on his spirits. For who could tolerate a guest that accepted an invitation to your table with no other purpose but that of finding fault with every thing put before him, neither eating himself, or suffering others to eat in comfort. And yet you may fall in with a still worse set than even these, with churls that in all companies and without stop or stay, will con- demn and pull to pieces a work which they had never read. But this sinks below the baseness of an Informer, yea, though he were a false witness to boot ! The man, who abuses a thing of which he is utterly ignorant, unites the infamy of both — and in addition to this, makes himself the jiander and sycophant of bis own and other men's envy and malignity. 17 Actuated by this impulse, the Writer wishes, in the following Essays, to convey not in- struction merely, but fundamental instruction ; not so much to shew my Reader this or that fact, as to kindle his own torch for him, and leave it to himself to chuse the particular ob- jects, which he might wish to examine by its light. The Friend does not indeed exclude from his plan occasional interludes; and vaca- tions of innocent entertainment and promiscu- ous information, but still in the main he pro- poses to himself the communication of such delight as rewards the march of Truth, rather than to collect the flowers which diversify its track, in order to present them apart from the homely yet foodful or medicinable herbs, among which they had grown. To refer men's opi- nions to their absolute principles, and thence their feelings to the appropriate objects, and in their due degrees ; and finally, to apply the principles thus as^certaiued, to the formation of stedfast convictions concerning the most im- portant questions of Politics, Morality, and Re- ligion — these are to be the objects and the contents of his work. Vol. I. c 18 Themes like these not even the genius of a Plato or a Bacon could render intelligible, without demanding from the Reader thought sometimes, and attention generally. By THOUGHT I here mean the voluntary production in our own minds of those states of conscious- ness, to which, as to his fundamental facts, the Writer has referred us : while attention has for its object the order and connection of Thoughts and Images, each of which is in itself already and familiarly known. Thus the ele- ments of Geometry require attention only; but the analysis of our primary faculties, and the investigation of all the absolute grounds of Re- ligion and Morals, are impossible without ener- gies of Thought in addition- to the effort of Attention. The Friend will not attempt to disguise from his Readers that both Attention and Thought are Efforts, and the latter a most difficult and laborious Effort ; nor from himself, that to require it often or for any continuance of time is incompatible with the nature of the present Publication, even were it less incongruous than it unfortunately is with the present habits and pursuits of Englishmen. 19 Accordingly I shall be on my guard to make the Numbers as few as possible, which would require from a well educated Reader any energy of thought and voluntary abstraction. But Attention, I confess, will be requisite throughout, except in the excursive and mis- cellaneous Essays that will be found interposed between each of the three main divisions of the Work. On whatever subject the mind feels a lively interest, attention though always an effort, becomes a delightful effort. I should be quite at ease, could I secure for the whole Work as much of it, as a card party of earnest whist-players often expend in a single evening, or a lady in the making-up of a fashionable dress. But where no interest pre- viously exists, attention (as every schoolmaster knows) can be procured only by terror : which is the true reason why the majority of mankind learn nothing systematically, except as school- boys or apprentices. Happy shall I be, from other motives besides those of self-interest, if no fault or deficiency on my part shall prevent the Work from fur- nishing a presumptive proof, that there are still c2 20 to be found among us a respectable number of Readers who are desirous to derive pleasure from the consciousness of being instructed or ameliorated : and who feel a sufficient interest as to the foundations of their own opinions in Literature, Politicks, Morals, and Religion, to afford that degree of attention, without which, however men may deceive themselves, no actual progress ever was or ever can be made in that knowledge, which supplies at once both strength and nourishment. ESSAY III. A'W w'c TrapiXajJoi' ti)i' ri^rrjv irapa avv, rv Trpwroi' fjey tv-^vg (yicovaay vtto KOfiirucr^u-wy, Kal p'jjyuarwv iTra^^uiy, Y(T\vaya fitr Trpoiricoy rivriiv, Kol to papoc ct^tTXoj', EVyXA/otc Kai -irepitruToiQ Kal revrXioicrt fiikpoic XuXov cicoiiQ QUfivXniiTwy, uirb ftiftXiwy, utt' I'j^uiy' AHISTOPH. RANiE. Imitation. • When I received the Muse from you, I found her puffed and pampered, With pompous sentences and terms, a cumb'rous huge virago. My fii'st attention was applied to make her look genteelly, And bring her to a moderate bulk by dint of lighter diet, I fed her with plain household phrase, and cool familiar sallad. With water-gruel episode, with sentimental jelly, With moral mince-meat: till at length I brought her within compass. Frere. • This Imitation is printed here by permission of the Author, from a Series of free Translations of selected In the preceding Number I named the pre- sent undertaking an Experiment. The expla- nation will be found in the following Letter, Avritten to a Correspondent during the first at- tempt, and before the plan was discontinued from an original error in the mode of circula- tion, as noticed in the Preface. To B. L. Dear Sir, When I first undertook the present Publi- cation for the sake and with the avowed object of referring men in all things to PRIN- CIPLES or fundamental truths, I was well aware of the obstacles which the plan itself would oppose to my success. For in order to the regular attainment of this object, all the driest and least attractive Essays must appear in the first fifteen or twenty Numbers, and thus Scenes from Aristophanes: a work, of which (should the Author be persuaded to make it public) it is my most deliberate judgment, and inmost conviction, that it will form an important epoch in English I^iterature, and open out sources of metrical and rhythmical wealth in the very heart of our language, of which few, if any, among us are aware. S. T. C. 23 subject me to the necessity of demanding effort or soliciting patience in that part of the Work, where it was most my interest to secure the confidence of ray readers by winning their favour. Though I dared warrant for the pleasantness of the journey on the whole ; though I might promise that the road would, for the far greater part of it, be found plain and easy, that it would pass through countries of various prospect, and that at every stage there would be a change of company ; it still remained a heavy disadvantage, that 1 had to start at the foot of a high and steep hill : and I foresaw, not without occasional feelings of despondency, that during the slow and laborious asceutit would require no common management to keep my passengers in good humour with the vehicle and its driver. As far as this in- convenience could be palliated by sincerity and previous confession, I have no reason to accuse myself of neglect. In the prospectus of The Friend, which for this cause I re- printed and annexed to the first Number, I felt it my duty to inform such as might be inchned to patronize the publication, that I 24 must submit to be esteemed dull by those who sought chiefly for amusement : and this I hazarded as a general confession, though in my own mind 1 felt a chearful confidence that it would apply almost exclusively to the earlier Numbers. I could not therefore be surprized, however much I may have been depressed, by the frequency with which you hear The Friend complained of for its abstruseness and obscurity ; nor did the highly flattering ex- pressions, with which you accompanied your communication, prevent me from feeling its truth to the whole extent. An author's pen, like children's legs, improves by exercise. That part of the blame which rests on myself, I am exerting my best faculties to remove. A man long accustomed to silent and solitary meditation, in proportion as he encreases the power of thinking in long and connected trains, is apt to lose or lessen the talent of communicating his thoughts with grace and perspicuity. Doubtless too, I have in some measure injured my style, in respect to its facility and popularity, from having almost confined my reading, of late years, tg 25 the works of the Ancients and those of the elder Writers in the modern languages. We insensibly imitate what we habitually admire ; and an aversion to the epigrdmmatic unr connected periods of the fashionable Anglo'- gallica?! taste has too often made me willing to forget, that the stately march and difficult evolutions, which characterize the eloquence of Hooker, Bacon, Milton, and Jeremy Taylor, are, notwithstanding their intrinsic excellence, still less suited to a periodical Essay. This fault I am now endeavouring to correct ; though I can never so far sacrifice my judge- ment to the desire of being immediately popular, as to cast my sentences in the French mou ds, or affect a style which an ancient critic would have deemed purposely invented for persons troubled with the asthma to read, and for those to comprehend who labour under the more pitiable asthma of a short-witted intellect. It cannot but be injurious to the human mind never to be called into effort: the habit of receiving pleasure without any exertion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity and sensibility, may be justly ranked among 26 the worst effects of habitual novel reading. It is true that these short and unconnected sentences are easily and instantly understood : but it is equally true, that wanting all the cement of thought as well as of style, all the connections, and (if you will forgive so trivial a metaphor) all the Jiooks-and-eyes of the memory, they are as easily forgotten : or rather, it is scarcely possible that they should be re- membered. — Nor is it less true, that those who confine their reading to such books dwarf their own faculties, and finally reduce their understandings to a deplorable imbecility : the fact you mention, and which 1 shall hereafter make use of, is a fair instance and a striking illustration. Like idle morning visitors, the brisk and breathless periods hurry in and hurry off in quick and profitless succession ; each indeed for the moments of its stay prevents the pain of vacancy, while it indulges the love of sloth ; but all together they leave the mistress of the house (the soul I mean) flat and exhausted, incapable of attending to her own concerns, and unfitted for the conversation of more rational guests. 27 I know you will not suspect me of fostering so idle a hope, as that of obtaining acquittal by recrimination ; or think that I am attacking one fault, in order that its opposite may escape notice in the noise and smoke of the battery. On the contrary, I shall do my best, and even make all allowable sacrifices, to render my manner more attractive and my matter more generally interesting. In the establishment of principles and fundamental doctrines, I must of necessity require the attention of my reader to become my fellow-labourer. The primary facts essential to the intelligibility of ray principles I can prove to others only as far as I can pre- vail on them to retire into themselces and make their own minds the objects of their stedfast attention. But, on the other hand, I feel too deeply the importance of the convictions, which first impelled me to the present undertaking, to leave unattempted any honourable means of recommending them to as wide a circle as possible. Hitherto, my dear Sir, I have been employed in laying the foundation of my Work. But the proper merit of a foundation is its mas- 28 siveness and solidity. The conveniences and ornaments, the gilding and stucco work, the sunshine and sunny prospects, will come with the superstructure. Yet I dare not flatter myself, that any endeavours of mine, compatible with the duty 1 owe to truth and the hope of per- manent utility, will render The Friend agreeable to the majority of what is called the reading public. I never expected it. How indeed could I, when I was to borrow so little from the influence of passing events, and when I had absolutely excluded from my plan all appeals to personal curiosity and personal interests? Yet even this is not my greatest impediment. !No real information can be conveyed, no important errors rectified, no widely injurious prejudices rooted up, without requiring some effort or thought on the part of the reader. But the obstinate (and toward a contemporary Writer, the contemptuous) aversion to all intel- lectual effort is the mother evil of all which I had pr<>p()sed to war against, the Queen Bee in the hive of our errors and misfortunes, both private and national. To solicit the attention of those, on whom these debilitating causes §9 have acted to their full extent, would be no less absurd than to recommend exercise with the dumb bells, as the only mode of cure, to a patient paralytic in both arms. You, my dear Sir, well know, that my expectations were more modest as well as more rational. I hoped, that my readers in general would be aware of the impracticability of suiting every Essay to every taste in any period of the work ; and that they would not attribute wholly to the author, but in part to the necessity of his plan, the austerity and absence of the lighter graces in the first fifteen or twenty numbers. In my cheerful moods I sometimes flattered myself, that a few even among those, who fore- saw that ray lucubrations would at all times require more attention than from the nature Tof their own employments they could afford them, might yet find a pleasure in supporting the Friend during its infancy, so as to give it a chance of attracting the notice of others, to whom its style and subjects might be better adapted. But my main anchor \%as the Hope, that when circumstances gradually enabled me to adopt the ordinary means of making 30 the publication generally known, there might be found throughout the Kingdom a sufficient number of meditative minds, who, entertaining similar convictions with myself, and gratified by the prospect of seeing them reduced to form and system, would take a warm interest in the work from the very circumstance, that it wanted those allurements of transitory interests, which render particular patronage superfluous, and for the brief season of their blow and fragrance attract the eye of thousands, who would pass unregarded Flowers, Of sober tint, and Herbs of medicinablc powers. S. T. C. In these three introductory Numbers, The Friend has endeavoured to realize his promise of giving an honest bill of fare, both as to the objects and the style of the Work. With re- ference to both I conclude with a prophecy of Simon Grynjious, from his premonition to the candid Reader, prefixed to Ficinus's translation of Plato, published at Leyden, 1557. How far it has been gradually fulfilled in this country 31 since the revolution in 1680, I leave to my- candid and intelligent Readers to determine. ' Ac dolet mihi quidem deliciis literarura in* escatos subito jam homines adeo esse, prsesertim qui Christianos esse profitentur, ut legere nisi quod ad presentem gustum facit, sustineant nihil: unde et disciplinae et philosophia ipsa jam fere prorsus etiam a doctis negliguntur. Quod quidem propositum studiorum nisi mature corrigetur, tam magnum rebus incommodum dabit, quam dedit barbaries olim, pertinax res barbaries est, feator ; sed minus potest tamen, quam ilia persuasa literarum, si RATIOne caret, sapientifB virtutisque specie misery lectores circumducens. Succedet igitur, ut arbitror, baud ita multo post, pro rusticana saeculi nostri ruditate capta- frix ilia blandi-Ioquentia, robur animi virili^ omne, omnera virtutem masculum profligature, nisi cavetur.' (Translation.) — In very truth, it grieveth me that men, those especially who profess themselves to be Christians, should be so taken with the sweet Baits of Literature that they can endure to read nothing but what gives them immediate gratification, no matter how low 01* sensual it may be. Consequently, the more austere and disciplinary branches of philosophy itself, are almost wholly neglected, even by the learned. — A course of study (if such reading, with such a purpose in view, could deserve that name) which, if not corrected in time, will oc- casion worse consequences than even barbarism did in the times of our forefathers. Barbarism is, I own, a wilful headstrong thing; but with all its blind obstinacy it has less power of doing barm than this self-sufficient, self-satisfied plain good common-sense sort of writing, this pru- dent saleable popular style of composition, if it be deserted by Reason and scientific Insight; pitiably decoying the minds of men by an im- posing shew of amiableness, and practical Wisdom, so that the delighted Reader knowing nothing knows all about almost every thing. There will succeed therefore in my opinion, and that too within no long time, to the rude- ness and rusticity of our age, that ensnaring meretricious popnlarness in Literature, with all the tricksy humilities of the ambitious ciuidi- 33 dates for the favorable suffrages of the judicious Public, which if we do not take good care wiil break up and scatter before it all robustness and manly vigor of intellect, all masculine fortitude of virtue. Vol. I. ESSAY IV. Si modo qua Naturd et Ratione concessa sint, assumpserimus, Prjesvmtio^is suspicio a nobis quam longissime abease debet. Malta Antiquitati, nobismet nihil, errogamus. Nihilne vos? Nihil mehercule, nisi quod omnia omni animo Veritati arrogamus et Sanctimonia. Ulr. Rinov. De Controversiis, (Translation.) — If vve assume only what Nature and Reason have granted, with no shadow of right can we be suspected of Presumption. To Antiquity we arrogate many things, to ourselves nothing. Nothing ? Aye nothing : unless indeed it be, that with all our strength we arrogate all things to Truth and Moral Pumty. IT has been remarked by the celebrated Haller, that we are deaf while we are yawning. The same act of drowsiness that stretches open our mouths, closes our ears. It is much the same in acts of the understanding. 35 A laiy half-attention amounts to a mental yawn. Where then a subject, that demands thought, has been thoughtfully treated, and with an exact and patient derivation from its principles, we must be willing to exert a portion of the same effort, and to think with the author, or the author will have thought in vain for us. It makes little difference for the time being, whether there be an hiatus oscitans in the reader's attention, or an hiatus latry- mahilis in the author's manuscript. NVhen this occurs during the perusal of a work of known authority and established fame, we honestly lay the fault on our own deficiency, or on the unfitness of our present mood ; but when it is a contemporary production, over which we have been nodding, it is far more pleasant to pronounce it iiisiifferublij dull and obscure. Indeed, as charity begins at home, it would be un- reasonable to expect that a reader should charge himself with lack of intellect, when the effect may be equally well accounted for by declaring the author unintelligible ; or that he should accuse his own inattention, when by half a dozen phrases of abuse, as ** heavy stuff, metaphysical d2 36 jargon, &c. he can at once excuse his laziness, and gratify his pride, scorn, and envy. To similar impulses we must attribute the praises of a true modern reader, when he meets with a work in the true modern taste : videlicet, either in skipping, imconnected, short-winded asthmatic sentences, as easy to be understood as impossible to be remembered, in which the merest common-place acquires a momentary poignancy, a petty titillating sting, from affected point and wilful antithesis ; or else in strutting and rounded periods, in which the emptiest truisms are blown up into illustrious bubbles by help of film and inflation. " Aye!" (quoth the delighted reader) " this is sense, this is genius! this 1 understand and admire! I have thought the very same a hundred times myself!'''' In other words, this man has re- minded me of my own cleverness, and therefore I admire him. O ! for one piece of egotism that presents itself under its own honest bare face of " I myself I," there are fifty that steal out in the mask of tuisms and ille-isms ! It has ever been my opinion, that an exces- sive solicitude to avoid the use of our first 37 personal pronoun more often has its source in conscious selfishness than in true self-oblivion. A quiet observer of human follies may often amuse or sadden his thoughts by detectingt a perpetual feeling of purest egotism through a long masquerade of Disguises, the half of which, had old Proteus been master of as many, would have wearied out the patience of Menelaus. I say, the jjcit 1671 ce only: for it would ask more than the simplicity of Polypheme, with his one eye extinguished, to be deceived by so poor a repetition of Nobody. Yet I can with strictest truth assure my Readers that with a pleasure combined with a sense of w^eariness I see the nigh approach of that point of my labours, in which I can convey my opinions and the workings of my heart without reminding the Reader ob- trusively of myself. But the frequency, with which I have spoken in my own person, recals my apprehensions to the second danger, which it was my hope to guard against; the probable charge of Arrogance, or presumption, both for daring to dissent from the opinions of great authorities, and, in my following numbers per- haps, from the general opinion concerning the true value of certain authorities deemed great. The word, Presumption, I appropriate to the internal feeling, and Arrogance to the way and manner of outwardly expressing ourselves. As no man can rightfully be condemned without reference to some definite law, by the knowledge of which he might have avoided the given fault, it is necessary so to define the con- stituent qualities and conditions of arrogance, that a reason may be assignable why we pro- nounce one man guilty and acquit another. For merely to call a person arrogant or most arrogant, can convict no one of the vice except perhaps the accuser. I was once present, when a young man who had left his books and a glass of water to join a convivial party, each of whom had nearly finished his second bottle, was pronounced very drunk by the whole party' — "he looked so strange and pale!" Many a man, who has contrived to hide his ruhng passion or predominant defect from himself, will betray the same to dispassionate observers, by his proneness on all occasions to suspect or accuse others of it. Now Arro- gance and Presumption, like all other moral 39 qualities, must be shewn by some act or conduct: and this too must be an act that implies, if not an immediate concurrence of the Will, yet some faulty constitution of the Moral Habits. For all criminality supposes its essentials to have been within the power of the Agent. Either therefore the facts adduced do of them- selves convey the whole proof of the charge, and the question rests on the truth or accuracy with which they have been stated ; or they acquire their character from the circumstances. I have looked into a ponderous Review of the Corpuscular Philosopy by a Sicilian Jesuit, in which the acrimonious Father frequently ex- presses his doubt, whether he should pronounce Boyle or Newton more impious than fre- sumjytuoiis, or more presumptuous than im- pious. They had both attacked the reigning opinions on most important subjects, opinions sanctioned by the greatest names of antiquity, and by the general suffrage of their learned Contemporaries or immediate Predecessors. Locke was assailed with a full cry for his pre- sumption in having deserted the philosophical system at that time generally received by the 40 Universities of Europe ; and of late years Dr. Priestly bestowed the epithets of arrogant and insolent on Reid, Beattie, &c. for presuming to arraign certain opinions of Mr. Locke, him- self repaid in kind by many of his own coun- trymen for his theological novelties. It will scarcely be affirmed, that these accusations were all of them just, or that any of them were fit or courteous. Must we therefore say, that in order to avow doubt or disbelief of a po- pular persuasion without arrogance, it is re- quired that the dissentient should know himself to possess the genius, and foreknow that he should acquire the reputation, of Locke, Newton, Boyle, or even of a Reid or Beattie? But as this knowledge and prescience are impossible in the strict sense of the words, and could mean no more than a strong inward conviction, it is manifest that such a rule, if it were uni- versally established, would encourage the pre- sumptuons, and condemn modest and humble mhids alone to silence. And as this silence could not acquit the individual's own mind of presumption, unless it were accompanied by conscious acquiescence ; Modesty itself must 41 become an inert quality, which ^^en in private society never displays its charms more unequi- vocally than in its mode of reconciling moral deference with intellectual courage, aud general diffidence with sincerity in the avo\-v al of the particular conviction. We must seek then elsewhere for the true marks, by which Presumption or Arrogance may be detected, and on which the charge may be grounded with little hazard of mistake or injustice. And as I confine my present ob- servations to literature, I deem such criteria neither difficult to determine or to apply. The first mark, as it appears to me, is a frequent bare assertion of opinions not generally re- ceived, without condescending to prefix or annex the facts and reasons on which such opinions were formed ; especially if this ab- sence of logical courtesy is supplied by con- temptuous or abusive treatment of such as happen to doubt of, or oppose, the decisive ipse dixi. But to assert, however nakedly, that a passage in a lewd novel, in which the Sacred Writings are denounced as more likely to pollute the young aud innocent mind than a romance 42 notorious for its indecency — to assert, I say, that such a passage argues equal impudence and ig- norance in its author, at the time of writing and publishing it — this is not arrogance; although to avast majority of the decent part of our country- men it would be superfluous as a truism, if it were exclusively an author's business to convey or revive knowledge, and not sometime his duty to awaken the indignation of his Reader by the expression of his own. A second species of this unamiable quality, which has been often distinguished by the name of Warburtcy/iian arrogance, betrays itself, not as in the former, by proud or petulant omission of proof or argument, but by the habit of ascribing weakness of intellect, or want of taste and sensibility, or hardness of heart, or corruption of moral principle, to all who deny the truth of the doctrine, or the sufficiency of evidence, or the fairness of the reasoning adduced in its support. This is indeed not essentially different from the first, but assumes a separate character from its accompaniments : for though both the doctrine and its proofs may have been legitimately supplied by the 43 understanding yet the bitterness of personal cri- mination will resolve itself into naked assertion. We are, therefore, authorized by experience, and justified on the principle of self-defence and by the law of fair retalliation, in attri- buting it to a vicious temper arrogant from irritability, or irritable from arrogance. This learned arrogance admits of many gradations, and is palliated or aggravated, accordingly as the point in dispute has been more or less controverted, as the reasoning bears a greater or smaller proportion to the virulence of the personal detraction, and as the person or parties, who are the objects of it, are more or less respected, more or less worthy of respect.* • Had the author of llie Divine Legation of Moses more skilfully appropriated his coarse eloquence of abuse, his customary assurances of the idiotcy, both in head and heart, of all his opponents: if he had emjjloypd those vigorous arguments of his own vehement humour in the defence ol Truliis acknowledged and reverenced by learn- ed men in general ; or if he had confined them to tlie names of Chubb, Woolston, and other precursors of Mr. Thomas Payne; we should pei'haps still characterize his mode of controversy by its rude violence, but not so often have 44 ■ Lastly, it must be admitted as a just impu- tation of preemption when an individual obtrudes on the public eye, with all the high pretensions of originality, opinions and ob- servations, in regard to which he must plead wilful ignorance in order to be acquitted of heard his name used, even by those who have never read his writings, as a proverbial expression of learned Arro- gance. But when a novel and doubtful hypothesis of his own fbrmation was the citadel to be defended, and his mephetic haud-granados were thrown with the fury of lawless despotism at the fair rPi)utation of a Sykes and a Lardner, we not only confirm the verdict of his inde- pendent contemporaries, but cease to wonder, that arro- gance should render men an object of contempt in many, and of avei'sion in all instances, when it was capable of hurrying a Christian teacher of equal talents and learning into a slanderous vulgarity, which escapes our disgust only when we see the writer's own reputation the sole victim. But throughout his great work, and the pam- phlets in which lie supported it, he always seems to write as it he had deemed it a duty of decorum to publish his fancies on the Mosaic Law as the Law itself was delivered, that is, "in tbuuders and ligbteniugs:" or as if he had applied to liis own book instead of aoiificp and parent's tears. My feelings have led me on, and in my illustration I had almost lost from my view the subject to be illustrated. One condition yet remains : that the error foreseen shall not be of a kind to prevent or impede the after acquirement of that knowledge which will remove it. Observe, how graciously Nature instructs her human children. She cannot give us the knowledge derived from sight without occasioning us at first to mistake images of reflection for substances. But the very consequences of the delusion lead in- evitably to its detection ; and out of the ashes of the error rises a new flower of knowledge. We not only see, but are enabled to discover 72 by what means we see. So too we are under the necessity, in given circumstances, of mis- taking a square for a round object: but ere the mistake can have any practical con- sequences, it is not only removed, but in its re- moval gives us the symbol of a new fact, that of distance. In a similar train of thought, though more fancifully, I might have eluci- dated the preceding condition, and have referred our hurrying enlighteners and revo- lutionary umputators to the gentleness of Nature, in the oak and the beech, the dry foliage of which she pushes off only by the propulsion of the new buds, that supply its place. My friends ! a cloathing even of withered leaves is better than bareness. Having thus determined the nature and con- ditions of a right notion, it remains to de- termine the circumstances which tend to render the communication of it impracticable, and obliges us of course, to abstain from the attempt — obliges us not to convejj falsehood under the pretext of saijing truth. These circumstances, it is plain, must consist either in natural or moral impediments. The forn^er. 73 including the obvious gradations of consti- tutional insensibility and derangement, preclude all temptation to misconduct, as well as all pro- bability of ill-consequences from accidental oversight, on the part of the communicator. Far otherwise is it with the impediments from moral causes. These demand all the attention and forecast of the genuine lovers of truth in the matter, the manner, and the time of their communications, public and private ; and these are the ordinary materials of the vain and the factious, determine them in the choice of their audiences and of their arguments, and to each argument give powers not its own. They are distinguishable into two sources, the streams i"rom which, however, must often become confluent, viz. hindrances from ignorance (I here use the word in relation to the habits of reasoning as well as to the previous knowledge requisite for the due compre- hension of the subject) and hindrances from predominant passions* • See the Audior's Second Lay Sermon, from p. 16 to p. 2n. n From both these the law of conscience com- mands us to abstain, because such being the ignorance and such the passions of the sup- posed auditors, we ought to deduce the im- practicability of conveying not only adequate but even right notions of our own convictions: much less does it permit us to avail ourselves of the causes of this impracticability in order to procure nominal proselytes, each of whom will have a different, and all a false, conception of those notions that were to be conveyed for their truth's sake alone. Whatever is (or but for some defect in our moral character would have been) foreseen as preventing the con- veyance of our thoughts, makes the attempt, an act of self-contradiction : and whether the faulty cause exist in our choice of unfit words or our choice of unfit auditors, the result is the same and so is the guilt. We have volun- tarily communicated falsehood. Thus (without reference to consequences, if only one short digression be expected) from tiie sole principle of self-consistence or moral integrity, we have evolved the clue of right reason, which we are bound to follow in the 75 communication of truth. Now then we appeal to the judgment and experience of the Reader, whether he who most faithfully adheres to the letter of the law of conscience will not likewise act in strictest correspondence to the maxims of prudence and sound policy. I am at least unable to recollect a single instance, either in history or in my personal experience, of a pre- ponderance of injurious consequences from the publication of any truth, under the observance of the moral conditions above stated : much less can I even imagine any case, in which truth, as truth, can be pernicious. But if the assertor of the indifferency of truth and false- hood in their own natures, attempt to justify his position by confining the word truth, in the first instance, to the correspondence of given words to given facts, without reference to the total impression left by such words ; what is this more than to assert, that ariicu- lated sounds are things of moral indifferency ? and that we may relate a fact accurately and nevertheless deceive grossly and wickedly ? Blifil related accurately Tom Jones's riotous joy during his benefactor's illness, only omitting 76 that this joy was occasioned by tlie physician's having pronounced him out of danger. Blifil was not the less a liar for being an accurate maller-of-fact bar. Tell-truths in the service of falsehood we find every where, of various names and various occupations, from the elderly young women that discuss the love- affairs of their friends and acquaintance at the village tea-tables, to the anonymous calum- niators of literary merit in reviews, and the more daring malignants, who dole out discontent, innovation and panic, in political journals: and a most pernicious race of liars they are! But whoever doubted it? Why should our moral feelings be shocked, and the holiest words with all their venerable associations be profaned, in order to bring forth a Truism? But thus it is for the most part with the venders of startling paradoxes. In the sense in which they are to gain for their author the character of a bold and original thinker, they are false even to absurdity ; and the sense in which they are true and harmless, conveys so mere a Truism, that it even borders on Nonsense. How often have we heard " TiiE Rights of 77 Man — HURRA ! The Sovereignty of the People — hurra I" roared out by men who, if called upon in another place and before another audience, to explain themselves, would give to the words a meaning, in which the most monarchical of their political opponents would admit them to be true, but which would contain nothing new, or strange, or stimulant, nothing to flatter the pride or kindle the passions of the populace. ESSAY VII. At prqfanum rulgus lectoriim quomodo arcendum est ? Librisne nostris j'ubeamus, ui coram indignis obmutescant ? Si Unguis, ut dicHur. einoif nis utamur, eheu I ingenium quoque nobis emorfuum Jncet : sin aliter. Blinerva- sfcrf^ta crassis ludibrium divulgamus, et Dianam nostram impuris hujus saciili ActcEonibus nudam proferimus. Respondeo : — ad ineommoditates hujusmodi fiitandas, nee Greece nee Latin^ scribere opus est. Si{(ficiei, nos sicca luce usos fuisse et strict iore argumantendi metliodo. Svfficiei, innocentur^ utilitcr scripsisse : eventus est apud lectorem. Nuper emptum est a nobis Ciceronianum istud " de officiis,''* opus quod semper pane Clirisiiano dignum putabamua. Miritm ! lil)ellus factum fuer at famosissinms. Credisne ? Vix : at quomodo ? Maligno quodam, nescio quem^ plena murgine et super tergo, annotutum est, et ex- emptis, catumniis potius, superfatatum! Sic et qui introrsum uritur inflammationes unimi rel Catonianis (ne dicnm, sacrosanctis) paginis accipit. Omni aurd mons, omnibus scriptis mens, ignitavescitur, RunoiiPin Langii Epist: ad Amicuni qiiemdam Ilaliciun, in qua Lingua; patriae et bodieruae nsum defeiidit oterudilia cominendat. 79 Nee me fallity ut in corporibus hominum ale in anlmis multiplici passione a^ectis, medicamenta vet- borum multis incfficacia visum iri. Sed nee illud quoque me praterit, ut invisibiles animorum morbos, aic invisibilia esse remedia. Fulsis opinionibus cir- cumventi reris sententiis liberandi sunt, ut qui auditndo ceciderant audiendo consurgant. PetRARCHA : Prefat. in lib. de reined, uiriugqile fortraias. (Translation.) But how are Me to guard against tbe herd of jjromiscnous Readers ? Can we bid our books be silent in tlae presence of the unworthy ? If we employ what are called the dead languages, our own genius, alas ! becomes flat and dead : and if we embody our thoughts in the words native to them or in which they were conceived, we divulge the secrets of Minerva to the ridicule of blockheads, and expose our Diana to the Actaeous of a sensual age. I reply : that in order to avoid inconveniences of this kind, we need write neither in Greek or in Latin. It will be enough, if we abstain from appealing to the bad passions and low appetites, and confine ourselves to a strictly eon- sequent method of reasoning. To have written innocently, and for wise purposes, is all that can be required of us : the event lies with ihe Reader. I purcha-sed lately Cicero's work, de officiis, which I had always considered as almost worthy of a Christian. To my surprize it had become a most flagrant 80 libel. Nay! bnl how? — Some one, I know not Who, out of the fruitfulness of his own malignity had filled all the margins and other blank spaces witii annotations — a true auperfatation of examples, that is, of false «nd slanderous tales ! In like manner, the slave of impure desires will turn the pages of Cato, not to say. Scripture itself, into occasions and excitements of wanton] imaginations. There is no wind but feeds a volcano, no work but feeds and jars a combustible mind. I am well aware, that words will appear to many as inefficacious medicines when administered to minds agitated with manifold passions, as when they are muttered by way of charm over bodily ailments. But neither does it escape me, on the other hand, that as the diseases of the mind are invisible, invisible must the remedies likewise be. Those who have been en- trapped by false opinions are to be liberated by con- vincing truths : that thus having imbibed the poison through the ear they may receive the antidote by tlie same channel. THAT our elder writers to Jeremy Taylor inclusive quoted to excess, it would be the very blindness of partiality to deny. More than one might be mentioned, whose works might be characterized in the words of Milton, as 81 "a paroxysm of citations, pampered metaphors, and aphorisming pedantry," On the other hand, it seems to me that we now avoid quo- tations with an anxiety that offends in the contrary extreme. Yet it is the beauty and independent worth of the citations far more than their appropriateness which have made Johnson's Dictionary popular even as a reading book — and the mottos with the translations of them are known to add considerably to the value of the Spectator. With this conviction I have taken more than common pains in the selection of the mottos for the Friend : and of two mottos equally appropriate prefer always that from the book which is least likely to have come into my Readers' hands. For I often please myself with the fancy, now that I may have saved from oblivion the only striking pas- sage in a whole volume, and now that I may ha\e attracted notice to a writer undeservedly forgotten. If this should be attributed to a silly ambition in the display of various reading, I can do no more than deny any consciousness of hav- ing been so actuated : and for the rest, I must console myself by the reflection, that if it be one Vol. I. G 82 of the most foolish, it is at the same time one of the most harmless, of human vanities. The passages prefixed lead at once to the question, which will probably have more than once occured to the reflecting reader of the preceding Essay. How will these rules ap- ply to the most important mode of communi- cation ? to that, in which one man may utter his thoughts to myriads of men at the same time, and to myriads of myriads at various times and through successions of generations ? How do they apply to authors, whose foreknowledge as- suredly does not inform them who, or how many, or of what description their Readers will be ? How do these rules apply to books, which once published, are as likely to fall iu the way of the incompetent as of the judicious, and will be fortunate indeed if they are not many times looked at through the thick mists of ignorance, or amid the glare of prejudice and passion ? — We answer in the first place, that this is not universally true. The readers are not seldom picked and chosen. Relations of certain pretended miracles performed a few years ago, at Holywell, iu consequence oC 83 prayers to the Virgin Mary, on female servants, and these relations moralized by the old Roman Catholic arguments without the old Protestant answers, have to my knowledge been sold by travelling pedlars in villages and farm-houses, not only in a form which placed them within the reach of the narrowest means, but sold at a price less than their prime cost, and doubtless, thrown in occasionally as the make-weight in a bargain of pins and stay-tape. Shall I be told, that the publishers and reverend authorizers of these base and vulgar delusions had exerted no choice as to the purchasers and readers ? But waiving this, or rather having first pointed it out, as an important exception, we further reply : that if the Author have clearly and rightly estab- lished iu his own mind the class of readers, to which he means to address his communications; and if both in this choice, and in the par- ticulars of the manner and matter of his work, he conscientiously observes all the conditions which reason and conscience have been shewn to dictate, in relation to those for whom the work was designed ; he will, in most instances, G 2 S4 have effected his design and realized thfe desired circumscription. The posthumous work of Spinoza (Ethica ordhie gcometrico demon' strata) may, indeed, accidentally fall into the hands of an incompetent reader. But (not to mention, that it is written in a dead language) it will be entirely harmless, because it must needs be utterly unintelligible. 1 venture to assert, that the whole first book, De Deo, might be read in a literal English translation to any congregation in the kingdom, and that no individual, who had not been habituated to the strictest and most laborious processes of reasoning, would even suspect its orthodoxy or piety, however heavily the few who listened would complain of its obscurity and want of interest. This, it may be objected, is an extreme case. But it is not so for the present purpose. We are speaking of the probability of injurious consequences from the communication of Truth. This I have denied, if the right means have been adopted, and the necessary conditions adhered to, for its actual communication. Now the truths cx)nveyed in a book are either 85 evident of themselves, or such as require a train of deductions in proof : and the latter will be either such as are authorized and generally re- ceived; or such as are in opposition to received and authorized opinions; or lastly, truths pre- sented for the appropriate test of examination, and still under trial (ad hue sub Lite.) Of this latter class I affirm, that in neither of the three sort can an instance be brought of a prepon- derance of ill-consequences, or even of an equi- librium of advantage and injury from a work, in which the understanding alone has been appealed to, by results fairly deduced from just premises, in terms strictly appropriate. Alas! legitimate reasonmg is impossible without severe thinking, and thinking is neither an easy nor an amusing employment. The reader, who would follow a close reasoner to the summit and absolute principle of any one important subject, has chosen a Chamois^hunter for his guide. Our guide will, indeed, take us the shortest way, will save us many a wearisome and perilous wandering, and warn us of many a mock road that had formerly led himself to the brink of chasms and precipices, or at best in an idle 86 circle to the spot from whence he started. But he cannot carry us on his shoulders : we must strain our own sinews, as he has strained his ; and make firm footing on the smooth rock for ourselves, by the blood of toil from our own feet. Examinethejournalsof our humane and zealous missionaries in Hindostan. How often and how feelingly do they describe the difficulty of making the simplest chain of reasoning intelligible to the ordinary natives : the rapid exhaustion of their whole power of attention, and with what pain and distressful effort it is exerted, while it lasts. Yet it is among this class, that the hideous practices of self-torture chiefly, indeed almost exclusively, prevail. O if folly were no easier than wisdom, it being often so very much more grievous, how certainly might not these miser- able men be converted to Christianity? But alas! to swing by hooks passed through the back, or to walk on shoes with nails of iron pointed upward on the soles, all this is so much less difficult, demands so very inferior an exertion of the will than to think, and by thought to gain Knowledge and Tranquility ! It is not true, that ignorant persons have no notion of the advantages of Truth and Know- ledge. They confess, they see, those ad- vantages in the conduct, the immunities, and the superior powers of ihe possessors. Were these attainable by Pilgrimages the most toil- some, or Penances the most painful, we should assuredly have as many Pilgrims and as many Self-tormentors in the service of true Religion and Virtue, as now exist under the tyranny of Papal or Brahman superstition. This ineffi- cacy of legitimate Reason, from the want of fit objects, this its relative weakness and how narrow at all times its immediate sphere of action must be, is proved to us by the impos- tors of all professions. What, I pray, is their fortress, the rock which is both their quarry and their foundation, from which and on which they are built ? The desire of arriving at the end without the effort of thought and will, which are the appointed means. Let us look backward three or four centuries. Then as now the great mass of mankind were governed by the three main wishes, the wish for vigor of body, including the absence of painful feel- 88: ings: for wealth, or the power of procuring the external conditions of bodily enjoyment: these during life— and security from pain and continuance of happiness after death. Then, as now, men were desirous to attain them by some easier means than those of Temperance, Industry, and strict Justice. They gladly therefore applied to the Priest, who could en- sure them happiness hereafter without the per- formance of their duties here ; to the Lawyer who could make money a substitute for a right cause; to the Physician, whose medicines pro- mised to take the sting out of the tail of their sensual indulgences, and let them fondle and play with vice, as with a charmed serpent; to the Alchemist, whose gold-tincture would en- rich them without toil or economy ; and to the Astrologer, from whom they could purchase foresight without knowledge or reflection. The established professions were, without exception, no other than licensed modes of witchcraft. The Wizards, who would now find their due reward in Bridewell, and their appropriate honors in the pillory, sate then on episcopal thrones, candidates for Saintship, and already 89 canonized in the belief of their deluded con- temporaries; while the one or two real teachers and Discoverers of Truth were exposed to the hazard of iire and faggot, a dungeon the best shrine that was vouchsafed to a Roger Bacon and a Galileo I ESSAY VIII. Pray, why is it, tlial people say that men are not such fools now-a-days as they were in the days of yore ? I would fain know, whether you would have ris under- stand by this same saying, as indeed you logically may, that formerly men were fools, and in this generation are grown wise ? How many and what dispositions made them fools? How many and what dispositions were wanting to make 'em wise? Why were those fools? How should these be wise ? Pray, how came you to know that men were formerly fools? How did you find, that they are now wise ? Who made ihem fools ? Who in Heaven's name made us wise? Who d'je think are most, those that loved mankind foolisli, or those that love it wise ? How long has it been wise ? How long otherwise? Whence jjroceeded the foregoing folly? Whence the following wisdom? Why did the old folly end now and no iaier ? Wl)y did the modern wisdom begin now and no sooner ? What were we the worse for tlie former folly ? What the belter for the succeed- ing wisdom ? How should the ancient folly have come 91 to nothing ? How should this aame new wisdom be started up and established? Now answer nie, an't please J'oii ! Fr. Rabelais' Preface to hi/s 3th Book. MONSTERS and Madmen canonized and Galileo blind in a dungeon I It is not so in our times. Heaven be praised, that in this respect, at least, we are, if not better, jet better ojf' than our forefathers. But to what, and to whom (under Providence) do we owe the improvement ? To any radical change in the moral affections of mankind in general ? Perhaps the great ma- jority of men are now fully conscious that they are born with the god-like faculty of Reason, and that it is the business of life to develope and apply it? The Jacob's ladder of Truth, let down from heaven, with all its numerous rounds, is now the common highway, on which we are content to toil upward to the objects of our desires ? We are ashamed of expecting the end without the means? In order to an- swer these questions in the affirmative, I must have forgotten the Animal Magnetists ; the proselytes of Brothers, and of Joanna South- 92 cot; aud some hundred thousand fanatics less original in their creeds, but not a whit more rational in their expectations ! I must forget the infamous Empirics, whose advertisements pollute and disgrace all our Newspapers, and almost paper the walls of our cities ; and the vending of whose poisons and poisonous drams, (with shame aud anguish be it spoken) sup- ports a shop in every market-town ! I must forget that other opprobrium of the nation, that Mother-vice, the Lottery ! I must forget, that a numerous class plead Prudence for keep- ing their fellow-men ignorant and incapable of intellectual enjoyments, aud the Revenue for upholding such temptations as men so ignorant will not withstand — yes I that even senators and officers of state hold forth the Revenue as a sufficient plea for upholding, at every fiftieth door throughout the kingdom, temptations to the most pernicious vices, which fill the land with mourning, aud fit the labouring classes for sedition and rehgious fanaticism! Above all I must forget the first years of the French Re- volution, and the millions throughout Europe who confidently expected the best and choicest 93 results of Knowledge and Virtue, namely. Li- berty and universal Peace, from the votes of a tumultuous Assembly — that is, from the me* chanical agitation of the air in a large room at Paris — and this too in the most light, unthink- ing, sensual and profligate of the European nations, a nation, the very phrases of whose language are so composed, that they can scarcely speak without lying I — No I Let us not deceive ourselves. Like the man who used to pull off his hat with great demonstra- tion of respect whenever he spoke of himself, we are fond of styhng our own the enlight' ened age : though as Jortin, I think, has wit- tily remarked, the golden age would be more appropriate. But in spite of our great scientific discoveries, for which praise be given to whom the praise is due, and in spite of that general indifference to all the truths and all the princi- ples of truth, that belong to our permanent being, and therefore do not lie within the fsphere of our senses, (that same indifference which makes toleration so easy a virtue with us, and constitutes nine-tenths of our pretended illumi- nation) it still remains the character of the mass 94 of mankind to seek for the attainment of their necessary ends by any means rather than the ap- pointed ones ; and for this cause only, that the latter imply the exertion of the Reason and the Will. But of all things this demands the long- est apprenticeship, even an apprenticeship from Infancy; which is generally neglected, because an excellence, that may and should belong to all men, is expected to come to every man of its own accord. To whom then do we owe our ameliorated condition ? To the successive Few in every age (more indeed in one generation than in another, but relatively to the mass of mankind always few) who by the intensity and per- manence of their action have compensated for the limited sphere, within which it is at any one time intelligible; and whose good deeds posterity reverence in their results, though the mode, in which we repair the inevitable waste of time, and the style of our additions, too general!}' furnish a sad proof, how little we understand the principles. I appeal to the Histories of the Jewish, the Grecian, and the Roman Republics, to the Records of the Chris^ 95 tian Church, to the History of Europe from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). What do they contain but accounts of noble structures raised by the wisdom of the few, and gradually undermined by the ignorance and profligacy of the many? If therefore the deficiency of good, which everywhere surrounds us, originate in the general unfitness and aversion of men to the process of thought, that is, to continuous reasoning, it must surely be absurd to ap- prehend a preponderance of evil from works which cannot act at all except as far as they call the reasoning faculties into full co-exertion With them. Still, however, there are truths so self-evident or so immediately and palpably deduced from those that are, or are acknowledged for such, that they are at once intelligible to all men, who possess the common advantages of the social state : although by sophistry, by evil habits, by the neglect, false persuasions, and im- postures of an anti-christian priesthood joined in one conspiracy w ith the violence of tyrannical governors, the understandings of men may 96 become so darkened and their consciences so lethargic, that there may arise a necessity for the republication of these truths, and this too with a voice of loud alarm, and impassioned warning. Such were the doctrines proclaimed by the first Christians to the Pagan world; such were the lightnings flashed by Wickliff, Huss, Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, Latimer, &c. across the Papal darkness ; and such in our own times the agitating truths, with which Thomas Clarkson, and his excellent confederates, the Quakers, fought and conquered the legalized banditti of men-stealers, the numerous and powerful per- petrators and advocates of rapine, murder, and (of blacker guilt than either) slavery. Truths of this kind being indispensible to man, con- sidered as a moral being, are above all ex- pedience, all accidental consequences : for as sure as God is holy, and man immortal, there can be no evil so great as the ignorance or disregard of them. It is the very madness of mock prudence to oppose the removal of a poisoned dish on account of the pleasant sauces or nutritious viands which would be lost with 97 it! The dish contains destruction to that, for which alone we ought to wish the palate to be gratified, or the body to be nourished. The sole condition, therefore, imposed on us by the law of conscience in these cases is, that we employ no unworthy and heterogeneous means to realize the necessary end, that we entrust the event wholly to the full and adequate promul- gation of the truth, and to those generous affections which the constitution of our moral nature has linked to the full perception of it. Yet evil may, nay it will be occasioned. Weak men may take offence, and wicked men avail themselves of it ; though we must not attribute to the promulgation, or to the truth promulgated, all the evil, of which wicked men (predetermined, like the wolf in the fable, to create some occasion) may chuse to make it the pretext. But that there ever was or ever can be a preponderance of evil, I defy either the Historian to instance or the Philosopher to prove. " Let * it fly away, all that chaff of • Avolent quantum volent pale.ne levis fidei quo- cunqupafflatu tentationnni! eo jnirior massa frumenti iu borrea domini reponetur. Tertullian. Vol. I. H 98 light faith that can fly off at any breath of temptation ; the cleaner will the true grain be stored up in the granary of the Lord," we are entitled to say with Tertullian : and to exclaim with heroic Luther, " scandal* and offence! Talk not to me of scandal and offence. Need breaks through stone-walls, and recks not of scandal. It is my duty to spare weak consciences as far as it may be done without hazard of my soul. Where not, I must take counsel for my soul, though half or the whole world should be scandalized thereby." Luther felt and preached and wrote and acted, as beseemed a Luther to feel and utter and act. The truths, which had been outraged, he re-proclaimed in the spirit of outraged truth, at the behest of his conscience and hi the service of the God of truth. He did • Aergeriiiss bin, Aergeniiss her ! Nolli briclit Eisen, IHid hat kein Aergerniss. Ich soil tier schwacbeu Gewisseii sciioneii so fcni es obne Gefabr nieincr Seelen gescbcbn mag. Wo nicbt, so soil icb meiner Seelcu ralbeii, es argcre sicb darau die gauze odcr balbe Welt. 99 his duty, come good, come evil ! and made no question, on which side the preponderance would be. In the one scale there was gold, and the impress thereon the image and super- scription of the Universal Sovereign. In all the wide and ever widening commerce of mind with mind throughout the world, it is treason to refuse it. Can this have a counter-weight? The other scale indeed might have seemed full up to the very balance-yard ; but of what worth and substance were its contents ? Were they capable of being counted or weighed against the former ? The conscience indeed is already violated when to moral good or evil we oppose things possessing no moral interest. Even if the conscience dared waive this her preventive veto, yet before we could consider the twofold results in the relations of loss and gain, it must be known whether their kind is the same or equivalent They must first be valued, and then they may be weighed or counted, if they are worth it. But in the particular case at present before us, the loss is contingent, and alien ; the gain essential and the tree's own natural produce. H 2 100 The gain is permaneut, and spreads through all times and places ; the loss but temporary and, owing its very being to vice or ignorance, vanishes at the approach of knowledge and moral improvement. The gain reaches all good men, belongs to all that love light and desire an increase of light : to all and of all times, who thankHeaven for the gracious dawn, and expect the noon-day ; who welcome the first gleams of spring, and sow their fields in confident faith of the ripening summer and the rewarding harvest-tide ! But the loss is confined to the unenlightened and the prejudiced — say rather, to the weak and the prejudiced of a single generation. The prejudices of one age are condemned even by the prejudiced of the succeeding ages : for endless are the modes of folly, and the fool joins with the wise in passing sentence on all modes but his o^^^l. Who cried out with greater horror against the murderers of the Prophets, than those who likewise cried out, crucify him '.crucify him!--^ The truth-haters of every future generation will call the truth-haters of the preceding ages by their true names : for even these the stream JOl of time carries onward. In fine, Truth con- sidered in it itself and in the effects natural to it, may be conceived as a gentle spring or water- source, warm from the genial earth, and breathing up into the snow drift that is piled over and around its outlet. It turns the obstacle into its own form and character, and as it makes its way increases its stream. And should it be arrested in its course by a chilling season, it suffers delay, not loss, and waits only for a change in the wind to awaken and again roll cm wards. / semplici pastori Sul fesolo neeoso Fata curvi e canuti, D' alto stupor son muti Mirando alfonte ombroso II Po con pochi umori; Posein udendo gli onori DeW uraa angusta e stretta, Che 7 Adda che'l Tesino Soverchia in suo cammino, Che ampio ul mar '* affretta Che si spuma, e si suona, Che gli si da corona! ' CniABRERA. * I give literal translations of my poetic as well as prose quotation:), because the propriety of their intro- LTPRARY Literal Translation. "The simple shepherds grown bent and hoary-headed on the snowy Vesolo, are mute with deep astonishment, gazing in the overshadowed fountain on the Po with his scanty waters ; then hearing of the honors of his confined and narrow urn, how he receives as a sovereign the Adda and the Tesino in his course, how ample he hastens on to the sea, how he foams, how mighty his voice, and that to him the crown is assigned." duction often depends on the exact sense and order of the words : which it is impossible always to retain in a metrical version. ESSAY IX. Great men ha;-* li\''d among us, Heads that plann'd And Tongues that utter'd Wisdom — better none. Even so doth Heaven protect us ! Wordsworth. IN the preceding Number I have explained the good, that is, the natural consequences of the promulgation to all of truths which all are bound to know and to make known. The evils occasioned by it, with few and rare exceptions, have their origin in the attempts to suppress or pervert it; in the fury and violence of imposture attacked or undermined in her strong holds, or in the extravagances of ignorance and credulity roused from their lethargy, and angry at the medicinal disturb- ance — awakening not yet broad awake, and 104 thus blending the monsters of uneasy dreams with the real objects, on which the drowsy eye had alternately hali-opened and closed, again half-opened and again closed. This re-action of deceit and superstition, with all the trouble and tumult incident, I would compare to a fire which bursts forth from some stifled and fermenting mass on the first admission of light and air. It roars and blazes, and converts the already spoilt or damaged stuff with all the straw and straw-like matter near it, first into flame and the next moment into ashes. The fire dies away, the ashes are scattered on all the winds, and what began in worthlessness ends in nothingness. Such are the evil, that is, the casual consequences of the same pro- mulgation. It argues a narrow or corrupt nature to lose the general and lasting consequences of rare and virtuous energy, in the brief accidents, which accompanied its first movements — to set lightly by the emancipation of the human reason from a legion of devils, in our com- plaints and lamentations over the loss of a herd of swine I The Craumers, Hampdens, and 105 Sidneys : the counsellors of our Elizabeth, and the frieuds of our other great Deliverer, the third William, — is it in vain, that these have beeii our countrymen ? Are we not the heirs of their good deeds? And what are noble deeds but noble truths realized 1 As Pro- testants, as Englishmen, as the inheritors of so ample an estate of might and right, an estate so strongly fenced, so richly planted, by the sinewy arms and dauntless hearts of our fore- fathers, we of all others have good cause to trust in the truth, yea, to follow its pillar of lire through the darkness and the desart, even though its light should but suffice to make us certain of its own presence. If there be elsewhere men jealous of the hght, who pro- phecy an excess of evil over good from its manifestation, we are entitled to ask them, on what experience they ground their bodings? Our own country bears no traces, our own history contains no records, to justify them. From the great aeras of national illumination we date the commencement of our main national advantages. The tangle of delusions, which stifled and distorted the growing tree, 106 have been torn away ; the parasite weeds, that fed on its very roots, have been plucked up with a salutary violence. To us there reraaia only quiet duties, the constant care, the gradual improvement, the cautious unhazardous labors of the industrious though contented gardener — to prune, to engraft, and one by one to remove from its leaves and fresh shoots the slug and the caterpillar. But far be it from us to under- value with light and senseless detraction the conscientious hardihood of our predecessors, or even to condemn in them that vehemence, to which the blessings it won for us leave us now neither temptation or pretext. That the very terms, with which the bigot or the hireling would blacken the first publishers of political and religious Truth, are, and deserve to be, hateful to us, we owe to the effects of its pub- lication. We ante-date the feelings in order to criminate the authors of our tranquility, opu- lence, and security. But let us be aware. Ef- fects will not, indeed, immediately disappear with their causes ; but neither can they long continue without them. If hy the reception of Truth in the spirit of Truth, we became w hat 107 we are : only by the retention of it in the same spirit, can we remain what we are. The nar- row seas that form our boundaries, what were they in times of old? The convenient high- way for Danish and Norman pirates. What are they now? Still but " a Span of Waters." — Yet they roll at (he base of the inisled Ararat, on which the i\vk of the Hope of Europe and of Civilization rested! Even so tlotli (Jod protect us, if we be Virt4ioiis and Wise. Winds blow and Watve sliall have occasion to examine hereafter. 126 actuated by the desire of preserving its essential privileges. The Press is iiidiflerently the pas- sive instrument of Evil and of Good: nay, there is some good even in its evil. " Good and Evil," says Milton, in the Speech from which I have selected the Motto of ihe pre- ceding Essay, " in the field of this world, grow up together almost inseparably : and the knowledge of Good is so iutervolved and interwoven with the knowledge of Evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed on Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. — As, therefore, the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to chuse, what continence to forbear, without the knowledge of Evil ? He that can appre- hend and consider Vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures and yet abstain, and yet dis- tinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true way-faring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, that never sallies out and sees her adversary — that which is but a youngling in the contem- 127 plation of Evil, and knows not the utmost that Vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank Virtue, not a pure. — Since, therefore, the knowledge and survey of Vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human Virtue, and the scanning of Error to the confirmation of Truth, how can we more safely and with less danger scout into the regions of Sin and Falsity, than by reading all manner of Tractates, and hearing all manner of reason ? " Again — but, indeed the whole Treatise is one strain of moral wisdom und political prudence — " Why should we then af- fect a rigor contrary to the manner of God and of Nature, by abridging or scanting those means, which Books, freely permitted, are both to the trial of Virtue and the exercise of Truth? It would be better done to learn, that the Law must needs be frivolous, which goes to restrain things uncertainly, and yet equally working to Good and to Evil. And were I the chuser, a dram of well-doing should be preferred before many times as much the forcible hindrance of evil-doing. For God sure esteems the growth 128 and completion of one virtuous person, more than the restraint of ten vicious." The evidence of History is strong in favor of the same principles, even in respect of their expediency. The average result of the Press from Henry VHI. to Charles I. was such a diffusion of religious light as first redeemed and afterwards saved this nation from the spi- ritual and moral death of Popery ; and in the following period it is to the Press that we owe the gradual ascendancy of those wise political maxims, which casting philosophic truth in the moulds of national laws, customs, and exist- ing orders of society, subverted the tyranny without suspending the government, and at length completed the mild and salutary revolu- tion by the establishment of the House of Brunswick. To what must we attribute this vast over-balance of Good in the general effects of the Press, but to the over-balance of virtuous intention in those who employed the Press? The Law, therefore, will not refuse to manifest good intention a certain weight even in cases of apparent error, lest it should discourage and 129 scare away those, to whose efforts we owe the comparative infrequency and weakness of error on the whole. The Law may however, nay, it must demand, that the external proofs of the author's honest intentions should be supported by the general style and matter of his work, and by the circumstances and mode of its publication. A passage, which in a grave and regular disquisition would be blameless, might become highly libellous and justly punishable if it were applied to present measures or per- sons for immediate purposes, in a cheap and popular tract. I have seldom felt greater in- dignation than at finding in a large manufac- tory a sixpenny pamphlet, containing a selec- tion of inflammatory paragraphs from the prose-writings of Milton, without a hint given of the time, occasion, state of government, &c. under which they were written — not a hint, that the Freedom, which we now enjoy, ex- ceeds all that Milton dared hope for, or deemed practicable; and that his political creed sternly excluded the populace, and indeed the majo- rity of the population, from all pretensions to political power. If the manifest bad intention Vol. I. K 130 would constitute this publication a seditious Libel, a good intention equally manifest can not justly be denied .its share of influence in producing a contrary verdict. Here then is the difficulty. From the very nature of a libel it is impossible so to define it, but that the most meritorious works will be found included in the description. Not from any defect or undue severity in the particular Sta- tute, but from the very nature of the offence to be guarded against, a work recommending re- form by the only rational mode of recommenda- tion, that is, by the detection and exposure of corruption, abuse, or incapacity, might, though it should breathe the best and most unadulterated English feelings, be brought within the definition of libel equally with the vilest incendiary Bro- chure, that ever aimed at leading and misleading the multitude. Not a paragraph in the Morning Post during the peace of Amiens, (or rather the experimental truce so called) though to the immortal honour of the then editor, that news- paper was the chief secondary means of pro- ducing the unexampled national unanimity, with which the war re-commenced and has 131 since been continued — not a paragraph warning the nation, as need was and most imperious duty commanded, of the perilous designs and unsleeping ambition of our neighbour, the mimic and caricaturist of Charlemagne, but was a punishable libel. The statute of libel is a vast aviary, which incages the awakening cock and the geese whose alarum preserved the capitol, no less than the babbling magpye and ominous screech-owl. And yet will we avoid this seeming injustice, we throw down all fence and bulwark of public decency and public opinion ; political calumny will soon join hands with private slander ; and every principle, every feeling, that binds the citizen to his country and the spirit to its Creator, will be undermnied — not by reasoning, for from that there is no danger ; but — by the mere habit of hearing them reviled and scoffed at with impu- nity. Were we to contemplate the evils of a rank and unweeded press only in its effect on the manners of a people, and on the general tone of thought and conversation, the greater the love, which we bore to literature and to all the means and instruments of human improve- k2 132 ment, the greater would be the earnestness with which we should solicit the , interference of law : the more anxiously should we wish for some Ithuriel spear, that might remove from the ear of the public, and expose in their own fiendish shape those reptiles, which inspiring venom and forging illusions as they list, tbence raise. At least distempered discontented thoughts. Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires. Paradise Lost. ESSAY XII. Quomodo autem id futurum .sit. no quis incredibile nrbitrelur, ostendam. In primis muUiplicahitur reg- num, et summa rcrum potestas per plurimos dissipata et eoncisa minuetur. Tunc diseordia ciciles serentur, nee ulla requies bi'lUs exitiulibus erit. dam exercitibus in immensum coactis, regea disperdeni omnia., et com- niinuent: donee adcersus eon dux polentissimus a plebe orietur, et assumetur in societutem a caieris, et prin- cepa omnium constituetur. Hie insu-stentahili domi- natione vexabit orbem, divina et tiumanu miscebit : infanda dictu et execrabilia molietur : nova consilia in peeiore suo rolutabit, ut proprium sibi constituat imperium : leges commutabit, et suas sanciet, conta- minabit, diripiet. spoliabit, occidet. Denique immutatia nomiribus, et imperii sede translata, confusio ae per- iurbatio humani genesis consequetur. Turn vers detes- tabile. et utque abominandum tempus existet, quo null i hominum sit vita jucunda. Lactantius de Vita Beatd, Lib. vii. c. 16. But lest this should be deemed incredible, I will shew the inamier in which it is to take place. First, there will be a multiplication of independent sovereign- ties, and the supreme magistracy of the Empire, 134 scallered and cut up into fragments, will be enfeebled in the exercise of power by law and anthority. Then will be sowed the [seeds of civil discords, nor will there be any rest or pause to wasteful and ruinous wars, while the soldiery kept together in immense standing armies, the Kings will crash and lay waste at their will i — until at length there will rise up against them a most puissent military chieftain of low birth, who will have acceded io him a fellowship with the other Sovereigns of the earth, and will finally be constituted the head of all. This man will harrass the civilized world with an insup- portable despotism, he will confound and commix all things spiritual and temporal. He will form plans and preparations of the most execrable and sacrilegious nature. He will be for ever restlessly turning over new schemes in his imagination, in order that he may fix the imperial power over all in his own name and possession. He will change the former laws, he will sanction a code of his own, he will contaminate, pillage, lay waste and massacre. At length, when he has suc- ceeded in the change of names and titles, and in the transfer of the seat of Empire, there will follow a confusion and perturbation of the human race ; then will there be for a while an aera of horror and abomi- nation, during which no man will enjoy his life in quietness. I interpose this Essay as an historical com- ment on the words " mimic and caricaturist of 135 Charlemagne," as applied to the despot, whom since the time that the words were first printed, we have, thank heaven! succeeded in incaging. The Motto contains the most striking instance of an uninspired prophecy fulfilled even in its minutiae, that I recollect ever to have met with: and it is hoped, that as a curiosity it will reconcile my readers to its unusual length. But though my chief motive was that of relieving (by the variety of an historical parallel) the series of argument on this most important of all subjects, the communicability of Truth, yet the Essay is far from being a digression. Hav- ing in the preceding number given utterance to quicquid in rem tarn malejicam indignaiio dolorque dictarent, concerning the mischiefs of a lawless Press, I held it an act of justice to give a portrait no less lively of the excess to which the remorseless ambition of a govern- ment might accumulate its oppressions in the one instance before the discovery of Printing, and in the other during the suppression of its freedom. I have translated the following from a volu- minous German work, Michael Ignuz Schmidt's 136 History of the Germans ; in which this Extract forms the conclusion of the second chapter of the third book, from Charles the Great to Conrade the First. The late Tyrant's close imitation of Charlemagne was sufficiently evi- denced by his assumption of the Iron Crown of Italy, by his imperial coronation with the presence and authority of the Holy Father; by his imperial robe embroidered with bees in order to mark him as a successor of Pepin, and even by his ostentatious revocation of Charlemagne's grants to the Bishop of Rome. But that the differences might be felt likewise, I prefaced the translation here reprinted with the few following observations. Let it be remembered then, that Charle- magne, for the greater part, created for himself th^ means of which he availed himself; that his very education was his own work, and that unlike Peter the Great, he could find no assist- ants out of his own realm ; that the unconquer- able courage and heroic dispositions of the nations he conquered, supplied a proof positive of real superiority, indeed the sole positive proof of intellectual power in a warrior : for 137 how can we measure force but by the resist- ance to it? But all was prepared for Buona- parte, Europe weakened in the very heart of all human strength, namely, in moral and reli- gious principle, and at the same time accidently destitute of any one great or commanding mind : the French people, on the other hand, still restless from revolutionary fanaticism ; their civic enthusiasm already passed into military passion and the ambition of conquest ; and alike by disgust, terror, and characteristic un- fitness for freedom, ripe for the reception of a despotism. Add too, that the main obstacles to an unlimited system of conquest, and the pur- suit of universal monarchy had been cleared away for him by his pioneers the Jacobins, viz. the influence of the great land-holders, of the privileged and of the commercial classes. Even the naval successes of Great Britain, by de- stroying the trade, rendering useless the colo- nies, and almost annihilating the navy of France, were in some respects subservient to his de- signs by concentrating the powers of the French empire in its armies, and supplying them out of the wrecks of all other employments, save 138 that of agriculture. France liud already ap- proximated to the formidable state so propheti- cally described by Sir James Stuart, iu his Political Ecouomy, iu which the population should consist chiefly of soldiers and peasantry: at least the interests of no other classes w ere regarded. The great merit of Buonaparte has been that of a skilful steersman, who with his boat in the most violent storm still keeps him- self on the summit of the waves, which not he, but the w inds had raised. I will now proceed to my translation. That Charles was an hero, his exploits bear evidence. The subjugation of the Lombards, protected as they were by the Alps, by fortresses and fortified towns, by numerous armies, and by a great name ; of the Saxons, secured by their savage resoluteness, by an untamable love of freedom, by their desart plains and enormous forests, and by their own poverty ; the humbling of the Dukes of Bavaria, Aquitania, Bretagne, and Gascony ; proud of their ancestry as well as of their ample domains; the almost entire extirpation of the Avars, so long the terror of Europe; are assuredly works which demanded 139 a courage and a firmness of mind such as Charles only possessed. How great his reputation was, and this too beyond the limits of Europe, is proved by the embassies sent to him out of Persia, Palestine, Mauritania, and even from the Caliphs of Bagdad. If at the present day an embassy from the Black or Caspian Sea comes to a prince on the Baltic, it is not to be wondered at, since such are now the political relations of the four quarters of the world, that a blow which is given to any one of them is felt more or less by all the others. Whereas in the times of Charlemagne, the inhabitants in one of the known parts of the world scarcely knew what was going on in the rest. Nothing but the extraordinary, all-piercing report of Charles's exploits could bring them to pass. His great- ness, which set the world in astonishment, was likewise, without doubt, that which begot in the Pope and the Romans the first idea of the re-establishment of their empire. Is it true, that a number of things united to make Charles a great man — favourable circum- stances of time, a nation already disciplined to 140 warlike habits, a loncj hfp, and the consequent acquisition of experience, such as no one pos- sessed in his whole realm. Still, however, the principal means of his (greatness Charles found in himself. His great mind was capable of extending its attention to the greatest multi- pUcity of affairs. In the middle of Saxony he thought on Italy and Spain, and at Home he made provisions for Saxony, Bavaria, and Pannonia. He gave audience to the Ambas- sadors of the Greek emperor and other po- tentates, and himself audited the accounts of his own farms, where every thing was entered even to the number of the eggs. Busy as his mind was, his body was not less in one con- tinued state of motion. Charles would see into every thing himself, and do every thing himself, as far as his powers extended: and even this it was too, which gave to his under- takings such a force and energy. But with all this the government of Charles was the government of a conqueror, that is splendid abroad and fearfully oppressive at home. What a grievance must it not have been for the people that Charles for forty years 141 together dragged them now to the Elbe, theu to the Ebro, after this to the Po, and from thence back again to the Elbe, and this not to check an invading enemy, but to make con- quests which little profited the French nation I This must prove too much, at length, for a hired soldier : how much more for conscripts, who did not live only to fight, but who were fathers of families, citizens, and proprietors? But above all, is it to be wondered at, that a nation like the French, should suffer themselves to be used as Charles used them. But the people no longer possessed any considerable share of influence. All depended on the great chieftains, who gave their willing suffrage for endless wars, by which theij were always sure to win. They found the best opportunity, under such cir- cumstances, to make themselves great and mighty at the expence of the freemen resident within the circle of their baronial courts ; and when conquests were made, it was far more for their advantage than that of the monarchy. In the conquered provinces there was a necessity for dukes, vassal kings, and different high offices : all this fell to their share. 142 I would not say this if we did not possess incontrovertible original documents of those times, which prove clearly to us that Charles's government was an unhappy one for the people, and that this great man, by bis actions, laboured to the direct subversion of his first principles. It was his first pretext to establish a greater equality among the members of his vast com- munity, and to make all free and equal subjects under a common sovereign. And from the necessity occasioned by continual war, the exact contrary took place. Nothing gives us a better notion of the interior state of the French monarchy, than the third capitular of the year 811. (comjjare with this the four or five quarto vols, of the present French Conscript Code.) All is full of complaint, the Bishops and Earls clamouring against the freeholders, and these in their turn against the Bishops and Earls. And in truth the freeholders had no small reason to be discontented and to resist, as far as they dared, even the imperial levies^. A dependant must be content to follow his lord withont further questioning : for he was paid for it. But a free citizen, who lived wholly on 143 his own property, might reasonably object to suffer himself to be dragged about in all quarters of the world, at the fancies of his lord : especially as there was so much injustice in- termixed. Those who gave up their properties entirely, or in part, of their own accord, were left undisturbed at home, while those, who re- fused to do this, were forced so often into service, that at length, becoming impoverished, they were compelled by want to give up, or dispose of their free tenures to the Bishops or Earls. (It would require no great ingenuity to discover parallels, or at least, equivalent hardships to these, in the treatment of, and regulations concerning the reluctant con- scripts.') It almost surpasses belief to what a height, at length, the aversion to war rose in the French nation, from the multitude of the campaigns and the grievances connected with them. Tht national vanity was now satiated by -the frequences of victories ; and the plunder which fell to the lot of individuals, made but a poor compensation for the losses and burthens sus- tained by their families at home. Some, 144 in order to become exempt from military ser- vice, sought for menial employments in the establishments of the Hishops, Abbots, Abbesses, and Karls. Others made over their free pro- perty to become tenants at will of such Lords, as from their age or other circumstances, they thought would be called to no further military services. Others, even privately took away the life of their mothers, aunU?, or other of their relatives, in order that no family residents might remain through whom their names might be known, and themselves traced; others volun- tarily made slaves of themselves, in order thus to render themselves incapable oi" the military rank. ^Yhen this Extract was first published, namely, September 7, 1809, 1 prefixed the following sentence. " This passage contains so much matter for political anticipation and ic&U- grounded hope, that I feel no apprehension of the Reader's being dissatisfied with its length. I trust, that I may derive the same confidence from his genial exultation, as a Christian ; and from his honest pride as a Briton; in the retro- spect of its completion. In this belief I ven- 145 lure to coucludo the Essay with the following Extract from a " Comparison of the French Republic, under Buonaparte, with the Roman Empire under the first Ciesars," published by nie in the Morning Post, Tuesday, 2i Sept. 1802. If then there bo no counterpoise of dissi- milar circumstances, the prospect is gloomy indeed. The commencement of the public slavery in Rome was in (lu^ most sjjlendid tera of human genius. Any unusually flourishing period of the arts and sciences in any country, is, even to this day, called the Augustan age of that country. The Kouian pools, the Roman historians, the Roman orators, rivalled those of Greece; in military tactics, in machinery, in all the conveniences of private life, the Romans greatly surpasvsed the Greeks. \Vith few ex- ceptions, all the emperors, oven tlie worst of them, were, like Buonaparte,* the liberal en- • Iniitutors succeed better in copying the vices than the excellences of their archetypes. Wiicre shall we find in the Fir^t Consul of France a counterpart fo the gencrons tfiid dreadless clemency of the first Cesar? Accrhc io- qnentibiis satis habuit pro concione dcnunciarc. iic ju-r- VOL. 1. L M6 couragers of all proat public works, aud of every species of public merit not connected with the assertion of political freedom. O JiivoiK'pi, i-ircMiinopieit ft agit&t vo«, Metrriainqiie liibi Dueis indiilgentia qusrif. It is even so, at this present moment, in France. Yet, both in France and in Rome, severareut. Aiilique Caeeinae criniinosii-ginio libro, ef Pitiiolai caruiiiiibus nialpdicenti!>«irais laceratam exittti- niationem suam civili aniiiio tulit. It deserves translation, for our Engliish readers. " If any spoke bitterly against him. be held it gnfficient to complain of it ptiblicly. to prevent tlieni from perse- vering in the use of such langneige. His character had been mangled in a most libellous work of Aulus Caecina, and he had been grossly lampooned in some verses by Pitholaus ; but he bore both with the temper of a good citizen.'" For this part of tlie First Consul's character, if com- mon report speaks the truth, we must seek a parallel in the dispositions of the third Caesar, who dreaded the pen of a paragraph writer, hinting aught against his morals aud measures, with as great anxiety, and with as vin- dictive feelings, as if it had been the dagger of an assassin lifted lip against his life. From the third Caesar, too, he adopted the abrogation of all popular elections. 147 we have learned, that the most abject dispo-' gitions to slavery rapidly trod on the hods of the most outrageous fanatirism lor an almost anarchical liberty. Rurre in .scrrilium pafrcft et populum. Peace and the coadunation of all the civilised provinces of the earth were the grand and plausible pretexts of Honian despo- tism : the degeneracy of the Iimmimii si)ecies it- self, in all the nations so bleudt d, was the me- lancholy elTect. To-niorrow, therefore, we shall endeavour to detect all those points and circumstances of dissimilarity, which, though they cannot impeach the rcetilutlc of the j)a- rallel, for the present, may yet nnider it pro- bable, that as the same Constitution of Go- vernment has been built up in France with in- comparably greater rapidity, so it may have an incomparably shorter duration. We arc not conscious of any feelings of bitterness to- wards the First Consid ; or, if any, only that venial prejudice, which naturally results from the havirig hoped proudly of any individual, and the having been miserably disappointed, liut we will not voluntarily cea.se to think freely and speak openly. We owe grateful hearts, L t MS and uplifted hands of thanksgiving to the Di' vine Providence, that there is yet one Euro- pean country (and that country our own) in which the actions of public men may be boldly analysed, and the result publicly stated. And let the Chief Consul, who professes in all things to follow his fate, learn to submit to it, if he finds that it is still his FATE to struggle with the spirit of English freedom, and the virtues which are the offspring of that spirit! If be finds, that the Genius of Great Britain, which blew up his -^Egyptian navy into the air, and blighted his Syrian laurels, still follows him with a calm and dread- ful eye ; and in peace, equally as in war, still watches for that liberty, in which alone the Genius of our Isle lives, and moves, and has his being ; and which being lost, all our com- mercial and naval greatness would instantly languish, like a flower, the root of which had been silently eat away by a worm ; and with- out which; in any country, the public festi- vals, and pompous merriments of a nation present no other spectacle to the eye of Reason, than a mob of maniacs dancing in their fetters. ESSAY XIII. Must there be slill some discord mixt among The hannoiiy of men, wliose mood accords Best with contention tnn'd vith the power of transporting, meiliatehj at least, the Pillagers of his Hedges and Copses ; thus expressed. Tlie Identity of Thesis and Antithesis is the siibstaiiee of all Being ; their Oppo&ilion (he con- dition of all Existence^ or Beinj; manifested ; and everj' Thing or Phicnoinenon is the Exponent of a Synthesis as long as (he opposite energies are retained in that Syn- thesis. Thns Water is neither Oxygen nor Hydrogen, nor yet is it a couiniixtiire of both : but the Synthesis or InditTerence of the two : and as long as the copula endures, by which it be».'omes Water, or rather which alone is Water, it is not less a simple Body than either of the imaginary Elements, improperly called its Ingre- dients or Components. It is the object of the mecha- nical atomistic Psilosophy to confound Synthesis with synartesis, or rather with mere jiixta-position of Cor- puscles separated by invisible Interspaces. I find it difficult to determine, whether this theory contradicts the Reason or the Senses most : for it is alike incon- ceivable aud uuima^iuabl?. 167 but th^ Law does not compel him to exercise that power, while it will often happen, that Religion commands him to forcfro it. Nay, so well was this understood by our Grand- fathers, that a man who squares his conscience by the Law was a common paraphrase or sy- uonime of a wretch without any conscience at all. We have all of us learnt from History, that there was a loiit^ and dark period, during which the Powers and the Aims of Law were usurped in the name of Religion by the Clergy and the Courts Spiritual: and we all know the result. Law and Religion thus interpene- trating neutralized each t)ther; and the baleful product, or tertium Ali(|uid, of this union retarded the civilization of Europe lor Centu- ries. Law splintered into the minutife of Re- ligion, w hose aweful function and prerogative it is to take account of every " idle icord^* became a busy and inquisitorial tyranny : and Religion substituting legal terrors for the en- nobling influences of Conscience remained Religion in name only. The present age ap- pears to me approaching fast to a similar usur- pation of the functions of Religion by Law: 158 and if it were rpquircd, I should not want strong presumptive proofs in favor of this opi- nion, whether I souf^lit for them in the (hart^es from the Hench eoncerninj; \Vront;s, to which Religion denouuce.s the fearful penalties of Guilt, but for whicii the Law of tlie Land as- signs Daina