3 1822 01097 4327


 
 WORKS OF 
 
 WILLIAM MATHEAVS, LL.D, 
 
 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD; or, 
 Hints on Success in Life. 1 volume. 
 lmo. Page* 874. Price $1 CO 
 
 THE GREAT CONVERSER8, and Other 
 
 Essays. 1 volume. I2mo. Pages 304. Price 1 50 
 
 WORDS; THEIR USE AND ABUSE. 
 
 1 volume. Itmo. Pages 494. Price . 2 00 
 
 HOURS WITH MEN AND BOOKS. 
 
 1 volume. Itmo. Pages 384. Price 150 
 
 MONDAY- CHATS; A Selection from the 
 "Canneries du Lundi" of C.-A. Salntc Benve, 
 with a Biographical and Critical Introduction 
 by the Translator. 1 volume, limo. Pages 396. 
 Price 200 
 
 ORATORT AND ORATORS. 1 volume. 
 
 Itmo. Pages 490. Price 200 
 
 LITERARY STYLE, and Other Essays. 
 
 1 volume. 12mo. Pages 845. Price 150
 
 THE GREAT CONVENERS, 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS. 
 
 BT 
 
 WILLIAM M^THEWS, LL.D., 
 
 AUTHOB or "WORDS; THEIU USE AND ABUSE," "GETTING ON IN THE WOBXD," 
 
 AND " HOURS WITH MEN AND BOOKS." 
 
 Je sais bieu que le lecteur n'a pas grand besoln de savoir tout cela ; mail 
 moi, j'ai grand besoin de le lui dire. ROUSSEAU. 
 
 TWELFTH EDITION. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 8. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY. 
 1885 .
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, 
 
 BY 8. C. GRIGGS A CO., 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 VnmtTT * LtOXXRD, PRIXTXRS, CHICA8O.
 
 TO 
 
 HORACE WHITE, 
 
 EDITOR 01 
 
 THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE 
 
 THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED, 
 WITH THE SINCERE REGARDS OF 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 There are a hundred faults in this thing, and a hundred things might be 
 aid to prove them beauties. But it is needless. A book may be amusing 
 with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity. 
 GOLDSMITH. 
 
 When this bundle of egotisms is bound up together, as they may be one 
 lay, if no accident prevents this tongue from wagging, or this ink from 
 running, they will bore yon, very likely ; so it would to read through 
 "Howell's Letters" from beginning to end, or to eat np the whole of a ham: 
 bat a slice on occasion may have a relish: a dip into the volume at random, 
 and so on for a page or two : and now and then a smile ; and presently a 
 Cape ; and the book drops out of your hand ; and so ban *oir, and pleasant 
 dreams to you. THACKERAY.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 kind reception which the author's former work, 
 " Getting On in the World," has experienced from 
 the press and the public, has tempted him to appear 
 once more in print. Many of the essays in the present 
 volume have been published before, but all of them have 
 been more or less enlarged and retouched, so far as the 
 author's limited time would allow; and, with not a few 
 misgivings as to their merit and probable reception, they 
 are now given to the public in a permanent form. The 
 scholar will find nothing new in them, but they may 
 serve to freshen some of his pleasant recollections; and 
 if the general reader, for whom they are chiefly intended, 
 should find in them enough of interest to cheat a few 
 hours of their ennui or weariness, the writer will not 
 deem his labor wasted 
 
 It remains only to add, that in writing the essay on 
 the Battle of Waterloo, the author has taken pains to 
 consult many of the best authorities, among the ablest 
 and most impartial of whom is Lt. Col. Charles C. Ches- 
 ney, R. E., author of "Waterloo Lectures; a Study of the 
 Campaign of 1815;" and that the map at the end of 
 the present volume is a reduced copy of one attached to 
 that work.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. THE GREAT CONVERSERS, ... 9 
 
 II. LITERARY CLUBS, ... 44 
 
 III. EPIGRAMS, .... 53 
 
 IV. POPULAR FALLACIES, ... 73 
 V. FACES, - 85 
 
 VI. COMPULSORY MORALITY, - - 93 
 
 VII. THE POWER OF TRIFLES, - - 100 
 
 VIII. A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS, 107 
 
 IX. FRENCH TRAITS, - - 121 
 
 X. PLEASANTRY IN LITERATURE, - 159 
 
 XL OUR DUAL LIVES, - - 168 
 
 XII. MERRY SAINTS, - - 186 
 
 XIII. ONE BOOK, - - - - 194 
 
 XIV. PULPIT ORATORY, 200 
 XV. ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE, - 211 
 
 XVI. Is LITERATURE ILL- PAID? 224 
 
 XVII. CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM, - - 239 
 
 XVIII. TIMIDITY IN PUBLIC SPEAKING, 249 
 
 XIX. NOSES, - - 257 
 
 XX. THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO (WITH MAP), 272 
 
 XXI. INDEX, 295
 
 THE GREAT CONVERSERS. 
 
 AMONG the books that remain to be written, one 
 of the most interesting and instructive is a vol 
 ume upon the great conversers of all ages, portraying 
 their styles and peculiarities, and giving well-selected 
 specimens, a kind of quintessence, of their sayings. To 
 cull out their wisest and wittiest, as well as their most 
 eloquent observations, the very apices rerum, from all the 
 "Ana" and books of table-talk that have been published 
 from the days of Xenophon and his "Memorabilia" to 
 those of Eckermann's "Conversations with Goethe," 
 would be no easy task, yet it would be labor well spent, 
 and we can hardly think of a book more piquant or 
 charming. The materials for it are exhaustless, and the 
 difficulty would be to grapple with such an "embarrass 
 ment of riches," to know, after opening the floodgates 
 of anecdote and reminiscence, when to close them. One 
 becomes, by familiarity, more and more enamored of such 
 a theme; and he is loth, just as he has begun to irri 
 gate the arid wastes of modern social life with the 
 sparkling waters of a younger age, to be silenced by 
 some Palaemon of a publisher with his inexorable 
 " Claudite jam rivos, pueri; sat prata biberunt." 
 
 Before speaking of some of the most famous talkers 
 of ancient and modern times, it may be well to say a 
 word upon a question which has been mooted by cer-
 
 10 THE GREAT CONVEBSERS. 
 
 tain essayists, namely, whether authors or men of the 
 world are the better convergers. William Hazlitt, who 
 was a keen observer, and mingled much in the society 
 of literary men, declares that authors and actors are 
 not fitted to shine in the social circle. Authors, he 
 thought, "ought to be read, and not heard;" and, as 
 to actors, they, he thinks, who have intoxicated and 
 maddened multitudes by their public display of talent, 
 can rarely be supposed to feel much stimulus in enter 
 taining one or two friends, or in being the life of a 
 dinner party. She who perished over night by the 
 dagger or the bowl, as Cassandra or Cleopatra, may be 
 allowed to sip her tea in silence, and not to be herself 
 again till she revives in Aspasia. Actors, again, utter 
 cut-and-dry repartees which are put into their mouths, 
 and must be a little embarrassed when their cue is taken 
 from them. Rousseau, on the other hand, who wrote so 
 laboriously, pronounces the conversation of authors supe 
 rior to their books; an opinion which, except in the 
 case of a few, to whom the stimulus of society was 
 necessary to bring out their stores, the biographies of 
 celebrated authors hardly confirm. Johnson, indeed, 
 spoke like a wit, and wrote like a pedant; but his was 
 a ponderous, elephantine mind, which needed the excite 
 ment of conversation to sting it into activity. Many of 
 the most celebrated writers, who have filled their books 
 with an originality and eloquence that defy oblivion, 
 have been dumb before their fellow-men. Not seldom 
 it happens that gems of the purest ray serene emit a 
 very dreary lustre at the dinner-table of patronizing 
 big-wiggery, or in the salons of blue-stockingism. How 
 often has it happened that your man of genius, when 
 invited to a packed assembly for the express purpose of 
 being pumped, has proved as dry and wheezy as a well
 
 THE GEEAT CONVERSERS. 11 
 
 in August, giving out not even a drop of the antici 
 pated living water! Many a fine spirit that can present 
 novel ideas in kaleidoscopic variety upon paper, not 
 only awing you by their profundity, but dazzling you 
 by their tropical splendor, is notorious for his inability 
 to put two ideas together by word of mouth, failing 
 even to find a door of utterance in that eternal refuge 
 for the destitute of small talk, the weather. Golden 
 ingots he has, precious bars of thought, which, in the 
 privacy of home, he can burnish into splendor, or con 
 vert into the coin of the realm; but, like many a 
 wealthy capitalist, he cannot, on the spur of the moment, 
 produce the farthings current in the market-place. 
 
 Abundant reason is there why this should be so. 
 Those who expect an author that has exhausted himself 
 in his books to be equally brilliant in company, forget 
 that it is the very fact that he has lavished his riches 
 in his writings that must disqualify him from displaying 
 them elsewhere. It is simply because he has been roused 
 to an intense pitch of excitement while engaged in the 
 task of composition, that he is proportionally nerveless 
 and relaxed in his social hours. The electrical eel can 
 not be always giving off shocks; the bow that has long 
 been strung loses its elasticity; the bird that soars to 
 the stars must sometimes rest its wing on the earth. 
 While other men in society abandon their whole souls 
 to the topics of the moment, and, concentrating their 
 energies, appear keen and animated, the man of genius, 
 who has stirred the vast sea of human hearts by his 
 writings, feels a languor and prostration arising from 
 the secret toil of thought; and it is only when he has 
 recruited his energies by relaxation and repose, and is 
 once more in his study, surrounded by those master 
 spirits with whom he has so often held "celestial col^
 
 12 THE GREAT CONVEB8ERS. 
 
 loquy sublime," that his soul rekindles with enthusiasm, 
 and pours itself on paper in thoughts that breathe, and 
 words that burn. 
 
 It is said that neither Pope nor Dryden was brilliant 
 in conversation; the one being too "saturnine and re 
 served," and the other too much afraid of the author of 
 the " Essay on Man." Neither Addison nor Cowper shoue 
 in society, and the same is true of the celebrated French 
 authors, Descartes, Moliere, La Fontaine and Buffon. 
 Addison, indeed, could talk charmingly to one or two 
 friends, but he was shy and absent before strangers. To 
 use his own happy metaphor, he could draw bills for a 
 thousand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his 
 pocket Hume's writings were so superior to his con 
 versation that Horace Walpole used to say that he un 
 derstood nothing till he had written upon it. Goldsmith 
 was a blundering converser, and showed hardly a spark 
 of the genius that blazes through his writings. Occa 
 sionally he blurted out a good thing, as when he applied 
 to Johnson a saying, in one of Gibber's plays, "There 
 is no arguing with Johnson, for, when his pistol misses 
 fire, he knocks down his adversary with the butt end of 
 it." But generally he " talked like poor Poll," and, when 
 he made an accidental hit, soon neutralized its effects by 
 something exquisitely foolish. Neither Corneille, the 
 great French dramatist, nor Marmontel, the novelist, 
 was master of the intellectual foils. Nicolle said of a 
 sparkling wit : " He vanquishes me in the drawing-room, 
 but surrenders to me at discretion on the stairs." The elo 
 quent Rousseau, whose writings have bewitched thousands, 
 confessed that when forced to open his mouth he infal 
 libly talked nonsense: "I hastily gabble over a number 
 of words without ideas, happy only when they chance to 
 nothing; thus endeavoring to conquer or hide my
 
 THE GREAT CONVERSERS. 13 
 
 incapacity, I rarely fail to show it." The witty Charles 
 II., who was so charmed with the humor of Hudibras 
 that he caused himself to be introduced privately to the 
 author, found Butler an intolerably dull companion. He 
 was confident that so stupid a fellow never wrote the 
 book. The Earl of Dorset, who sought an interview with 
 the great satirist, was similarly disappointed. Taking 
 three bottles of wine with him, he found the poet dull 
 and heavy after the first had been drained, somewhat 
 sparkling after the second bottle, and, after the third, 
 more stupid and muzzy than ever. " Your friend," said 
 the Earl, after he had left with his introducer, " is like a 
 ninepin, little at both ends, and great in the middle." 
 Godwin, the author of The Political Justice, was as 
 dull as Butler. According to Hazlitt, he had not a 
 word to throw to a dog; his talk was as flat as a pan 
 cake. All his genius was hoarded for his books ; he 
 had no idea of anything till he was wound up like a 
 clock, not to speak, but to write, and then he seemed 
 like a person risen from sleep, or from the dead. It 
 was much the same with Adam Smith, who hardly 
 dared open his lips in society, lest some pearl should 
 drop out. He was so chary of his thoughts, that once 
 Garrick, after listening to him awhile, whispered slily 
 to a friend, " What say you to this, eh ? Flabby, I think." 
 Again, the shyness of authors, the natural result of 
 their recluse habits, is doubtless one of the secrets of 
 their frequent failures in conversation. That Oliver 
 Goldsmith, awed by a Johnson, bullied by a Boswell, 
 and snubbed by a Hosier, should have talked " like poor 
 Poll," as Garrick declared, is not strange; but there 
 are few who will not agree with a kindhearted writer 
 in Blackwood, that had any person got poor "Goldy" 
 all to himself, over a bottle of Madeira, in Goldsmith's
 
 14 THE OBEAT CONTERSER8. 
 
 own lodging, and talked to him lovingly of his works, 
 he would have gone away with the conviction that 
 there was something in the well-spring of so much 
 gen ins, more marvelous than its diamond-like spray, 
 that the man was immeasurably greater than the frag 
 ments of him found in his books. Campbell's conver 
 sation in general society was commonly disappointing; 
 yet the writer just quoted, says that, accepting an invita 
 tion to sup with him teie-a-fete, he found him a most 
 brilliant talker : " I went at ten ; I stayed till dawn ; and 
 all my recollections of the most sparkling talk I have 
 ever heard in drawing-rooms afford nothing to equal the 
 riotous affluence of wit, of humor, of fancy, of genius, 
 which the great lyrist poured forth in his wondrous 
 monologue." To a talker so fascinating one might ap 
 ply the words of Joanna Baillie : 
 
 He IB so full of pleasant anecdote; 
 So rich, eo gay, BO poignant ia his wit, 
 Time vanishes before him as he speaks, 
 And ruddy morning through the lattice peeps 
 Ere night seems well begun. 
 
 There is another reason why men who spend their 
 lives in thought often do not shine in the social circle. 
 Deep feelings do not rise rapidly to the lips, and are 
 rather checked than encouraged by the forms and cere 
 monies of social life. Profound thinkers are apt to be 
 dull in company, because they have to dive to the bot 
 tom of their minds for the treasures which they would 
 communicate to others, and cannot keep pace, therefore, 
 with those shallow speakers whose thoughts lie on the 
 surface. Butler has said, as truly as wittily, that the 
 tongue is like a racehorse, which runs the faster the 
 less weight it carries. It matters little how vast an 
 amount of intellectual wealth a man has in solid bars,
 
 THE GREAT CONVERSERS. 15 
 
 if he cannot mint it into coin for currency in the com 
 merce of thought. Again, the conversation of authors 
 fails often because of its tenaciousness. It fastens upon 
 a subject, and will not let it go, thus resembling a 
 battle rather than a skirmish, and making a toil of 
 pleasure. The man who has gone to the bottom of a 
 subject, though slow to talk, yet, having begun to dis 
 cuss it, is not content to touch it lightly, to dally with 
 it, to sport and trifle, to blow brilliant bubbles, but 
 must begin at the beginning, and go through to the 
 end. Besides all this, authors, having a reputation to 
 lose, are often too ambitious to shine, to talk well. It 
 is almost- inevitable, when great wits are pitted against 
 each other, that talking should turn into an arena for 
 display. 
 
 It would be an inexcusable omission, in an account 
 of the great talkers, to say nothing of the ancients. In 
 conversation, as in oratory, they probably outshone the 
 moderns. The printing press has damaged the "Ma 
 hogany" even more than it has damaged the hustings. 
 Socrates, as we see him in the "Memorabilia," barefoot, 
 and plainly clad, inexorably logical, and the incarnation 
 of common sense, must have been one of the most 
 brilliant and instructive talkers of classic times. Chat 
 ting in the agora, the gymnasia, the shop of the corselet 
 maker, in the studio of the statuary, and at the table, 
 he must have been a kind of walking encyclopedia, a 
 college on legs ; and the whole State must have felt the 
 influence of his philosophy in all the veins of its moral 
 being. The few sayings we have of Themistocles and 
 Alcibiades are "steeped in the very brine of conceit, 
 and sparkle like salt in fire." Most of the reported 
 mots of Diogenes are so pungent and racy, that we re- 
 givt that there was no Bozzy to give us more of them.
 
 Iti THE GREAT CONTERSEK8. 
 
 The man who coined the word "cosmopolite" must 
 have been, in spite of his cynicism, a rare and catholic 
 thinker. 
 
 Cicero was a most brilliant talker, and must have 
 been what Sydney Smith calls "a diner-out of the high 
 est lustre." He was a wit as well as an orator, and 
 even deigned to pun when he could hit hard by doing 
 so. Niebuhr even thinks that wit, what the French 
 call esprit, was the predominant and most brilliant 
 faculty of his mind; and it is probable that at a re 
 partee he would have been a match for Talleyrand. He 
 waa so famous for his bon-mots, that Caesar employed a 
 man like Baron Grimm to send him a collection of 
 them from time to time, to any place where he might 
 be encamped. Though but few of his jests are pre 
 served, the Liber Jocularis, or collection of them by 
 his freedman, Tiro, having been lost yet they are of 
 such a quality as to show that he had a prompt as well 
 as a razor-like wit, that could draw blood when he chose ; 
 and it is a wonder that some of them did not cost him 
 his head. According to Macrobius, his enemies called 
 him "consularem scurram" the consular buffoon. A 
 Roman lady having told him that she was but thirty 
 years old, "It must be true," replied Tully, "for I have 
 heard it these twenty years." When Pompey, who had 
 married Caesar's daughter, asked Cicero, referring to 
 Dolabella, who had joined Caesar's party, "Where is 
 your son-in-law?" Cicero retorted, "With your father- 
 in-law." Dolabella was of short stature, and once, when 
 Cicero saw him with a long sword at his side, he asked, 
 "Who has tied that little fellow to his sword?" Quin- 
 tilian celebrates Cicero's urbanitas, by which the an- 
 ciente expressed that peculiar delicacy and eloquence of 
 humor that smacks of the cultivation of a capital; but
 
 THE GREAT CONVEBSER8. 17 
 
 the great orator sometimes stooped to coarse facetious- 
 ness, as when, in allusion to the Oriental custom of 
 boring the ears of slaves, he replied to a man of Eastern 
 and servile descent, who complained that he could not 
 hear him, " Yet you have holes in your ears." 
 
 Joe Miller is the great storehouse to which it is sup 
 posed that most of the modern jackdaws of wit go for 
 their fine feathers. But in the "Ana" of antiquity, as 
 a late writer remarks, we shall find more than one jeu 
 tfesprit which now adorns the brazen front of the 
 plagiary. What can be finer than Foote's reply to the 
 English Lord who was boasting the great age of the 
 wine which, in his parsimony, he had caused to be served 
 in extremely small glasses, " It is very little of its age ?" 
 Yet this identical witticism, says Mr. Hannay, is in 
 Athenaeus, where it is assigned to a woman whose jokes 
 were better than her character. "Wit, like gold," con 
 tinues the same pleasant writer, " is circulated sometimes 
 with one head on it and sometimes another, according 
 to the potentates who rule its realm. Few situations 
 are more trying than to sit at dinner and hear a racon 
 teur telling 'the capital thing said by Louis XIV.' to 
 so-and-so, with a distinct recollection that the same thing 
 was said by Augustus to a provincial. You cannot 
 quote Macrobius without the imputation of pedantry, 
 even if you were capable of the cruelty; and you grin 
 pleasant approbation with the consciousness that you are 
 a hypocrite." 
 
 Coming down to modern times,, we find Martin 
 Luther to have been one of the most charming talkers 
 of the ages. Fond of society, fond of music, fond of 
 children, intensely earnest, outspoken, and bubbling 
 over with humor, he had just the qualities which make 
 a good converser; and we find his "Table-Talk"
 
 18 THE GREAT CONVER8ER8. 
 
 abounding in those illuminated thoughts that cast "a 
 light as from a painted window" upon every theme, 
 even the darkest and most dreary. Coarse and violent 
 he sometimes was ; he used " plain words, stript of their 
 shirts ;" called, Spartan-like, a spade a spade ; and loved, 
 as what Teuton does not? his glass of beer. But re 
 volutions are not made with rosewater, nor can broad 
 axes have the delicacy of edge of razors. The 
 more intimately we know Luther, the better we like 
 him, for, as another has said, " he has the charm of na 
 ture. Of the most delicate wine a man is sometimes 
 tired; but water is eternally fresh and new, as welcome 
 the thousandth time as the first." "God made the 
 priest," said he, one day; "the devil set about an imi 
 tation, but he made the tonsure too large, and produced 
 a monk." In illustration the great reformer is especially 
 happy. " That little fellow," he said of a bird going to 
 roost, "has chosen his shelter, and is quietly rocking 
 himself to sleep without a care for to-morrow's lodging, 
 calmly holding by his little twig, and leaving God to 
 think for him." " When I am assailed," he says, "with 
 heavy tribulations, I rush out among my pigs, rather 
 than remain alone by myself. The human heart is like 
 a millstone in a mill; when you put wheat under it, 
 it turns and grinds and bruises the wheat to flour. If 
 you put no wheat, it still grinds on ; but then 'tis it 
 self it grinds and wears away." Sometimes he tells a 
 good story, as this: "An idle priest, instead of reciting 
 his breviary, used to run over the alphabet, and then 
 say: my God, take this alphabet, and put it to 
 gether how you will!'" Had Dr. Martin lived in our 
 day, he would perhaps have thrown his inkstand at 
 some other persons besides the devil. It is plain that 
 he had no sympathy with bluestockings, or " woman's-
 
 THE GREAT CONVEBSERS. 19 
 
 rightsers," for he says, "There is no gown or garment 
 that worse becomes a woman than when she will be 
 wise." Though often deeply depressed, he always coun 
 selled gayety of heart in others. "The birds/' he said, 
 " must fly over our heads, but why allow them to roost 
 in our hair?" Of female beauty he says, "The hair is 
 the finest ornament women have. Of old, virgins used 
 to wear it loose, except when they were in mourning. 
 I like women to let their hair fall down their back; 
 'tis a most agreeable sight." 
 
 Treading close upon the heels of Luther comes an 
 other royal talker, Scaliger ; not Julius Csesar, but 
 Joseph whose " Ana " Hallam pronounces the best ever 
 published. His enormous memory, which held every 
 thing as with hooks of steel, and his prodigious learning, 
 were the wonder of the world. His pride was as im 
 perial as his genius, and his egotism was absolutely 
 sublime. No king or emperor, he declares, was so hand 
 some as his father, and then adds: "Look at me; I 
 am exactly like him, and especially the aquiline nose!" 
 He regarded himself as the monarch of the literary 
 realm, and spoke of contemporary scholars with con 
 tempt and scorn. They were all, or nearly all, atheists, 
 pedants, apes, or asses, unworthy to loose even the latchet 
 of his shoes. Of Justus Lipsius he says: "I care as 
 little for Lipsius's Latin as he does for Cicero's;" and 
 of the Germans : " The Germans are indifferent what 
 wine they drink, so that it is wine, or what Latin they 
 speak, so that it is Latin." 
 
 In the next century the most brilliant talk to be 
 heard in Europe was that of the wits of the " Mermaid " 
 in London, whose conversational fame, had they but a 
 Menage, or other "chiel amang them taking notes," 
 would have rivalled, if not eclipsed, that of the diseurs
 
 20 THE GREAT CONVER8ER8. 
 
 of Lewis the Fourteenth's age in France. To this fa 
 mous haunt came the "myriad-minded" Shakspeare; the 
 brawny egotist, Ben Jonson; the metaphysician, divine, 
 seer, pedant and poet, Donne ; that encyclopedia on legs, 
 Selden; Beaumont, Fletcher, Chapman, Raleigh, and other 
 gods of intellect, who, seated in a room well-filled with 
 tobacco smoke, and at a table covered with cups of ca 
 nary, passed many an hour "ayant the twal," in exchang 
 ing their bolts and flashes. It was here that came off 
 those merry meetings and wit-combats which Fuller has 
 celebrated and Beaumont so finely painted. 
 
 What things have we seen 
 
 Done at the Mermaid 1 hard words that have been 
 So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 
 As if that every one from whom they came 
 Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, 
 And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
 Of hla dull life. * 
 
 We left an air behind us, which alone 
 WM able to make the two next companies 
 Right witty, though but downright fools. 
 
 Of all these flashes of wit and sentiment, these spo 
 ken fireworks, we have, alas! not a scintillation. The 
 chasm is one of the most deplorable in literature. Think 
 of Shakspeare's talk reported with the fullness and accu 
 racy of a Boswell! Luckily we have a few jottings of 
 "Old Ben's" talk while he was visiting Drummond, of 
 Hawthornden ; though even these are so meagre and frag 
 mentary, and come from so hostile a pen, that the rule 
 ex pede Herculem hardly applies. There are enough of 
 them, however, to show that he was what we should 
 infer from his plays, an Englishman to the backbone. 
 His bluff, hearty manner, his swaggering, boastful way 
 of speaking of his own works, his vanity, egotism, love
 
 THE GREAT CONVERSEB8. 21 
 
 of deep potations, his dogged self-will, stern integrity, 
 hatred of baseness and meanness, and vein of sterling 
 sense, all peep out even in these imperfect notes, and 
 give us a tolerable photograph of the man. "He would 
 not flatter," he said, "though he saw Death." Of Queen 
 Elizabeth, he said that " she never saw herself, after she 
 became old, in a true glass; they painted her, and 
 sometimes would vermilion her nose." Of all styles he 
 said he most loved to be named honest, and "hath of 
 that one hundred letters so naming him." That he had 
 felt the grip of poverty we have painful proof in the 
 statement that "sundry tymes he hath devoured his 
 books," that is, sold them to supply himself with food. 
 His judgments on other poets were insolently magiste 
 rial, and remind one of Scaliger. The remark in which 
 he most vividly photographs himself, is this: "He hath 
 consumed a whole night in lying looking to his great toe, 
 about which he hath seen Tartars and Turks, Romans 
 and Carthaginians, fight in his imagination." 
 
 Of that "gulf of learning," John Selden, we have, 
 most fortunately, some of the treasures in his "Table- 
 Talk," published by his amanuensis, Richard Milward, 
 in 1689. In reading its pages it seems difficult to be 
 lieve that we are listening, not only to the " Monarch 
 of Letters," as Ben Jonson styles him, but to the great 
 Bencher of the Inner Temple, who was the "law-book 
 of the Judges;" to the orator who thundered against 
 "tonnage and poundage" in the House of Commons; 
 still less to the author of the dry "Titles of Honor," 
 and the ponderous, crabbed "Marmora Arundeliana, 
 Sive Saxa Gneca Incisa." But Selden had an intellect of 
 wondrous flexibility; like the elephant's trunk, it could 
 uproot an oak or pick up a pin. Dry and bristling 
 with lore in his writings, he can be in his conversation
 
 22 THE GREAT CONVER8ERS. 
 
 as simple and playful as a child. He is " still the great 
 scholar and the tough parliamentarian, but merry, fa 
 miliar and witty. The dvypiffftov filaaiia is on the 
 sea of his vast intellect He writes like the opponent 
 of Grotins; he talks like the friend of Ben Jonson." 
 Clarendon, a severe judge, tells us that "he was the 
 most clear discourser, and had the best faculty of making 
 hard things easy, and presenting them to the under 
 standing, that hath been known." Our limits prevent 
 us from giving many bits of his talk, but we present a 
 few. Of friends, he says: "Old friends are best. King 
 James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest 
 for his feet." Under Language, we read : " Words must 
 be fitted to a man's mouth ; 'twas well said of the id- 
 low who was to make a speech for my Lord Mayor, he 
 desired to take the measure of his Lordship's mouth." 
 
 It is in this "Table-Talk" that is found the saying 
 so admired by Coleridge, that transubstantiation is "only 
 rhetoric turned into logic;" and the happy comparison 
 of faith and works to light and heat: "put out the 
 candle and they are both gone; one remains not with 
 out the other; so 'tis betwixt faith and works." 
 
 Selden loves to give a zest to his discourse by familiar 
 allusions, aptly introduced, or smart figures of speech; 
 his remarks, even on the gravest subjects, are as full of 
 illustrations as a pudding of plums. Thus, observing 
 that they that govern most make least noise, he adds: 
 "You see that when they row in a barge, they that do 
 drudgery, work, and slash, and puff, and sweat, while he 
 that governs sits quietly at the stern, and is scarcely 
 seen to stir." On the vexed question of convocation, he 
 insists on the presence of laymen in the synod, to over 
 look the clergy, lest they spoil the civil work; just as 
 when the good woman puts a cat into the milk-house to
 
 THE GREAT CONVERSERS. 23 
 
 kill a mouse, she sends her maid after the cat, lest the 
 cat should eat up the cream. We fear the great scholar 
 was not overstocked with gallantry; again and again he 
 drops a remark which shows that, if not a woman-hater, 
 he was a decided woman-mocker. "Tis reason," he 
 says, "a man that will have a wife should be at the 
 charge of her trinkets, and pay all the scores she sets 
 on him. He that will keep a monkey, 'tis fit he should 
 pay for the glasses he breaks." Of the Sabbath he asks : 
 "Why should I think all the Fourth Commandment 
 belongs to me, when all the Fifth does not ? What land 
 will the Lord give me for honoring my father ? It was 
 spoken to the Jews, with reference to the Land of Ca 
 naan; but the meaning is, if I honor my parents, God 
 will also bless me." To preachers he gives the following 
 admirable advice: "First in your sermons use your 
 logic, and then your rhetoric. Ehetoric without logic 
 is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root. 
 That rhetoric is best which is most seasonable and most 
 catching. An instance we have in that old blunt com 
 mander at Cadiz, who showed himself a good orator, being 
 about to say something to his soldiers (which he was not 
 used to do), he made them a speech to this purpose: 
 'Wliat a shame will it be, you Englishmen, that feed 
 upon good beef and brewess, to let those rascally Span 
 iards beat you, that eat nothing but oranges and lemons? 
 And so put more courage into his men than he could 
 have done with a more learned oration." 
 
 It is said to be impossible to read Bacon's Essays 
 for the fiftieth time without being struck by some new 
 and original remark, or seeing some thought placed in 
 a new and original light. Their suggestiveness, the in 
 exhaustible aliment they supply to our own thoughts, 
 is the grand characteristic of all Bacon's writings; and
 
 24 THE GREAT CONVER8ERS. 
 
 therefore we cannot but deplore, as a hiatum valde de- 
 Jlendum, the lack of any report of his conversation. 
 How well he understood the proprieties and delicacies, 
 as well as the value of "discourse," is shown by his 
 essay on that subject. The few sayings of his that have 
 been preserved are as wise, weighty, and dense with 
 thought as his printed aphorisms. Ben Jonson, a severe 
 judge, who was chary of his praise, tells us that "no 
 man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weight 
 ily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he 
 uttered. His hearers could not cough, or look aside 
 from him, without loss. The fear of every man who 
 heard him was lest he should make an end." 
 
 Disraeli remarks that many a great wit has thought 
 the wit it was too late to speak, and many a great 
 reasoner has only reasoned when his opponent has dis 
 appeared. Conversation with such men is a losing 
 game. Profound thinkers are often helpless in society, 
 while shallow men have nimble and ready minds. Mont- 
 belliard utterly eclipsed his friend Buffon in conversation ; 
 but when they took their pens, a vast interval separated 
 them; he whose pen dropped the honey and the music 
 of the bee, handled a pen of iron; while Buffon's was 
 the soft pencil of the philosophical painter of nature. 
 Of Cowley and Killigrew, Denham wrote: 
 
 Had Cowley ne'er spoke, Killigrew ne'er writ, 
 Combined in one, they had made a matchless wit. 
 
 Prolific as was the age of Elizabeth in splendid 
 talkers, it was not, perhaps, till the next century, in 
 the reign of Louis Quatorze, that conversation, as an 
 art, culminated. It was in Paris, that marvellous city 
 where, as Victor Hugo says, the grandiose and the bur 
 lesque harmonize, and where the same mouth can blow
 
 THE GREAT CONVERSERS. 25 
 
 to-day into the trumpet of the last judgment, and to 
 morrow into the penny- whistle, that the diseur was in 
 his glory. The Grand Monarque, himself a brilliant, 
 epigrammatic talker, gave the cue to his court, and a 
 wit of the time 
 
 Hardly his mouth could ope, 
 But out there flew a trope, 
 
 or smart saying, which darted like an electric spark 
 through all the circles of the capital. It has been aptly 
 said that the words which were the counters at the 
 Court, were as choice as the counters they used at 
 cards; it was as if diamonds had been declared a legal 
 tender.* Honors were conferred by the King in bon-mots, 
 and appointments communicated in jeux $ esprit. "If 
 I had known a more deserving person," he would say, 
 "I would have selected him." When Conde returned 
 from the battle of Beuef, Louis advanced to the head 
 of the staircase to meet his great general. The latter, 
 ascending slowly, from the effects of the gout, apolo 
 gized to His Majesty for making him wait. "My 
 cousin," was the reply, "do not hurry; no one could 
 move more quickly who was loaded with laurels as you 
 are." There is no pleasanter intellectual distraction, 
 no better way of cheating one's dreary hours of their 
 ennui, than by dipping into the Ana of this period, 
 and listening to the chit-chat, the pleasantries and pun 
 gent sayings of the wits, courtiers, and men of letters. 
 They unite the elegance and polish of Chesterfield with 
 the keenness and terseness of Talleyrand and Voltaire. 
 Even foreigners, from the frozen North, are infected 
 with the wit of the capital on coming into it; and 
 they scarcely begin to breathe its atmosphere before 
 their icy natures thaw and their mouths drop fine say-
 
 26 THE CHEAT CONVERSERS. 
 
 ings. When Christina, of Sweden, came to Paris, and 
 the great ladies rushed to kiss her, "Why," she ex 
 claimed, "they seem to take me for a gentleman 1" In 
 fact, as an English essayist remarks, "While we read 
 the Ana of this period, the air seems prickly with 
 epigrams. They are as thick as fire-flies." 
 
 Lord Stanhope tells a story of a Scotchman who, in 
 the days of gambling and hard drinking, was heard 
 to say: "I tell you what, sir, I just think that conver 
 sation is the bane of society." Such must have been 
 the opinion of many persons in England when Niebuhr, 
 the German historian, visited that country, for he com 
 plains bitterly of the superficiality and insipidity of 
 nearly all the conversations he listened to, a& being 
 absolutely depressing. Yet it was in that same " silver- 
 coasted isle " that had lived and flourished, only a gen 
 eration before, Samuel Johnson, the Alexander of the 
 conversational realm, to whose iron rule the accom 
 plished Reynolds, the luminous and learned Gibbon, the 
 many-tongued Jones, the inimitable Garrick, the classic 
 Langton, and even the eloquent Burke, were willing to 
 bow; and what talker did ever Germany produce to 
 rival Johnson ? To discuss questions of taste, of learn 
 ing, of casuistry, in language so exact and forcible that 
 it might have been printed without the alteration of a 
 word, was to him, as Macaulay has remarked, no exer 
 tion, but a pleasure. He loved, as he said, to fold his 
 legs, and have his talk out; and he loved especially to 
 talk with those who were able to send him back every 
 ball that he threw. Sluggish by nature, and averse 
 to the drudgery of composition, he found conversation 
 to be a necessity of his vigorous and teeming intellect. 
 It was not merely a means of amusement or recreation, 
 however; it was generally a struggle of wits, a gladi-
 
 THE GREAT COXVERSERS. 27 
 
 atonal contest, a literal fight, in which he must either 
 conquer or die. Reading everything, and forgetting 
 nothing; having all his knowledge at his tongue's end; 
 possessing a powerful and piercing understanding, a 
 fertile fancy, and an imperial command of language ; he 
 seemed to be, in one person, the Goliah and the David 
 of conversation, strong to wield a spear that was as 
 a weaver's beam, and nimble to whirl a pebble from 
 a sling. Blunt in his contradiction ; merciless in 
 his sarcasm; ruling like a despot in his circle; he yet 
 displayed such a wealth of resources, that, whatever 
 lack there might be of courtesy, there was none of 
 interest. His powerful logic; his prompt and keen re 
 torts; his pithy and sage remark; his apt quotation; 
 his caustic wit; his princely command of language; his 
 intense positivism, dogmatism, and bow-wow manner; 
 his mingled cynicism, melancholy, pathos, and tender 
 ness, made him one of the mightiest talkers that 
 ever lived. It has been truly said that his vivid, pithy 
 talk spoiled men for everything that was not at once both 
 weighty and smart. "It was at once gay and potent; 
 its playfulness resembling the ricochetting of sixty- 
 eight pounders, which bound like India-rubber balls, 
 yet batter down fortresses." Contemporary with John 
 son, though not of the club, was Home Tooke, who, 
 nimble-witted and full of learning, overflowed with an 
 interminable babble. Yet he was no mere babbler, but 
 had " cut-and-come-again " in him, "tongue with a 
 garnish of brains." 
 
 Contemporary also with Johnson, though younger, 
 was "Auld Scotia's" greatest bard, who added collo 
 quial genius to his other gifts. That the man who 
 dashed off Tarn O'Shanter in a single day, and of 
 whose terse, caustic, and humorous lines and sentences
 
 28 THE GREAT CONVERSERS. 
 
 so many hundreds have passed like iron into the blood 
 of our daily speech, was a charming talker, we should 
 infer, as a matter of course. The Duchess of Gordon 
 said, somewhat coarsely, in allusion to the fiery sleet 
 of the poet's discourse, that he could talk her off her 
 legs. In the next age we have Sir Waller Scott, 
 whose conversation was not brilliant, but frank, hearty, 
 picturesque, and dramatic. He was a capital listener 
 as well as a good talker, and had the rare faculty of 
 appreciating a good thing from the humblest source. 
 He pronounced George Ellis the first converser he 
 ever knew, and expressed the opinion that the higher 
 order of genius is not favorable to conversational ex 
 cellence. That Byron was a splendid talker none can 
 doubt "His more serious conversation," said Shelley, 
 " is a sort of intoxication ;" it was now Childe Harold, 
 now Manfred, now Don Juan, and anon the quint 
 essence of all together. 
 
 It is said that, in the days of Jekyll, Mackintosh, 
 and Sydney Smith, society had no member more popu 
 lar than William Wilberforce. Madame de Stael pro 
 nounced him the most brilliant converser she had met 
 with in England. Wit, it has been said, may either 
 pervade a man's conversation, or be condensed in par 
 ticular passages of it, as the electric current may 
 either be diffused through the atmosphere, or flash 
 across it Wilberforce's wit was of the former kind; 
 he had no terse and pregnant jests, yet whatever he 
 said was amusing or interesting. Sometimes Sir Francis 
 Bacon would supply the text, and sometimes Sir John 
 Sinclair; but whether he fused the pure gold of the 
 sage, or brayed, as in a mortar, the crotchets of 
 the simpleton, the comment was irresistibly charm* 
 ing, though no memory could retain the glowing, pic-
 
 THE GREAT CONVERSERS. 29 
 
 turesque, or comic language in which it was de 
 livered. Mackintosh, his contemporary, must have been, 
 we think, a wearisome talker, in spite of, or, rather, 
 on account of, his prodigious learning; though Sydney 
 Smith pronounces him the most brilliant and instruc 
 tive talker he ever knew; and Robert Hall is reported 
 to have said: "I have been with Mackintosh this morn 
 ing; but, oh! sir, it was like the Euphrates pouring 
 itself into a teacup." Sir James had little verbal 
 wit; brilliant repartees, pungent sayings, concentrated 
 and epigrammatic remarks, were not his forte. He was 
 "luminous, lettered, and long-memoried." The shrewd, 
 masculine Joanna Baillie calls him a clever talker; 
 "but he tried me very much, though my sister once 
 repeated to me seventeen things he said worth remem 
 bering, one morning at breakfast. Another lady, in de 
 scribing his soft Scotch voice, said : " Mackintosh played 
 on your understanding with a flageolet, Macaulay with 
 a trumpet." Perhaps the highest merit of Mackintosh's 
 talk was that it enriched other men mentally, without 
 their being aware of the debt. He conveyed his ideas 
 so skillfully and unobtrusively as to make his hearers 
 believe them their own. He has been described as the 
 converse of a pickpocket, with all the skill of en 
 richment which that ingenious individual uses for 
 impoverishing. 
 
 To Sydney Smith's colloquial powers we can but bare 
 ly advert ; who could do justice to them in a touch-and- 
 go notice? We can think of no great converser whom we 
 would have walked more miles to hear. He talked, not 
 for display, but, as a bird sings, because he could not 
 help it; because he was mad with spirits; because his 
 mind was a spring bubbling over with ideas, and, as 
 he said, he must speak or burst. He had no elaborate
 
 30 THE GREAT CONVERSER8. 
 
 impromptus, no cut-and-dry repartees; he never lay 
 perdu, seeking to draw the conversation into an am 
 bush, that he might give play to his sharpshooters, 
 when he had tricked men within his reach. His prac 
 tice was, as he said, to fire right across the table, and 
 to talk upon any subject that was started, rarely start 
 ing anything of his own. Though the prince of wits, 
 he was no mere joker, or provoker of barren laughter. 
 There was always plenty of bread to his sack. Having 
 as much wit as a man without a grain of his sense, he 
 had as much sense as a man without a spark of his 
 wit. His jests always contained a thought worth trea 
 suring for its own sake, independently of the brilliant 
 vehicle, the value of a hundred pounds sterling of 
 sense, condensed into a cut and polished diamond. 
 Byron calls him 
 
 The loudest wit I ever was deafened with ; 
 
 and it is said that, when he and Macaulay were in 
 company, they set the table in confusion, appalled quiet 
 people, made them eat the wrong dishes, and drink the 
 wrong wines. His favorite maxim was: take as many 
 half minutes as you can get, but never take more than 
 half a minute without pausing, and giving others an 
 opportunity to strike in; and he vowed that a clever 
 acquaintance of his, who talked on the opposite princi 
 ple, was the identical Frenchman who murmured, as 
 he was anxiously watching a rival, " S'il crache ou 
 toufse, il est perdu .' " 
 
 Was Macaulay a fine converger? It is hard to say. 
 The name which Sydney Smith gave him, "a book 
 in breeches," would imply that he was a monologueist, 
 not a converser. In his talk there was the same 
 impetuous volubility which we find in his essays; as
 
 THE GREAT CONTERSERS. 31 
 
 some one said of his speeches, all you thought of in 
 listening to Macaulay, was an express train, which did 
 not stop even at the chief stations. His conversation 
 teemed with thought, criticism, quotation, and illustra 
 tion; but there was too much epigram, too much 
 glitter, too much, in short, of the rhetorician, to make 
 it thoroughly enjoyable. Our countryman, Prescott, 
 who often met him in society in 1850, describes his 
 conversation as bemg "like the unintermitting jerks of 
 a pump." "I do not believe," Sydney Smith used to 
 say, "that Macaulay ever did hear my voice." But, 
 though he took the lion's share of the conversation, it 
 was not from arrogance, or a desire to monopolize the 
 attention of the company, but simply because the 
 stream welled forth from a full mind and a prodigious 
 memory. When he launched upon a subject, there was 
 no hope of arresting his voyage, nor any wish to do so. 
 Commencing with the remotest beginning of his theme, 
 hardly "skipping the deluge," just as he begins his 
 History of James II. with the Phoenicians, he would 
 roll on a mighty flood, gathering volume and power 
 at every moment, till there seemed no reason why the 
 talk should ever cease ; no more than for the Amazon 
 to run diy, or time to pause in its flight. The talk 
 had some of Milton's organ roll, and was only to be 
 closed by Milton's organ stop. 
 
 The poet Rogers, according to Byron, was silent and 
 severe. -When he did talk, he talked well; and on all 
 subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression was as pure 
 as his poetry. Unfortunately, he was noted for the in 
 dulgence of a "critical" spirit, which became at last so 
 formidable that his guests might have been seen" manceu- 
 vering which should leave the room last, so as not to 
 be the target of his shafts; and it was said that he
 
 32 THE GREAT CONVERSERS. 
 
 made his way in the world, as Hannibal made his 
 across the Alps, with vinegar. He was aware of his 
 propensity, and accounted for it thus: "When I was 
 young, I found that no one would listen to my civil 
 speeches, because I had a very small voice; so I began 
 to say ill-natured things, and then people began to 
 attend me." Among his witty sayings, one of the hap 
 piest was a hit at the restlessness of Moore: "Moore 
 dines in one place, wishing he was dining in another 
 place, with an opera-ticket in his pocket which makes 
 him wish he was dining nowhere." "Is that the con 
 tents you are looking at?" asked an anxious author, 
 who saw Rogers's eye fixed on a list at the commence 
 ment of a presentation copy of a new work. "No," 
 said the poet, pointing to the list of subscribers, "the 
 rfwcontents." 
 
 That Charles Lamb must have been a charming 
 converser, no one, except those who lack the slight 
 idiosyncrasy necessary for the full appreciation of his 
 writings, can doubt He always made, we are told, the 
 best pun and the best remark in the course of the 
 evening. His serious conversation was his best. No 
 other person, according to Hazlitt, ever stammered out 
 such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent things in half-a-dozen 
 half-sentences as he did. "His jests scald like tears, 
 and he probes a question with a play upon words. 
 What a keen, laughing, hair-brained vein of homefelt 
 truth! What choice venom! How often did we cut 
 into the haunch of letters, while we discussed the 
 haunch of mutton on the table! How we skimmed the 
 cream of criticism! How we got into the heart of 
 controversy! How we picked out the marrow of au 
 thors!" To Lamb's conversation we might apply the 
 words spoken of another in Julian and Maddalo ;
 
 THE GBEAT CONVERSEES. 33 
 
 His wit 
 
 And subtle talk would cheer the winter night, 
 And make me know myself; and the fire-light 
 Would flash upon our faces, till the day 
 Might dawn, and make me wonder at my stay. 
 
 Among the minor talkers of England, James Smith, 
 one of the authors of that famous hit, "The Kejected 
 Addresses," of which a Leicester clergyman said, "I 
 do not see why they should have been rejected; I think 
 some of them were very good," must have been one 
 of the most charming. He was not very witty or bril 
 liant, it is said, but had an inexhaustible fund of 
 amusement and information, with lightness, liveliness, 
 and good sense. His memory was prodigious, but it 
 was principally stored with the choicest morsels from 
 the standard English poets, comic writers, and drama 
 tists; and like Mackintosh, as described by Sydney 
 Smith, he so managed it as to make it a source of 
 pleasure and instruction, rather than "that dreadful 
 engine of colloquial oppression into which it is some 
 times erected." Among his reported good things are 
 the following: To a gentleman of the same name, who 
 occupied lodgings in the same house with him, and 
 who was constantly receiving his letters, he said : " This 
 is intolerable, sir, and you must quit/' "Why am I 
 to quit more than you ?" " Because you are James the 
 Second, and must abdicate" Mr. Bentley proposed to 
 establish a periodical to be called "The Wit's Miscel 
 lany," to which Smith objected that the title promised 
 too much. When the publisher called to tell him that 
 he had profited by the hint, and resolved on calling it 
 " Bentley's Miscellany," Smith asked : " Isn't that going 
 a little too far the other way?" 
 
 Painters are usually quiet, thoughtful, silent men,
 
 84 THE GREAT CONVERSERS. 
 
 but, for that very reason perhaps, when they do speak, 
 usually speak to the point Not caring to shine, tin v 
 shine the more. Northcote, judging by Hazlitt's speci 
 mens, must have been a capital talker. He had the 
 faculty, which in Charles II. shone so preeminently, of 
 telling a story or anecdote again and again, with all the 
 freshness and point of the first telling. "His face," 
 says Hazlitt, "is as a book. There needs no marks of 
 interjection or interrogation to what he says. His 
 thoughts bubble up and sparkle, like beads on old 
 wine." 
 
 The brilliancy of Madame De Stael's conversation 
 has passed into a proverb ; it triumphed so far over the 
 plainness of her features, that Curran said that she had 
 the power of talking herself into a beauty. Though she 
 talked often for display, she talked still more for self- 
 improvement, and drew both her inspiration and her 
 literary material largely from conversation. Her genius 
 was fed so exclusively through her faculty of hearing 
 she used her eyes so little in acquiring materials for 
 her books that it has been said that she might almost 
 as well have been blind. Except out of respect to cus 
 tom, she avows she would not open her window to see 
 the Bay of Naples for the first time, whereas she would 
 travel five hundred leagues to talk with a clever man 
 whom she had never met. Her chief fault as a talker 
 was her racehorse rapidity of tongue. Byron called her 
 society "an avalanche ;" and Schiller complained that, in 
 order to follow her, one had absolutely to convert him 
 self wholly into an organ of hearing. 
 
 Of all the great talkers of ancient or modern times, 
 the Coryphaeus, or Jupiter Tonans, who " Sternhold him 
 self out-Sternholded," was unquestionably Samuel Tay 
 lor Coleridge. Though eulogized so often as a converser,
 
 THE GKEAT CONVERSEBS. 35 
 
 he was, in fact, rather a lecturer, preacher, declaimer, 
 or thinker aloud, and poured forth his brilliant, unbro 
 ken monologues of two or three hours' duration to 
 listeners so bewitched and fascinated, so dazzled by the 
 light which he threw upon every subject, even the dull 
 est, as the sun turns the dreariest vapors into clouds of 
 gold, so charmed by the words, so rich, so rotund, so 
 many-hued, ttyat passed before their gaze like a flight of 
 purple birds, that, like Adam, whose ears were filled 
 with the eloquence of an archangel, the hearers " forgot 
 all place, all seasons and their change." The enthu 
 siastic Hazlitt, the conscientious John Foster, and the 
 severely-critical De Quincey, alike exhaust their superla 
 tives in testifying to his power. "He spun daily," says 
 the latter, "from the loom of his own magical brain, 
 theories more gorgeous far, and supported by a luxury 
 of images such as no German that ever breathed could 
 have emulated in his dreams." In his best moments, he 
 was one of the most suggestive and instructive of talk 
 ers, a teacher of teachers. The value of his discourses 
 lay not so much in the positive knowledge that they 
 communicated, as in the intellectual stimulus they sup 
 plied, the spirit of inquiry they provoked, the self- 
 ignorance and superficiality of which they made men 
 conscious, and the great basal principles which they re 
 vealed. Much of the effect of Coleridge's eloquence 
 was owing, no doubt, to the charms of his manner ; for 
 his voice, it is said, was naturally soft and good ; and 
 though it had contracted itself into a plaintive snuffle 
 and sing-song, so that his phrases of German termi 
 nology, "object" and "subject," were nasally organized 
 into "om-m-ject" and " sum-m-ject," with "a kind of 
 solemn shake or quaver as he rolled along," yet there 
 was a dreamy soothing in his accents, it is said, of irre-
 
 36 THE GREAT CONVER8ERS. 
 
 sistible power, especially when poetry and imagination 
 were the theme of his high argument. But the most 
 brilliant eloquence tires at last, and even that of the 
 Highgate sage failed sometimes of its witching effect 
 upon the hearer's ears. "To sit eternally, as a mere 
 bucket, and be pumped into," to be acted on forever, 
 and never to react, is what no human being, except a 
 dunce, can long endure; and even those who bowed to 
 this "Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table," felt, after they 
 had listened to a soliloquy of five hours' duration, that 
 they were pumped full, and cried, " Hold, enough !" Few 
 will fail to remember the story told by Theodore Hook, 
 of a three-hours' discourse from the " Rapt one with the 
 god-like forehead," which was suggested by two soldiers 
 seated by the roadside, and Hook's characteristic ob 
 servation at the close : " Thank Heaven ! you did not 
 see a regiment, Coleridge, for in that case you would 
 never have stopped." Sir Walter Scott describes a din 
 ner party, at which he was equally bored by a most 
 learned and everlasting harangue of Coleridge on the 
 Samothracian mysteries, Homer, and the Wolfian hy 
 pothesis, etc., etc., and concludes the account with the 
 impatient exclamation, "Zounds! I was never so be- 
 thnmped with words." Yet doubtless there were others 
 of the party who never dreamed that they were either 
 cudgeled or beflogged, and who went away exclaiming 
 to themselves, 
 
 How charming is divine philosophy 1 
 
 Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 
 
 Bat musical aa is Apollo's lute. 
 
 The few brilliant sayings of Robert Hall that are 
 reported by his biographer, make us deeply regret that 
 among those whose darkness he illuminated by his
 
 THE GREAT C01TVERSERS. 37 
 
 flashes of wit, sarcasm, and humor, there was no one 
 to make " Bozziness " his business. Many of his sayings 
 have all the vividness and weight, without the ponder- 
 ousness, of Johnson's. Foster said of the great Baptist 
 preacher and Coleridge, that the former commanded his 
 words like an emperor, the latter like a necromancer; 
 but that in conversation they seemed to change their 
 character; there, Coleridge became imperial, Hall, ne 
 cromantic. His words flitted and flew to and fro like 
 the phantoms of enchantment, while those of the poet 
 held on a stately and continuous march. In spite of 
 his acute sufferings, he keenly enjoyed social intercourse, 
 often saying, "Don't let us go yet; the present place 
 is the best place," when the company was about to 
 break up. In the intensity of his likes and dislikes, and 
 in the freedom of his personal sarcasms, he strongly 
 resembled Johnson. He could not brook a difference 
 of opinion upon a point which he had thoroughly con 
 sidered, and peremptorily closed the debate with an 
 expression of his views. 
 
 Hall's friend, John Foster, must have been a bril 
 liant talker, if we may judge by the few sayings of his 
 that have been reported. In mixed company he was 
 not ready to pour out his thoughts; but when with 
 congenial companions, he could summon, as with a 
 magician's wand, from all points of the compass, the 
 profoundest thoughts, couched in the happiest language, 
 and illuminated with the richest imagery. At repartee 
 he was especially happy. Of certain useless worsted- 
 work, he said that it was "red with the blood of mur 
 dered time." To a person who was praising the piety 
 of the Emperor Alexander, of Russia, he replied gravely, 
 with a significant glance: "Yes, sir, a very good man, 
 very devout: no doubt he said grace before he swal 
 lowed Poland!"
 
 38 THE GREAT COXVERSERS. 
 
 Hardly less marvellous than those of Coleridge were 
 the conversational powers of Thomas De Quincey. All 
 who have listened to his "silver talk," testify to its in 
 describable charm, as it welled out from those capacious, 
 overflowing cells of thought and memory which a single 
 word, or hint, or token could agitate. Gilfillan, in 
 particular, has finely described his small, thin, piercing 
 voice, winding out so distinctly his subtleties of thought 
 and feeling, his long and strange sentences evolving 
 like a piece of complicated music; and the Ettrick 
 Shepherd, in the Nodes, addresses him as one having 
 "the voice of a nicht-wanderin' man, laigh and lone, 
 pitched on the key o' a wimblin' burn speakin' to itsel' 
 in the silence, aneath the moon and stars." A gentle 
 man who visited this Aquinas-Rich ter in 1854, thus 
 records his impressions of him after a half-hour's con 
 versation: "We have listened to Sir William Hamilton 
 at his own fireside, to Carlyle walking in the parks of 
 London, to Lamartine in the midst of a favored few at 
 his own house, to Cousin at the Sorbonne, and to many 
 others; but never have we heard such sweet music of 
 eloquent speech as then flowed from De Quincey's 
 tongue. Strange light beamed from that grief-worn 
 face, and for a little while that weak body, so long fed 
 upon by pain, seemed to be clothed with supernatural 
 youth." 
 
 Eloquent as De Quincey was, his conversational 
 powers were at their full height only when he was 
 under the influence of his favorite drug. The best 
 time to hear the lion roar was at four or five o'clock 
 in the morning; then, when recovering from the stupor 
 in which the opium had plunged him, his tongue 
 seemed touched with an eloquence almost divine. It is 
 a curious fact, that though he was the soul of cour-
 
 THE GREAT CONVEESEES. 39 
 
 tesy, he never for a moment thought of adapting his 
 language to the understanding of his listener. The most 
 illiterate porter, housemaid, or even prowling beggar, he 
 would address on the most trivial themes, with as 
 much pomp of rhetoric, in language as precise and 
 measured, and abounding in as many "long-tailed 
 words in osity and ation," as that in which he would 
 have addressed an Oxford professor on a vexed point 
 in metaphysics, or Person on a classical emendation. 
 Mrs. Gordon, in her life of Professor Wilson, has given 
 a specimen of the style in which the "Opium-Eater" 
 was wont to address her father's housekeeper, when 
 directing her how to prepare his food; and, did it 
 come from a less trustworthy source, we should take 
 the order as a burlesque or caricature. Wishing his 
 meat cut with the grain, he would say: "Owing to 
 dyspepsia affecting my system, and the possibility of 
 any additional derangement of the stomach taking 
 place, consequences incalculably distressing would arise 
 so much so, indeed, as to increase nervous irritation, 
 and prevent me from attending to matters of over 
 whelming importance if you do not remember to cut 
 the mutton in a diagonal, rather than a longitudinal 
 form." No wonder that the cook, a simple Scotch 
 woman, stood aghast, exclaiming, "Weel, I never 
 heard the like o' that in a' my days: the body has an 
 awful sicht o' words. * * Mr. De Quinshey would 
 make a gran' preacher, though I'm thinking a hantle 
 o' the folk wouldna ken what he was driving at." 
 
 Of the great living conversers, Carlyle stands in the 
 front rank, if one can be called such who rarely con 
 verses, but almost always harangues. His talk, as com 
 monly reported, is like Dr. Johnson's laugh, which was 
 "a kind of good humored growl." According to Mar-
 
 40 THE GREAT CONTERSERS. 
 
 garet Fuller, he allows no one else a chance, but bears 
 down all opposition, not only by his wit and onset of 
 words, resistless in their sharpness as so many bayonets, 
 but by actual physical superiority, raising his voice 
 and rushing on his opponent with a torrent of sound. 
 "He sings rather than talks. He pours upon you a 
 kind of satirical, heroical, critical poem, with regular 
 cadences, and generally catching up, near the begin 
 ning, some singular epithet, which serves as a refrain 
 when his song is full, or with which, as with a knit 
 ting-needle, he catches up the stitches, if he has 
 chanced, now and then, to let fall a row. * * His 
 talk, like his books, is full of pictures; his critical 
 strokes, masterly." 
 
 To make a good talker, genius and learning, even 
 wit and eloquence, are insufficient; to these, in all or 
 in part, must be added in some degree the talents of 
 active life. The character has as much to do with 
 colloquial power as has the intellect; the temperament, 
 feelings, and animal spirits, even more, perhaps, than 
 the mental gifts. "Napoleon said things which tell in 
 history like his battles. Luther's Table-Talk glows 
 with the fire that burnt the Pope's bull." Caesar, 
 Cicero, Themistocles, Lord Bacon, Selden, Talleyrand, 
 and, in our own country, Aaron Burr, Jefferson, Web 
 ster, and Choate, were all, more or less, men of action. 
 Sir Walter Scott tells us that, at a great dinner party, 
 he thought the lawyers beat the Bishops as talkers, 
 and the Bishops the wits. Nearly all great orators 
 have been fine talkers. Lord Chatham, who could 
 electrify the House of Lords by pronouncing the word 
 "Sugar," but who in private was but commonplace, 
 was an exception ; but the conversation of Pitt and 
 Fox was brilliant and fascinating, that of Burke, ram-
 
 THE GREAT CONVERSERS. 41 
 
 bling, but splendid, rich and instructive, beyond de 
 scription. The latter was the only man in the famous 
 "Literary Club" who could cope with Johnson. The 
 Doctor confessed that in Burke he had a foeman wor 
 thy of his steeL On one occasion, when debilitated by 
 sickness, he said: "That fellow calls forth all my pow 
 ers. Were I to see Burke now, it would kill me." At 
 another time he said: "Burke, sir, is such a man that, 
 if you met him for the first time in the street, where 
 you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you and he 
 stepped aside to take shelter but for five minutes, he'd 
 talk to you in such a manner, that when you parted 
 you'd say ' This is an extraordinary man/ " " Can he 
 wind into a subject like a serpent, as Burke does?" asked 
 Goldsmith of a certain talker. Fox said that he had 
 derived more political information from Burke's con 
 versation alone than from books, science, and all his 
 worldly experience put together. Moore finely says of 
 the same conversation, that it must have been like the 
 procession of a Eoman triumph, exhibiting power and 
 riches at every step; occasionally mingling the low 
 Fescennine jest with the lofty music of the march, but 
 glittering all over with the spoils of a ransacked 
 world. 
 
 Did our limits permit, we might speak at length of 
 "Conversation Sharp," who talked "like a book;" of 
 Sheridan, whose talk, when his tongue was loosened by 
 wine, was superb ; of Buckle, who could keep pace with 
 any number of interlocutors, on any given number of 
 subjects, from the abstrusest point of the abstrusest 
 science to the lightest jeu d'esprit, and talk them all 
 down, and be quite ready to start afresh; of Sterling, 
 who, in brilliant utterance and tongue-fence, if Carlyle 
 say truth, bore the bell from all competitors; and of
 
 42 THE GREAT CONVERSERS. 
 
 Crabbe Robinson, of whom Rogers once said at a break 
 fast-party, " Oh, if there is any one here who wishes to 
 say anything, he had better say it at once, for Crabbe 
 Robinson is coming." But we must forbear. 
 
 The literary men of France and England have been 
 famed at times for the brilliancy of their social elo 
 quence ; but the ancients appear to have made far more 
 of conversation than the moderns, for, lacking the 
 immense advantage of the printing-press, by which 
 thought is circulated with so electrical rapidity, it was 
 chiefly by oral means that they were compelled to com 
 municate with their fellow-men. In our own day the 
 art of conversation is fast dying out The dinner-table, 
 the supper-party, and the rout, are no longer the battle 
 fields in which are tested and tried the shining arms 
 of the accomplished scholar. There is no longer the 
 play of wit and raillery, the brilliancy, the concentration, 
 the rapid glancing at a hundred subjects in succession, 
 which there used to be. The attic nights of Johnson, 
 Burke, and Garrick, of Sheridan, Moore, Rogers, and 
 other social luminaries; the symposia of the demi-gods, 
 at which, with their cut-and-dry impromptus, their 
 polished and prepared repartees, and their deliberate 
 outbreaks of genius and of fun, they won undying glory 
 and immediate applause, have passed away forever, and 
 "the age of calculators and economists" has succeeded. 
 
 As the old coach-roads have given way to railways, 
 so conversation has given way to the press. Men wreak 
 their thoughts upon expression, not in talk, but in 
 "copy." Instead of listening to literary lions, they pre 
 fer to crackle The Tribune or the Times. Newspapers, 
 magazines, reviews, suck up the intellectual elements of 
 our life, like so many electrical machines gathering elec 
 tricity from the atmosphere into themselves. Themes
 
 THE GEEAT CONTERSEE8. 43 
 
 are preempted by the press, and their freshness and 
 interest exhausted before friends have encircled "the 
 mahogany" in the evening. Professional litterateurs, 
 especially, are becoming less and less inclined to post 
 prandial eloquence, and "lay out" far less than they 
 once did for conversation. They have too keen an eye 
 for the value of their stock-in-trade, not to be niggard 
 of their ideas in social intercourse, and to hoard them 
 up for reproduction, at some auspicious time, in a 
 profit-yielding form. Not merely long and elaborate 
 performances, but even puns and conundrums, are now 
 marketable commodities. The pettiest jokelet has a cash 
 value; and there is no anecdote so trifling, no scrap 
 of knowledge so insignificant, no felicitous expression 
 of an old truth, or dim suggestion of a new one, which 
 may not be converted into a dime or a dollar by the 
 literary miser who makes the acquaintance of the peri 
 odicals. In short, the entire tendency of things in 
 these latter days of the nineteenth century is to con 
 tract conversation within such narrow limits, that a 
 fear has been expressed lest some further development 
 of the electric telegraph should reduce us to a society 
 of mutes, or to a sort of insects, communicating by 
 ingenious antennae of our own invention.
 
 LITERARY CLUBS. 
 
 WHY have we so few literary clubs in our western 
 cities? Is it because there are not men enough 
 in them who have sufficient culture to enjoy a weekly 
 or monthly interchange of thought on literary and social 
 themes, or because we are so engrossed with worldly 
 cares so interested in grain and beeves, pine boards, 
 and corner-lots, that we grudge every hour that is 
 spent in a way that does not swell our pile of green 
 backs? Perhaps there are some scholars and thinkers 
 among us who doubt the expediency of clubs altogether; 
 and if, by the term, is meant a society such as are the 
 majority of those in our eastern cities and in England, 
 we do not wonder that the most thoughtful and intelli 
 gent of our citizens look upon them with distrust. Clubs 
 of this kind are composed of persons of similar stand 
 ing, who own or hire a building for their common resort, 
 where they go to lounge, chat, hear or read the news, 
 play cards or chess, drink, get a good meal at a reduced 
 price, or to have a "grand supper,." in which all join. 
 They pay the regular charges, have the run of the house 
 at all times by night and by day, and the place is, to 
 many, a home. 
 
 For unmarried men such a place has many charms ; 
 it affords unrivalled opportunities for reading, conversa 
 tion and refreshment, and many an hour is spent there 
 pleasantly, if not profitably, which might otherwise drag
 
 LITERARY CLUBS. 45 
 
 heavily, or be wasted in debasing occupations. But upon 
 a married man the influence of such a club may justly 
 be regarded with a suspicious eye. Not only does it 
 consume a vast amount of time, of which his wife and 
 children can ill afford to be cheated, but it offers amuse 
 ments and pleasures that gradually destroy his relish for 
 the quiet enjoyments of home and the family circle, and 
 fosters a habit of going abroad for that happiness which 
 should be sought by his own fireside, among those to 
 whom he is bound by the dearest ties that can bind a 
 human being. The grand suppers of such clubs are 
 too often mere scenes of debauchery, where intellectual 
 conversation is unknown, and where a man's merit is 
 estimated by the length of time during which he can, 
 Gargantua-like, stuff himself with "links and chitter 
 lings," and by the number of bottles of champagne or 
 sherry which he can carry under his belt without roll 
 ing under the table. There is a roaring hour of short 
 lived festivity, the very violence of which precludes the 
 possibility of true enjoyment; the revellers reel to their 
 lodging-places to be tortured with dyspepsia and night 
 mare, and in the morning they awake to the disagree 
 able experiences of headaches and soda water. 
 
 Even in England, the birthplace of the club, it is 
 beginning to be felt that such societies have another 
 side besides the one commonly presented to the casual 
 observer. The admirers of the club are compelled to 
 admit that while it has elegance, ease, comfort, luxury, 
 absence of care, it has also emptiness and ennui. A 
 time comes at last to every habitue when the appetite 
 palls, when the senses become sated, when the keen 
 edge of the sensibilities is blunted, when the happiness 
 ceases to satisfy and the pleasures lose the power of 
 pleasing. The man loses more than the animal gains.
 
 46 LITERARY CLUBS. 
 
 A writer in a London journal complains that there is 
 that in club life, at best, which deoxygenizea the air 
 of its fair humanities and ethereal spiritualities, and, the 
 more one breathes of it, the less he lives. The truth 
 is, says the writer, man is by nature a home being, and 
 needs that contact with feminine natures, that harmo 
 nizing of his will and his ways with those of another 
 creature of a finer make and mould, that discipline of 
 mind and heart which a home, and nothing but a home, 
 affords, to keep him in his best estate, and develop 
 what is finest and sweetest and noblest in his many- 
 sided nature. The petty cares, the minute anxieties, the 
 infinite littles which go to make up the sum of human 
 experience, like the invisible granules of powder, give 
 the last and highest polish to a character. The sexes 
 were made for each other; it is from the other that 
 each gets the most and the best of the material for its 
 culture; and no scheme that ignores this truth can 
 ever succeed, because the sentiments, the instincts, the 
 irrepressible yearnings of human nature, are all against it 
 Such are not the societies which we wish to estab 
 lish. The clubs we would have formed are purely lite 
 rary, like the Literary Club of London, formed by the 
 wits of Johnson's time, and of which he was the mon 
 arch or, rather, the despot. That club had no house 
 of its own, and, consequently, no heavy expenses, but 
 met either at taverns, or at the houses of its members. 
 There are no pleasanter, no more profitable, reunions 
 than the clubs of our own day that are thus organized. 
 Made up of cultivated and thoughtful men, who keenly 
 feel and appreciate the benefits of social intercourse, and 
 who meet, not to babble, but for the interchange of their 
 ripest thought, and because they know that the brightest 
 sparks of wit and wisdom are oftener elicited by the
 
 LITERARY CLUBS. 47 
 
 friction of mind with mind than by months of solitary 
 cogitation or isolated study, they call into exercise the 
 highest social qualities, and eminently favor all generous 
 culture. There you may meet painters, poets, philoso 
 phers, statesmen, clergymen, lawyers, doctors, engineers, 
 representative men of the professions, who love to 
 steal an evening hour or two from the busy pursuits 
 of life, and engage in literary colloquy, wrestling with 
 some amicable antagonist, or pouring out the "hived 
 honey of the mind" for the delight and edification of 
 congenial companions. Such a meeting is not a robbery 
 of home. It sets up no antagonism with domestic 
 enjoyments and duties; it involves no costly expendi 
 ture, no waste of time; it is no wild hotel scramble for 
 excitement; it is a calm and healthful recreation, which 
 refreshes the overtasked brain, soothes the jaded nerves, 
 pours the oil of joy and gladness into the heart, and 
 prepares one to fight with redoubled vigor and courage 
 the battle of life. 
 
 Such a club, properly managed, has other merits 
 besides those that are intellectual. It is a school of the 
 heart, a university for the training of kindly feelings. 
 There is a wide difference between general acquaintance 
 and companionship. You may salute a man, and ex 
 change compliments with him daily, yet know nothing 
 of his character, his inmost tastes and feelings, see but 
 a single phase of his intellect; while the converse of a 
 few hours, in the unrestricted freedom of a club, may 
 disclose the treasures of his heart and brain, and enable 
 you to detect the nobleness of his aims and the redness 
 of his blood. It has been justly said that the greatest 
 discovery of our lives is that the world is not so bad 
 as, in the first disappointment of youth's extravagant 
 expectations, we are disposed to regard it. The pas-
 
 48 LITERARY CLUBS. 
 
 sage from boyhood to manhood is "over the bridge of 
 sighs;" and our first experiences of life as it is, 
 resemble the flavor of the forbidden apple we are 
 enlightened and miserable. Gladly would we command 
 the secret of feeling as we once did; but, alas! every 
 day takes from us some happy error, some charming 
 illusion, never to return. We are reasoned or ridi 
 culed out of all our jocund mistakes, till we are just 
 wise enough to be miserable, and we exclaim with 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, "To my extreme mor 
 tification, / find myself growing wiser and wiser every 
 day." But a time comes, at length, when our views 
 are more just We leave our imaginary Eden with 
 *' solemn step and slow," and begin to appreciate the 
 good qualities of those whose fnendship we thought 
 hollow, and the necessity of that labor which we 
 deemed a curse. We exchange ecstacy for content, and, 
 "forgetting the four rivers of our ideal heaven, open 
 our eyes to the manifold beauties of earth, its skies 
 islanded by stars, and its oceans starred by islands; its 
 sunshines and calms, and the goodness of its great 
 heart, which sends forth trees, and flowers, and fruits, 
 for our benefit and exultation." To that education of 
 mind and heart which insures satisfaction with our 
 lot, which leads us to enjoy the sweet of life as it 
 comes up, while we laugh at the bitter, which stiffens 
 our muscles and sinews for the tiger-like struggles of 
 life, we believe that well-conducted clubs conduce. 
 
 Intercourse is, after all, man's best teacher. " Know 
 thyself" is an excellent maxim; but even self-know 
 ledge cannot be perfected in closets and cloisters, 
 nor amid lake scenery, and on the sunny side of the 
 mountains. Men who seldom mix with their fellows 
 are almost sure to become one-sided, the victims of
 
 LITERARY CLUBS. 49 
 
 fixed ideas, that sometimes lead to insanity. Prejudices 
 which, if exposed to the sun and air of social life, 
 would melt into air, fix themselves down as with 
 riveted screw-bolts. Confident conclusions, which could 
 not walk the street a day without being knocked down 
 like bullies, are cherished and nursed till they have 
 become the very tyrants of the mind which has engen 
 dered them. It was but natural that Zimmerman, who 
 was the Laureate of Solitude, should have become a 
 lunatic. Who, that knows the facts of Kousseau's life, 
 can marvel at the eccentricities which made him at 
 once the wonder and the laughing-stock of Europe? 
 It is not strange that, when the Man of the Moun 
 tain, as he termed himself, after having been cooped up 
 for years, almost alone, in the mountains of Switzer 
 land, descended into the plain, and became the idol of 
 the brilliant circles of Paris, his vanity and egotism 
 should be so inordinate as to amount to insanity. The 
 morbid ingenuity with which he distorted all the kind 
 acts of his friend, David Hume, into proofs of deceit 
 and jealousy, the vanity which led him to believe that 
 he, lately a Genoese watchmaker, was a victim of uni 
 versal persecution and interdict, and that not only the 
 philosophers, but all the monarchs of Europe, had 
 leagued to crush him, were simply the result of a 
 life of loneliness and solitude. 
 
 Private reading and study are, no doubt, necessary 
 to culture; the scholar and the man of science must 
 shun delights, and live laborious days, if they would 
 sound the depths of any subject whatever. Like all 
 our other instincts, that of solitude has its ends. It is 
 absolutely necessary to rare and delicate natures, at 
 least, at times, to protect them from the common 
 place world around them. Mr. Hamerton, in his
 
 50 LITERARY CLUBS. 
 
 "Intellectual Life," justly remarks, that if Shelley had 
 not disliked general society as he did, the originality 
 of his own thinking would have been less complete; 
 the influences of mediocre people, who, of course, are 
 always in the majority, would have silently, but surely, 
 operated to the destruction of that unequalled and per 
 sonal delicacy of imagination to which we owe what is 
 inimitable in his poetry. The same writer further adds, 
 that it was not when Milton saw most of the world, 
 but in the forced retirement of a man who had lost 
 health and eyesight, and whose party was hopelessly 
 defeated, that he composed the Paradise Lost It was 
 during years of tedious imprisonment, that Bunyan 
 wrote his immortal allegory. There is no lettered man 
 who does not appreciate the saying of De Senancour: 
 "In the world a man lives in his own age; in solitude, 
 in all the ages."^ But conversation is as necessary as 
 meditation to the highest culture. And what is more 
 delightful than this communion of thinkers? Pleasant 
 it is to sit in a library or study, with a goodly array 
 of wise or charming books about you, in which are 
 preserved, as in a vial, " the precious life-blood " of the 
 world's master spirits; or, with the choicest of those 
 " abstracts and brief chronicles of the times," the news 
 papers, to tell how flows the warm life-blood of the 
 world, and how the car of progress goes thundering 
 along the highroads. Pleasant is it, with paper knife 
 in hand, to skim the contents of the last monthly 
 magazines, brimming with the freshest wit and wisdom 
 of the day; but pleasanter far than any of these, is 
 communion with living men, whose conversation is full 
 of "that seasoned life of men whidh is stored up in 
 books," who have roamed through all the fields of 
 literature, and, gathering the choicest flowers, have
 
 LITERARY CLUBS. 51 
 
 i 
 
 arranged them for your delight. Reading is a great 
 pleasure; but it is solitary. Byron says: 
 
 They who true joy would win 
 
 Must share it; happiness is born twin. 
 
 True as this generally is, it is doubly true of literary 
 enjoyment. The fullest instruction and the fullest 
 enjoyment are never derived from books, till we have 
 ventilated the ideas thus obtained in free and easy chat 
 with others. 
 
 The mental faculties demand exercise as truly as 
 the bodily, and enjoy it as keenly. The mind that is 
 healthy delights in the glow of movement and contest. 
 It loves to meet with a congenial spirit, one that has 
 sucked the sweetness of the same authors, and enjoyed 
 them with the same gust, which has brought away 
 their quintessence, and treats it to the juice of the 
 grape without thrusting upon it the stalks and husks. 
 Talking is a digestive process which is absolutely essen 
 tial to the mental constitution of the man who devours 
 many books. A full mind must have talk, or it will 
 grow dyspeptic. Look at Professor Wilson! Athlete 
 though he was, intellectually as well as physically, he 
 could not live without talk. Not having enough in 
 society, he sat down and talked to himself in post 
 prandial hours; and, in the wondrous "Noctes," those 
 imaginary conversations in which De Quincey, the 
 Ettrick Shepherd, and others were made to join, poured 
 forth the whole affluence of his vigorous and teeming 
 mind, which, like the steel struck by the flint, needed 
 the collision of other minds to bring out its sparks 
 of wit and fancy. The wit, pleasantry, pathos, poetry, 
 and learning with which these famous " Nights " bubble 
 and run over, show that Christopher North was never
 
 62 LITERARY CLUBS. 
 
 at any other time so happy, never so original, fresh, 
 and piquant, as when engaged in literary colloquy, 
 wrestling with some amicable antagonist, or pouring 
 out his "charmed thoughts" for the delight and edifi 
 cation of congenial companions. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton used to say that a man never 
 knows anything until he has taught it in some way ; 
 it may be orally, or it may be by writing a book. It 
 is equally true that many authors have talked better 
 than they have written. Philosophers tell us that 
 knowledge is precious for its own sake; that it is its 
 own exceeding great reward. But experience tells us 
 that knowledge is not knowledge until we use it, that 
 it is not ours till we have brought it under the domin 
 ion of the great social faculty, speech. Solitary reading 
 will enable a man to stuff himself with information ; 
 but, without conversation, his mind will become like a 
 pond without an outlet, a mass of unhealthy stagna- 
 tuiv. It is not enough to harvest knowledge by study; 
 th<- wind of talk must winnow it, and blow away the 
 chaff, then will the clear, bright grains of wisdom be 
 garnered, for our own use or that of others. Then let 
 us talk; and that our talk may be a true re-creation, 
 let us talk with congenial spirits. Such spirits may be 
 mot with singly in the ordinary intercourse of life, but 
 tlu- full ])lay of the mind demands that they should be 
 encountered "not in single spies, but in battalions;" 
 and hence the necessity of clubs to bring together, like 
 steel filings out of sand at the approach of a magnet, 
 men of the most opposite pursuits and tastes, the attri 
 tion of whose minds may brush away their rust and 
 cobwebs, and give them edge and polish.
 
 'EPIGRAMS. 
 
 WHY is it that good epigrams, at making which 
 the wits of all ages have tried their hands, are 
 so rare? Of the thousands that have been composed, 
 it has been estimated that not over five hundred are 
 good, and that of these not more than fifty meet all 
 the conditions of excellence, and may be pronounced 
 gems without a flaw. Martial, the Eoman poet, who 
 wrote fourteen books of epigrams, frankly confesses that 
 of that vast number only a few are good, some passable, 
 and the great majority utter failures. The reason is 
 not far to seek. Though less genius is required to 
 produce this species of literary composition than is 
 demanded by a sustained effort, such as an ode, an 
 elegy, or a lyric, yet in certain respects it is as diffi 
 cult and as exacting as an epic. In its very brevity 
 lies its difficulty. Nobody expects an "Iliad," or a 
 " Paradise Lost," to be one perpetual blaze of splendor ; 
 prosaic and even dull passages are not only excusable, 
 but needed as foils; for nothing tires so soon as per 
 petual brilliancy and gorgeousness unrelieved. The 
 more exquisite the enjoyment we derive from any 
 source, the more imperiously is an occasional suspen 
 sion required. We sicken at perpetual lusciousness ; we 
 loathe the unvarying atmosphere of a scented room, 
 though "all Arabia breathes" from its recesses. But 
 while good Homer may be allowed to nod occasionally, 
 
 63
 
 54 EPIGRAMS. 
 
 as Horace has told us, and even the rich illustrations 
 which fancy scatters over the page of the orator or the 
 poet may be crowded upon each other too fast, it is 
 not so with the epigrammatist. He must condense his 
 wit into a few brief lines; it must be intensely pun 
 gent, like some extract which is the essence of a 
 thousand roses, and is fraught with their accumulated 
 odors, or the weight of a hundred pounds of bark in 
 a few grains of quinine. 
 
 What are the precise characteristics of an epigram 
 it is not easy to define. It differs from a joke in the 
 fact that the wit of the latter lies in the words, and 
 cannot therefore be conveyed in another language; 
 while an epigram is a wit of ideas, and hence is trans 
 latable. Like aphorisms, songs, and sonnets, it is 
 occupied with some single point, small and manageable; 
 but whilst a song conveys a sentiment, a sonnet a 
 poetical, and an aphorism a moral reflection, an epigram 
 expresses a contrast Its chief requisites are elegance, 
 polish, and terseness of expression, consummate ease of 
 versification, distinctness of idea, and, above all, an 
 adroit satiric ending, or sting in the tail. Dullness 
 and artistic defect are here inexcusable, and no broad 
 mantle of "poetic license" can cover the sin. Espe 
 cially is it essential that an epigram be brief. It has 
 been justly said that of two epigrams, ceteris paribus, 
 the longer is the less. Four lines are better than six, 
 and two than four. The Spartan brevity, no less than 
 the Attic salt, is indispensable, though there seems no 
 need for so rigid a limit as Boileau's, un bon mot de 
 deux rimes ornfo. Originally, an epigram was merely 
 an inscription on an altar, temple, or monument; and, 
 far from being bitter or sarcastic, it was commemorative 
 or laudatory. Next it came to mean a short poem
 
 EPIGRAMS. 55 
 
 containing some single thought pointedly expressed, the 
 subjects being various amatory, convivial, eulogistic, 
 or humorous. Even then, however, the sting was no 
 necessary part 'of it'; and all that the Greeks aimed at 
 was perfect literary finish and simplicity. It was the 
 Roman satirists who changed both the form and sub 
 stance of the epigram, and it is to them that we are 
 indebted for the idea that it should have a spice of 
 malice. Their notion of it is contained in the follow 
 ing distich: 
 
 Omne epigramma sit instar apis: sit aculeius illi: 
 Sint sua mella, sit et corporis exigui, 
 
 which has been loosely translated thus: 
 
 ^ 
 
 The qualities three that in a bee we meet, 
 
 In an epigram never should fail ; 
 The body should always be little and sweet, 
 
 And a sting should be left in its tail. 
 
 A good collection of epigrams should have some 
 system, illustrating the styles of wit, as well as tones 
 of thought, which have prevailed in different ages a 
 merit which the collection by Rev. J. Booth, pub 
 lished a few years ago in London, and which has sug 
 gested this article, has not. The book, on the contrary, 
 is a mere catacomb of miscellaneous pieces, good, bad 
 and indifferent, without any chronological arrangement 
 or selection ; and the classification, if classification it can 
 be called, is as illogical as it is defective. Still, the 
 author, casting his net into the great sea of literature, 
 has fished up many fine epigrams; and of these we 
 shall cull out some of the best, adding to them a larger 
 number which we have gathered, in our reading, from 
 ancient and modern sources.
 
 56 EPIGRAMS. 
 
 To begin with the ancients: Martial wrote a great 
 many platitudes, yet, from his thick volume, one may 
 pick some epigrams that have the true ring. Here is 
 one on a married couple: 
 
 So like yourselves, so like your lives, 
 
 As bad as bad can be; 
 The worst of husbands, worst of wives, 
 
 Tis strange you can't agree. 
 
 Cervantes compares translations to the reverse side 
 of tapestry; but the following rather gains in point 
 than loses by the transfusion from Latin into English: 
 
 Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem, 
 Nee tecuiu possum vivere, nee sine te. 
 
 This Addison translates thus: 
 
 TO A CAPRICIOUS FRIEND. 
 
 In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow, 
 Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, 
 Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee. 
 There is no living with thee, nor without thee. 
 
 Nothing can be more thoughtful or more apposite 
 to our own times, when men are so swamped by busi 
 ness cares, than the lines to Postumus, which Cowley 
 has so beautifully translated: 
 
 To-morrow you will live, yon always cry; 
 In what far country does this morrow lie, 
 That 'tis so mighty long ere it arrive? 
 Beyond the Indies does this morrow live? 
 Tis so far-fetched, this morrow, that I fear 
 Twill be both very old and very dear. 
 To-morrow I will live, the fool doth say ; 
 To-day itself 'a too late the wise lived yesterday.
 
 EPIGRAMS. 57 
 
 One of the most pungent of Martial's epigrams is 
 the following: 
 
 Petit Qemellus nuptias Maronillae, 
 Et cupit, et instat, et precatur, et donat ; 
 Adeone pulchra est? Immo foedius nil est; 
 Quid ergo in ilia petitur et placet ? Tussit. 
 
 "Which a writer in the Westminster Review reproduces 
 
 thus : 
 
 Strephon most fierce besieges Chloe, 
 A nymph not over young or showy ; 
 What, then, can Strephon's love provoke? 
 A charming paralytic stroke. 
 
 The effect of this epigram lies in the sudden tussit, 
 " she coughs," which stops the hurried questions, bring 
 ing them down with a pistol-shot. "A charming para 
 lytic stroke " is diffuse and pointless. The following, by 
 G. H. Lewes, preserves more of the terseness and elan 
 of the original: 
 
 Qemellns wants to marry Maronilla; 
 
 Sighs, ogles, prays, and will not be put off. 
 Is she so lovely ? Hideous as Scylla ! 
 
 What makes him ogle, sigh and pray? Her cough! 
 
 Martial's lines "To an Ill-Favored Lady" are very 
 subtle and sarcastic: 
 
 While in the dark on thy soft hand I hung, 
 And heard the tempting siren in thy tongue, 
 What flames, what darts, what anguish I endured I 
 But when the caudle entered, I was cured 1 
 
 Less delicate, but equally pointed, is the sarcasm 
 against the doctor turned undertaker, who, as Martial 
 says, does not change his profession by the change: 
 
 Nuper erat medicus, nunc est vespillo Diabus ; 
 Quod vespillo facit, fecerat et medicus
 
 58 EPIGRAMS. 
 
 which Boileau, no doubt, had in his eye when he wrote 
 that delicious couplet: 
 
 II vivait jadis 4 Florence un medecin, 
 Savant hableur, dit-on, et cetibre assassin. 
 
 If brevity is the soul of wit, the following epigram 
 may be regarded as perfect: 
 
 Pauper videri vult Cinna et eat pauper. 
 
 "Cinna pretends to be poor, and is what he pretends," 
 a monostich rarely excelled. 
 
 A large majority of the epigrams of all ages have 
 turned on the follies of certain set and customary 
 characters, regarding them from conventional points of 
 view. Women who paint and women who scold, ser 
 mons that have the effect of poppy and mandragora, 
 the rascality of lawyers, and Death's imprudence in 
 carrying off doctors, are old and hackneyed themes, on 
 which the changes have been rung for ages. Of legal 
 jests, one of the best, though rather long, is the follow 
 ing hit at Lord Eldon (with others), who, according to 
 Sydney Smith, could not assent to the truth that two 
 and two make four, without shedding tears, or express 
 ing some doubt or scruple : 
 
 Mr. Leach made a speech, 
 
 Angry, neat, but wrong; 
 Mr. Hart, on the other part, 
 
 Was prosy, dull, and long. 
 
 Mr. Bell spoke very well, 
 Though nobody knew what about ; 
 
 Mr. Tower talked for an hour 
 Sat down fatigued and hot. 
 
 Mr. Parker made the case darker, 
 Which was dark enough without ; 
 
 Mr. Cooke quoted his book, 
 And tke Chancellor said, "I doubt."
 
 EPIGRAMS. 59 
 
 The author of this was Sir George Rose, to whom 
 Lord Eldon, not long after, in deciding a case against 
 him, said: "In this case, Mr. Rose, the Chancellor does 
 not doubt." A terser epigram than the foregoing is 
 one which was sent on a scrap of paper, by a barrister, 
 to Baron Garrow, who had been laboring during a 
 cross-examination to prove by a prevaricating old 
 woman that a tender of money had been made : 
 
 Garrow, forbear! that tough old jade 
 Will never prove a tender made. 
 
 It has been doubted whether the epigram exactly suits 
 the genius of the English language. There are proofs 
 enough to the contrary, we think, to remove all skep 
 ticism on this point; but it must be admitted that the 
 Greek, the Latin, and the French preserve the neat 
 ness and the point of this kind of witticism better 
 than our own tongue. One of the most pungent 
 French epigrams is Boileau's verse on the fierce dispute 
 that raged in the Catholic church concerning the Ho- 
 moousion and the Homoiousion. Men tore each other 
 to pieces, because they could not agree whether the Son 
 was similar to the substance of the Father, or of the 
 same substance, a dispute which hinged on the ac 
 ceptance or rejection of the diphthong oi: 
 
 D'une sylldbe impie un saint mot augmente 
 Remplit tous les esprits d'aigreurs si meurtrieres 
 Tu fis, dans une guerre et si triste et si longue, 
 Perir tant de Chretiens, martyrs d'une dipthongue! 
 
 Though the epigram did not flower fully in Eng 
 land till half a century later, yet it reached a high 
 degree of excellence in the time of Charles II. What 
 can be more sarcastic than the following by Cleveland? 
 
 Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom : 
 Not forced him wander, but confined him home.
 
 60 EPIGRAMS. 
 
 "Si sic omnia dixisset!" exclaims Drjden, in his 
 "Essay on Dramatic Poesy." "This is wit in all lan 
 guages: it is like mercury, never to be lost or killed." 
 
 Of many epigrams the chief element is surprise 
 an artifice by which an unexpected turn is suddenly 
 given to some apparently careless assertion. A good 
 specimen is this hit at a fat doctor: 
 
 When Edwards treads the streets, the paviors cry 
 God bless you, sir! and lay their rammers by. 
 
 The best machinery for surprise is the amoebaeic 
 poem, or question and- answer, as in the dialogue of the 
 traveller and the clergyman: 
 
 C. I've lost my portmanteau. 
 T. I pity your grief! 
 C. All my sermons are in it. 
 T. I pity the thief I 
 
 Pope, who is one of the most epigrammatic of poets, 
 wrote few epigrams which are disconnected from his 
 other verses; but his poems, from the "Essay on Criti 
 cism" to the "Dunciad," are strewn with antithetical 
 couplets that are as condensed and pointed as the most 
 successful hits in Martial. What can be keener or more 
 sparkling than such lines as these? 
 
 Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast 
 
 When husbands or when lapdogs breathe their last; 
 
 or the portraiture of an intriguing woman who, after 
 aiming at loftier game, saw a surer and easier prey, and 
 
 stooped at once. 
 And made a hearty meal upon a dunce. 
 
 The satires of Young abound in terse and caustic
 
 EPIGEAMS. 61 
 
 epigrams, of which the following rivals the happiest 
 
 conceits of Pope: 
 i 
 
 Tis health chiefly keeps an atheist in the dark, 
 
 A fever argues better than a Clarke; 
 
 But let the logic of the pulse decay, 
 
 The Grecian he'll renounce, and learn to pray. 
 
 Of one of Young's deadliest thrusts, Voltaire, the 
 Corypheus of French epigrammatists, was the victim. 
 The French wit having in Young's presence decried 
 Milton's genius, and ridiculed particularly the personifi 
 cation in Paradise Lost, of Death, Sin, and Satan, the 
 Englishman, indignant at the Frenchman's irreverence 
 and levity, lifted his finger, and pointing at him, said: 
 
 Thou art so witty, wicked, and so thin, 
 Thou art at once the Devil, Death, and Sin. 
 
 The erection of a monument some years after his 
 death to the author of "Hudibras," who died in the 
 most squalid quarter of London, and was indebted to 
 the charity of a friend for a grave, provoked one of the 
 acutest epigrams in the language: 
 
 While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, 
 
 No generous patron would a dinner give; 
 
 See him, when starved to death, and turned to dust, 
 
 Presented with a monumental bust ! 
 
 The poet's fate is here in emblem shone: 
 
 He asked for bread, and he received a stone. 
 
 The times of William, Queen Anne, and George I., 
 were the great age of historical epigrams in England. 
 One of the personages most frequently satirized during 
 this period was the Duke of Marlborough, whose petty 
 avarice and hagglings with the Bath chairmen, and 
 uxorious fondness for his termagant, Sarah, were re 
 membered long after the conqueror of Blenheim was
 
 62 EPIGRAMS. 
 
 forgotten, just as Lord Peterborough, walking from 
 market in his blue ribbon, with a fowl under one arm 
 and a cabbage under the other, threw into the shade 
 the hero of Almanza. Marlborough's new palace of 
 Blenheim was the target of ceaseless shafts, as, for 
 example, this epigram on the high arch built over the 
 little brook in the park: 
 
 The lofty arch his high ambition shows: 
 The stream an emblem of his bounty flows. 
 
 A more murderously severe lampoon on the hero of 
 Blenheim and Malplaquet was that by Swift, which 
 closes thus: 
 
 Behold, his funeral appears 
 
 Nor widow's sighs, nor orphan's tears, 
 
 Wont at such times the heart to pierce, 
 
 Attend the progress of his hearse. 
 
 But what of that? his friends may say, 
 
 He had those honors in his day ; 
 
 True to his profit and his pride, 
 
 He made them weep before he died. 
 
 It is pleasant to contrast this fierce satire of Swift 
 with the delicate pleasantry of Addison. " Swift uses 
 the knout like a Russian; Addison tickles a man into 
 agonies with a feather. Swift is dicax, and Addison 
 facetus." 
 
 Of Oxford epigrams we have a few choice specimens, 
 of which we can give only a few of the briefest in this 
 article. An alteration in the statutory exercises for 
 divinity degrees, by which two theological essays were 
 required in future from the candidates, drew forth the 
 following : 
 
 The title D. D. 't is proposed to convey 
 To an A double 3 for a double S A.
 
 EPIGRAMS. 63 
 
 The honorary degree of D. C. L. having been de 
 clined by a distinguished officer on account of the 
 heavy fees at that time demanded, his refusal was thus 
 set forth : 
 
 Oxford, no doubt you wish me well, 
 
 But prithee let me be ; 
 I can't, alas ! be D. C. L., . 
 
 Because of L. S. D. 
 
 Sydney Smith's description of Lord Jeffrey, mounted 
 on a donkey, is decidedly classic: 
 
 Witty as Horatius Flaccus, 
 As great a Jacobin as Gracchus, 
 Short, though not so fat as Bacchus, 
 Riding on a little jackass. 
 
 One of the "modern improvements" in epigrams is 
 the artifice of parody, which may be regarded as a poor 
 trick, but which, as it doubles the surprise, and there 
 fore the efficiency, cannot be very sharply condemned. 
 A good illustration is the following hit at Tom Moore: 
 
 When Limerick once, in idle whim, 
 
 Moore, as her member, gaily courted, 
 The boys, for fun's sake, asked of him 
 
 To state what party he supported; 
 When thus to them the answer ran: 
 " I'm of no party, as a man, 
 But, as a poet, am-a-tory." 
 
 The poet thus wittily characterized was one of the 
 most sparkling of epigrammatists. Though erotic verse 
 may have been his forte, yet he showed that the bow 
 of Cupid can wound as well as the bow of Apollo. As 
 another has said, he was in controversy as quick and 
 as vexatious as a mosquito; and he had an eminent 
 advantage in his musical command of verse, for his
 
 f,4 EPIGRAMS. 
 
 hum charms the ear while his sting tortures the flesh. 
 He was like his own 
 
 bees of Trebizond, 
 
 Which from the sunniest flowers that glad 
 With their pure smile the gardens round, 
 Draw venom forth that drives men mad. 
 
 Of the scores of jeux d? esprit that fell from his pen, 
 we have room only for the following on a vain politi 
 cian, which suggests a kind of speculation that might 
 be made very profitable in these days: 
 
 The best speculation the market holds forth 
 
 To any enlightened lover of pelf, 
 Is to buy up at the price he is worth, 
 
 And sell him at that he puts on himself. 
 
 Of epigrams on names, the name is legion. Dr. Lett- 
 som's "Principles of Medicine" stands in the front rank 
 for its pith and unpretending stoicism, which is con 
 tent to do its duty and abide the consequences: 
 
 If anybody comes to I, 
 I physics, bleeds, and sweats 'em ; 
 
 If, after that, they like to die, 
 Why, what care I? I. LETTSOM. 
 
 In the next we have the very apices rerum : 
 
 With Pius, Wiseman tries 
 
 To lay us under ban; 
 O Pius, man unwise ; 
 
 O im-pious Wiseman ! 
 
 When Disraeli, in a speech on the death of Wel 
 lington, borrowed without acknowledgment a passage 
 from a French eulogy on Marshal St. Cyr, by Thiers, 
 he became the victim of endless puns, gibes and epi 
 grams, among which was this ironical defense:
 
 EPIGRAMS. 65 
 
 i 
 In sounding great Wellington's praise, 
 
 Dizzy's grief and the truth both appear ; 
 For a great flood of tears (Thiers) he lets fall, 
 Which were certainly meant for sincere (St. Cyr). 
 
 A happy epigram was made by an old gentleman 
 of the name of Gould, who, having married a very 
 young wife, wrote a poetical epistle to a friend to in 
 form him of it, and concluded' thus : 
 
 So you see, my dear sir, though I'm eighty years old, 
 A girl of eighteen is in love with old Gould. 
 
 To which his friend replied: 
 
 A girl of eighteen may love Gould, it is true ; 
 But believe me, dear sir, it is gold, without U. 
 
 The celebrated scholar, Dr. Parr, attended for a short 
 time upon Queen Caroline, to read prayers, etc. His 
 place was afterwards supplied by a gentleman of the 
 name of Fellowes; upon which the following epigram 
 was written: 
 
 There's a difference between 
 Dr. Parr and the Queen ; 
 For the reason you need not go far ; 
 The doctor is jealous 
 Of certain little Fellowes, 
 Whom the Queen thinks much above Parr. 
 
 How far such word twisting as the following is 
 excusable, we leave the reader to judge: 
 
 That Homer should a bankrupt be, 
 Is not so very Odd D'ye See, 
 If it be true, as I'm instructed, 
 So Ill-he-had his books conducted. 
 
 One of the neatest and most caustic epigrams of 
 this century was the one which Byron so much
 
 66 EPIGRAMS. 
 
 admired, on Ward, a tonguey Parliamentary orator 
 and writer for the magazines, who had criticized 
 Rogers' s "Italy" with great severity. Referring to 
 Ward's practice of passing off cut-and-dry speeches for 
 extempore ones, the banker-poet gave him the following 
 rapier-like thrust: 
 
 Ward has no heart, they say; but I deny it: 
 He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it. 
 
 It is said that Rogers was helped a little in writing 
 this epigram by Richard Sharp. The poet was speedily 
 rewarded by a jest upon his cadaverous complexion, 
 on which, a waggish acquaintance declared, more good 
 things had been said and written than on that of the 
 greatest beauty. It was Ward who, according to the 
 author of "Biographical and Critical Essays," asked 
 Rogers why, now that he could afford it, he did not set 
 up his hearse ; and it was the same sympathizing com 
 panion who, when Rogers repeated the couplet: 
 
 The robin, with its furtive glance, 
 Comes and looks at me askance, 
 
 struck in with, "If it had been a carrion crow, he 
 would have looked you full in the face." 
 
 The following playful colloquy is said to have taken 
 place at a dinner-table between Sir George Rose and 
 James Smith, in allusion to Craven Street, Strand, Lon 
 don, where the latter resided : 
 
 J. 8. At the top of my street the attorneys abound, 
 And down at the bottom the barges are found ; 
 Fly, Honesty, fly to some safer retreat, 
 For there's craft in the river, and craft in the street. 
 
 Sir O. R. Why should honesty fly to some safer retreat, 
 
 From attorneys and barges, 'od rot 'em ? 
 For the lawyers are just at the top of the street, 
 And the barges are just at the bottom.
 
 EPIGRAMS. 67 
 
 The following is simplex munditiis. Who is the 
 author ? 
 
 Madame Dill 
 Is very ill, 
 
 And nothing will improve her, 
 Until she sees 
 The Tuilleries, 
 And waddles through the Louvre. 
 
 Few epigrams are more ingenious than the following 
 parody on the noted grammatical line, Bifrons atque 
 Gustos, Bos, Fur, Sus, atque Sacerdos. The author, 
 curiously enough, was a Canterbury clergyman: 
 
 Bifrons ever when he preaches; 
 Gustos of what in his reach is; 
 Bos among his neighbors' wives; 
 Fur in gathering of his tithes; 
 Sus at every parish feast; 
 On Sundays, Sacerdos, a priest. 
 
 Lessing has given us one of the best specimens of 
 the German epigram: 
 
 Es hat der Schuster Franz zum Dichter sich entzuckt, 
 Was er als Schuster that, das thut er noch: er flickt; 
 
 which, roughly rendered, runs thus: 
 
 Tompkins forsakes his last and awl 
 
 For literary squabbles; 
 Styles himself poet; but his trade 
 
 Remains the same he cobbles. 
 
 American epigrams of a high character are not very 
 numerous; yet we have seen a few almost as keen, 
 pithy, and artistically finished, as any that have come 
 to us from the other side of the Atlantic. The follow 
 ing, which appeared when Dr. Parsons won the prize
 
 68 EPIGBAMS. 
 
 for the best prologue to be recited at the opening of 
 the Boston Theatre, is decidedly toothsome: 
 
 INVITA DKNTE. 
 
 "What! Parsons a dentist? You don't mean to say 
 That that sort of chap bore the chaplet away?" 
 "Nay, none of your sneers at his laureate wreath, 
 He's a very good poet, in spite of his teeth!" 
 
 The following lines to a lady who had published a 
 volume of mediocre poems, appeared many years ago in 
 the Knickerbocker Magazine: 
 
 Unfortunate lady, how sad is your lot! 
 Your ringlets are red your poems are not. 
 
 Why is it that epigram-writing has gone out of 
 fashion ? Is it because we live in a prosaic and real 
 istic age, because the era of wits and preux-chevaliers 
 has gone, and that of "economists and calculators" has 
 succeeded? For a single stroke of wit, one deadly 
 stab, which shall give an enemy his quietus, no better 
 form can be conceived; and we do not wonder, there 
 fore, that it was once an acknowledged and formidable 
 force in literature. Time was when the wits were the 
 lords or lions of society, and a satirical poem of a few 
 lines might ruin a politician, extinguish an author, or 
 cripple, if not overthrow, a ministry. Epigrams were 
 then the favorite weapons of political and personal con 
 troversy, and battles were fought with this rapier as 
 decisive as are now won with the clumsy club of the 
 pamphleteer or the broadsides of the newspaper. It is 
 doubtful whether the small shot which Fox and Sheri 
 dan, Pitt and Canning, fired ofif in the Rolliad and 
 Anti-Jacobin did not prove as murderous to their po 
 litical enemies as the bombs and shells which they let 
 loose in the House of Commons. Many of the pon-
 
 EPIOBAMS. 69 
 
 derous pamphlets and speeches of those times have 
 been forgotten, while the apparently ephemeral pieces, 
 intended for a transient end, are still read and admired 
 and laughed over. Not a tithe of those who have 
 roared over "The Needy Knife-Grinder" have read 
 Burke's " Letter on the French Revolution ;" while such 
 works as Darwin's " Loves of the Plants " and Payne 
 Knight's "Progress of Civil Society" survive only in 
 their parodies. The old monarchy of France was de 
 fined as a despotism tempered by epigrams; and even 
 during the Revolution, when men were not in the mood 
 for merriment, the contending factions made use of this 
 weapon. Notwithstanding the efficacy of that fearful 
 political engine, the guillotine, Chamfort, who had 
 abundant opportunity for observation, has declared that 
 11 n'y a rien qui tue comme un ridicule. 
 
 Why, then, we repeat, have we now comparatively 
 few epigrams ? Doubtless an explanation of their dearth 
 is to be found in the fact, first, that authors are less 
 jealous of each other than in the days of Pope and 
 Dryden; they are no longer divided into hostile cliques, 
 but rejoice in each other's success, and feel that they 
 are members of a common guild. Political contests are 
 less personal than of yore, and indignant lampoons 
 have disappeared with duelling and revengeful party 
 feelings. The epigram was perfected in an age when 
 manners were starched and formal, an age of minuets, 
 and hoops, and pomatum, and powdered cues, and pur 
 ple velvet doublets, and flesh-colored stockings; when, 
 too, the classics were studied and imitated more than 
 now, and the antithetical poetry of Pope, Swift, and 
 Dryden, imitated by all, made epigrammatic writing 
 easy and fashionable. The result is that, by a process 
 of natural selection or adaptation, our venom bags have
 
 70 EPIGRAMS. 
 
 been absorbed, and men are born without them. Occa 
 sionally hybrid specimens of the epigram appear in 
 J'ttnch, or flower in the backward season and classical 
 air of the English universities; and now and then you 
 are startled by an epigram, at once pithy, pointed, and 
 exquisitely finished, in some American journal; but 
 generally they have lost their flavor, and degenerated 
 into vehicles for jokes and puns. 
 
 On the whole, the change is not to be regretted; 
 for, however agreeable it may be to read epigrams and 
 impromptus, no one could ever have liked to be their 
 victim, to be a target for gibes and sarcasms. To 
 become a martyr "for the truth's sake" has been the 
 ambition and "last infirmity" of many noble minds; 
 but no one likes to be a butt of ridicule in order to 
 testify the sincerity of his convictions. It has often 
 been remarked that men would rather be deemed 
 villains than fools; and it is certainly more pleasing to 
 our vanity to be hated than to be despised. Human 
 nature was the same in Queen Anne's time as to-day; 
 and to no man, however thick-skinned, could it ever 
 have been pleasant to have his little personal peculiar 
 ities, his "peccadilloes or scapes of infirmity," some 
 faux pas, or unlucky blunder, or petty social sin, or 
 " virtuous vice," done into verse, and handed round the 
 breakfast or tea-tables of his particular circle, to amuse 
 his friends and give their cheeks a holiday. Nowadays, 
 if a man's conduct is satirized by a review or news 
 paper, he reflects, with Bentley, that no man was ever 
 written down except by himself; or reasons, with 
 Abraham Lincoln, that "if the end brings him out 
 right, what is said against him won't amount to any 
 thing, if the end brings him out wrong, ten angels 
 wearing he is right would make no difference;" and
 
 EPIGRAMS. 71 
 
 i 
 
 so he laughs at the jest if it is a good one, and if 
 otherwise, lets it hum and buzz itself asleep. Not so 
 with the terse and biting epigram of two to eight lines, 
 which was first confidentially whispered from friend to 
 friend, and then handed about in manuscript long 
 before it was caught up by the press. This insect libel 
 seemed never to die; it stuck to its victim like a gnat, 
 teased him his life long, and oftentimes clung to his 
 memory long after he had been fretted and worried 
 into his grave. It must not be supposed that the 
 exquisite polish and the razor-like sharpness of the jest 
 made it more endurable. Men do not stand still to be 
 stabbed or shot, in mute admiration of the splendid 
 weapons with which they may be assailed. Few persons 
 have the equanimity which Chesterfield manifested when 
 he read Johnson's stinging letter, and can coolly point 
 out and commend the happy conceits, the exquisite 
 turns of expression, in a satirical production every sen 
 tence of which is a stab at themselves. It is true an 
 epigrammatist has said that, 
 
 As in smooth oil the razor best is whet, 
 
 So wit is by politeness sharpest set ; 
 
 Their want of edge from their offence is seen, 
 
 Both pain us least when exquisitely keen. 
 
 But we believe the very reverse is true, that both cut 
 more deeply, and leave scars that are longer in healing. 
 Johnson was right when he declared that "the vehicle 
 of wit and delicacy" only makes the satire more sting 
 ing. Compared with ordinary abuse, the difference, he 
 said, is between being bruised with a club and being 
 wounded with a poisoned arrow.
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 SOME writer remarks that there is a wonderful vigor 
 of constitution in a popular fallacy. When once 
 the world has got hold of a lie, it is astonishing how 
 hard it is to get it out of the world. You beat it 
 about the head, and it seems to have given up the 
 ghost; and lol the next day, like Zachary Taylor, who 
 did not know when he was whipped by Santa Anna, 
 it is alive, and as lusty as ever. 
 
 Proofs of the truth of this observation will suggest 
 themselves to every one. Of the scores of fine sayings 
 that have the advantage of being fallacies, one of the 
 most popular is the assertion that "a boaster is always 
 a coward." It would be very agreeable to find this so; 
 but so far is it from being true, that* among the bravest 
 people on earth are the Gascons, who are such boasters 
 that we have derived a contemptuous epithet from their 
 name. They are unquestionably the most courageous 
 and fiery-spirited of the Prankish race, "saucy, full of 
 gibes, and quarrelsome as a weasel," and their valor and 
 coolness in danger, their immense vanity, and "moun 
 tainous ME," as Emerson would term it, are so noto 
 rious that they are almost invariably selected for heroes 
 by some of the best French novelists. 
 
 Was Achilles, or any one of Homer's heroes, a 
 coward? Yet the great father of poetry, who dissected 
 the human heart as keenly as any modern anatomist,
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 73 
 
 makes his champions "crow like Chanticleer" over their 
 achievements on all possible occasions. Who is igno 
 rant, too, that Milton's Satan, whose sublimest charac 
 teristic is his "unconquerable will, the resolution not 
 to submit or yield," brags incessantly, in the most 
 sarcastic and biting language, of the "fell rout" with 
 which he has visited the hosts of heaven ? With a few 
 exceptions, the Southern rebels were all insufferable 
 boasters, from Jeff. Davis downward ; yet did they often 
 show the white feather on the field? Did ever a braver 
 man draw sword than General Wolfe? Yet we are 
 told that dining with Pitt, the British Minister, on the 
 day before his embarkation for America, he broke, as 
 the evening advanced, into a disgusting strain of gas 
 conade and bravado. Drawing his sword, he rapped 
 the table with it, flourished it around the room, and 
 talked of the mighty things which that sword was to 
 achieve, till the two Ministers, Pitt and Temple, stood 
 aghast; and when Wolfe had taken his leave, and his 
 carriage was heard to roll from the door, the former, 
 shaken for the moment in the high opinion which his 
 deliberate judgment had formed of the soldier, lifted up 
 his eyes and arms, and exclaimed to the latter: "Good 
 God! that I should have entrusted the fate of the 
 country and the Administration to such hands!" It is 
 said that "a barking dog doesn't bite;" but those 
 persons who, relying upon this saw, have provoked a 
 bull-dog to plant his teeth in their calves, know better. 
 Read the life of that bravest and most braggart of 
 artists, Benvenuto Cellini, compared with whom Falstaff 
 was an incarnation of humility, and you will abandon 
 the popular but foolish notion that real talent is never 
 vain, and real courage never boastful. 
 
 Akin to the foregoing hackneyed fallacy, is another
 
 74 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 on everybody's lips, viz., that "brave men are never 
 cruel." Bravery has nothing to do with either cruelty 
 or clemency; it is alike independent of either. There 
 are cases, doubtless, where brave men, not fearing their 
 enemies, have spared their lives; while a coward, from 
 very fear, would have shown no mercy. But the brave 
 men who have been habitually merciful, have been very 
 few. Did any man, however he might have execrated 
 the cruelty of Haynau, "the Austrian butcher," doubt 
 his courage? True, he was a woman-whipper, and 
 proved himself to have had a brutal disposition; but 
 did he ever show himself pigeon-livered on the battle 
 field, or, if insulted by another, would he have hesi 
 tated to measure swords with him? Was Graham of 
 Claverhouse a coward? yet did he not shoot innocent 
 peasants without hesitation or compunction? Was 
 Bonaparte a coward? yet did he not, with cold-blooded 
 cruelty, order Palm, the bookseller, and the Duke d' 
 Enghien to be shot, and did he not butcher thousands 
 of Turkish prisoners at Jaffa? Did he not leave a 
 legacy to Cantillon, the would-be assassin of Welling 
 ton? Was Napoleon III. a coward? yet did he not, 
 on the 2d of December, 1852, mow down thousands of 
 the citizens of Paris with his cannon to place himself 
 on the throne of France? Did Marius or Sulla ever 
 show the white feather, or the courage of Kichard the 
 Third ooze out, like that of Bob Acres, at his fingers' 
 ends? The Duke of Alba, who shot down the Nether- 
 landers like dogs, was never twitted of timidity. No 
 body ever doubted Lord Nelson's bravery, yet a British 
 writer admits that he practised the most atrocious 
 cruelty on the Neapolitan patriots, to say nothing of 
 the infamous breach of faith by which those cruelties 
 were preceded.
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 75 
 
 Another popular fallacy is, that "murder will out." 
 That such were the fact is a consummation devoutly 
 to be wished; but almost every year proves its fallacy. 
 The crime is, indeed, of so startling a character, and 
 the remorse often so poignant, that the perpetrator 
 cannot so easily remain concealed as the knave who 
 robs a bank or picks a pocket. There is an astonishing 
 number of cases where the crime, even after long con 
 cealment, has been discovered; and the exceptions are 
 comparatively so few that they may well deter those 
 who meditate the act. Yet there have been murders 
 the authors of which have never been, and probably 
 never will be, revealed, not, at least, till the lifting of 
 the curtain at the last day shall disclose them. Who 
 has forgotten the famous Cannon street murder of 1866, 
 committed at eight o'clock in the evening, in one of the 
 most crowded thoroughfares of London, a crime to the 
 author of which not the slightest clue has yet been 
 found? Or who has forgotten the Rogers homicide in 
 New York, the perpetrator of which is still shrouded 
 from the public eye, a homicide that took place at 
 seven o'clock in the morning in the open street, within 
 a few steps of Broadway, when much of the industrial 
 life of the city was already astir? To these instances 
 we might add the mysterious murder of Parker, some 
 twenty years ago, in Manchester, N. EL; that of Estes, 
 the fireman, in Boston ; that of Appleby, the grocer, on 
 Randolph street, Chicago, about nine o'clock in the eve 
 ning, in 1856; and, more recently, the yet baffling 
 mystery of the Nathan murder in New York. A 
 strange paradox in the history of some of these crimes 
 is that the difficulty of tracing them to their authors 
 has been aggravated, apparently, by the very lack of 
 caution and secresy in their commission.
 
 76 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 Another popular fallacy, which is on the tongues of 
 the friends of political liberty, is that " it is impossible 
 to Btifle the expression of public opinion." A very 
 pleasant doctrine this for those to believe who live 
 under a despotism; but it is useless for those who fail 
 to resist the first encroachments of arbitrary power, ere 
 it has become irresistible, to lay this flattering unction 
 to their souls. There are, indeed, a thousand cunning 
 devices and shrewd expedients which ingenuity may 
 hit upon, to defeat the force of restrictive measures, 
 and enable a down-trodden party partially to circulate 
 its doctrines; and hence the Abb6 Galiani has defined 
 the sublime oratoire as the art of saying everything 
 without being sent to the Bastile, in an age when one 
 is prohibited from saying anything. But one has only 
 to look at France and Austria as they were till within 
 a few years, indeed, at the whole continent of Europe, 
 to see how completely, for all practical purposes, the 
 expression of opinion may be silenced by bayonets and 
 cannon. 
 
 One of the most deeply-rooted popular fallacies is 
 the opinion that persecution never succeeds, but only 
 adds strength and force to the thing persecuted. A 
 stereotyped illustration of this subject is the dam 
 ming up of a river, which breaks forth, by-and-by, with 
 redoubled violence and fury. But history discourses no 
 such monotonous music. The martyr's blood has not 
 always fallen on fruitful soil. Many a heresy has 
 died in the bud, which, had it been left to ripen un 
 molested, would have blown into a victorious creed and 
 a dominant church. The popular opinion on this sub 
 ject would not easily have gained credence a few centu 
 ries ago. Mr. Mill has shown, in his essay on Liberty, 
 that it is one of those pleasant falsehoods which meu
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 77 
 
 repeat one after another, till they pass into common 
 places, but which all history refutes. Twenty times 
 before Luther the Reformation broke out, and was put 
 down ; Savonarola was put down ; the Albigenses were 
 put down; the Lollards were put down; the Hussites 
 were put down; and so were the followers of Luther 
 everywhere, except where the heretics were too strong 
 to be effectually persecuted. In Spain, Italy, Flanders, 
 and the Austrian Empire, Protestantism was rooted out; 
 and, had Mary lived, or Elizabeth died, the same prob 
 ably would have been its fate in England. It is a 
 piece of idle sentimentality, says Mr. Mill, to affirm 
 that truth has any inherent power, denied to error, of 
 prevailing against the dungeon and the stake. The 
 sum of the matter is, that it is only at a time when it 
 appears 
 
 Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
 
 when it only teases and irritates, without destroying, 
 that persecution is followed by an effect contrary to 
 that intended. "Persecution not effectual!" exclaims a 
 writer, "it might be as proper to say that steel and 
 poison do not kill. The real truth is, that there is a 
 tendency in things, under a certain amount of perse 
 cution, to rise into greater vigor, as fire burns more 
 brightly under a slight sprinkling of water ; but, under 
 a sufficient amount of persecution, their repression is as 
 unavoidable as the extinction of the same fire by a suffi 
 cient quantity of water." 
 
 Of all the plausible fallacies which pass current in 
 spite of repeated exposures of their shallowness, there is 
 no one which has got a firmer hold upon the public 
 mind than that of the encouragement given to industry 
 by lavish expenditure, the fallacy contained in the
 
 78 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 saying, "It is always circulating money." Chide a 
 "fast" man of your acquaintance for his reckless ex 
 penditures, and he meets you with the triumphant 
 reply that he is doing infinitely more good by spend 
 ing than by hoarding; he is a blessing to his race, a 
 public benefactor; he is "doing all he can to circulate 
 money." Half-a-dozen young epicures meet at a hotel 
 or a restaurant, and order a dinner at five or ten dollars 
 a head; they guzzle or waste food and wine, the price 
 of which would maintain an ordinary family a month ; 
 this unenjoyed, unenjoyable excess is not only not cen 
 surable, it is absolutely praiseworthy, " for, d'ye see ? it 
 is always circulating money." The economists, on the 
 other hand, who husband their means, are denounced 
 without stint or measure. " They lock up money and 
 keep it from circulating. Nobody is the better for it, 
 not even themselves." The truth, on the contrary, is 
 that the savers of money are the chief benefactors of a 
 country, for it is by them, more than by any other 
 citizens, that not only its material, but its moral inter 
 ests, are advanced. Railways, telegraphs, schools, col 
 leges, public libraries, museums, public works in which 
 hosts of laborers are employed, are only possible be 
 cause of these savings. The accumulations of the sor- 
 didest miser are as serviceable as the coin in a trader's 
 till; for they are employed in bank business, in manu 
 factures, in building, in printing, in a thousand forms 
 of hired capital, besides paying a constant and ever- 
 increasing tax to the State. They not only give imme 
 diate employment to as much industry as the spend 
 thrift employs during his entire career, but, coming 
 back with increase by the sale of the goods which have 
 been manufactured, or the houses built, form a fund 
 for the employment of the same or a greater amount
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 79 
 
 of labor perpetually. But money spent uselessly, as 
 upon the turf, for costly wines, or high-priced luxuries, 
 or money spent for vanity, and not for enjoyment, is 
 absolutely wasted. It maintains persons whose labor, 
 that might have been useful to the community, is of 
 no actual benefit, either to the spenders or to mankind. 
 When a dollar's worth of food is needlessly consumed, 
 the community is made just a dollar poorer. When a 
 dollar is saved, and loaned, or employed, its power to 
 bless the community has no limit in time, for all the 
 great operations of concentrated labor, by which a 
 country is made a desirable one to live in, are the 
 results of capital thus husbanded. The careless ob 
 server, however, does not see what becomes of the 
 economist's money; he does see what becomes of the 
 spendthrift's; and observing that it feeds a certain 
 amount of industry, though immeasurably less than it 
 would have fed if saved and loaned, hastily concludes 
 that prodigality encourages industry, and parsimony 
 discourages it. 
 
 Another fallacy, hardly less popular than the fore 
 going is the hackneyed saying, "Contentment is better 
 than riches," which graces so many copy-books, and on 
 which so many changes have been rung by a certain 
 class of moralists. Tell a languid, unenterprising man 
 that you are brooding on some scheme, Californian, 
 Australian, or otherwise, by which to better your worldly 
 condition, and with a deprecating look and an ominous 
 shake of the head he will croak to you the old saw, or 
 some other hydropathic adage, to damp your zeal and 
 fright you from your purpose, with as confident an air 
 as if nobody had ever challenged its truthfulness. It 
 would be interesting to know how such a sentiment 
 gained currency in these times; for, certainly, it is
 
 80 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 one of those sentimentalities that seem better fitted for 
 the golden age than for the bustle and shock of this 
 fiery, "go-ahead" period in the world's history. 
 
 To be contented, what, indeed, is it ? Is it not to be 
 satisfied, to hope for nothing, to aspire to nothing, to 
 strive for nothing, in short, to rest in inglorious ease, 
 doing nothing for your country, for your own or others' 
 material, intellectual, or moral improvement, satisfied 
 with the condition in which you or they are placed? 
 Such a state of feeling may do very well where nature 
 has fixed an inseparable and ascertained barrier, a 
 "thus far shalt thou go and no farther," to our 
 wishes, or where we are troubled by ills past remedy. 
 In such cases it is the highest philosophy not to fret or 
 grumble, when, by all our worrying and self-teasing, we 
 cannot help ourselves a jot or tittle, but only aggravate 
 and intensify an affliction that is incurable. To soothe 
 the mind down into patience is then the only resource 
 left us, and happy is he who has schooled himself thus 
 to meet all reverses and disappointments. But in the 
 ordinary circumstances of life, this boasted virtue of 
 contentment, so far from being laudable, would be an 
 evil of the first magnitude. It would be, in fact, 
 nothing less than a trigging of the wheels of all 
 enterprise, a cry of "Stand still!" to the progress of 
 the whole social world. 
 
 What is it that contrives machinery, builds and 
 freights ships, beautifies cities, encourages the arts, writes 
 books, and promotes the wealth, intelligence and com 
 fort of a free and happy nation? Not contentment, 
 certainly. Not contempt for that "competence" which 
 millions are striving for, and which has been happily 
 defined as three hundred a year more than you possess. 
 Man is naturally an active, progressive being, destined
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 81 
 
 to be perpetually improving himself and his condition, 
 and he can have no sympathy with so sleepy, passive a 
 virtue, without violating the first law of his nature. 
 Providence has ordered that he shall work out his own 
 happiness, and the very means it has employed to make 
 sure that he shall go on in the fulfillment of its 
 designs, is that inability to content himself with what 
 he possesses, or has done, which sentimentalists declaim 
 against as one of the worst features in his character. 
 It is this which feeds and clothes him, furnishes him 
 with all the luxuries, all the elegancies and amenities 
 of life, stimulates him to accumulate capital to produce 
 great social ends, and incites him to strain alike for 
 intellectual and moral improvement. It is, indeed, the 
 glory of the world that nothing in it is stationary, or 
 rests contented with itself, but that to whatever peak 
 of excellence it climbs, it sees "hills peep o'er hills, and 
 Alps on Alps arise:" 
 
 Spring's real glory lies not in the meaning, 
 Gracious though it be, of her blue hours, 
 
 But is hidden in her tender leaning 
 
 To the summer's richer wealth of flowers. 
 
 It has been truly said, that from the polyp to the 
 saint, there is a perpetual striving, a divine dissatis 
 faction. Even the inorganic world would organize 
 itself; the groping atoms struggle into cells; and in 
 every geologic period there are prophetic intimations of 
 a more lofty that is yet to be. 
 
 With the civilized man contentment is a myth. From 
 the cradle to the grave he is forever longing and striv 
 ing after something better, an indefinable something, 
 some new object yet unattained. No doubt this feeling 
 often takes a wrong direction, and manifests itself in
 
 82 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 ambition, envy, grumbling, fretfulness, and other ex 
 cesses; but so may every principle of our nature be 
 perverted; and even in this unregulated state, it is far 
 better than that contented feeling which leads a man 
 to sit down with his hands in his breeches pockets, 
 leaving everything to chance, and making no effort to 
 improve his condition. But the truth is, that the 
 man whose thoughts and energies are all needed for, 
 and constantly employed in, efforts to reach a higher 
 position, is the person of all men least likely to let his 
 mind brood sulkily and discontentedly upon things 
 either not worth attaining, or which are not so to him. 
 
 Had Milton been a contented man, would he have 
 given to the world his grand epic? Had Shakspeare 
 been a contented man, instead of one who " troubled 
 deaf heaven with his bootless cries," and " cursed his 
 fate," which led him " to make himself a motley to the 
 view," to "gore his own thoughts," and "sell cheap 
 what is most dear," would he have delighted the 
 world with those matchless creations, Hamlet, Lear, 
 and Macbeth? 
 
 Would Byron, if contented, have written Childe 
 Harold? Would a contented man have painted the 
 (.'Mrtoons; or, had Columbus been such, would he have 
 discovered America? No, surely; such a benumbing, 
 paralyzing principle as contentment and the lofty aspi 
 rations of genius cannot co-exist in the same soul. 
 As well might you talk of a sedentary will-o-the-wisp, 
 a brick balloon, or a lazy lightning. Depend upon it, 
 the nonsense of contentment and a cottage is pretty in 
 the page of the poet or novelist only, never in actual 
 life. The virtue is one which the rich are always 
 anxious to find in the poor, one which every man 
 likes to see his neighbor practise, but which no one
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 83 
 
 cares to practise himself. In fact, as Mr. J. S. Mill, 
 in his book on "Representative Government," suggests, 
 the great mass even of seeming contentment "is real 
 discontent, combined with indolence or self-indulgence, 
 which, while taking no legitimate means of raising 
 itself, delights in bringing others down to its own level." 
 
 Look at the effects of this feeling upon nations. 
 Was the free and fiery Spartan, or the noble Roman, 
 famed for it? Does it characterize the English, with 
 their "hungry heart," of which one of their poets 
 speaks? Or do we not, in fact, find it in the highest 
 perfection among the ignorant and degraded serfs of 
 Russia, who, when in the most abject slavery, hardly 
 evinced a wish for freedom? Do we not see it in the 
 habits of the American Indians, who sneer at all the 
 courses of industry, so long as they can gather fish 
 from the rivers or game from the forests? Is it not a 
 notorious trait of the peasantry of Ireland, who, if they 
 have "murphies" enough, are content to live in idle 
 ness, though exposed to a host of what other people 
 would call frightful evils? Does it not characterize 
 such persons as constitute the dregs of every civilized 
 community, who, deeply as we may deprecate the con 
 duct of selfish and grasping men, that strive and toil 
 for wealth and worldly aggrandizement, without any 
 higher views, are not above such a life, but below it? 
 
 What keeps such persons down in the world, besides 
 lack of capacity, is not a philosophical contempt of 
 riches or honors, but thoughtlessness and improvidence, 
 a love of sluggish torpor, and of present gratification. 
 It is not from preferring virtue to wealth, the goods 
 of the mind to those of fortune, that they take so 
 little thought for the morrow; but from want of 
 forethought and stern self-command. The restless,
 
 84 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 ambitious man too often directs these qualities to an 
 unwortny object; the contented man is generally defi 
 cient in the qualities themselves. The one is a stream, 
 that flows too often in a wrong channel, and needs to 
 have ita course altered; the other is a stagnant pool.
 
 FACES. 
 
 "OEADER, do you believe in physiognomy, that 
 JL\ there are in our faces, as Sir Thomas Browne says, 
 " certain mystical signs which carry on them the motto 
 of our souls," revealing our inner selves as clearly as if 
 we carried a pane of glass in our breasts? Do you 
 pique yourself upon being " a reader of character ; " or, 
 do you believe, with a shrewd observer, that 
 
 There's no art 
 To find the mind's construction in the face ? 
 
 There are few persons who boggle at the generalities 
 of the science; but when it comes to minute detail, 
 as when Lavater talks of a kind of nose which is 
 worth a kingdom, it is hard to have faith, even as 
 large as a grain of mustard seed. The countenance 
 may be rightly defined as the title-page which heralds 
 the contents of the human volume, but, like other title- 
 pages, it sometimes puzzles, often misleads, and often 
 says nothing to the purpose. Many a man bears a 
 motto on his shield, which, however true for his father 
 from whom he inherited it, is false for the son. Not 
 always does a fair soul, as Plato supposed, choose a 
 fair body to dwell in; nor are scoundrels uniformly, 
 in eyes, nose, and mouth, "marked and quoted to be 
 villains." Nature cuts queer capers with men's phizes 
 at times, and confounds all the deductions of philoso-
 
 8 FACES. 
 
 phy. Character does not put all of its goods, some 
 times not any of them, in its shop window. Socrates 
 had an ugly frontispiece; and some of the most vir 
 tuous and amiable men have had faces which a stranger 
 would not like to have encountered in a lonely place 
 after nightfall. We have seen "foreheads villanous 
 low " on very noble men, and grand domes of heads 
 on mere blocks and ignoramuses. It is often true, as 
 Moore sings, that 
 
 In vain we fondly strive to trace 
 . The soul's reflection in the face; 
 
 In vain we dwell on lines and crosses, 
 
 Crooked mouths, or short probosces; 
 
 Boobies have looked as wise and bright 
 
 As Plato and the Stagyrite ; 
 
 And many a sage and learned skull 
 
 Has peeped through windows dark and dull. 
 
 DeQuincey, in expatiating on the meanness of Dr. 
 Parr's personal appearance, and his coarse and ignoble 
 features, adds, "I that write this paper have myself 
 a mean personal appearance," and attributes the 
 peculiarity to the original unkindness of nature. It is 
 said of the great Russian military hero, Suwarrow, that, 
 when engaged in business, he looked a man, but, while 
 entertaining company, would walk about the room with 
 bent knees, and head and hands hanging down, like 
 an idiot. Some of the boldest and most determined 
 men have had weak mouths, and some of the most 
 timid and fickle a firm-set lip and a defiant eye. It 
 has been remarked that one of the bravest of our 
 young generals in the late war, a rough-rider, and 
 reckless in battle to the verge of madness, is a gen 
 tleman so unobtrusive in address, and so gentle of face, 
 that a stranger, meeting him casually, would at once
 
 FACES. 87 
 
 place him in the category of temporizing souls who 
 are supposed incapable of saying boo to a goose. Bret 
 Harte, speaking of the fugitives from justice at "Roar 
 ing Camp," says that, "physically, they exhibited no 
 indication of their past lives and character. The great 
 est scamp had a Eaphael face, with a profusion of 
 blonde hair; Oakhurst, a gambler, had the melancholy 
 character and intellectual abstraction of a Hamlet ; the 
 coolest and most courageous man was scarcely over five 
 feet in height, with a soft voice, and an embarrassed, 
 timid manner." 
 
 It is a curious fact that many of the men who 
 have been most distinguished for their power to raise 
 comic ideas have had lugubrious visages, suggestive of 
 tears rather than of merriment. Grimaldi, the prince 
 of clowns, was a dull, heavy-looking man off the stage, 
 and so was Listen, who, maddened London nightly with 
 his fun. Robert Chambers tells in one of his essays of 
 a person residing near London, who could make one's 
 sides ache at any time with his comic songs, yet had 
 so rueful, woe-begone a face that his friends addressed 
 him by the name of Mr. Dismal. What wit or humorist 
 ever lived who could so effectually "create a soul under 
 the ribs of death" by his jests, as poor Tom Hood? 
 His writings, as all the world knows, are steeped -in 
 the very quintessence of fun ; the drollest, oddest fancies 
 and conceits sparkle on his page as incessantly as fire 
 flies in an Indian grove. Yet who that ever had a 
 glimpse of his pictured phiz, so grave and melancholy- 
 looking, as if he had done nothing all his life but 
 stare at death's-heads and statues of " Niobe, all tears," 
 would have dreamed that he was not a modern Herac- 
 litus, a sexton, an undertaker, anything rather than 
 a professor of the Pantagruelian philosophy, and author
 
 88 FACES. 
 
 of the queer conceits that till his "Own?" His face 
 "insinuates such a false Hood," that one would fancy 
 that nothing less than galvanism could shock its 
 features into any demonstration of fun ; and, instead of 
 being suited to adorn a comic almanac, it seems better 
 fitted for a frontispiece to Burton's "Anatomy of Melan 
 choly." In fact, the owner tells us that he was actually 
 taken many times for a Methodist minister, and, on his 
 march to Berlin with the Prussian infantry, could never 
 pass himself off for anybody but the chaplain of the 
 regiment. Cervantes, Swift, Molidre, afford additional 
 instances of comic geniuses whose physiognomies have 
 belied their characters. 
 
 As the merriest men have sometimes the soberest 
 faces, so the most serious-minded have mirthful ones. 
 It has been said of Wilberforce, that his countenance 
 was so merry, rosy, and good-fellowish, that he seemed 
 more like a jovial son of Momus or Bacchus, than a 
 devout Christian, as he was intus et in cute, and a 
 champion of abolition. The poet Young, whose writ 
 ings are so gloomy that it has been doubted whether 
 their author was ever young, had anything but the 
 ghostly face one would give to him after reading the 
 "Night Thoughts." It is well known, however, that he 
 was till fifty a desperate place-hunter, after which he 
 turned State's-evidence against the world, and satirized 
 the pursuits in which he had failed. One can easily 
 imagine what a clog and hindrance to success in any 
 profession must be a physiognomy unsuited to it. Who 
 does not hesitate to employ a broker who has "no 
 speculation in his eye," a lawyer who, instead of a 
 keen, vulture-eyed look, has a jovial, benevolent expres 
 sion, or a schoolmaster with so comic a phiz that his
 
 FACES. 89 
 
 pupils would be forever grinning, instead of being 
 "boding tremblers," who 
 
 Had learned to trace 
 The day's disasters in his morning face? 
 
 Charles Lamb has well described the distrust we 
 feel of such men in his ludicrous account of the Quaker 
 "of the old Foxian orgasm," whom he heard express 
 ing his remorse at a meeting, that " he had been a wit 
 in his youth," while his brow would have scared away 
 the Levities, the Jocos Risusque, faster than the Loves 
 fled the face of Dis at Euna! Some years ago, in the 
 East, there was a little bandy-legged comedian, who, 
 finding that the stage did not pay, abandoned it for 
 the medical profession, but could make no headway on 
 account of his " villanous merry visage." He tried 
 every way to look grave and wise, but hadn't "the 
 power of face." In spite of every effort, he carried 
 into his new calling his old, merry smirk, and the 
 roguish twinkle of his eyes; so that, while his patients 
 were groaning with pain, he seemed to be perpetually 
 giggling at their distress. He next tried the law, but 
 even in his most frantic appeals, when he pulled his 
 hair and tore his coat-tails, no jury would believe him 
 in earnest; and so he abandoned this calling, too, 
 declaring that his facetious face would be the ruin 
 of him in any serious vocation. Not less unhappy in 
 his physiognomy was an Irish comedian of brilliant 
 talents, who believed himself cut out intellectually for 
 high tragedy, while his face and figure compelled him 
 to perform only comic parts. In his own opinion, fat 
 and fortune only had made him a comedian ; and, while 
 he elicited shouts of laughter as a bog-trotter, with 
 buskins composed of straw-ropes, he thought only " how
 
 !i( FACES. 
 
 great a Kemble was iu a Patrick lost," and viewed him 
 self as one who should have been exciting pity or 
 horror as Lear or Macbeth. 
 
 Anomalies like these do not invalidate the general 
 truth, that the mind stamps its character on the fea 
 tures of the face. It is still true that, as the Scripture 
 says, " a man may be known by his look, and one that 
 has understanding by his countenance when thou meet- 
 est him." How often do we hit upon the character of 
 a stranger at a glance, with a thousand-fold more 
 accuracy than if we were to make it the subject of 
 long and laborious study ! The ruling principle of the 
 man flashes upon us instantly, from some peculiar 
 expression imprinted upon the features by the thoughts 
 and feelings of years, when, if we were to wait and 
 judge by the equivocal signs of words and deeds, we 
 might be led into the grossest error. Montaigne 
 observes that, in a crowd of victorious enemies, you 
 shall presently choose, amongst men you never saw 
 before, one rather than another to whom to surren 
 der, and to whom to entrust your life. It is said of 
 the celebrated physiognomist, Lavater, that a stranger 
 was once introduced to him, whose features, though he 
 exhibited high intellectual endowments and the most 
 accomplished manners, impressed him at once with the 
 conviction, "This man is a murderer." Dining with 
 him the next day, Lavater forgot his impression ; but 
 scarcely had the elegant and polished gentleman left 
 town, when news came that he was an assassin, who had 
 fled from Sweden to escape arrest. Douglas Jerrold, in 
 one of his plays, makes one of the persona thus com 
 ment on the looks of another : " You have a most 
 Tyburn-like physiognomy. There's Turpin in the curl 
 of your upper lip, Jack Shepherd in the under one,
 
 FACES. 91 
 
 Duval and Barrington are in your eyes, and as for 
 your chin, why, Sixteen-String Jack lives in it!" Even 
 Moore, whose thrust at the physiognomists we have 
 quoted, betrays his belief in their general principles by 
 giving to the veiled prophet of Khorassan a visage fit for 
 his hideous soul, while the young Nourmahal, the light 
 of the harem, has features worthy of an angel: 
 
 While her laugh, full of life, without any control, 
 But the sweet one of gracefulness, rung from her soul ; 
 And where it most sparkled, no glance could discover 
 In lips, cheeks or eyes, for it brightened all over, 
 Like any fair lake that the breeze was upon, 
 When it breaks into dimples, and laughs in the sun. 
 
 It is a fact well fitted to provoke serious thought, 
 that the spiritual principle moulds and fashions the 
 plastic substance of its home, that it writes its own 
 character on its exterior walls, and chronicles from 
 month to month, from year to year, its upward aspira 
 tions, or its increasing abasement. Even after one has 
 reached middle life, the face may undergo great changes ; 
 and many a human countenance becomes a drama of 
 profound interest, "a visible incarnation of the Mani- 
 chaean dream," mirroring, as it does, with terrible 
 fidelity, the alternations of a fierce inward struggle be 
 tween good and evil, darkness and light. Somewhere 
 in our readings we have met with the story of a 
 painter, who, seeing a beautiful child, was so fascinated 
 by the loveliness of its face that he resolved to paint 
 it. He did so, and hung the picture, his favorite, in 
 his study. It became a kind of guardian angel; in 
 sorrow and in passion he tranquillized his soul by 
 gazing upon that heavenly countenance. By-and-by he 
 resolved, should he ever find its counterpart, to paint
 
 92 FACES. 
 
 that also ;> but years passed, aiid he was despairing of 
 ever tindiiig the latter, when he discovered a face so 
 intensely ugly as fully to realize his idea. It was that 
 of a wretch lying in despair upon the floor of his 
 prison celL He painted that terrible face; but what 
 were his emotions when he learned that it was the 
 same person he had painted before! The first was the 
 face of the innocent child, the last, that of the profli 
 gate, ruined youth. The likeness of an angel hud been 
 transformed into the reality of a fiend.
 
 COMPULSORY MORALITY. 
 
 ONE of the saddest .signs of the times we live in, is 
 the increasing scepticism which good men mani 
 fest regarding the efficacy of moral influences in re 
 pressing vice. After ages of bitter experience, after 
 Bartholomews, auto-da-fes, and " booted missions " with 
 out number, the world has at last learned that the 
 true way to exterminate heresy is not by the sword, 
 the dungeon, or the stake, but by letting truth and 
 error grapple. When will men also learn that sin is to 
 be exterminated, not by the "beggarly elements" of force 
 and compulsion, but by the moral weapons of argument 
 and persuasion? When will they learn that to reform 
 men by force, to break down individual independence, 
 whether of judgment or choice, to frown and scold 
 men into self-denial, to rely upon custom, law, opinion, 
 anything rather than conviction and persuasion, as the 
 means of changing moral conduct, to jam the reluc 
 tant between a noisy public sentiment on the one hand, 
 and a statutory prohibition on the other, and to drive 
 them, thus guarded, into the line of sobriety and 
 morality, is the worst kind of scepticism, because it is 
 a distrust of the holiest influences, a substitution of 
 mechanism for soul, law for gospel? 
 
 That philanthropists should sometimes get impatient, 
 and, in moments of exhaustion, doubt the efficacy of 
 moral influences in regenerating the world, we can well
 
 94 COMPULSORY MORALITY. 
 
 understand; but that the wheels of reform can ever be 
 made to revolve more swiftly by applying to them the 
 strong arm of the law, all history disproves. What 
 lasting progress was ever made in social reformation, 
 -'except when every step was insured by appeals to the 
 understanding and the will? Who that has read the 
 history of sumptuary laws, laws restraining amusements, 
 and other such rude agencies, does not know that what 
 is seemingly gained by them is gained only while these 
 agencies operate, and is invariably followed by a reac 
 tion? Are nations essentially different from individuals, 
 :in%do ^jiot the latter, when forced to do right against 
 their will, avenge the insult to their manhood by doing 
 wrong wilfully where before they did it thoughtlessly 
 or from inveterate habit? Dam up the stream of vice 
 by rigid laws, and^will it not creep into other channels, 
 or, burstin^all barriers, inundate regions through which 
 it would otherwise have flowed quietly ? The Puritans 
 of the English Commonwealth, the forefathers of those 
 who would now make men virtuous by law, tried to 
 < \tirpate impiety by statutory enactments, and we know 
 the results. Scarcely had Charles II. ascended the 
 throne when the nation, disgusted with the long faces 
 and longer prayers of Cromwell's followers, and suddenly 
 find froqfr therr tyrannical restrictions, rushed to the 
 opposite extreme of 'impiety; debauchery was identified 
 with loyalty, and oaths, deep draughts, and a contempt 
 for all the decencies of social life, became the badges and 
 insignia of a good cavalier. Such will always be the 
 result when men are whipped, dragooned and pilloried 
 into morality, instead of being coaxed by rhetoric or 
 convinced by logic. 
 
 It has been truly said that when honest men infer 
 from their desire to do good, that they have the
 
 COMPULSORY MORALITY. 95 
 
 knowledge and talents requisite to govern wisely, it is 
 incalculable what evil-doers they may innocently become f 
 A French gentleman once said to the minister, Col 
 bert, " You found the state carriage overturned on one 
 side, and you have overturned it on the other." Not 
 unlike this is the policy of those reformers, who, for 
 getting that a conflagration may be extinguished with 
 out a deluge, would overcome one extreme of evil by 
 turning to another hardly less objectionable. Even 
 were the experiment successful of making men moral 
 by statute, we doubt, whether, on the. whole, the race 
 would be benefited. The scheme would be akin to 
 that employed in the Middle Ages, when i false 
 theology tried to make angels of men by shutting 
 them up in cloisters and crushing their '-natural in 
 stincts. Those who are familiar with the history of 
 that period will readily recall those frightful phe 
 nomena, once not uncommon in convents, when nuns 
 suddenly lapsed from the extremest austerities into 
 an almost demoniac wickedness, a fact- which only 
 shows the uncontrollable vehemence, of a long-denied 
 desire. Saints made such by social compulsion are 
 not men, but monsters. We have no j^ish to see 
 the world filled with such ; we look for* nobler and 
 loftier results, more in keeping with the dignity and 
 majesty of man. God has so framed us as to make 
 freedom of choice and action the very basis of all 
 moral improvement, and all our faculties, mental and 
 moral, resent and revolt against the idea of virtue 
 by coercion. The whole scheme of Providence im 
 plies and is founded upon this freedom. Temptations 
 abound on every hand. Means of self-indulgence and 
 of self-ruin are furnished us in boundless profusion. 
 There is no good tHing which may not be perverted
 
 96 COMPULSORY MORALITY. 
 
 into an instrument of mischief. "Do we not," says 
 Sir Philip Sydney, in his "Defense of Poesy," "see 
 skill of physic, the best rampart to our often assaulted 
 bodies, being abused, teach poison, the most violent 
 destroyer? Doth not God's word abused breed heresy, 
 and His name abused become blasphemy ? With a 
 sword thou mayest kill thy father, and with a sword 
 thou mayest defend thy prince and country." We 
 do not chop off men's fingers because they become 
 pickers and stealers; nor does God withhold from us 
 the blessings of life because they may be made in 
 struments of mischief; and why? Because life is a 
 discipline, and not a final state ; because virtue comes 
 through self-control by resistance to evil; and because 
 it is better, and more conducive to ultimate progress, 
 to secure an independent and robust virtue, even at 
 the cost of occasional falls and relapses, than to pro 
 duce a sickly and feeble morality, which needs con 
 tinual props and supports, and which has been forced 
 on us from without, rather than generated within. 
 
 Who, indeed, is the truly virtuous man ? Is it he 
 who never struggles with temptation, who closes his 
 eyes and ears, and shuts every avenue of enjoyment, 
 that he may escape the necessity of self-control ; or is 
 it he who accepts the conditions God has imposed on 
 his life, and, instead of skulking from the field, or re 
 tiring to some anchorite's cave or hermit's cell, fights 
 manfully the battles of life? who, indeed, never need 
 lessly rushes to meet temptation, but who, trusting in 
 God, boldly confronts it when assailed? Let John 
 Milton answer this question. Nobly has he said: 
 " He that can apprehend and consider vice, with all 
 her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and 
 yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly bet-
 
 COMPULSORY MORALITY. 97 
 
 ter, he is the true warfaring Christian. I cannot 
 praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and 
 unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adver 
 sary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal 
 garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat." 
 Golden words, which have been a thousand times 
 quoted, but which can never lose their freshness nor 
 value, because they declare a principle which is for all 
 time. It is only by courtesy that this fugitive " virtue " 
 can be allowed the name. Self-denial it is not, but 
 simply abdication of self-government and responsibility, 
 and out of it can grow no stalwart and defiant virtue, 
 but only a dwarfish and decent morality, or rather 
 effeminacy and moral cowardice, ready to surrender at 
 the first attack, when assailed outside of the bulwarks of 
 law. 
 
 Modern philanthropy has yet to learn that that 
 which purifies us, is trial, and that there can be no 
 trial where there is no opportunity to do wrong. It is 
 not in the hothouse or well sheltered garden, but on 
 the Alpine cliff, where the storm howls most furiously, 
 that the toughest plants are found. It is not by tread 
 ing "the primrose paths of dalliance," but by climbing 
 the craggy steeps of difficulty, that either intellectual or 
 moral athletes are reared. Hence it is that Spenser, 
 describing his Temperance under the person of Guion, 
 brings him in with his palmer through the cave of 
 Mammon and the bower of earthly bliss, that he may 
 see and know and yet abstain. Men do not learn to 
 swim by buoying themselves up with cork jackets and 
 life preservers, still less by keeping clear of the water; 
 nor do they use crutches to strengthen their legs. No 
 doubt, by stringent laws, we may fill the world with 
 negative virtue; but let us not cheat ourselves into the
 
 98 COMPULSORY MORALITY. 
 
 belief that, by removing the provocation to sin, we have 
 removed the sin itself, that we have tamed the hu 
 man passions, because we have caged them in law. 
 
 When will men understand that many results, 
 desirable in themselves, are rendered comparatively 
 valueless by the means employed to bring them about, 
 and that a very small amount of voluntary well-doing 
 is worth immeasurably more than all the compulsory 
 well-doing which legislation can effect? We may twist 
 and bend human nature into fantastic shapes, if we 
 will ; but that tough and hardy virtue which grows out 
 of deliberate choice, will always be as much superior to 
 the snug and trim morality which the lawgiver rears, 
 as the rough, gnarled oak, with the grotesque contor 
 tions of its branches, is superior to the smoothly-clipped 
 uniformity of the Dutch yew tree. Philanthropy is 
 never so powerless as when she leans on the strong 
 arm of the law for support, never so mighty as when 
 she seeks to achieve her lofty ends by means in har 
 mony with her own spirit. It has been justly said that 
 the vast amount of individual anxiety, self-denial, enter 
 prise, action, which the more compendious method of 
 working by law will supersede, is of far more import 
 ance to permanent progress than the artificial order 
 which the law may establish. Let the schemes of 
 modern sentimentalists be adopted ; let them, as Milton 
 says, "go on subtilizing and casuisting till they have 
 straightened and pared that liberal path which God has 
 allowed us into a razor's edge to walk on;" let temper 
 ance, the support of the church, and the Lord's day 
 observance, be handed over to compulsory, instead of 
 voluntary effort, and all the virtue which is now elicited, 
 exercised, and matured in seeking the accomplishment 
 of these ends will remain dormant Virtue will become
 
 COMPULSOKY MORALITY. 99 
 
 mean and dwarfish ; manly and robust morality will be 
 supplanted by a canting sentimentalism ; mere utilita 
 rianism, with its scales and hair-balance, will become 
 the standard by which every man's conduct will be 
 regulated; and a thin varnish of outward morality will 
 hide a depraved and rotten heart. Against such mea 
 sures we shall always oppose a stubborn resistance, 
 believing, with another, that the continuance of blotches, 
 however frightful, is preferable to any skin-deep cure, 
 which involves the destruction of the individuality of 
 virtue.
 
 THE POWER OF TRIFLES. 
 
 OF the various forms of exaggeration to which sen 
 sational writers and speakers are addicted, there 
 is none more common than that of attributing great 
 events to petty and insignificant causes. Accident, the 
 sudden interposition of some trivial event, has been 
 supposed in thousands of cases to have determined not 
 only the destinies of individuals, but those of States. 
 Matters of the highest moment are assumed to have 
 been the product of others the most trivial, inci 
 dental, capricious, and foreign ; and but for these minor 
 events, it is asserted, the greater would have never 
 happened. Not only epigrammatists, who must have 
 their antithesis at whatever cost, but grave moralists 
 and philosophers, are fond of showing "what great 
 events from little causes spring," and, in their anxiety 
 to point a moral, make deductions of which a moment's 
 reflection would show the absurdity. As the fall of an 
 apple led to the sublimest discoveries in science, so, we 
 are told, the slightest moral act may lead to events 
 which no scale, save one that can graduate eternity, 
 can estimate. The first of a series of primes has often 
 been "a little thing," a slight deviation, by an almost 
 imperceptible angle, from the path of rectitude; but, 
 though deemed of trifling moment, it has led the mis 
 taken wanderer eternally astray. "A happy marriage, 
 which might have been prevented by any one of
 
 THE POWER OF TRIFLES. 101 
 
 numberless accidents," says a writer in an English 
 journal, "will lead a man to take a cheerful view of 
 life. Some secret stab in the affections, of which only 
 two or three people are aware, may convert a man, who 
 would otherwise have been satisfied and amiable, into 
 a stoic, a sour fanatic, or a rebel against society, as the 
 case may be. If Dante had been personally happy, or 
 Shakspeare personally wretched, if Byron had married 
 Miss Chaworth, if Voltaire had met with no personal 
 ill-usage, their literary influence would have been very 
 different." 
 
 History, as well as biography, is pointed to as con 
 firming the same view. Was not Rome saved by a 
 goose, and captured by a hare? Does not Pascal tell 
 us, in his brilliant, epigrammatic way, that if the nose 
 of Cleopatra had been shorter, Antony might have kept 
 the world? "What can be imagined, asks Hume in one 
 of his essays, more trivial than the difference between 
 one color of livery and another in horse-races? Yet 
 this difference, he adds, "begat two most important 
 factions in the Greek Empire, the Prasini and the 
 Veneti, who never suspended their animosities till 
 they ruined that unhappy Government." Does not 
 Duclos tell us that the vermin that for a long time 
 infested the Roman conclave, by expediting the votes 
 of the Cardinals, often defeated the grossest bribery 
 and corruption, and placed on the Papal throne men 
 who otherwise never would have sat there? Was not 
 the Treaty of Utrecht, which put an end to the bloody 
 war of the Spanish Succession, occasioned by a quarrel 
 between the Duchess of Marlborough and Queen Anne 
 about a pair of gloves? Have we not been assured by 
 historians, that, had not Louis VII., in obedience to 
 the injunctions of his Bishops, cropped his head, and
 
 102 THE POWER OF TRIFLES. 
 
 shaved his beard, and thus rendered himself disgustful 
 to his Queen Eleanor, she would never have been 
 divorced, nor married the Count of Anjou, afterwards 
 Henry II. of England, who through her became entitled 
 to the rich provinces of Poitou and Guienne; and thus 
 France would have been saved from the wars which 
 for three centuries ravaged her territory, and cost her 
 the bitterest humiliations and three millions of men? 
 Did not Cromwell come near being strangled in his 
 cradle by a monkey, a wretched ape thus holding in 
 his paws the destinies of Europe? A grain of sand in 
 the sensorium of the same Cromwell re-established the 
 Stuarts, and changed the fate of England. The 
 absence of a comma decided the violent death of the 
 predecessor of Edward III. A child plays with a pair 
 of lenses, and lo! myriads of new suns and systems 
 are discovered. Pascal hears a dinner-plate ring, and 
 he writes his tract upon sound. Cuvier dissects a 
 cuttle-fish, and he is prompted to solve the mystery of 
 the whole animal kingdom. Thorswalden sees a boy 
 in a striking attitude, and models his Mercury drawing 
 his sword after he has played Argus to sleep. 
 
 Who has not listened to such reasoning as this, and 
 yet who, on a moment's reflection, does not see that it 
 involves a logical non-sequttur? Can any event happen 
 which is not the product of adequate causes? Admit 
 that we cannot always trace the causes, does it follow 
 that they do not exist, or that we must ascribe the inex 
 plicable occurrence to a blind and capricious Fate ? "If 
 Dante had been happy, or Shakspeare unhappy," their 
 entire careers would have been different. No doubt; 
 and "if my aunt had been a man, she would have been 
 my uncle." But is human happiness the sport of acci 
 dent, of blind chance? Does it not depend upon
 
 THE POWER OF TRIFLES. 103 
 
 temperament, itself dependent upon a man's whole an 
 cestry, and upon his education, which, again, is dependent 
 upon his age, country, and a myriad of underlying con 
 ditions? Have men no wills by which they can react 
 upon the circumstances that act upon them? If men 
 become "stoics or sour fanatics" after marriage, it is 
 because they were previously prepared to be such by 
 their mental and moral constitutions. Whether a person 
 is to be sweetened or soured by Hymen depends upon 
 the constituents of his mind. Out of the same sub 
 stances one stomach will extract nutriment, another 
 poison; and so the same disappointments in life will 
 chasten and refine one man's spirit, and embitter an 
 other's. If outward events are to give "their whole 
 color" to our lives, we shall all become "rebels against 
 society;" for where is the man who does not receive "a 
 secret stab" or an open one in the course of his life? 
 Is not disappointment the lot of mortals? 
 
 Grant the truth of the story of Newton and the 
 apple, is it not evident that, unless observed by a mind 
 already so prepared to make the discovery that any 
 falling body would have started the train of ideas, the 
 falling of ten thousand apples would have led to nQ 
 discovery of gravitation ? When Oken picked up, in a 
 chance walk, the skull of a deer, bleached and disinte 
 grated by the weather, and exclaimed, after a glance, 
 "It is part of a vertebral column!" a reflection which 
 led to the system of anatomy which has immortalized 
 his name, was not this flash of anticipation the result 
 of the deepest previous study of the problems of the 
 animal kingdom? Had the apple and the deer's skull 
 been wanting, would not some other falling body, or 
 some other skull, have touched the string so ready to 
 vibrate ? If these discoveries were accidental, it is cer-
 
 104 THE POWER OF TRIPLES. 
 
 tain that such accidents do not happen to common 
 men. Again, would the first petty crime necessitate 
 the one that leads to the gallows, did it not argue a 
 lai-k of self-control which is the source alike of pigmy 
 and of giant vices? Would not Antony have been An 
 tony still had he never seen Egypt's queen, and had 
 there been no other Delilahs to ensnare and ruin him ? 
 "They are not skillful considerers of human things," 
 gays Milton, "who imagine to remove sin by removing 
 the matter of Ein. Though ye take from a covetous 
 man all his treasure, he has yet one jewel left; ye 
 cannot bereave him of his covetousness." Of what ac 
 count, so far as the peace of Utrecht was concerned, 
 would have been the trumpery quarrel between Queen 
 Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough, had not the 
 Tories longed to end the war, so as to get rid of the 
 Duke of Marlborough, the leader of the Whig party, 
 and had not the Emperor Joseph I. of Austria died 
 without heirs, thus leaving the throne to his brother, 
 the intended inheritor of the Spanish monarchy ? As 
 to the grain of sand in Cromwell's sensorium, but for 
 which, Pascal says, the royal family would have been 
 lost, and his own established forever, there is no evi 
 dence that this was the cause of the Protector's death: 
 but, had he lived, it is extremely doubtful whether he 
 would have been able to keep his position ; and, as to 
 his family's retaining the sceptre, no one of them would 
 have had the ghost of a chance. 
 
 Pliny somewhere says that it was the sight of a fig 
 which caused the destruction of Carthage; but does 
 not every schoolboy know better? It was the deep, 
 undying hatred of the Romans, aggravated by weighty 
 causes through a long series of years, that caused the 
 famous decree, Carthago deknda est ; else Cato might
 
 THE POWER OF TRIFLES. 105 
 
 have dumped down a wagon-load of figs on the floor 
 of the Senate-House, and the Senators would not have 
 cared a fig for it. Again : Livy intimates that the ad 
 mission of plebeians to the Consulate was owing to the 
 accident of the Consul's lictor knocking at the door of 
 his house to announce his return, whilst his wife's sis 
 ter, who was married to a plebeian, was present. She 
 was indignant that her own husband could not acquire 
 such a distinction, and hence arose the contest which 
 ended in breaking down the exclusion. But here the 
 traio had been laid twenty years before by Cameleius, 
 and this was but the spark that lighted it. So the 
 Reformation would have come, had there been no sale 
 of indulgences, for there had been twenty incipient 
 Reformations before Luther; and without the stamp 
 act and the threepenny tax on tea, the young Ameri 
 can giant would still have ceased to bow to the British 
 sceptre. 
 
 Victor Hugo absurdly says that "a few drops of 
 water, more or less, prostrated Napoleon;" that is, the 
 battle of Waterloo was postponed five hours by the 
 rain of the previous night, enabling Blucher to arrive 
 in time to save Wellington from annihilation. But 
 the truth is, as we have already shown in another part 
 of this volume, the " few drops," which were really tor 
 rents, impeded the Prussians as much as the French, 
 and Napoleon's defeat was due simply to his own un 
 accountable delays and blunders before and during the 
 battle. The arrival of Blucher only converted what 
 was already a defeat into a total rout. 
 
 " But did not Joan of Arc," asks an objector, " expel 
 the British from France, a poor, weak maiden tri 
 umphing over foes that had baffled the ablest French 
 generals?" We answer that substantially the same
 
 106 THE POWER OF TRIFLES. 
 
 results would have occurred had no Joan of Arc 
 appeared. The fact was that the English had under 
 taken a gigantic task, utterly disproportionate to their 
 means. By great military prowess, aided by the defec 
 tion of some of the French nobles, they had struck a 
 paralytic terror into their foes. But this could not 
 long continue. The scale was already turning when 
 the enthusiast of Lorraine entered the field. She 
 sprang from among the people; it was by the senti 
 ments, the religious belief, the passions of the people, 
 that she was inspired and supported ; and the one per 
 vading sentiment of all hearts was a burning desire 
 to expel the foreign invader. One might as well say 
 that the match which fires a cannon blows up a 
 fortification, or that a spark falling upon a mass of 
 combustibles is the cause of a conflagration, without 
 reference to the gunpowder in the one case or to the 
 combustibles in the other, as affirm that men's des 
 tinies are shaped by chance, or that human civiliza 
 tion has been developed, thwarted, or controlled by 
 petty and insufficient causes, the accidents and in 
 cidental circumstances which dramatic and sensational 
 writers are fond of assigning.
 
 PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 
 
 HOW shall we write? Shall we, who earn our liv 
 ing with the pen, jot down our first thoughts in 
 the first order that occurs to us, or shall we, before 
 wreaking them upon expression, brood over them like 
 a hen over her eggs, and, when we have put them 
 on paper, blot, prune, touch, and retouch our sen 
 tences, with the utmost care? That literature, though 
 it requires peculiar talents for its successful prosecution, 
 is also to be regarded as an art which exacts a certain 
 degree of acquired skill, will be admitted by all. Unlike 
 the other arts, however, it has no apprenticeships, no 
 recognized schools of instruction, no grades of teachers 
 or scholars, but is learned and practised by every man 
 in his own way, with no hints or helps but such as his 
 own brain or chance observations may afford him; and 
 hence a peep into the workshops of those whom the 
 world has honored as masters of the art, a glance at 
 their methods of producing their magical effects, may 
 be both pleasant and profitable. 
 
 There are some literary advisers, of high repute, who 
 denounce all blots, erasures, and alterations. "Write as 
 you talk," says John Neal. Unfortunately his success 
 does not commend his counsel. No writer has shown 
 more conclusively by his failures that a merciless prun 
 ing of the vine is necessary to its fruitfulness. Neal 
 has abundant talents, even genius; but Washington
 
 108 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 
 
 / 
 
 Irving would make more of a Scotch pebble by its 
 brilliant setting, than Neal, by his method, of the crown 
 jewel of the Emperor of all the Russias. "Never 
 think of mending what you write," says Cobbett; "let 
 it go ; no patching." " Endeavor," says Niebuhr, " never 
 to strike out anything of what you have once written 
 down. Punish yourself by allowing, once or twice, 
 something to pass, though you see you might give it 
 better." "Write, write, by all means," says another. 
 "Take, if you will, the first subject that comes to your 
 hand ; but be sure to treat it in the first mode that 
 comes into your head. By pursuing this process you 
 will soonest arrive at the art of thinking with your 
 own thoughts. Celerity best disperses the valor of the 
 brain, and rallies ideas into shape and service. * * 
 As to the modes of explaining your subject, lay aside 
 your pen, drop the design of authorship altogether, go 
 back to your ordinary walking and talking, and endea 
 vour to content yourself therewith, if you feel within, 
 you the stirrings of a moment's hesitation on this head. 
 'Second thoughts are best,' is a beggarly adage, the 
 invention of the timid, the refuge of the weak, the 
 parent of universal scepticism. How can that claim 
 to be the birth of your mind, which is the production 
 of deliberate selection, and of which you may never deter 
 mine whether it shall be born at all ? And what right 
 have you to offer to the world wisdom which has need 
 to be criticised and sifted beforehand? Ganganelli says 
 truly that a man might often find at the -nib of his pen 
 what he goes a great way in search of, and I main 
 tain that no man who writes from pure love of writ 
 ing, should be allowed to hold a pen, if he require to 
 travel for its illustrations much beyond its nib. I 
 should like to know where originality is to be found,
 
 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 109 
 
 if it be not in a man's first thoughts, or truth, save in 
 the spontaneous testimony of his faculties for dis 
 cerning it?" 
 
 There is force in these suggestions; no doubt 
 there are persons with intellectual idiosyncrasies, for 
 whom this is the best advice that could be given. 
 Some writers cannot correct. They exhaust their 
 ardor in the first creative act, and every addition is 
 a weakness. There are others, again, who by long 
 practice acquire at last a facility by which they can 
 dash off sentences and chapters with marvellous ease 
 and rapidity. Sir Walter Scott was a writer of this 
 class. Indefatigable in gathering the materials of a 
 novel, spending whole days m verifying a point of his 
 tory, or in working up the details of a bit of scenery, 
 he troubled himself little about the plot of his novels, 
 and less about his style. He never knew what it is 
 to bite the nails for a thought or an expression, nor 
 did he ever waste a moment with the file. He wrote 
 in a whirlwind of inspiration, and was so hurried 
 along that his brain resembled a high-pressure engine, 
 the steam of which is perpetually up, every time he 
 entered his study and lifted a pen. Gifted with a pro 
 digious memory, a memory that held everything with 
 a vice-like grasp, a vivid imagination, a fluent pen, 
 and a spirit that courted difficulties instead of quailing 
 before them, he needed only an incident or a tradition 
 to start with in any of his novels; and when he had 
 laid down "the keel of a story," it grew under his 
 hands like a ship under the hands of a thousand car 
 penters. The second and third volumes of Waverley 
 he dashed off in three weeks, and a half-dozen weeks 
 sufficed to produce the whole of Guy Mannering. "I 
 have often been amused," he says, " with the critics
 
 110 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 
 
 distinguishing some passages as particularly labored, 
 when the pen passed over the whole as fast as it could 
 move, and the eye never again saw them except in 
 proof." A wondrous talent this; yet it must be ad 
 mitted that Scott was an incorrect writer. Scotticisms 
 and awkward peculiarities of phrase abound in his 
 writings, and his poetry is often as slovenly as his 
 prose. He wrote with a wonderful concentration of 
 mind; but this taxed his brain fearfully, and at last 
 destroyed it 
 
 Byron wrote with equal rapidity. He had a vol 
 canic brain, and threw off "The Corsair" in ten days, 
 and " The Bride of Abydos " in four. While his poems 
 were printing, he added to and corrected them, but 
 never recast them. "I told you before," he writes, 
 "that I can never recast anything. I am like the 
 tiger. If I miss the first spring, I go grumbling back 
 to my jungle again; but if I do it, it is crushing." It 
 was his custom to write out his first ideas as they came, 
 and continue until the afflatus was over, when, finding 
 his blood cooling in reaction, he would set himself criti 
 cally to work, and retrench, and pare, and modify as 
 liberally as he had written. When writing his Don 
 Juan in Italy, he used to sit up far into the night, 
 with his brandy and water, his later substitute for 
 the glorious Hippocrene of his first efforts, and write 
 away till the cock-shout of light summoned him to 
 bed. The next day was usually spent in cutting down 
 the production of the night to one half the number of 
 stanzas, polishing, and otherwise improving the work. 
 Byron's writing, though swift, was not easy; it was 
 hard and harassing, and, aided by brandy, it bowed 
 him, "gray and ghastly," into the grave at the early 
 age of thirty-seven. Sydney Smith was another rapid
 
 A PEEP INTO LITERAKY WORKSHOPS. Ill 
 
 writer. Writing as he talked, with the dash of a man 
 of keen wit and high intelligence, he never stopped to 
 round off or polish his periods, never altered or cor 
 rected. Indeed, he was so impatient of this, that he 
 could hardly bear the trouble even of looking over 
 what he had written; but would frequently throw 
 down the manuscript on the table as soon as finished, 
 and say, starting up and addressing his wife : " There, 
 it is done ; now, Kate, do look it over, and put in the 
 dots to the i's and strokes to the t's." It is said that 
 Fenelon wrote his Telemaque in three months, and 
 there were not ten erasures in the original manuscript. 
 Godwin dashed off a large part of a novel in a single 
 night. Gibbon, who was so long in hitting the key 
 note in the first chapters of his immortal history, sent 
 the last three quarto volumes uncopied to the press; 
 and the same copious readiness attended Adam Smith, 
 who dictated to his amanuensis while he walked about 
 his study. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, in counselling young writers, advises 
 them to train their minds to start promptly, for it is 
 easier to improve in accuracy than in speed. Robert 
 Hall used to lament that he wrote so slowly and 
 laboriously, found it so hard to realize his ideal, 
 that he could write but little, while that had a stiffness 
 from which his spoken style was free. Whatever the 
 advantages of deliberate composition, no man of sense 
 will pretend that the Horatian rule, nonum prematur 
 in annum, is of universal application. Thackeray has 
 shrewdly suggested that a man who thinks of putting 
 away a composition for ten years before giving it to 
 the world, or exercising his own mature judgment 
 upon it, should first be sure of the original strength 
 and duration of the work; otherwise, on withdrawing
 
 112 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 
 
 it from the crypt, he may find that, like some small 
 wine, it has lost what flavor it once had, and, when 
 opened, is only tasteless. Again, it must be admitted 
 that even to be unpleasantly hurried is not always and 
 purrly an evil in writing for the press. All rules for 
 writing must have respect to personal idiosyncrasies. 
 While many men are paralyzed by hurry, there are 
 some who work best under the sense of pressure. 
 Hundreds of persons can testify that hurry and severe 
 compression from an instant summons that brooks no 
 delay, have a tendency to furnish the flint and steel 
 for eliciting sudden scintillations of originality, origi 
 nality displayed at one time in the picturesque felicity 
 of the phrase, at another in the thought or its illus 
 trations. Who does not know that to improvise is, 
 sometimes, in effect, to be forced into a consciousness 
 of creative energies that would else have slumbered 
 through life? Such was the case with the "Wizard of 
 the North," Sir Walter Scott. "I cannot pull well in 
 long traces," he used to say, "when the draught is far 
 behind me. I love to hear the press thumping, clatter 
 ing, and banging in my ear; it creates the necessity 
 which almost always makes me work best." The 
 moment he was ahead of the press, and the cry of the 
 printer's devil ceased to sound in his ear, his spirits 
 drooped, his pen flagged, and the story came to a halt. 
 De Quincey remarks that the same stimulation to 
 the creative faculty occurs even more notoriously in 
 musical improvisations; and all great executants on the 
 organ have had reason to bemoan their inability to arrest 
 those sudden felicities of impassioned combinations, and 
 those flying arabesques of loveliest melody, which the 
 magnetic inspiration of the moment has availed to 
 suggest
 
 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 113 
 
 Rossini positively advised a young composer never 
 to write his overture until the evening before the first 
 performance. "Nothing," he declared, "excites inspira 
 tion like necessity; the presence of a copyist waiting 
 for your work, and the view of a manager in despair 
 tearing out his hair by handfuls. In Italy in my time 
 all the managers were bald at thirty. I composed the 
 overture to Othello in a small room in the Barbaja 
 Palace, where the baldest and most ferocious of man 
 agers had shut me up by force, with nothing but a 
 dish of maccaroni, and the threat that I should not 
 leave the place alive until I had written the last note. 
 I wrote the overture to the 'Gazza Ladra' on the day 
 of the first performance, in the upper loft of the La 
 Scala, where I had been confined by the manager, 
 under the guard of four scene-shifters, who had orders 
 to throw my text out of the windows bit by bit to 
 copyists, who were waiting below to transcribe it. In 
 default of music, I was to be thrown out myself." 
 Handel composed with equal rapidity. His pen could 
 not keep pace with the current of ideas that flowed 
 through his volcanic brain. Haydn, Mendelssohn, and 
 Beethoven, on the. other hand, composed slowly, retouch 
 ing and elaborating with the same patient love with 
 which the sculptor puts the finishing stroke to the 
 creation of his brain and his chisel. Ries, the bio 
 grapher of Beethoven, says that when he was in Lon 
 don, negotiating the sale of some of that composer's 
 later compositions, he was not a little surprised to 
 receive a letter from Vienna, in which Beethoven begged 
 him to add two notes (A C) to the beginning of the 
 Adagio of the grand sonata in B flat, Op. 106. Ries 
 was astonished that an alteration should be required in 
 a composition finished nine months previously; but his
 
 114 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 
 
 astonishment gave place to admiration when he saw 
 the wonderful effect of these introductory notes, which 
 De Lenz calls "two steps leading down to the gate of 
 the tomb." 
 
 But, while some writers dash off their best things 
 at a heat, and others, like Campbell, the poet, dawdle 
 too much over their compositions, and only weaken 
 them by the excessive use of the file, for most men the 
 rule is absolute, that great labor is the price of excel 
 lence. The promptness of conception and quick master- 
 touch of the fine writer are acquired only after years 
 of toil; it is the experience of the veteran, accomplish 
 ing with ease what seemed impossible to the raw recruit. 
 By years of incessant practice and painstaking, the deli 
 cate instruments of the mind become at last so lubri 
 cated, and so fitted to their work, that, when the steam 
 is up, it performs its task with the promptness and pre 
 cision of a machine. As Pope says: 
 
 True ease in writing cornea from art, not chance, 
 As they move easiest who have learned to dance. 
 
 The author of these lines was himself one of the 
 most painstaking of poets. He tells us that in his 
 boyhood he "lisped in numbers, for the numbers came;" 
 but if they came unsought it was a felicity which for 
 sook him when his genius had reached its full stature. 
 Though he was not a very prolific author, yet Swift 
 complained of him that he never was at leisure for 
 conversation, because he "had always some poetical 
 scheme in his head." Economizing everything that 
 could serve his purpose, he used to jot down in the 
 night, as he lay in bed, any striking thought or lucky 
 xpression which flitted through his brain, lest it should 
 !>< forgotten lx?fore morning. Every line, or fragment
 
 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 115 
 
 of a line, which could be turned to account at a future 
 period, he carefully recorded, not allowing a crumb to 
 fall to the ground. What he composed with care, he 
 corrected with a never-tiring patience ; and it was not 
 till after innumerable blots and erasures, and -till he 
 had kept a poem in his portfolio for many years, that 
 he gave it to the printer. 
 
 Shenstone has finely said that fine writing is the 
 result of spontaneous thoughts and laborious composi 
 tion. If we look at the first draughts of the great works 
 that have immortalized their authors, we shall find that 
 they are often comparatively slight and imperfect, like 
 the rude chalking for a masterly picture. Virgil toiled 
 so long over his productions that he compared himself 
 to a she-bear licking her misshapen offspring into 
 shape. He spent eleven years in composing the ^neid, 
 and set apart three more for its revisal; but, being pre 
 vented by sickness from giving it the finishing touches 
 which his exquisite judgment deemed necessary, he was 
 so dissatisfied with the poem that he ordered it to be 
 burned. Sterne was incessantly employed for six months 
 in perfecting one diminutive volume. Ten long years 
 elapsed between the first sketch of Goldsmith's Traveller 
 and its final completion. Twenty lines in a day he 
 thought a brilliant feat, and Bishop Percy tells us that 
 not a line in all his poems stands as he first wrote it. 
 Young, ridiculing hasty composition, counsels authors 
 to "write and re-write, blot out, and write again," 
 adding: 
 
 Time only can mature the laboring brain, 
 Time is the father, and the midwife pain : 
 The same good sense that makes a man excel, 
 Still makes him doubt he e'er has written well. 
 Downright impossibilities they seek : 
 What man can be immortal in a week?
 
 116 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 
 
 Cowper, a vigorous, but most painstaking poet, 
 declares that "to touch atid retouch is the secret of 
 almost all good writing, especially in verse." Burns 
 was another hard worker with the brain. Easily as his 
 verse seems to have dropped from his pen, it was really 
 the product of much toil. He was fastidious to a fault 
 in perfecting his phrase and rhythm. " Easy composition, 
 but laborious correction," is his own characterization 
 of his mode of writing. Even the poet Moore, whose 
 verse is so singularly mellifluous, liquid, and facile, has 
 remarked that "labor is the parent of all the lasting 
 wonders of the world, whether in verse or stone, 
 whether poetry or pyramids." He tells us that he him 
 self was, at all times, a far slower and more painstaking 
 workman than would ever be guessed from the result. 
 The first shadowy imagining of a new poem was, 
 indeed, a delicious fool's paradise; but the labor of 
 composition was something wholly different. To gather 
 the illustrations for " Lalla Rookh " required months of 
 laborious reading; much farther time was needed to 
 familiarize himself with them; and again and again, 
 while writing the poem, he found the task so difficult 
 that he was on the point of abandoning it in despair. 
 Of Shelley, Medwin, his biographer, tells us that he 
 practised the severest self-criticism, and that his manu 
 scripts, like those of Tasso at Ferrara, were so full of 
 blots and interlineations as to be scarcely decipherable. 
 Campbell was so scrupulously fastidious as to nicety of 
 expression, that, in ridicule of the rareness and diffi 
 culty of his literary parturition, especially when the 
 offspring of his throes was poetical, one of his waggish 
 friends used gravely to assert that, on passing his resi 
 dence when he was writing Tlieodoric, he observed that 
 the knocker was tied up, and the street in front of the
 
 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 117 
 
 house covered with straw. Alarmed at these appear 
 ances, he gently rang the bell, and inquired anxiously 
 after the poet's health. "Thank you, sir/' was the 
 servant's reply, "master is doing as well as can be 
 expected." " Good heavens ! as well as can be expected ! 
 What has happened to him?" "Why, sir, he was this 
 morning delivered of a couplet!" 
 
 Burke's gorgeous imagery had little of that rush 
 which is commonly heard in it. He had all his prin 
 cipal works printed once or twice at a private press, 
 before handing them to his publisher. Sheridan not 
 only watched long and anxiously for a fine idea, but 
 turned it over and over on tho literary anvil, and 
 rewarded himself for the toil by a glazz of generous 
 port. Gray wrote slowly and fastidiously; so did Pope 
 and Akenside. Addison wore out the patience of his 
 printer; frequently, when nearly a whole impression of 
 the Spectator was worked off, he would stop the press 
 to insert a new preposition. Charles Lamb's most 
 sportive essays were the result of intense brain labor; 
 he used to spend a week at times in elaborating a 
 single humorous letter to a friend. It is curious, con 
 sidering the mercurial character of the French, with 
 what wearisome care and slowness many of their authors 
 have written. Malherbe, the father of French poetry,- 
 composed with prodigious care and tardiness, and racked 
 his brain unceasingly to correct what he had produced. 
 Moliere passed whole days in fixing upon a proper 
 epithet for rhyme. Pascal spent not less than twenty 
 days in writing and revising one of his immortal let 
 ters, justifying the observation of M. Faugiere, that, 
 with that great writer, revision was " a second creation." 
 The Benedictine editor of Bossuet's works, declared that 
 they were obscured by so many interlineations as to
 
 118 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 
 
 be nearly illegible. Rousseau's works, which so charm us 
 by their simplicity and ease, were written with almost 
 incredible pains. He sat in full dress always, like 
 Handel at the organ, and wrote on the finest gilt-edged 
 paper, with extreme fastidiousness and care. On the 
 other hand, Dr. Johnson's Rambler papers, the style of 
 which is so elephantine, cumbrous, and labored, were 
 thrown off with the utmost rapidity, and sent in hot 
 haste to the press. Buffon was another spruce and trim 
 author, who, from title-page to colophon, wrote in bag- 
 wig and ruffles, and has left the well-known saying 
 that "genius is patience." So slowly did he shape and 
 polish his sentences, so often did he turn a paragraph 
 in his mind and on his tongue, speaking it over and 
 over, until his ear was satisfied, that he was able to 
 repeat whole pages of his works. 
 
 Of the late French critic, Sainte-Beuve, it is said 
 that he never wrote even an article for a newspaper, 
 without having subjected his mind to a special training 
 for that particular article. The preparations for one of 
 his Causeries du Lundi cost him days of severe labor; 
 and, before beginning the composition, his mind had 
 been disciplined into a state of the most complete 
 readiness, like the fingers of a musician, who has been 
 practising a piece before he executes it. Even Beranger's 
 light, chirping verse, which seems as spontaneous as the 
 twittering of a sparrow, was the result of intense labor, 
 the author bestowing weeks and months upon a single 
 song, to give it that appearance of ease and simplicity 
 which aided so much in witching the reader. Vaugelas 
 touched and retouched his productions so many times, 
 that Voiture declared that, while he was polishing one 
 part, the French language was undergoing change 
 enough to necessitate his rewriting all the rest. La
 
 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 119 
 
 Rochefoucauld spent fifteen years in preparing a little 
 book of two hundred pages. 
 
 Canning changed, amended and polished his speeches 
 till he nearly polished away the original spirit. He 
 altered the proofs so much that the printers found it 
 easier to recompose the matter anew than to correct it. 
 Macaulay wrote his brilliant Essays and his History 
 with the greatest care and nicety. The first rough draft 
 was absolutely illegible from erasures and corrections. 
 " You have no conception," says Prescott, who saw two or 
 three pages of the MSS. of his History, "of the amount 
 of labor that one of these sheets of foolscap represents." 
 
 On the whole, the result of our peep into the work 
 shops of literary men is not to prepossess us in favor 
 of rapid writing. It was wisely said by the Bishop of 
 Exeter, England, in a recent address to a body of stu 
 dents, that "of all work that produces results, nine- 
 tenths must be drudgery." The remark is as true of 
 literary composition as of any other product. The best 
 writers do not time themselves like racehorses, and the 
 boast of facility which we sometimes hear from young 
 writers, instead of being creditable, only shows "a pitiful 
 ambition in the fool who makes it." The veins of 
 golden thought do not lie upon the surface of the 
 mind; time and patience are required to work the 
 shafts, and bring out the glittering ore. The composi 
 tions whose subtle grace has a perennial charm, which 
 we sip, like old wine, sentence by sentence, and phrase 
 by phrase, till their delicate aroma and exquisite flavor 
 diffuse themselves through every cell of the brain, are 
 wrought out, not under "high pressure," but quietly, 
 slowly, leisurely, in the dreamy and caressing atmo 
 sphere of fancy. They are the mellow vintage of a ripe 
 and unforced imagination. "Le temps n'epargne pas ce
 
 120 A PEEP INTO LITERARY WORKSHOPS. 
 
 qu'on fait sans lui, Time spares nothing produced 
 without his aid," says Boileau. It is a literary as well 
 as a physiological law, that longevity demands a long 
 period of gestation. An elephant is not prolific, but its 
 offspring outlives whole generations of the inferior ani 
 mals whose gestation is of more frequent occurrence. 
 Half the failures that occur in literature are due, as 
 they are due in art, in business, in every kind of pur 
 suit, to self-conceit in the aspirant, leading him to de 
 spise labor, and to fancy that his slightest effort is 
 sufficient to win success. It is an age of improvisation 
 that we live in, of impromptu reform, impromptu 
 legislation, impromptu invention, literature, philosophy. 
 The volubility and vehemence of extempore eloquence 
 in the pulpit, the cut-and-thrust style of criticism in 
 magazines and reviews, the labor-saving, hothouse 
 schemes of education, so much in vogue, indicate, by 
 their popularity, the spirit of the age. All is steam, 
 electricity, railroad rush. "Who shall deliver me from 
 the Greeks and Komans?" cried in agony the classic- 
 ridden Frenchman. "Who will deliver us from these 
 annihilators of time and space ?" cry we.
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 OF all the civilized peoples on the globe there is no 
 one whose character is so full of seeming, if not 
 real, paradoxes, as that of the French. Always better 
 or worse than they are expected to be, one day sink 
 ing far below the level of humanity, at another soaring 
 far above it, now electrifying the world by their brill 
 iant thoughts or deeds, and anon provoking its indig 
 nation or scorn by their servility, egotism, or mean 
 ness, the French are so unchangeable that their dis 
 tinctive features may be recognized in portraits drawn 
 by Caesar and others nearly two thousand years ago, 
 and yet so fickle that one not familiar with their 
 whole career is often half inclined to doubt their iden 
 tity. Coleridge says of them, with the usual English 
 narrowness, that they are like gunpowder; each indi 
 vidual is smutty and contemptible ; but mass them 
 together, and they are terrible. Intellectually they are 
 equally solid and brilliant; do everything thoroughly, 
 yet display the most exquisite taste in trifles. We are 
 wont to speak of them as superficial; yet where do 
 you find profounder scholars than in France, or work 
 men who better understand the rules and principles of 
 their art? Looking on this lively and chattering peo 
 ple, one is about ready to conclude that your profound 
 bigwigs are mostly shallow dogs, that it is only your 
 gay and frivolous fellows that are deep! No people
 
 122 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 have quicker or keener perceptions; none probe more 
 thoroughly to the core everything which they investi 
 gate. They are equally skilled in cards and chess, and 
 in marshaling battallions on the field; they are alike 
 at home in calculating the revolutions of planets in 
 their orbits, and in cutting pigeon-wings in a ball 
 room. They have their Laplaces and their Lubins; 
 they are alike unrivaled in fillagree and in mathe 
 matics. Their profoundest thoughts are bon-mots; 
 their jests veil deep philosophical theories. 
 
 It is Paris that is foremost in learned monkeys and 
 in learned scientists; Paris that furnishes us with our 
 latest theories of philosophy; Paris that furnishes us 
 with our latest styles of fancy goods, our latest fashions 
 in dress. Our coxcombs ape the Parisian manners; 
 our novelists steal the French writers' plots; our Gen 
 erals borrow from Turenne and Napoleon their art of 
 war. Sydney Smith once said of Lord John Russell, 
 that he was ready at a moment's notice to go up in a 
 balloon, to perform an operation for cataract, or to 
 take command of the channel fleet. But a French 
 man's genius is far more versatile; he can in the same 
 day discover a new planet, draw a caricature that will 
 convulse the public with merriment, invent a new 
 soup that will make an epicure scream with ioy, 
 solve an enigma that would have puzzled the Sphinx, 
 and carry a Malakoff by a coup de main. There is 
 but one thing which a Frenchman cannot learn to 
 do well, and that is, to govern and to be governed. 
 Byron hardly slandered them when he pronounced 
 them 
 
 a people who will not be ruled, 
 And love much rather to be scourged than schooled. 
 
 France was rightly characterized by De Maistre, in 1796,
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 123 
 
 as a republic without republicans, a nation too noble 
 to be enslaved, and too impetuous to be free. Indeed, 
 they are the only people that ever existed, among whom 
 a government can be hissed off the stage like a bad 
 play, and its fall excite less consternation than the 
 violation of a fashion in dress. 
 
 In what other people can be found such a union of 
 genius and childhood; such a fondness for routine, yet 
 such a proneness, when forced to abandon old customs 
 and principles, to push the new to their farthest limit; 
 so profound a love of freedom in theory, and yet such 
 a willingness to recognize a vast standing army as the 
 only basis of civil government; so exquisite a taste in 
 the ornamental, and so savage an ignorance of the 
 comfortable; so much outward refinement with so 
 much inward unscrupulousness; so much etiquette, 
 with so little self-sacrifice; such fertility of resources 
 in exigencies, and such a blindness to the lessons of 
 experience; aspirations so vivid, with so little sense of 
 what constitutes true glory; such a sensitiveness to 
 trifles, and such an indifference to a political revolu 
 tion? 
 
 A Frenchman is versatile, and does all things with 
 equal gust and enthusiasm; he chuckles with equal joy 
 at finishing a toy to his mind, and in giving to a new 
 science its crowning perfection. Sa gaite est de la 
 foudre, et sa farce tient un sceptre. He can spend 
 hours in chasing butterflies, or he can pass a life-time 
 in elaborating a favorite theory, and in digging into 
 the mysteries of a dry and complex subject. He is the 
 gayest man on the globe, and the likeliest to send a 
 pistol-ball through his own brain; the most fickle of 
 men, and the most obstinate; the politest, and the 
 most irascible; the devoutest, and the most atheistic;
 
 124 FKENCH TRAITS.. 
 
 a friend whom you shall win with a feather, and lose 
 with a straw; the most pregnant of talkers, and the 
 most diffuse; an orator who, as Dr. Donne said of 
 Lady Anne, can glide at once "from predestination to 
 slea-silk," or, as De Quincey said of Bishop Berkeley, 
 "pass with the utmost ease and speed from tar- water 
 to the Trinity, from a mole-heap to the thrones of a 
 Godhead'." He will wear, without shame, the shabbiest 
 clothes, yet stop in the street before a looking-glass to 
 curl his moustache and adjust his cravat; he will fight 
 like a tiger for a republic, yet lie meek as a spaniel 
 under an empire. In short, to the casual observer, a 
 Frenchman is a riddle that defies solution, a psycho 
 logical puzzle. He is a compound of paradoxes; a 
 harmony of differences; a being born under the con 
 tending influences of Mercury and Saturn. 
 
 But, lest we should seem to be aiming at antithesis 
 rather than at truth, let us cite the authority of a late 
 French writer, who, perhaps, better than any other, 
 understood the true character of his countrymen. 
 "Qualified for every pursuit," says Alexis De Tocque- 
 ville, "but excelling in nothing but war, more prone to 
 worship chance, force, success, eclat, noise, than real 
 glory; endowed with more heroism than virtue, more 
 genius than common sense; better adapted to the con 
 ception of grand designs than the accomplishment of 
 great enterprises; the French are the most brilliant and 
 the most dangerous nation of Europe, and the one that 
 is surest to inspire admiration, hatred, terror, or pity, 
 but never indifference." 
 
 It is unfortunate that, in judging of the French, 
 our estimates are unconsciously more or less affected 
 by the impressions derived from English literature. 
 Nothing can be more ludicrous or more untrue than
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 125 
 
 the caricatures which most English tourists have given 
 to the world as photographs of the French people. Till 
 lately, it has seemed hardly possible for an Englishman 
 to write about his neighbors across the channel without 
 dipping his pen in gall; and just as the first and 360th 
 degrees of the circle are the farthest apart, though the 
 nearest together, so these two peoples, though but 
 twenty miles apart, have understood each other as little 
 as though living on opposite sides of the globe. Judg 
 ing by many of these libels, one would suppose that 
 one of Nature's journeymen had made the Frenchman, 
 and not made him well. An English historian admits 
 that, till a few years ago, the Frenchman was regarded 
 by John Bull with utter contempt. He was "a lean, 
 half-starved, lankey-legged creature, looking in hopeless 
 despair, and with watery mouth and bleared eyes, at 
 a round of English beef. His attitude was grotesque; 
 his language even became immensely amusing, because 
 he did not speak English with the slang of a hackney- 
 coachman and the pronunciation of a Cockney. He 
 was nicknamed Jack Frog, because he was supposed to 
 feed on those insubstantial animals, which were also 
 fancied to be the exact image of himself in hoppiness 
 of motion and yellowness of skin." Of course, he was 
 an arrant coward, as well as a mere physical ghost of 
 a man, and one Englishman could flog half-a-dozen 
 "mounseers" as easily as a Yankee could flog the whole 
 seven. And all this was believed, in spite of the fact 
 that the French nation, from the earliest period of 
 history, has been the leading nation of Europe. Its 
 original races long disputed the supremacy of the else 
 all-conquering Romans. They gave to Roman literature 
 some of its most accomplished orators, and some of its 
 most elegant writers. Cicero learned eloquence from
 
 126 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 one of their teachers, and Caesar acquired in Gaul new 
 arts of war. All through the middle ages, in the 
 Crusades, in the great national wars, in the religious 
 commotions of the sixteenth century, their gallantry 
 was the conspicuous splendor of the times. Their 
 writers have since electrified human thought; their 
 brave deeds have revolutionized modern politics; their 
 more elegant arts have been the despair of all other 
 peoples, and their manners the standard of whatever 
 was polished, courteous, graceful, and pleasing in address. 
 In spite of all these facts, to many Englishmen, as 
 they look across the straits through the fogs by which 
 they are surrounded, the Frenchman is either a danc 
 ing-master or a buffoon, grimacing and shrugging his 
 shoulders more like a monkey than a man. 
 
 Disabusing our minds, then, so far as possible, of 
 the prejudices derived from Anglo-Saxon sources, let us 
 proceed to analyze the French character, and see if we 
 can ascertain its principal elements. In comparing 
 him with the Englishman, the first thing that strikes 
 us in the Frenchman is his mercurial nature, the 
 extreme delicacy and sensitiveness of his organism. It 
 seems almost a truism to speak of his flexibility and 
 versatility, so unlike the cast-iron mould of the English 
 man's mind, of the capricious desires of the one, and 
 the unchanging wants of the other; but these facts 
 have their value, as showing how all the traits of the 
 English character are bound up in the one idea of 
 stability, while the essence of the French nature is 
 mobility. The English mind is comparatively slow and 
 heavy; it proceeds laboriously from fact to fact; it 
 seldom jumps or flies, but advances cautiously, step by 
 step, making sure always of the first before it takes the 
 second. Hence, it is jealous of other minds that have
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 127 
 
 much facility of association, and cannot conceal its 
 contempt for sallies of thought, however lawful, whose 
 steps it cannot measure by its twelve-inch rule. It has 
 little sympathy for eccentric greatness, and therefore a 
 man of genius can make his way in England by vio 
 lence only, fighting wildly against all that is traditional, 
 as did Byron, Wordsworth, and Shelley. The mental 
 qualities of the French are directly the opposite of 
 these, consisting in quickness of perception, self-con 
 fidence, and precision of thought; and their physical 
 peculiarities in promptness of action and extreme nerv 
 ous excitability. It is this intellectual and sensitive 
 organism which has fitted them for the part they have 
 played in the world's history, whether in the realm of 
 matter or of mind. The ancient Gauls were like a 
 firebrand in the midst of Europe, setting everything 
 about them in a blaze; and the modern French have 
 been equally successful in their efforts to disturb the 
 peace of nations. Whether led by a Charlemagne or 
 Francis I., by a Luxemburg or a Napoleon, they have 
 burst like a tempest upon the phlegmatic people of the 
 North, and, until the slower energies of their Gothic 
 foes were roused, have swept all before them. The one 
 crowning quality of greatness which they have lacked, 
 is patience. They could carry their victorious eagles 
 over the burning sands of Syria, or through the chill 
 ing snows of Russia; but they could never have stood 
 all day in one place, and been mowed down by an 
 enemy's artillery, or cut down by his cavalry, as did 
 Wellington's troops at Waterloo. They could build a 
 road over the Alps under the leadership of Napoleon, 
 while another people would have frozen in despair; but 
 in executing internal improvements which require long 
 and anxious deliberation to plan and years to complete,
 
 128 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 they have lagged behind other nations, especially the 
 English. 
 
 What Caesar said of the ancient Gauls is equally 
 true of their descendants to-day: "Nam, ut ad bella 
 suscipienda Gallorum alacer ac promptus est animus, 
 sic mollis ac minime resistens ad calamitates perferemlttx 
 mens eorum est." It is because of this lack of pati in<- 
 under calamity that all the French wars with England 
 have ended unfortunately for France. The long and 
 bloody conflict between William III. and Louis XIV. 
 was marked by no signal triumphs of the English, but 
 it was organized and protracted by British money and 
 persistence; and the "asthmatic skeleton" who dis 
 puted, sword in hand, the bloody field of Landen, 
 succeeded at last, without winning a single great victory, 
 in destroying the prestige of his antagonist, exhausting 
 his resources, and sowing the seeds of his final ruin, 
 simply by the superiority of British patience and per 
 severance. So, too, in the "war of giants" waged with 
 Napoleon, when all the great military powers of the 
 continent went down before the iron flail of "the child 
 of destiny " like ninepins, England wearied him out by 
 her pertinacity, rather than by the brilliancy of her 
 operations, triumphing by sheer dogged determination 
 over the greatest master of combination the world ever 
 saw. 
 
 Another striking peculiarity in the character of the 
 French is what may be called the liixtnnnic element, 
 their fondness for the theatrical. In their buildings, 
 dress, deportment, they have always an eye to effect. 
 The traveller finds London, like its inhabitants, solid and 
 substantial, but gloomy. The houses and shops are heavy 
 and cumbersome, with many marks of utility, hut few 
 of grace and beauty. In Paris he finds a city of palaces,
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 129 
 
 light, airy, and graceful, designed not more for conve 
 nience than for architectural effect. Every Frenchman 
 is a born actor. Life is to him a stage, and all his 
 plans and acts have more or less reference to stage 
 effect. French human nature is not like English or 
 German human nature; it is human nature elaborated 
 and adorned by art. Hence the matchless excellence 
 of the French vaudevilles, which are so many photo 
 graphs of the national manners; and hence, also, the 
 insipidity of French tragedy, which, scorning to be 
 natural, and striving to be classical, neither satisfies the 
 judgment nor grapples with the heart. The proofs of 
 this peculiarity are seen everywhere in Paris; in the 
 open street and in the brilliant salon; in the Houses of 
 Parliament and in the judicial halls; in the artist and 
 in the author; in the garpon and in the greybeard; 
 from the Prime Minister down to the gamin. No 
 occasion is too solemn, no scene too impressive, no 
 object too beautiful, to check this love of display. 
 Where but in France do men twist the graceful forms 
 of vegetable life into artificial shapes, sell painted 
 wreaths at cemetery gates, and pronounce rhetorical 
 panegyrics over the fresh graves of their friends? In 
 what other city than Paris is notoriety, even when 
 scandalous, as sure a passport to social distinction as 
 birth, beauty, or fame? Where else, when a savant 
 dies, do students drag the hearse and scatter flowers 
 over his grave? Where else would a soldier commit 
 suicide by casting himself from a lofty monument, or a 
 maiden and her lover make their exit from life's stage 
 with a last embrace and the fumes of charcoal ? In what 
 other country would a mechanic, in praising a favorite 
 living author, exclaim, as did a Parisian in extolling 
 Beranger: "What a man! what sublime virtue! how is
 
 130 1 KHMCH TRAITS. 
 
 he beloved ! Could I but live to see his funeral ! Quelle 
 spectacle! Quelle grande emotion!" In what English, 
 American, or German cemetery can one find sorrowing 
 affection expressed as at Montmartre viz.: by a tomb 
 stone with a colossal tear carved on it, and underneath 
 the words, "Judge how we loved him I" In what city 
 but Paris, when a triumphant enemy was thundering 
 at the gates, would the newspapers, as lately in the 
 French capital, publish lists of citizens who swear to 
 die rather than surrender? A correspondent of the New 
 York Tribune, writing from Paris during the siege by 
 the Germans, tells us that the bourgeois, when he went 
 to the ramparts, embraced his wife in public, and as 
 sumed a martial strut as though he were a very Curtius 
 on the way to the pit. Jules was perpetually embracing 
 Auguste, and raving about "the altar of our country," 
 which he intended to mount; while every girl who 
 tripped along fancied she was a maid of Saragossa. 
 
 This anxiety about appearances, this fondness for 
 display, has marked the French character in all ages. 
 Montaigne, three centuries ago, declared that lying was 
 " not a vice among the French, but a way of speaking." 
 "Paris," said Frederic W. Robertson, "is the natural 
 birthplace of all that is refinedly brutal." "To a 
 Frenchman," says Mrs. Jameson, "the words that ex 
 press things seem the things themselves, and he pro 
 nounces the words amour, grace, sensibilite, etc., with a 
 relish in his mouth, as if he tasted them, as if he 
 possessed them." It is to be feared that a Frenchman 
 will even forgive an atrocious crime to the author of a 
 sounding sentiment; an example of which we have in 
 Louis Blanc, whose one unanswerable reason for sup 
 posing that there must be some way or other of explain 
 ing away Robespierre's criminality is, that he once said
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 131 
 
 something extremely benevolent about the hardship of 
 being poor. "In this country," wrote Laurence Sterne, 
 at the close of the eighteenth century, "nothing must 
 be spared for the back; and if you dine on an onion, 
 and live in a garret seven stories high, you must not 
 betray it in your clothes/' "Here," continues another 
 traveler in France, "things are estimated by their air; 
 a watch may be a masterpiece without exactness, and 
 a woman rule the whole town without beauty, if they 
 have an air. Her life's a dance, and awkwardness of 
 step its greatest disgrace." A late panegyrist of the 
 French admits that the necessity of attracting is in 
 the Gallic blood. It may be controlled, he says, by the 
 deep sentiment of one absorbing duty; it may be tem 
 porarily suppressed by other more urgent needs; it 
 may be modified in its expression by the thousand 
 accidents of position; but it is at the bottom of all 
 Frenchwomen's hearts, though it comes out in so many 
 varied forms, that it is not always easy to recognize its 
 presence. " Concentrated in her * manners,' all the varied 
 elements of her coquetry come out. Her every bow is 
 critically measured according to the person to whom it 
 is addressed, and the effect which it is intended to 
 produce. From the long, low, sweeping curtsey with 
 which, on a first introduction, she salutes a woman of 
 high rank, through the long, delicately graduated scale 
 of forms of recognition, down to the familiar nod and 
 extended hand, with which, without rising from her 
 sofa-corner, she greets her male friends, each movement 
 implies a thought, each variation telegraphs a mean 
 ing, each shade suggests the nature of the reply which 
 she expects." This vanity of the French causes them 
 to boast even of those things which would cause an 
 American or Englishman to hang down his head with
 
 132 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 shame. For example, an Englishman chanced to be in 
 the Elysian Fields at a grand review of the Prussian 
 and English soldiers who occupied Paris in 1815. From 
 a feeling of delicacy he shunned all allusion to an 
 event which he fancied must be a source of deep 
 humiliation to France. But a Parisian came up to 
 him, and said jauntily: "Look here, sir! What a 
 magnificent spectacle! It's only in Paris that you see 
 such sights!" 
 
 The moral gulf that separates the Frenchman and 
 the Englishman is illustrated by nothing more vividly 
 than by the different motives addressed by Napoleon 
 and Nelson to their respective followers. "Soldiers!" 
 exclaimed the former, "forty centuries are looking 
 down upon you from the summits of those pyramids!" 
 "Eugland," telegraphed the latter to his fleet, "expects 
 every man to do his duty." The fact that the word 
 "glory" perpetually occurs in Bonaparte's despatches, 
 while in Wellington's, which fill twelve enormous vol 
 umes, it never once occurs, but "duty" is invariably 
 named as the motive for every action, is also intensely 
 significant regarding the characters of the two peoples. 
 Glory, that word forever on a Frenchman's lips, has 
 been in all ages the will-o-the-wisp which has led 
 France astray ; the golden calf before which, as Strauss 
 lately reminded Renan, she has danced for centuries; 
 the Fata Morgana which has allured her again and 
 again from the prosperous fields of labor into the 
 desert, often to the very brink of an abyss. It is this 
 "staginess," this untruth, this lack of loyalty to nature, 
 that provokes the dissatisfaction we feel in the last 
 analysis of French character. We find that the quali 
 ties which dazzled us are a sham. The promise of 
 beauty held out by external taste is not fulfilled; the
 
 FRENCH TEAITS. 133 
 
 fascination of manner, the courtesies, bows, and smiles, 
 bear, as another has said, a vastly undue proportion 
 to the substantial kindness and trust which that imme 
 diate charm suggests. 
 
 The gruffness of an Englishman, when a stranger 
 addresses him, does anything but awaken expectation 
 of courtesy or entertainment; yet, if he consents to 
 entertain you, with what a princely hospitality does he 
 welcome you to his home! and, if he calls you friend, 
 how does he grapple you to his heart with hooks of 
 steel! On the other hand, the profusion of courtesies 
 with which a Frenchman greets a woman as she enters 
 a public conveyance is not followed by the offer of his 
 seat; while the roughest backwoodsman in America, 
 who never touched his hat or crooked his body to a 
 stranger, will guard the poorest woman from insult, 
 and incommode himself with respectful alacrity to pro 
 mote her comfort. So generally is the lack of sim 
 plicity recognized as an essential element in the French 
 character, that when we wish to express the opposite 
 of natural tastes, we can find no word more significant 
 than "Frenchified." The morbid self-consciousness 
 which characterizes the French, which runs through 
 their oratory, their conversation, and their manners, is 
 fatal to the highest excellence, intellectual or moral. 
 Simplicity and earnestness, self-forgetfulness and aban 
 donment, the ability, as Coleridge terms it, "to lose 
 self in an idea dearer than self," is the condition of 
 all greatness. It is this which has distinguished pre 
 eminently the heroes and martyrs of every age ; all 
 who have bled or died to maintain a principle ; all who 
 have electrified us by their oratory, or charmed us by 
 their numbers, all who by deed or word have won a 
 lasting place in the affections or memories of mankind.
 
 134 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 A late writer justly remarks that in loyalty to a 
 method the French are unrivalled, in the triumph of 
 individualities weak. Their artisans can make a glove 
 fit perfectly, but have yet to learn how to cut out a 
 coat. "Their authors, like their soldiers, can be mar 
 shalled in groups; means are superior to ends; manners, 
 the exponent of nature in other lands, there color, mod 
 ify, and characterize the development of intellect; the 
 subordinate principle in government, in science, and in 
 life becomes paramount; the laws of disease are pro 
 foundly studied, while this knowledge bears no propor 
 tional relation to the practical art of healing; the 
 ancient rules of dramatic literature are pedantically 
 followed, while the 'pity and terror ' they were made to 
 illustrate are uuawakened. So, in politics, the pro 
 gramme of republican government is lucidly announced, 
 its watchwords adopted, its philosophy expounded, while 
 its spirit and realization continue in abeyance; and 
 thus everywhere we find a singular disproportion be 
 tween formula and fact, profession and practice, specific 
 knowledge and its application." 
 
 Another peculiarity of the Frenchman is, that he is 
 not self-centred and self-contained; that, more than 
 other men, he is dependent for happiness upon things 
 without himself. The famous song of Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, "My mind to me a kingdom is," we may be 
 sure that no Frenchman could ever have written. It 
 is certain that the sentiment, "Never less alone than 
 when alone," came not from the pen of a native of 
 France. While the Englishman shrinks like the turtle 
 within his shell, the Frenchman is gregarious; the 
 former is happiest when he shuts his door on the 
 world, and hugs his fireside ; the latter, when mingling 
 with his fellows, in the crowded theatre or the noisy
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 135 
 
 street. A life spent in discharging the plain, homely 
 duties of his calling, with no alternations but domestic 
 joys and recreations, with no factitious excitements or 
 public diversions, would be to him the ideal of tame- 
 ness and insipidity. Give an Englishman a home, and 
 he can easily forego society. Even the solitude of the 
 wilderness has no terrors for him, and he is happy on 
 the very borders of civilization. The French, on the 
 other hand, have failed almost utterly as colonizers, be 
 cause of their intense social instincts, the secret, no 
 doubt, of their exquisite courtesy of manner, and be 
 cause they can never forget that they are Frenchmen. 
 The shortest absence from "la belle France" is regarded 
 as a calamity; and the people, as a whole, shrink from 
 expatriation, and even refrain from foreign travel, 
 not because they lack adaptability, for they have it in 
 a preeminent degree, but because they count every 
 moment as lost in which they are cut off from the 
 society and sympathy of their fellows. "Le Francais," 
 says Maurice Sand, " vit dans son semblaUe autant qu'en 
 hii-meme. Quand il est longtemps seul, il deperit, et 
 quand il est toujours seul, il meurt" The same writer 
 has justly observed that in America the individual ab 
 sorbs society; in France, society absorbs the individual. 
 It is not a meaningless fact that the French language 
 has no such words as comfort and home. Hence it is 
 that in Paris the triumph of material niceties reaches 
 its acme ; that, for superficial amusements, that city has 
 grown to be the capital of the world. Paris is the 
 theatre of the nations; a vast museum; a place of 
 amusement, not of work; an Elysium, to which all the 
 world's idlers and triflers, all who are plethoric with 
 wealth which they are puzzled to spend, all who are 
 dying of ennui, and seeking for new devices to kill
 
 136 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 time, naturally flock. Here are the appliances, multi 
 plied and diversified with the keenest refinement of 
 sensual ingenuity, for keeping the mi-nd busy without 
 labor, and fascinated without sensibility. The senses of 
 the Parisian are everywhere captivated with piquant 
 baits; as he steps into the world, he finds a life all 
 prepared for him, and selects it as he does his dinner 
 from the long carte of the restaurante. Where but in 
 France would a grave jurist write a learned work on 
 the Physiology of Taste, and announce that "the dis 
 covery of a new dish does more for human happiness 
 than the discovery of a new star;" or a great statesman 
 complain of the English people that they have one 
 hundred and fifty forms of religion and but one sauce, 
 namely, melted butter? It is a significant fact that 
 Paris has scarcely any other employment for its two 
 millions of inhabitants than just those which are the 
 first to fail in the hour of adversity. Its faubourgs are 
 occupied by manufacturers, not of articles that men 
 must have, but of bronzes, ormolu, marqueterie, buhl- 
 work-furniture, mirrors, china, clocks, table-ornaments, 
 marbles, and all that contributes to mere appearance 
 and enjoyment. You will find in the city about an 
 equal number of celebrated dancing-masters and cele 
 brated teachers of mathematics; and the municipality 
 pays one third more for its f6tes than it does for its 
 religion. 
 
 It was a Frenchman who said of his countrymen, 
 that there never was a nation more led by its sensa 
 tions, and less by its principles. It is said that, in the 
 latter days of Charles James Fox, a conversation took 
 place in his presence, on the comparative wisdom of 
 the French and English character. " The Frenchman, 5 * 
 it was observed, "delights himself with the present;
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 137 
 
 the Englishman makes himself anxious about the future. 
 Is not the Frenchman the wiser?" "He may be the 
 merrier," said Fox, "but did you ever hear of a savage 
 who did not buy a mirror in preference to a telescope ?" 
 But it is in the literature of a people that, more 
 faithfully than in anything else, is mirrored the na 
 tional character; and true as this is of every civilized 
 nation, it is especially true of the French. The leading 
 intellects of France have been always, not only the 
 authors, but also the expop^gps of the thoughts and 
 feelings of the people; and nowhere has a more perfect 
 allegiance been rendered to those intellectual kings 
 who govern by the divine right of wit and genius, and 
 who, when dead, still " rule us from their urns." The 
 first fact that impresses every student of French litera 
 ture is the remarkable clearness of the writers; their 
 superiority to all their European rivals in perspicuity 
 and precision. It is a remarkable fact that, in the age 
 of our great writers, when our literature was unrivalled 
 in the gorgeous opulence of its rhetoric, the English 
 language was never once made the object of conscious 
 attention. No man seems ever to have reflected that 
 there was a wrong and a right in the choice of words 
 or phrases, in the mechanism of sentences, or even 
 in the grammar. Men wrote eloquently because they 
 wrote feelingly; they wrote idiomatically because they 
 wrote naturally and without affectation; but if a false 
 or acephalous structure of sentence, if a barbarous 
 word or a foreign idiom, chanced to present itself, 
 no writer of the seventeenth century was scrupulous 
 enough to correct it. The French writers, on the other 
 hand, early saw the supreme importance of artistic 
 expression, and gave more attention to the cultivation 
 of their language, to the study of its idiomatic niceties
 
 138 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 and delicacies, than any other people. Partly because 
 the French mind has a keener perception than the 
 English of the Greek-like simplicity and directness 
 which belong to the highest artistic beauty; partly 
 because the French have more conscience in intellec 
 tual matters, and partly because the French Academy 
 acted as a literary police for the suppression of verbal 
 license, France, more than two centuries ago, took 
 the lead in literary workmanship, and that supremacy 
 she still maintains. While the great writers of England 
 were still pouring forth their thoughts with inartistic 
 skill, or were rising to perfect beauty of statement only 
 when possessed with that white-heat of passion which 
 gives to rhetoric an arrowy directness and a rhyth 
 mical flow, France had already achieved a classic pro 
 priety of style, and to-day she teaches rhetoric to 
 England with as much authority as Greece taught it 
 to Rome. What English author of the sixteenth or 
 seventeenth centuries rivals in style the exquisite beau 
 ty of Pascal? Who in the eighteenth exhibits such a 
 command of all the luxuries and delicacies of expression 
 such a marriage of rhythmical music with logical ac 
 curacy of thought as Paul Louis Courier? and where 
 in the nineteenth shall we find another style so artis 
 tic as that of Ren an or George Sand; so delicate, 
 brilliant, equable, and strong as that of Sainte-Beuve ? 
 It is a singular fact that the oft-quoted saying, 
 "Language was given to man to conceal his thought," 
 should have come from a Frenchman, the man who 
 of all men on the face of the earth, wears his heart on 
 his sleeve, and no sooner has a thought or emotion 
 than he is in an agony to communicate it. Of all the 
 faults of style, there is no other for which a Frenchman 
 has so profound a horror as for obscurity. Take all
 
 FRENCH TEAITS. 139 
 
 the Gallic writers, from Montaigne to Lamartine, and 
 search through the works of each, from title-page to 
 finis, and you will hunt as vainly for an obscure passage, 
 as in a German author for a clear one. Dip where 
 you will into Pascal, Descartes, Bossuet, Eousseau, or 
 Taine, you will find every sentence written as with a 
 sunbeam. Nothing can be more even than the flow, 
 nothing more logical than the structure of the periods ; 
 the limpid clearness of the j|Bbled brook runs through 
 them all; while, on the other hand, Taylor, Hooker, 
 and Milton abound with ellipses, parentheses, and invo 
 lutions, and your great German thinker, especially if 
 a metaphysician, treats a sentence as a sort of carpet 
 bag, into which to cram all the ideas it can be made 
 to hold. As with the giants of French literature, so 
 with the dwarfs ; shallow these may be, but foggy and 
 incomprehensible, never. Even one of the most distin 
 guished English critics admits that, in the competition 
 of the literary chiefs of Europe, the palm of superiority 
 must be given to the writers, not of his own country, 
 but of France. " Darkened," he says, " as the literary 
 language of France has often been by the fumes of 
 undigested metaphysics, there is no author, and scarcely 
 any reader there, who would not stand aghast at the 
 introduction into his native tongue of that inorganic 
 language which even Samuel Taylor Coleridge himself 
 tumbled out, in some of his more elaborate specula 
 tions, and with which the imitators of that great man 
 are at this day distorting and Germanizing the speech 
 of our progenitors." 
 
 Now what do these facts indicate regarding the 
 French mind? What are the qualities of the French 
 people that render clearness a fundamental law with 
 them of all good composition? We have in it, first,
 
 140 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 a proof of the genial, sympathetic, and communicative 
 spirit of the nation. The French are an eminently so 
 cial people, and their authors have always their readers 
 directly before them. A German writes obscurely, be 
 cause his happiness is in secluded rumination. A 
 Frenchman always writes clearly, because his happiness 
 is in social and intellectual intercourse. The first calls 
 up shadowy dreams not less with his pen than with 
 his pipe. The other is engaged in the commerce of 
 thought in his study, not less than in the salon. Hence 
 the superiority of the French in conversation and letter- 
 writing, and in all the forms of literature where grace, 
 sprightliness, and sportiveness are required. The ease, 
 liveliness, brilliancy, and naivete of their familiar letters 
 are confessed by the critics of every nation; and their 
 "Historical Memoirs," which are but another kind of 
 familiar letters, addressed to society at large, surpass 
 in number and excellence those of all other countries 
 put together. The language of the French being that 
 of a people which speaks more than it thinks, which 
 needs to speak in order to think, and which thinks 
 only to speak, is preeminently adapted to conversation. 
 The delicacy and keenness of French wit must strike 
 every reader of their literature. Light, playful, brilliant, 
 glancing as the sunbeam, its meaning can travel 
 from one mind to another by the airy conveyance of 
 an intonation, an interjection, or a word. Anglo-Saxon 
 wit, in comparison, is ponderous and clumsy, reminding 
 one of the elephant "wreathing his lithe proboscis;" 
 and, indeed, one might as well attempt to catch the 
 sunbeam, and shut it up in a box, as to express in 
 Saxon-English the delicate, ethereal beauty of French 
 wit or sentiment, which, expressible only by that tongue 
 of polished steel, defies alike imitation and translation.
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 141 
 
 As the French are the wittiest of the European peo 
 ples, so there is none by whom wit is more keenly 
 appreciated, or among whom it produces so prodi 
 gious effects. How many political events in France has 
 a bon mot heralded! How many has it occasioned! 
 Never was there a government in France that did not 
 turn pale at a caricature, shudder at a political song, 
 or tremble at an epigram. Lamercur says, in his ad 
 dress to the Academy, " The ffl^ory of France is written 
 by its song-makers;" and Chamfort wittily designates 
 "the old regime" as "an absolute monarchy tem 
 pered by epigrams." Hardly any man ever became 
 famous in France without having a witticism of some 
 kind attached to his reputation. Henry IV., it has been 
 said, reigned by Ion mots; and even Bonaparte could 
 not dispense with them. A series of Ion mots, begun 
 by Voltaire, continued by Diderot, and systematized by 
 Helvetius, destroyed the ancient religion, sapped the 
 foundations of the throne, and changed the destinies of 
 the monarchy which Louis XIV. imagined he had fixed 
 for centuries. 
 
 It is the social nature of the French, this intense 
 power of sympathy, which is the foundation not only 
 of their virtues, but also of their most beautiful intel 
 lectual qualities, and of their unrivaled influence (at 
 least till very recently), in Europe. What other nation 
 has exhibited so constant and so vivid a sympathy for 
 the struggles for freedom beyond its border, and in 
 what other literature shall we find so expansive and 
 ecumenical a genius, or so generous an appreciation of 
 foreign ideas? Who will say that Guizot claims too 
 much when he asserts that France is the focus, the 
 centre of the civilization of Europe; that the best 
 ideas and institutions of other countries, before they
 
 142 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 could become general, have had to undergo in France 
 a new preparation, and thence start forth for the con 
 quest of the world? Or who will accuse Demogeot of 
 exaggeration when he declares that, though England 
 started the eighteenth century on its literary career, it 
 was from France that it received its most powerful and 
 lasting impulse? That which among the English was 
 scattered, he says, centred in France in a burning 
 focus; a common aim gave to new ideas an irresistible 
 power. Disciplined even in mutiny, the French philo 
 sophers, notwithstanding their bickerings, had in com 
 mon one purpose, one method, one will; for France is 
 everywhere one. "They gave to the cold speculations 
 of Englishmen the fiery life of a rousing popular elo 
 quence; the discreet and learned skepticism of Collins, 
 Tindal, and Bolingbroke was sharpened by the biting 
 sarcasm of Voltaire, and glowed with the burning 
 theism of Rousseau. Newton left his sanctuary and 
 came among us, thanks to the author of the 'Lettres 
 Anglaises/ and of the 'Elements de Philosophic;' the 
 frigid and didactic analysis of Locke felt cold and 
 unpalatable after the spirit-stirring pages of 'Emile' 
 and of the * Contrat Social.' It seemed, indeed, as 
 though an English idea could get a hearing in the 
 world only after having found in France its European 
 expression and its immortal form." 
 
 Lord Macaulay admits that the literature of France 
 has been to that of England what Aaron was to Moses, 
 the expositor of great truths which would else have 
 perished for want of a voice to utter them with dis 
 tinctness. "The great discoveries in physics, in meta 
 physics, in political science, are ours. But scarcely any 
 foreign nation, except France, has received them from 
 us by direct communication. Isolated in our situation,
 
 FRENCH TEAITS. 143 
 
 isolated by our manners, we found truth, but we did 
 not impart it. France has been the interpreter between 
 England and mankind." De Maistre, who had pro 
 foundly studied the French character, shows in the 
 "Soirees de St. Petersbourg," that there never existed 
 a nation easier to deceive, harder to undeceive, or more 
 powerful to deceive others. "M^o peculiar character 
 istics," says he, addressing the Wench, "distinguish you 
 from all the other peoples of the world, the spirit of 
 association and the spirit of proselytism. All your 
 ideas are national and passionate to the core. The 
 electric spark, running, like the lightning from which 
 it comes, through a mass of men in communication, 
 feebly represents the instantaneous, I had almost said 
 thundering, invasion of a taste, of a system, of a pas 
 sion among the French, who cannot live isolated. If 
 you would but act upon yourselves, one might let you 
 alone ; but the passion, the necessity, the rage for acting 
 upon others, is the most salient trait of your character. 
 * * * Every people has its mission; such is 
 yours. The slightest opinion which you launch upon 
 Europe is a battering-ram propelled by thirty millions 
 of men." 
 
 It is true that, in the recent deplorable war, France 
 was the unjust aggressor; yet, we need not fear to ask, 
 in what other land would a war for a down-trodden 
 and outraged people find so enthusiastic a support as 
 from her? The national crimes of France are many 
 and grievous, but, as Mr. Lecky remarks, "much will 
 be forgiven her, because she has loved much." On the 
 other hand, the Anglo-Saxon race, while it has been 
 distinguished for its keen moral sense and its loyalty 
 to duty, and while its sympathies for others have been 
 momentarily roused even to a lofty pitch, has been, on
 
 144 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 the whole, hard, narrow, and unsympathetic. It en 
 gages in no crusades of philanthropy, no wars against 
 oppressors, till it has taken up the slate and found 
 that the expedition will "pay." Even in his private 
 charities, John Bull never lets his feelings run away 
 with his reason. In the midst of the most heartrend 
 ing narratives, according to Sydney Smith, he requires 
 the day of the month, the year of our Lord, the name 
 of the parish, and the countersign of three or four re 
 spectable householders. "After these affecting circum 
 stances he can no longer hold out, but gives way to 
 the kindness of his nature, puffs, blubbers, and sub 
 scribes." In the management of his own affairs, the 
 Englishman exhibits the grandest qualities of endur 
 ance, energy, and skill. His literature is rich, exalted, 
 copious, and profound. The researches of his scientists 
 exhaust the secrets of nature; his travellers scour the 
 globe; his accumulations of wealth surpass the fabled 
 hoards of the Roman patricians; and his countless 
 fleets teach the world to stand in awe of his gigantic 
 power. But in his judgments of other men, he is the 
 narrowest of men. His eyes cannot pierce beyond the 
 thick fogs which surround his island into the regions 
 beyond. "Our country," acknowledges a late English 
 writer, "is an island, and we despise the rest of Europe, 
 onr county is an island, and we despise the other 
 shires; our parish is an island, with peculiar habits, 
 modes, and institutions; our households are islands; 
 and, to complete the whole, each stubborn, broad- 
 shouldered, strong-backed Englishman is an island, 
 surrounded by a misty, tumultuous sea of prejudices 
 and hatreds, generally unapproachable, and at all times 
 utterly repudiative of a permanent bridge." 
 
 The exquisite perspicuity of the French literature
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 145 
 
 shows, further, that in the French mind the reasoning 
 faculty predominates. Implicit believers in logic, anx 
 ious to sound all the depths, and to scale all the heights 
 of human knowledge, the French are mortal foes to 
 obscurity, and wage an unending war against all the 
 powers of mental darkness. "The most subtle of 
 analysts," says Sir James Stephen, "the Frenchman 
 dissects his ideas into their component parts with a 
 touch at once so delicate and so firm as almost to 
 justify his exulting comparison of his own vocabulary 
 with that of Athens. The most perspicuous of experi 
 mentalists, he explores with the keenest glance all the 
 phenomena from which his conclusions are to be de 
 rived. The most precise of logicians, he reasons from 
 such premises with the most undiscolored mental vision. 
 The most aspiring of theorists, he fixes an eagle gaze 
 on the highest eminences of thought, and passes from 
 one mountain-top of speculation to another with a vigor 
 and an ease peculiar to himself. And hence it has hap 
 pened that the writers of France have become either the 
 teachers or the interpreters of science and philosophy to 
 the world at large; that their civil jurisprudence forms 
 the most simple and comprehensive of all existing codes 
 of law; and that their historians, their moralists, and 
 their poets breathe freely in a transcendental atmosphere 
 too rare and attenuated to sustain the intellectual life 
 of grosser minds than theirs." 
 
 On the other hand, this logical structure of the 
 French understanding, while it insures the highest 
 clearness and luminousness of style, has led to that 
 tendency to push every conclusion to its utmost conse 
 quences, to that remorseless Ergoisme, as they have 
 happily termed it, which is so striking a feature in 
 their intellectual character. The slaves of syllogism,
 
 146 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 they march with unflinching intrepidity to any conse 
 quence, however absurd, which seems to follow from 
 what they regard as well established premises; while 
 they reject any doctrine, however strongly it commends 
 itself to their instincts and to the instincts of the race, 
 if it cannot be demonstrated in mood and figure. Un 
 fortunately, there are some ideas which cannot be ex 
 pressed in terms perfectly transparent or unambiguous, 
 because they relate to subjects beyond the range of 
 human observation and of human experience. There 
 are certain supersensuous notions and doctrines which 
 command our implicit assent, but which cannot be ex 
 plained with the clearness with which one can define 
 material things, and the proofs of which cannot be 
 adequately stated in syllogisms; yet these are con 
 demned by the intellectual leaders of France as sense 
 less and superstitious. Hence we find that from Abelard 
 to Montaigne, from Rabelais to Bayle and Voltaire, and 
 from Voltaire to Renan, the acutest thinkers of that 
 country have been sceptics; and this Pyrrhonism has 
 permeated all classes from the noble to the peasant. 
 When Napoleon asked La Place to account for his 
 atheism, he replied, "Je n'ai pas besoin de Dieu dans 
 mon systbne." The "spirit of system," as the French 
 term it, has often proved, in all departments of thought 
 and action, the great bane of that people. It is a strik 
 ing fact that the French language has no such word 
 as spiritual; while, on the other hand, spirituel and 
 esprit express what the French deem the highest glory 
 of the human mind. No highly civilized people of 
 modern times have been so destitute of profound and 
 unchangeable convictions as the French, and of this 
 the popularity of their sceptical teachers has been both 
 the effect and the cause.
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 147 
 
 When Cromwell and his Roundheads triumphed 
 over the Cavaliers, and swept away the English church, 
 the Sabbath was more v strictly observed than before; 
 the soldiers spent their leisure hours in reading the 
 Bible and singing psalms; stern laws were passed 
 against betting; the theatres were destroyed, and the 
 actors whipt at the cart's tail; "in order to reach 
 crime more surely, they persecuted pleasure." On the 
 other hand, when, in the beginning of their Revolution, 
 the French demolished the Bastile, they wrote on the 
 ruins these words: "Id I' on danse" When that acute 
 observer of men, Nathaniel Hawthorne, visited Amiens, 
 he was surprised and gratified to find the cathedral in 
 excellent condition, the statues still keeping their 
 places in numerous niches, almost as perfect as when 
 first placed there in the thirteenth century; and he 
 remarks that it is perhaps a mark of difierence between 
 French and English character, that the Revolution in 
 the former country, though all religious worship disap 
 peared before it, does not seem to have caused such vio 
 lence to ecclesiastical monuments, as the Reformation 
 and the reign of Puritanism in the latter. "I did not 
 see a mutilated shrine, or even a broken-nosed image, 
 in the whole cathedral. But, probably, the very rage 
 of the English fanatics against idolatrous tokens, and 
 their smashing blows at them, were tokens of a sincerer 
 religious faith than the French were capable of. These 
 last did not care enough about their Saviour to beat 
 down his crucified image ; and they preserved the works 
 of sacred art, for the sake only of what beauty there 
 was in them." This lack of profound convictions is 
 well illustrated by the conduct of one of the most 
 popular French kings, Henry IV., who, to get posses 
 sion of the metropolis, renounced his Protestant faith
 
 148 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 and became a Catholic, saying that Paris was well 
 worth a mass, "11 vaut un messe." 
 
 The French passion for logic is well illustrated by 
 a comparison of Luther's method of reasoning with 
 that of John Calvin. While the Teuton, though he 
 fights the Romish doctrines to the extremity, yet pauses 
 when confronted by conclusions at which his moral 
 instincts are shocked, and, believing that the best- 
 reasoned is not always the most reasonable doctrine, is 
 content to be illogical rather than advocate doctrines 
 from which his whole soul recoils, the Frenchman bows 
 submissively to the decrees of his logic, and accepts 
 unflinchingly any conclusion, however revolting, to 
 which his premises conduct him. Closely connected 
 with this logical habit of the French, is the dogmatism 
 for which they are so notorious. No man, we are sure, 
 who ever argued with a Frenchman, can fail to sym 
 pathize with Prof. Masson in his statement that it is 
 hard to look on and see a Frenchman generalizing to 
 the utmost of his national manner, when it breaks 
 loose, without a longing to knock him down and put 
 him in a strait- waistcoat. "There is such a confidence 
 about him, such a systematizing rapidity, such an 
 unhesitating sureness about things, where we Goths are 
 clogged and restrained by traditional considerations, 
 and a sense of difficulty and complexity! But there 
 is something superb, nevertheless, in the speculative 
 moments of a first-class French intellect." 
 
 The same qualities of mind which have rendered 
 the French preeminent as logicians and rhetoricians, 
 have also made them preeminent as orators; for what 
 t true oratory but "ignited logic," or "reason per 
 meated and made red-hot by passion?" The English 
 historian, Hume, long ago acknowledged, with shame,
 
 \J 
 
 I 
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 149 
 
 / 
 
 that a French orator pleading for the restoration of a 
 horse is more eloquent than the orators of Great 
 Britain discussing the gravest interests of the nation 
 in the Houses of Parliament. The debates of the 
 French Assemblies, Parliaments, and States-General, 
 the eloges of her academies, the discourses of her 
 Judges, the sermons of her Massillons, her Bossuets, 
 and her Lacordaires, nay, even the fiery declamations 
 of her Eevolutionary Clubs, her Mirabeaus, her Dan- 
 tons, and her Robespierres, all proclaim that, in every 
 age and on every platform, her orators have been gifted 
 with almost superhuman powers of rousing and swaying 
 the crowds that have hung upon their lips. 
 
 The same qualities of mind which lead the French 
 to excel in logic render inevitable their inferiority in 
 poetry, especially in the highest forms of the art. 
 Unrivaled in scientific precision, scaling with ease the 
 zziest peaks of speculative philosophy, they are stricken 
 ith impotence when they would soar to the higher 
 regions of poetical or spiritual thought. The highest 
 quality of their tragic, as well as of their epic, verse is 
 an exquisite and dazzling rhetoric. Fancy it exhibits 
 in abundance, but a sad lack of imagination. In the 
 long roll of their poets, from Malherbe to Lamartine, 
 there is not one who has given evidence of high 
 creative power; of that power which peoples the ele 
 ments with fantastic forms, and fills the earth with 
 unearthly heroism, intellect and beauty ; which gave us 
 the "Inferno" of Dante and Milton's vision of hell, 
 Spencer's palaces and haunted woods, and Una taming 
 the forest lion by her beauty, and those wondrous 
 creations of Shakspeare, Titania and Oberon, Ariel 
 and Puck, and the cloudy witches of "Macbeth." 
 has been justly said of the French tragedy that the
 
 150 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 dramatis personcs are not individual agents, acting and 
 talking as their natures prompt them; they are but so 
 many aspects of the author himself, vehicles for his 
 eloquence, his wisdom, or his wit. When we read 
 "Henry IV.," we think only of Falstaff; when we read 
 "Andromache," we think only of Kacine. Another 
 fault of the French drama is that the personages leave 
 little to the imagination. They are almost always 
 egotists, who do, indeed, most thoroughly " unpack their 
 souls with words," but who, conveying in measured 
 speech feelings which should find but broken utterance, 
 fail to touch our sympathies. Hence, neither in the 
 literature of the French, nor in their familiar talk, do 
 we meet with those ever-recurring allusions to the 
 fictitious characters of the national stage which we 
 meet with in the conversation and literature of Eng 
 land. Sir Toby Belch, and Shallow, and Dogberry, 
 Uncle Toby, Tom Jones, Pickwick, Micawber, and 
 Becky Sharp, are as real to us as any beings we jostle 
 against in the street; but the kings and sages, the 
 lackeys and chambermaids of the classical French 
 theatre, are all "graduates of the Cartesian academy, 
 reasoners from whom, indeed, you learn no fallacies, 
 but associates from whom you catch no inspiration." 
 
 Though France herself has loudly denied, yet all 
 other nations with one voice proclaim her inferiority to 
 her rivals in the realms of imaginative art What one 
 of her acutest modern critics has said of the Latin 
 races generally is doubly true of her. "The Latin 
 races," says M. Taine, "show a decided taste for the 
 external and decorative aspect of things, for a pompous 
 display feeding the senses and vanity, for logical order, 
 outward symmetry, and pleasing arrangement ; in short, 
 for form. The Germanic literatures, on the contrary,
 
 FKENCH TRAITS. 151 
 
 are romantic; their principal source is the Edda, and 
 the ancient Sagas of the North; their greatest master 
 piece is the drama of Shakspeare, that is to say, the 
 crude and complete representation of actual life, with 
 all its atrocious, ignoble, and commonplace details, its 
 sublime and brutal instincts, the entire outgrowth of 
 human character displayed before us, now in familiar 
 style, bordering on the trivial, and now poetic even to 
 lyricism, incoherent, excessive, but of incomparable force, 
 and filling our souls with the warm and palpitating 
 passion of which it is the outcry" A French Homer, 
 or Dante, or Cervantes, or Goethe, or Milton, would be 
 an anomaly such as the world has never seen. The 
 very language, moulded by the mental character of a 
 people wanting depth of sensibility and grandeur of 
 agination, is not a vehicle for the highest species of 
 etry. It has been justly said that, in other cultivated 
 guages, the form meets the substance half-way, is, 
 as it were, on the watch for it; so that the man, 
 Italian or German, far from being impeded by the 
 versification of his thoughts, finds himself thereby fa 
 cilitated, the metre embracing the poetic matter with 
 such closeness and alacrity as to encourage and accele 
 rate its production and utterance. On the other hand, 
 French verse, which requires a delicate attention to the 
 metre, or the mechanical constituent, affords little 
 scope for rhythm, and is, therefore, a shackle rather 
 than a help to the true poet. So in music, sculpture, 
 and painting; a French Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn, 
 a French Raphael or Michael Angelo, would startle the 
 world. 
 
 Again, the logical tastes of the French explain the 
 national passion for abstract ideas, to the despotism of 
 which their best writers admit that they have always
 
 152 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 been a prey. Doubtless this passion has had its advan 
 tages. The habit of dealing largely in abstractions 
 has contributed not a little to aid the French mind 
 in philosophical inquiries, and we may thank it for 
 making luminous the misty depths of metaphysics. 
 Guizot claims with justice that science, properly so 
 called, has prospered more in France than in England, 
 that political ideas in, the former country, though less 
 practical than, toi the latter, have had a grander eleva 
 tion and a more vigorous flight. It is unquestionably 
 true that, in the revolutions of France, ideas have 
 almost invariably preceded action; changes in doctrine 
 have preceded changes in institutions; and, in the 
 march of civilization, n^ind has always led the van. 
 An able English writer, Mr. John Morley, in his late 
 work on Voltaire, justly emphasizes the fact that, in 
 France, absolutism in Church and State fell before the 
 sinewy genius of stark reason, while in England it fell 
 before a respect for Asocial convenience, protesting 
 against monopolies, Henevolences, and ship-money. In 
 France, he says, speculation had penetrated over the 
 whole field of social inquiry before a single step had 
 been taken towards application, while in England 
 social principles were applied before they received any 
 kind of speculative application. In France, the most 
 effective enemy of the principles of despotism was Vol 
 taire, foet, philosopher, historian, and critic; in Eng 
 land, a ban^pf homely squires. The same writer has 
 noted the comparative weakness of the English aphoris 
 tic literature, lacking, as it does, the psychological ele 
 ment, which is so marked a feature of the French. 
 Even Bacon's precepts, acute and subtle as they are, 
 "refer rather to external conduct and worldly fortune, 
 than to the inner composition of character, or to the
 
 FRENCH TEAITS. 153 
 
 'wide, gray, lampless depths' of human destiny." The 
 English writers, whether on politics or philosophy, 
 seldom dig down to the eternal granite of first princi 
 ples ; they rarely give the fundamental reason of things ; 
 they are content to hug their fact, and hence are as 
 noted for their want of elevation of thought upon 
 theoretical questions as for their steady good sense and 
 practical ability. Taine, in hi notice of Addison, 
 bitterly complains that his morality, thoroughly English, 
 always crawls among coninmnplaces, discovering no 
 principles, making no deductions. "It is a sort of com 
 mercial common sense," says the French critic, "applied 
 to the interests of the soul ; a preacher here is only an 
 economist in a white tie, who treats conscience like food, 
 and refutes vice as a set of prohibitions." 
 
 The French, on the other hand, have been engaged in 
 a perpetual struggle to escape from, the- control of facts, 
 and to substitute therefor some ideal with which facts 
 have had nothing to do. For eighty years their thoughts 
 have been concentrated on the one purpose of finding 
 that " abstract perfection of government," which, as an 
 English statesman has said, "is not an object of rea 
 sonable pursuit, because it is not one of possible attain 
 ment;" yet, with a fair field open to them, they aie 
 to-day no nearer the realization^ of their ideala^than in 
 1792. Ever ready to accept splendid phrases as a sub 
 stitute for plain sense and practical measures, they are 
 at one time the sport of any demagogue who can veil 
 his selfish ambition under the cant of " pure ideas," and 
 at another the victims of any despot who may be 
 strong enough to trample the Ideologists and their 
 verbal science under his feet. The commonplaces of 
 politics in France, as John Stuart Mill has justly ob 
 served, are large and sweeping practical maxims, from
 
 154 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 which, as ultimate premises, men reason downwards to 
 particular applications, and this they call being logical 
 and consistent. "For instance they are perpetually ar 
 guing that such and such a measure ought to be 
 adopted, because it is a consequence of the principle on 
 which the form of government is founded, of the 
 principle of legitimacy, or the principle of the sover 
 eignty of the people. To which it may be answered 
 that, if these be really practical principles, they must 
 rest upon speculative grounds: the sovereignty of the 
 people (for example) must be a right foundation for 
 government, because a government thus constituted 
 tends to produce certain beneficial effects. Inasmuch, 
 however, as no government produces all possible bene 
 ficial effects, but all are attended with more or fewer 
 inconveniences, and since these cannot be combated by 
 means drawn from the very causes which produce them, 
 it would be often a much stronger recommendation of 
 some practical arrangement that it does not follow from 
 what is called the general principle of the government, 
 than that it does. Under a government of legitimacy, 
 the presumption is far rather in favor of institutions of 
 a popular origin; and in a democracy, in favor of ar 
 rangements tending to check the impetus of popular 
 will. The line of argumentation -so commonly mistaken 
 in France for political philosophy tends to the practical 
 conclusion that we should exert our utmost efforts to 
 aggravate, instead of alleviating, whatever are the char 
 acteristic imperfections of the system of institutions 
 which we prefer, or under which we happen to live." 
 The French idealism in government is well charac 
 terized by Burke, in his memorable sketch of. the Abb6 
 Sieyes, "with his nests of pigeon-holes full of constitu 
 tions, ready-made, ticketed, sorted and numbered ; suited
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 155 
 
 to every season and to every fancy; some with the top 
 of the pattern at the bottom, and some with the bot 
 tom at the top; some plain, some flowered; * * * 
 some with directories, others without direction; some 
 with councils of elders, and councils of youngers, and 
 some without any council at all; * * * so that no 
 constitution-fancier may go unsuited from his shop." 
 Yet deplorable as were the final results of the revolu 
 tion which Sieyes and his confreres brought about, the 
 passage of this Red Sea was honorable to the people, 
 even if they did not at once enter the Promised Land. 
 That a whole nation should have been penetrated with 
 a passion for pure reason, and an ardent desire to have 
 its prescriptions triumph, is an extraordinary fact when 
 W consider how rarely pure reason moves the masses 
 of men. While the French thus live in a world of 
 ideas, the English, on the other hand, have always 
 hated abstract thought, and looked with suspicion or 
 contempt on all endeavors after scientific accuracy in 
 political questions or moral. Empiric, experimental, 
 often blundering, always unsystematic, to-day sleeping 
 in contented apathy, to-morrow waking with a panic 
 start, self-contradictory and inconsistent, now growl 
 ing at the smallest hardship, now welcoming the most 
 outrageous oppression, now overlooking the growth of 
 the most fearful evils, and anon watching the slightest 
 innovations with microscopic vigilance, at one time 
 indignant, almost infuriated, if a criminal is harshly 
 treated, or a pauper poorly fed, and then contemplating 
 with stoical indifference the wretchedness of thousands, 
 they have yet contrived to advance with giant strides 
 in the path of material prosperity, and with every gene 
 ration to secure a solid and lasting improvement in 
 their political condition.
 
 156 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 The legislation of England corresponds to this char 
 acter of the people. Selfish it may be. and unenlight 
 ened; often it betrays extreme narrowness of vision, 
 and incapacity for taking broad views ; but it is always 
 practical, and free from all that is visionary and fanci 
 ful. If the Frenchman loves a revolution, it is equally 
 the instinct of the Englishman to search for a pre 
 cedent With Bacon, he believes that "Time is the 
 best reformer." Political good sense, as Guizot has well 
 observed, consists in understanding and appreciating 
 every fact, every force, and every social element; and 
 in assigning to each its proper place; and that the 
 English have this good sense is shown by the fact that 
 in the whole course of English history no ancient 
 political element has ever entirely perished, nor any 
 new one gained a total ascendancy, that all the forces 
 of society have developed themselves simultaneously and 
 moved abreast. An English legislator prefers a very 
 little attainable good to a vast amount that is barely 
 possible of attainment ; an acre in Middlesex he deems 
 better than a principality in Utopia. The House of 
 Commons is an eminently practical body; its members 
 hate rhetoric, and are fiercely intolerant of abstractions. 
 Fine speeches they cough down ; but facts, informa 
 tion, however awkwardly communicated, they will 
 listen to with the patience of Job. For all "bunkum 
 talk," for all declamations about the rights of man 
 and the eternal fitness of things, for all "spread- 
 eagleism," invocations of the shades of Hampden and 
 Sidney, and other such nonsense, they have an un 
 mitigated contempt Many things which an American 
 legislator would think it necessary to prove by syllo 
 gisms in Barbara or Celarent, they take for granted, 
 thus economizing time and lungs. Acts of Parliament
 
 FRENCH TRAITS. 157 
 
 are often awkwardly drawn (and O'Connell declared that 
 he could drive a coach and four through any of those 
 passed in his day); they are anything but models of 
 style ; but- they generally hit the grievance between 
 wind and water. Hence, a French writer has justly 
 said of England and his own country: " L'Angleterre 
 veut le pratique, et s'y enfonce; la France cherche I 1 idee, 
 et s'y perd" Nothing can be more superb than the 
 promptness with which the English ignore their politi 
 cal doctrines the moment they are found to be incon 
 venient in practice. How long was the "divine right 
 of kings" preached from Protestant pulpits! yet the 
 moment Protestant kings carried the theory out into 
 practice, the genius of the people as readily extem 
 porized a divine right of regicide and revolution. The 
 national genius of England, it has been well observed, 
 cares little for abstract liberty, but it will defend its 
 liberties to the death. It cares little for the Eights of 
 Man, but for the rights of English man, it will fight 
 "till from its bones the flesh be hacked."* 
 
 Swift long ago said that the Englishman is a politi 
 cal animal, the Frenchman a social animal; and the 
 remark is true to this day. The French are always 
 discussing the merits of different forms of government 
 abstractly considered, when it is evident that every 
 form has a relative, not an absolute value. Nothing 
 is more puerile than to discuss the theoretical advan 
 tages of monarchy, aristocracy, or republicanism. As 
 well discuss the abstract value of the costumes worn 
 in different latitudes. Their worth depends, of course, 
 on the climate. "All the French constitutions," says 
 De Maistre, "have been made for man, when no such 
 being exists; I have seen Frenchmen, Englishmen, 
 
 * Edwin P. Whipple.
 
 158 FRENCH TRAITS. 
 
 but never man, except in some imaginary cloud- 
 land." Edmund Burke was a good type of the English 
 mind. Again and again he affirms that, in politics, 
 we are concerned not with barren rights, but with 
 duties; not with abstract truth, but with a shifting 
 expediency. The lines of morality, he contends, are 
 not like ideal lines of mathematics. They admit of 
 exceptions; they demand modifications. He scorns the 
 argument that England has a right to tax her Ameri 
 can Colonies; "so has a man a right to shear a wolf. 
 * * This point is 'the great Serbonian bog, betwixt 
 Damiata and Mount Casius old, where armies whole 
 have sunk.' I do not intend to be overwhelmed in 
 that bog, though in such respectable company. The 
 question is not, whether you have a right to render 
 your people miserable, but whether it is not your 
 interest to make them happy." Again, of the distinc 
 tions of rights, he says: "I do not enter into these 
 metaphysical distinctions: / hate the very sound of 
 them" Circumstances, he never tires of insisting, give 
 to every political principle its distinguishing color and 
 discriminating effect. 
 
 Let us hope that the time may come when the Eng 
 lishman will prize ideas more in politics without ceasing 
 to be practical, and when his mind, with a broader 
 hospitality for foreign views, will be, in the beautiful 
 language of Bacon, " not an island cut off from other 
 men's lands, but a continent that joins to them ;" and 
 when the Frenchman, convinced of the fruitlessness of 
 abstract rights and abstract ideals, yet surrendering 
 none of his love of pure truth, shall recognize the 
 stubbornness of facts, and cease to waste a life of noble 
 purposes, lofty ideas, and heroic endurance, in abortive 
 efforts to carry out beneficent schemes against an iron 
 antagonism of circumstances and conditions.
 
 PLEASANTRY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 AN English critic, in treating of the character of 
 English literature at this time, complains that 
 periodical writing, which flourished so vigorously at 
 the beginning of this century, is nearly a lost art 
 This kind of writing, he remarks, is to literature what 
 conversation is to speech; it should not be too per 
 sonal, nor too scientific, nor two earnest, but a mixture 
 of all these, the play of fancy over all subjects, light 
 ing up here and there their depths, but not grappling 
 with them, pouring itself abroad, but not contracting 
 itself to any too determinate aim. A fatal defect of 
 English periodical literature to-day is its excessive 
 gravity; the impulse of the English mind being almost 
 entirely toward concentration, and earnestness, and defi- 
 niteness of thought. The effect of this is to quench 
 all life and spirit, as certainly as does carbonic acid 
 gas. "Does laughter or light satire," asks the critic, 
 "ever ring through the solemn precincts of Macmillan? 
 Do the apostles of the Fortnightly ever introduce a 
 joke into their evangelical discourses? Mr. Frederic 
 Harrison, if we remember right, attempted it some 
 little time ago; but he did it with so preternaturally 
 a solemn tone, and with such earnestness of assevera 
 tion that he really did not mean to joke at all, that all 
 fear of the risk that the attempt might be repeated 
 was at once removed."
 
 160 PLEASANTRY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 The justice of this criticism will be admitted, we 
 think, by all who are familiar with the periodicals of 
 the old country. Nothing can be more solemn than 
 their ordinary tone. It is rarely that even the ghost 
 of a joke haunts their pages; and when a bit of 
 pleasantry does stray in, it seems accidental, and as 
 much out of place as on a gravestone or in a ledger. 
 The periodical writers of to-day have plenty of intensity 
 and fiery earnestness, much acuteness of observation 
 and large stores of knowledge; but they are heavy and 
 elephantine; they lack flexibility, litheness, and versa 
 tility; and in the power which is so strikingly exem 
 plified by Shakspeare's fools of saying wise things in 
 a sportive way, the power so often seen in Lamb and 
 Hood, of conveying a deep philosophical verity in a 
 jest, uniting the wildest merriment with the truest 
 pathos and the deepest wisdom, in short, in that 
 genial, lambent humor, of which Shakspeare was the 
 Pope and Sydney Smith the Chief Cardinal, a humor 
 like summer sheet-lightning, that hurts nobody, and 
 illuminates everything with soft, bright flashes, they 
 seem almost wholly wanting. We must go back half 
 a century to the days of Horace Smith, Maginn, and 
 Leigh Hunt, if we would enjoy in English periodicals 
 that agreeable trifling which, as Goldsmith says, often 
 deceives us into instruction. The solemnity of their 
 successors, which is certainly not the mask of dull 
 ness, tempts one to cry out with Cicero, "Civem meher- 
 cule non puto ease qui his t&mporibus ridere possit : on 
 my conscience, I believe we have all forgotten to laugh 
 in these days." History is always repeating itself, and 
 we find by Goldsmith's "Essay on the Present State 
 of Polite Learning," that the same fault characterized 
 the literature of England a hundred years ago. He
 
 PLEASANTBY IN LITERATURE. 161 
 
 complains bitterly of "a disgusting solemnity of man 
 ner" as the besetting sin of the prose writers and 
 poets of his day. The finest sentiment and the weigh 
 tiest truth, he urges, may put on a pleasant face; but, 
 instead of this, "the most trifling performance among 
 us now assumes all the didactic stiffness of wisdom. 
 The most diminutive son of fame or of famine has his 
 we and his us, his firstly s and his secondly s, as methodi 
 cal as if bound in cowhide and closed in clasps of 
 brass. Were these monthly reviews and magazines 
 frothy, pert, or absurd, they might find some pardon; 
 but to be dull and dronish is an encroachment on the 
 prerogative of a folio." 
 
 American literature is not amenable to the charge of 
 excessive gravity ; our newspapers and magazines have 
 plenty of comic matter, only it is apt to be of a broad 
 and extravagant kind. We have professional wits and 
 humorists who furnish funny articles by the column, 
 mechanical jokers, who turn out jokes as the patent 
 bread manufacturer turns out loaves ; but what we need 
 is, not more wits, who can spin out jests as a juggler 
 spins endless ribbons from his mouth, writers who can 
 make us laugh, and nothing more, but those who can 
 treat the gravest themes in a playful manner, intermingle, 
 as did Pascal and Sydney Smith, pleasantry with logic, 
 bind the rod of the moralist with the roses of the muse, 
 and hide with the ivy wreath the point of the Thyrsus. 
 Can any man doubt the inestimable value of such 
 writers to a community? Even the coarsest wit has 
 its uses. There are men whose risibles can be tickled 
 by no other. To laugh they must hear or read some 
 thing "dreadfully funny," something as irresistibly 
 mirth-provoking as Sir Toby's catch that could "draw 
 three souls out of one weaver." Charles Lamb tells of
 
 162 PLEASANTRY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 such a man, of such gravity that Newton might have 
 deduced from it the law of gravitation. But the mass 
 of men do not want their pleasantry in a lump, but as 
 sauce and seasoning to more solid dishes. 
 
 In the highest order of wit there is an essential 
 element of truthfulness. The profounder the truth, the 
 keener and more telling the wit. The true humorist is 
 no provoker of barren laughter, no cynic, heel-biter, 
 or libeller, who, because his own cup of happiness has 
 been soured, is bent upon filling every other man's 
 with gall and wormwood, but a genial, loving re 
 former. People breathe more freely when such a man 
 is "around;" for they know the wicked man will fear 
 him, weak men will feel stronger, and quacks will no 
 longer have things all their own way. Crises are con 
 tinually occurring in the history of society when it can 
 be delivered from peril only by the Damascus blade of the 
 wit Evils creep in unawares; some good but foolish 
 man perpetrates a deal of nonsense which is tolerated 
 and even admired on account of his goodness, and fixed 
 as an institution before its inconvenience is suspected. 
 Some isolated and pampered truth, detached from its 
 relations, weighs down society like a nightmare, till its 
 disproportions are shown up by the wit. The cause of 
 good sense, virtue, and decorum has been indebted 
 hardly more to the orator and moralist than to the 
 satirist who has set folly, crime, and impropriety in a 
 ludicrous or hateful light The "roar of laughter" has 
 heralded the defeat of more errors than the roar of 
 battle. Woe to the cheat, the dunce, the wind-bag, 
 when a great laugher is let loose on the planet! Bad 
 customs, which all theoretically condemn, though society 
 may still condone or exact them; acts of wickedness, 
 whose very daring secures them exceptional impunity;
 
 PLEASANTRY IN LITERATURE. 163 
 
 all those polite delinquencies that shelter themselves 
 under the garb of decency, and that flourish most 
 rankly in the most advanced periods of civilization, 
 against these it is that the humorist hurls his shafts, 
 and society cries "All Hail!" to its deliverer. 
 
 "What moralist in old Rome did so much to repress 
 the vulgar insolence of newly-acquired wealth, the 
 airs and pomposity of the parvenue, as Horace when 
 he bade him take note, as he strutted along the street, 
 
 Ut ora vertat hue et hue euntium 
 Liberrima indignatio? 
 
 Did any Aristippus, with his bran-bread and saw 
 dust theories of diet, do so much to lessen the luxury 
 of his age as the sarcasm that lurks beneath the poet's 
 bombastic account of a banquet, or the epic grandilo 
 quence of the monster turbot? Would Luther's battle- 
 axe, mighty though it was, have struck so fatal blows 
 at Popery, had it not been preceded by the keen arrows 
 of Erasmus? Or would not the monks and priests 
 have made a far more desperate resistance had not the 
 EpistolcB Obscurorum Virorum keenly satirized their 
 vices before they could be denounced, been widely circu 
 lated, and prepared the way for the Reformers? Might 
 not the Jesuits have defied the club of Pascal's logic, 
 had he not also showered upon them the feathered 
 shafts of his ridicule? Who can doubt that the bril 
 liant and sparkling satirist of the Dunciad, the "little 
 wasp of Twickenham," vengeful and venomous though 
 he was, did more to provoke a feeling of revolt and 
 contempt against the vices of his time than all the 
 dictates of morality, or the denunciations of the pul 
 pit? How many match-making mothers have paused 
 as they have followed the miserable episodes of Ho-
 
 164 PLEASANTRY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 garth's "Marriage a la Mode!" And how many a 
 would-be fine gentleman in our own day, tickled with 
 vanity and inclined to vulgar ostentation, has been 
 impelled, by the keen irony of Thackeray, to avoid the 
 "sorrows of gentility," and, by living inside of his 
 income, to keep out of the "Book of Snobs!" 
 
 The yeoman service which that prince of wits, 
 Sydney Smith, did to Catholic Emancipation, by his 
 "Letters to Peter Plymley," is familiar to all. By 
 what syllogisms in Barbara or Celarent could he have 
 so effectually annihilated the influence of Percival and 
 Canning, as by declaring of the latter that "when he 
 is jocular, he is strong; when he is serious, he is like 
 Samson in a wig;" and by holding up the former to 
 ridicule as the projector of "the great plan of con 
 quest and constipation," as the statesman "in whose 
 mind was first engendered the idea of destroying the 
 pride and plasters of France," and " who would bring 
 the French to reason by keeping them without rhubarb, 
 and exhibit to mankind the awful spectacle of a nation 
 deprived of neutral salts?" It was but yesterday that 
 duelling was prevalent throughout the civilized world. 
 In vain the pulpit thundered, and the press denounced 
 the practice; Christian men still continued to expose 
 their lives for the merest trifle, to the accident of a 
 lucky shot. It was only when "the code of honor" 
 was made the butt of ridicule, and so became contempti 
 ble in the eyes of those who were its slaves, and who 
 were more sensitive to sarcasm than to logic, that they 
 ceased to make their bodies targets for the bullets of 
 any bully or braggart who chose to consider himself 
 aggrieved, or whom a craven fear of public opinion 
 impelled to send a challenge. But we need not cross 
 the Atlantic for illustrations. Who has forgotten the
 
 PLEASANTRY IN LITERATURE. 165 
 
 powerful aid rendered to the North in our late civil 
 war by "Petroleum V. Nasby," of the "Confederate 
 Cross-Roads." Though he assumed the cap and bells, 
 Rabelais was not more terribly in earnest. As one of 
 his admirers has well said, whenever his loud and often 
 boisterous laugh was heard, there was sure to be a 
 funeral procession in some dark corner of the land. 
 Like the grave-digger in " Hamlet," he made fun, but 
 he kept digging graves all the while. His rib-tickling 
 irony cheered the patriots, as well as confounded the 
 Copperheads and the Rebels. President Lincoln found 
 relief from the wearing anxieties of office in reading 
 the letters of this Toledo blade. Grant declared that 
 he "couldn't get through a Sunday without one;" and 
 Secretary Boutwell publicly attributed the overthrow 
 of the Rebels to three great forces, the Army and 
 Navy, the Republican Party, and the Letters of Petro 
 leum V. Nasby. 
 
 What was the secret of Dr. Nott's power over bad 
 men, what, but his contagious, resistless humor? He 
 would disperse any mob sooner than the Mayor with 
 his drilled police. He would meet them armed with 
 clubs, looking lean, hungry and defiant. In five min 
 utes they would be seen dropping their bludgeons, and 
 dispersing in roars of laughter. 
 
 Then let us laugh. It is the cheapest luxury man 
 enjoys, and, as Charles Lamb says, "is worth a hundred 
 groans in any state of the market." It stirs up the 
 blood, expands the chest, electrifies the nerves, clears 
 away the cobwebs from the brain, and gives the whole 
 system a shock to which the voltaic pile is as nothing. 
 Nay, its delicious alchemy converts even tears into the 
 quintessence of merriment, and makes wrinkles them 
 selves expressive of youth and frolic. Americans, espe-
 
 166 PLEASANTRY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 cially, need to laugh, and to laugh often. The demand 
 for humor is great among us, and the supply is not 
 equal to the demand. Most of us are overworked, and 
 the excess of work renders imperative the need of in 
 creased play to balance it. Nature prompts the over 
 worked man to seek an atmosphere of mirth as truly as 
 she sends the deer to the saltlick. Wealth, ingenuity, 
 worldly wisdom, and popular information abound among 
 us; but our social salad lacks the oil of joy; and hence 
 we need co cultivate good humor, as De Quincey comi 
 cally inculcates murder, as "one of the fine arts." 
 
 We are aware that there are some owlish and emi 
 nently respectable people who are averse to merriment 
 and to the pleasantry that provokes it. But what a world 
 this would be without laughter! To what a dreary com 
 plexion should we all come, were all fun and cachinnation 
 expunged from our solemn and scientific planet! Care 
 would soon overwhelm us, the heart would corrode, life 
 would be all relievo, and no alto; the Eiver of Life 
 would be like the Lake of the Dismal Swamp; we 
 should begin our days with a sigh, and end them with 
 a groan ; while cadaverous faces, and words to the tune 
 of "The Dead March in Saul," would make up the 
 whole interlude of existence. Hume, the historian, in 
 examining a French manuscript containing accounts 
 of some private disbursements of King Edward II. of 
 England, found among others one article of a crown 
 paid to somebody for making the King laugh. Could 
 His Majesty have made a wiser investment? "The 
 most utterly lost of all days," says Chamfort, "is that 
 in which you have not once laughed." Even that 
 grimmest and most saturnine of wits, Dean Swift, calls 
 laughter "the most innocent of diuretics." Let us, 
 then, indulge freely in the rationality of laughter. In
 
 PLEASANTRY IK LITERATURE. 167 
 
 the words of the witty Maginn, let our Christmas laugh 
 echo till Saint Valentine's day ; our laugh of Saint Val 
 entine till the 1st of April; our April humor till May 
 day, and our May merriment till Midsummer. And so 
 let us go on, from holiday to holiday, philosophers in 
 laughter, at least, till, at the expiration of our century, 
 we die the death of old Democritus; cheerful, hopeful, 
 and contented ; surrounded by many a friend, but with 
 out an enemy; and remembered principally because we 
 have never, either in life or death, given pain for a 
 moment to any being that lived.
 
 OUR DUAL LIVES. 
 
 AMONG the oddities and eccentricities of human 
 nature there are few more singular than the dispo 
 sition which we often see in men who have been emi 
 nently successful in any calling to conceive themselves 
 to have been designed by nature for something quite 
 different There is hardly a pursuit or profession in 
 which some persons may not be found, who, though 
 highly skilled and distinguished therein, yet fancy that 
 they could have attained far higher distinction had 
 they followed some other walk in life more congenial 
 to their tastes. It is said that Canova, whenever the 
 conversation turned upon sculpture, would fetch a 
 freshly-bedaubed tablet, and exhibit it with a smile of 
 paternal pride. The witty Douglas Jerrold wanted to 
 write a treatise on natural philosophy; the French 
 painter, Girardet, valued his wretched verses far more 
 highly than his magnificent pictures; and Dr. Thomas 
 Brown, in thinking of his own tasteless effusions, doubt 
 less often exclaimed, " How sweet an Ovid in a meta 
 physician lost" David regretted having spent his life 
 in painting ; it was diplomacy, he thought, that he 
 ought to have studied, having been intended by nature 
 to change the politics of two hemispheres. The cele 
 brated comic actor, Listen, who nightly convulsed Lon 
 don with laughter by his delineations, and whose face 
 was one that a sensitive sculptor would almost faint to
 
 OUR DUAL LIVES. 169 
 
 look upon, believed that tragedy was his true vocation, 
 and that nothing prevented him from shining therein but 
 his droll and mirth-provoking visage. Another London 
 comedian, equally famous, believed himself fitted to 
 dazzle as Romeo, but for the accident of a weak leg; 
 and an Irish comedian, whose face, figure, manner, 
 and every motion were irresistibly ludicrous and provo 
 cative of merriment, rendering it impossible for him 
 to wink or stir a muscle without convulsing the spec 
 tators with laughter, yet believed most firmly that 
 high tragic parts were his forte, and that while he was 
 tickling the sides of his audience as an Irish bog- 
 trotter or servant, he should have been exciting their 
 hate as ShylocTc, their tears as Werner, or their horror 
 as Macbeth. 
 
 Even when they do not altogether believe that they 
 have missed their true vocation, men of genius often 
 fancy themselves strongest in those departments of 
 intellectual effort where they are the weakest, and waste 
 precious hours upon some art in which they are doomed 
 to lasting mediocrity. Montaigne calls attention to the 
 fact that Julius Caesar is at vast pains to make us 
 understand his inventions in bridge-building and war- 
 engines, while he is very succinct and reserved in 
 speaking of the rules of his profession and of his mili 
 tary exploits. Sir Walter Scott believed himself designed 
 by nature for a soldier, and that his lameness spoiled 
 an excellent life-guardsman. Milton preferred "Para 
 dise Regained" to any of his other poems; and Shak- 
 speare, indifferent to the fate of his dramas, believed 
 that his sonnets would immortalize himself; and the 
 mysterious " W. H." Byron was prouder of his " Hints 
 from Horace " than of " Childe Harold ;" and Campbell 
 was distressed at the thought of his tombstone being
 
 170 OUR DUAL LIVES. 
 
 inscribed to the memory of the author of " The Pleas 
 ures of Hope," when " Gertrude of Wyoming " was his 
 masterpiece. Goethe used repeatedly to say: "As for 
 what I have done as a poet, I take no pride in it 
 whatever. But that in my century / am the only per 
 son who knows the truth in the difficult science of colors, 
 of that, I say, I am not a little proud. There I 
 have a consciousness of superiority to many." Not less 
 naive was the reply of Michael Angelo, who, when he 
 proposed to fortify his native city, and was told to 
 stick to his painting and sculpture, observed that these 
 were his recreations, what he really understood was 
 architecture. 
 
 Perhaps no mistake touching our fellow-men is more 
 common than that of judging of the ordinary feelings 
 and habitual disposition of a writer by the tone of his 
 productions. Especially is this true of wits and humor 
 ists, who, though able to make others merry, have them 
 selves often been profoundly melancholy. No doubt 
 there is a thrill of pleasure, rising even to ecstacy, at 
 the first flashing of a droll idea on the mental horizon ; 
 but the elaboration of it in writing is often to the last 
 degree irksome and painful. Many a rib-tickling pro 
 duction, which is a source of exquisite enjoyment to 
 the public, has been produced in an agony of mental 
 misery, at the expense of the author's happiness and 
 of his life. The gayest and most sparkling essays are 
 often but the result of a temporary successful effort 
 to escape from the gloom of mental depression, or 
 from the pangs of a gangrened and festered spirit. 
 No others are so keenly alive to the enjoyment of 
 the ludicrous as they whose ordinary feelings partake 
 deeply of the tragic: they fly to it as an escape from 
 the monotonous gloom and wearing agony of their
 
 OUR DUAL LIVES. 171 
 
 habitual thoughts; they cling to it with feverish fond 
 ness, from a melancholy anticipation of the gloom which 
 will be felt in contrast at the departure of mirth. In 
 such circumstances jokes may be said to be coined 
 from the heart's blood, mirth to be distilled from 
 tears. Who, that is not familiar with Cowper's biogra 
 phy, would dream of the circumstances under which 
 " John Gilpin " was written ? The poet seems bubbling 
 over with animal spirits; yet, in the very hour when 
 he threw off this piece so steeped in fun, he was in a 
 state of mental gloom bordering on madness. There is, 
 indeed, hardly a verse of his which he did not compose 
 for the same reason that he painted or planed, made 
 rabbit-hutches or tamed hares, to get rid of his melan 
 choly thoughts. "I wonder," says the poet in a letter 
 to Mr. Newton, "that a sportive thought should ever 
 knock at the door of my intellect, and still more that 
 it should gain admittance. It is as if Harlequin should 
 intrude himself into the gloomy chamber where a corpse 
 is deposited in state. * * * But the mind, long 
 wearied with the sameness of a dull, dreary prospect, 
 will gladly fix its eyes on anything that may make a 
 little variety in its contemplations, though it were but 
 a kitten playing with her tail." It may be doubted 
 whether Shakspeare, in his youth at least, lived so con 
 stantly in the sunshine as we are apt to imagine. Many 
 of his sonnets breathe the spirit of hopeless despair. 
 He laments his lameness; deplores the necessity of 
 " goring his own thoughts," and making himself " a 
 motley to the view;" anticipates a "coffined doom;" 
 and utters a profoundly pathetic cry for " restful death." 
 There have been writers who seemed to possess the 
 power to charm only in proportion to the acuteness 
 and intensity of their own sufferings; the beauty and
 
 172 OUR DUAL LIVES. 
 
 power of whose minds were displayed only while the 
 work of death was going on within their diseased 
 frames, like the dolphin, the richness and splendor 
 of whose colors are exhibited only while the unhappy 
 fish lies panting on the deck, and the blood swiftly 
 courses its veins amid the throes and agonies of death. 
 It has been truly remarked of Butler, the satirist of 
 the Puritans, that nothing remains of his private his 
 tory but the record of his miseries; and Swift, we are 
 told, was never known to smile. It is well known that 
 the fantastic doggerel of the latter was composed while 
 he was the prey of misanthropy and discontent. The 
 last nine years of his life were dragged out in intense 
 mental and bodily suffering, and he died, as he had 
 feared and ' half predicted, " in a rage, like a poisoned 
 rat in a hole." Gay, the careless laugher of " The Beg 
 gar's Opera," lived a sad life, and wrote for his own 
 epitaph these saddest of lines: 
 
 Life is a jest, and all things show it ; 
 I thought so once, but now I know it. 
 
 When Goldsmith was composing one of his merriest 
 comedies, he was harassed by debt, and wrote to a 
 friend: "Here I am, studying jests with a most tragi 
 cal countenance." It was in the chill and desolation 
 of a fireless garret that this vagabond of literature 
 sketched his bright pictures of domestic happiness. 
 The gayest flights of "Don Juan" originated in the 
 gloomiest and most desolate hours of the morbidly- 
 sensitive Byron, when, like his own Manfred, he "felt 
 his soul was ebbing from him," and his body, "limb 
 by limb, destroyed." Burns confessed, in one of his 
 letters, that his design in seeking society was to fly 
 from constitutional melancholy; but they who were
 
 OUR DUAL LIVES. 173 
 
 fascinated by his wit, or entranced by his eloquence, 
 little thought that all his liveliness, keenness and 
 energy sprang less from an anxiety for display than 
 from a horror of solitude. "Even in the hour of 
 social mirth," he tells us, "my gayety is the mad 
 ness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of 
 the executioner." As the nightingale is said to sing 
 the most sweetly with the thorn in its breast, so the 
 most exquisite songs of poets have often been prompted 
 by the acuteness of their personal sufferings. As Shel 
 ley says, they are 
 
 cradled into poetry by wrong; 
 
 They learn in suffering what they teach in song. 
 
 The most facetious of all Charles Lamb's letters 
 was written to Bernard Barton in a fit of the deepest 
 melancholy. In his correspondence he often alludes to 
 his exquisite "Elia" and other essays as "wrung from 
 him with slow pain." "I wish all the ink in the ocean 
 dried up," he says, "and would listen to the quills 
 shrivelling up in the candle-flame like parching mar 
 tyrs." Blanchard wrote the first three, and the best, of 
 the inimitable "Caudle Lectures" while tortured by the 
 gripe of poverty, and when his wife lay at the point of 
 death, a blow the poignancy of which led him to put 
 an end to his own life. Cervantes, Molie"re, and nearly 
 all of the most celebrated humorists, were melancholy 
 men; and their dismal experiences remind us of the 
 comic actor who, having split the sides of the Parisians 
 with his fun, asked a physician to proscribe for his 
 profound melancholy, and was told there was but one 
 cure, to go and see Carlini. " Alas !" was the reply, " I 
 am Carlini." We all know the story of Thomas Hood; 
 how he got his bread by puns; paid his butcher and
 
 174 OUR DUAL LIVES. 
 
 baker by painfully-elaborated jocosities, of all busi 
 nesses the most dreary, and the one which gives the 
 most ghastly aspect to human life. In him it was the 
 thinnest of partitions that divided tears from laughter; 
 his whole life was an illustration of the truth that 
 
 There's not a string attuned to mirth 
 Has not ita chord of melancholy. 
 
 In short, the "quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles" 
 of an author's writings afford but a doubtful key to 
 the state of his feelings; and it would seem as if, in 
 almost every case, the delicious humor which so charms 
 us in his pages gushes from him like the sweet gum 
 from a wounded tree. 
 
 Another of the remarkable contrasts between the 
 outer and the inner man is the discrepancy we often 
 notice between the profession one follows in public, 
 and the private tastes which he cultivates and cherishes. 
 "Blessed is the man that hath a hobby!" said Lord 
 Brougham; and Brougham himself, who ranged all the 
 fields of politics, philosophy, science, and literature, 
 who had so many hobbies that "Science was his forte, 
 and omniscience his foible," was a burlesque of his 
 own doctrine. Could we know how every man of our 
 acquaintance, who has a regular calling by which he 
 pays his butcher's bills, passes his leisure-hours, we 
 should often be surprised to find how slight a clue 
 one's public character affords to the profounder sympa 
 thies of his nature. Some of the most drudging, busi 
 ness-devoted men in the community, who apparently 
 think and talk of nothing but "two per cent, a 
 month" or "comer lots," we should find in private 
 indulging in some taste, such as a love for pictures or 
 belles-lettres, which argues a totally different character
 
 OUR DUAL LIVES. 175 
 
 beneath the surface. A merchant who is noted for the 
 keenness with which he pursues every means of money- 
 making, and the inflexibility with which he insists on 
 the last cent of his dues, is found to be overflowing 
 with zeal for the cause of temperance, education, mis 
 sions, or some other of a kindred character, for which 
 he is ready to pour out his money like water. 
 
 How often the plodding, black-letter lav/yer, who 
 seemingly has not a thought beyond the hard, dry 
 technicalities of Coke or Littleton, is known by his 
 bosom-friends to be an ardent lover of literature, and 
 to spend his leisure-hours in drawing from the "pure 
 wells of English undefiled," or in distilling the sweet 
 ness of the Greek and Roman spring! Perhaps this 
 "gowned vulture," as old Burton would term him, 
 whom the million suppose to be perpetually busy in 
 exasperating the bickerings of Doe and Roe, and blow 
 ing up every little spark of a dispute into a blazing 
 quarrel, is deeply interested in some philanthropic 
 movement, some Christian-Association, or Freedmen's- 
 Aid-Commission, or Orphan-Asylum, or Public-Library 
 movement, and divides his leisure-time between the 
 study of his favorite authors and the preparation of 
 elaborate articles on the enterprise for the reviews, 
 magazines, or newspapers. Perhaps his hobby is Greek- 
 Testament translation, and, after toiling all day to con 
 vict a criminal, he flies on the wings of steam to some 
 snuggery in the outskirts of the town, where, sur 
 rounded by copies of the Sinaitic and other manu 
 scripts, and all the English, German, and American 
 Commentaries, piled up on the floor and table, he may 
 detect some false rendering of a Greek particle, or hit 
 upon a happier reading of an aorist, which shall pro 
 voke a louder /'Eureka!" than the baffling of a cut-
 
 17<J OUR DUAL LIVES. 
 
 throat's lawyers. Perhaps this " hired master of tongue- 
 fence" is a picture-fancier, who is profoundly impressed 
 with the glories of art, and is learned in oils and var 
 nishes; who drops often into the auction-room, and 
 nods his head to the knight of the hammer, at the 
 cost of fifty dollars a nod; who descants by the hour 
 on his Bierstadt, or his Vandyke, of whom "an un 
 doubted original" hangs in his parlor, sups with a 
 Holbein or a Titian confronting him on the wall, and 
 dreams all night of the mysterious gloom of Rem 
 brandt, the savageness of Salvator Rosa, and the "cor- 
 regiosity of Correggio." Perhaps, again, his hobby is 
 autographs, old letters, scraps of paper, fly-leaves from 
 books, and bits of franked envelopes, which he keeps 
 under lock and key, lest Bridget should take them for 
 litter, and consign them to the fire^or convert them 
 into lamp-lighters. Or, lastly, he may be passionately 
 fond of music; giving private concerts in his own 
 parlor; often scraping away himself on the violin, or 
 puffing at the trombone, or thumping on the piano; 
 and dinning the ears of his friends with eternal praises 
 of Mozart, and Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, of Mar 
 tini and Rhigini, and all the others that end in "ini," 
 and fifty more whom to pronounce were to dislocate 
 one's jaws, but whom to hear is Elysium. 
 
 There are few persons who are not familiar with 
 more or fewer instances of men who have thus an 
 inner self strongly contrasting with their outer self, 
 something nobler or meaner than the visible man, 
 something which makes him think more highly of 
 himself than the world thinks of him, or which, if 
 known, would make him the target of universal ridi 
 cule and scorn. Some years ago, one of the best 
 entomologists in Chicago was a common workman in
 
 OUR DUAL LIVES. 177 
 
 a cabinet-maker's shop. To-day, one of the profoundest 
 and best-read metaphysicians in the same city is a 
 German educated in the best German and Scotch uni 
 versities, who earns the leisure which he spends in 
 brooding over the mysteries of our spiritual being by 
 selling, as a clerk, coats, vests, and trowsers for the 
 physical man. The most extensive book-publisher in 
 Great Britain, whose publications would of themselves 
 form a large private library, we know to be a rose- 
 fancier, who has in his garden, just out of London, 
 fifteen hundred distinct varieties of roses, for many 
 of which he has sent to the farthest corners of the 
 globe, and paid fabulous sums. A single rose-tree has 
 cost him two hundred and fifty dollars. When one 
 visits a public office, he is often greatly struck by the 
 mechanical regularity of the scene. The officials look 
 like automata, or pieces of clock-work wound up to do 
 certain duties; and he can scarcely persuade himself 
 that they have under their waistcoats hearts beating 
 with the same passions as his own. Yet, perhaps, there 
 is not one of these stiff, formal -looking beings, or cast- 
 iron men, who does not indulge in some curious, out- 
 of-the-way taste or hobby in his ex-officio character. 
 Some years ago there was in Dundee, Scotland, a 
 servant to the Magistrates, wearing their livery, who 
 was by far the most learned man in town. There was 
 about the same time a butcher in the Edinburgh mar 
 ket who spent all his spare time in reading books of a 
 profoundly philosophical character. Hobbes, Hutcheson, 
 Stewart, and Brown were his constant companions. In 
 the same metropolis there was a porter who was remark 
 able for the zeal with which, with self-made machinery, 
 he pursued experiments in electricity; and in a public 
 office might have been seen a dull-looking man, who,
 
 178 OUB DUAL LIVES. 
 
 though seemingly devoted only to its dry details, was a 
 most profound student of the etymologies of European 
 and Eastern languages, and wrote little tracts on ob 
 scure texts, which attracted the attention of English 
 Bishops. 
 
 The greatest monarchs have not always been happi 
 est when wearing the crown. One of the Kings of 
 Macedon loved better to make lanterns than to wield 
 the sceptre; and a King of France found his chief 
 delight in making locks. Domitian spent houYs in 
 catching flies. The French statesman, Turgot, found a 
 solace for the loss of office in the study of physical 
 science, and cheated the gout of its torture by making 
 Latin verses; a sample of which we have in the famous 
 line on Franklin : 
 
 Eripuit ccelo fulmen, eceptrumque tyrannis. 
 
 Sir George C. Lewis, when not busied with budgets, 
 copied Greek manuscripts in the British Museum, or 
 investigated reported cases of longevity. Occasionally 
 we hear of a discrepancy between a man's public and 
 private character that is too ludicrous for belief. "I 
 have heard," says an English writer, "of a clever, 
 active farmer, who, while universally respected as a 
 first-rate agriculturist, a man of large means and liberal 
 understanding, was accessible to no flattery on these 
 accounts; but, if you had only told him that you had 
 heard of his possessing a wonderful power of squeaking 
 like a pig, and were extremely anxious to hear him try 
 it, he would blush and hesitate, like a young lady asked 
 to sing, disclaim all merit, say it was great nonsense, 
 and finally, after a sufficiency of pressing, he would 
 exhibit as a pig evidently believing that, if fortune 
 had played him fair, he would have astonished the
 
 OUR DUAL LIVES. 179 
 
 whole world by his art, instead of being only a 're 
 spectable farmer.' " 
 
 Another striking discrepancy between the outer and 
 the inner man is the vivid contrast which we often 
 observe of a person's talk or writings with his life, of 
 his speculation with his acts. It has been truly said 
 that there is a division of labor even in vice ; some 
 men addict themselves to the speculation only, others 
 to the practice. Montaigne tells us that he "always 
 observed supercelestial opinions and subterranean morals 
 to be of singular accord;" and it is a fact which has 
 escaped the notice of few, that purists, hypocrisy apart, 
 are sometimes the freest livers; while, on the other 
 hand, some of the most latitudinarian professors of a 
 general license of behavior have been the last to take 
 the benefit of their own doctrines, from which they 
 reap nothing but the obloquy, and the pleasure of 
 startling their "wonder- wounded" hearers. An author's 
 book is often a poor key with which to unlock his 
 character. Because certain poets have been enthusiastic 
 in their praises of wine, we may not positively infer 
 that they were addicted to tippling. It was the very 
 rarity of the indulgence that gave such zest to their 
 strains; for, as the truly heart-broken mourner suffers 
 only an occasional sob to escape him, so no man cares 
 to descant ecstatically upon any subject with which he 
 is thoroughly familiarized. Men of genius who have 
 happy homes do not babble about that happiness in 
 their writings. Nine-tenths of those who have raved 
 in rapturous stanzas about the sweets of conjugal love 
 were bachelors shivering in solitary garrets. 
 
 Could the secrets of authorship be disclosed, it 
 would be found that romances of foreign lands come 
 generally from persons who have never smelt salt-water,
 
 180 OUB DUAL LIVES. 
 
 just as "stories of real life," showing "a deep insight 
 of human nature," come from those who would be 
 shocked at an iron spoon. Rural life is the eternal 
 burden of a sailor's talk; while farmers, who are fix 
 tures of the soil, think nothing so pleasant as a life of 
 sight-seeing and adventure in foreign lands. Moun 
 taineers and rustics have an intense appreciation of the 
 advantages of great cities; while, on the other hand, 
 the denizens of great, ugly, smoky towns have a pas 
 sionate longing for beautiful scenery and rustic retire 
 ment. The author of "The Intellectual Life" says 
 truly that the development of modern landscape-paint 
 ing has been due, not to habits of rural existence, but 
 to the growth of very big and hideous modern cities, 
 which made men long for shady forests, and pure 
 streams, and magnificent spectacles of sunset, and dawn, 
 and moonlight. Paul Jones, the hero of desperate sea- 
 fights, loved Thomson's "Seasons"; Bonaparte, who 
 overran Europe with his armies, recreated himself with 
 the wild rhapsodies of Ossian; and Spinoza, who passed 
 his days among the cobwebs of metaphysics, amused 
 himself by seeing spiders fight. 
 
 The most exquisitely-delicate artists in literature and 
 painting have astonished their friends by their coarse 
 ness; and Swift even declared that a nice man is a 
 man of nasty ideas. It is said that within the Chateau 
 briand of "Atala" there existed an obscene Chateau 
 briand that would burst forth occasionally in talk that 
 no biographer would repeat; and the same has been 
 affirmed of the sentimental Lamartiue. Turner, dreamer 
 of enchanted landscapes, took the pleasures of a sailor 
 on a spree. Too much thinking drove Johnson to his 
 cat for conviviality ; and a similar reaction drove Byron 
 to fight for Greece.
 
 OUR DUAL LIVES. 181 
 
 Heron's "Comforts of Human Life" was written, 
 under the most painful circumstances, in prison ; Beres- 
 ford's "Miseries of Human Life" was composed in a 
 drawing-room, amid the most elegant appointments and 
 luxuries. Seneca was never more eloquent in his 
 praises of poverty than when writing on a table of 
 gold, with a large sum on deposit at his banker's. It 
 was from a sick bed, in exile, and in sore distress, that 
 Tom Hood shook all England with laughter. He who 
 was so thin and spectre-like that he looked like an 
 afternoon shadow of somebody else, was always writing 
 about fat people; and, though the prince of jesters, 
 was so grave and saturnine, that, when travelling with 
 the Prussian army to Berlin, he was taken for the 
 Chaplain of the regiment. Johnson, who wrote so well 
 on politeness, trampled on all the "linen decencies" of 
 life; and Sterne, who wept over a dead ass, neglected 
 his living mother. "Go, poor fly, I will not harm 
 thee; surely, the world is big enough for thee and me," 
 could be said by a domestic tyrant; and the tender 
 love-notes to the unhappy Stella came from a man of 
 so cruel a heart that it has been said that his tender 
 ness was manifest only on paper. On the other hand, 
 when Lady Blessington's effects were sold by auction, 
 who, think you, of the twenty thousand persons who 
 visited the house previously, alone showed any visible 
 emotion at the wreck of a prosperity in which most 
 of them had shared? It was Thackeray, the cynic 
 and satirist of woman, whose theory of her, expressed 
 with bitter irony in one formula, all clever women 
 are wicked, and all good women are fools, has made 
 his name hateful to the sex. The finest pastorals have 
 been written in the city; the most mirth-provoking 
 jests have fallen from the lips of the gloomiest men;
 
 182 OUB DUAL LIVES. 
 
 and great wits in society have startled the world with 
 tragedies in their closets. Dr. Young, whose Parnas 
 sus was a churchyard, who drank of the Eiver Styx 
 instead of Hippocrene, and who sought his inspiration 
 from cross-bones and skulls, was a jovial, pleasure- 
 loving man and a court-sycophant, who, having supped 
 full of the world and its follies, turned state's evidence 
 against them, and satirized the pursuits in which he 
 had failed. On the other hand, Listen, the comic actor, 
 who maddened London nightly with laughter, used to 
 sit up after midnight to read the Doctor's "Night 
 Thoughts," delighting in its monotonous gloom. Men's 
 characters, like dreams, must be unriddled by contraries. 
 But how shall we explain this phenomenon, this 
 dualism by which a man lives, from youth to age, two 
 different and strongly contrasted lives? Shall we say, 
 in all cases where a man fancies himself "cut out" for 
 some other calling than that in which he has signalized 
 himself, that he is self-deluded? Is it impossible that 
 opposite intellectual powers can coexist in the same 
 person? Is every man doomed to play, Paganini-like, 
 on a single string? Shall every Brougham who aston 
 ishes us by his many-sidedness, be told that "science 
 is his forte, omniscience his foible ? " Even if we reject 
 Dr. Johnson's notion, that genius is nothing more than 
 great general powers of mind, capable of being turned 
 any way, and that "a man who has vigor may walk 
 to the East just as well as to the West," must we of 
 necessity adopt the opposite extreme of Emerson, that 
 every man is born to some one thing, and that only, 
 which no other man can do? that "he is like a ship 
 in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side 
 but one: QU that side all obstruction is taken away,
 
 OUR DUAL LIVES. 183 
 
 and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into 
 an infinite sea?" 
 
 Doubtless, in the vast majority of cases, though 
 there may be some foundation for the individual's be 
 lief that he has missed his true vocation, and that 
 nature intended him for something better or higher, 
 yet he exaggerates his qualifications, and only dreams 
 of another self grander than that with which the world 
 has credited him. The truth of the matter is, the mind 
 wearies of monotony, and needs the rest of alternation 
 as much as the body. We all hate self-imprisonment; 
 we long occasionally to get out of ourselves; to throw 
 off the yoke of our own personality; and, like Pope's 
 youth, 
 
 "Foredoomed his father's soul to cross, 
 Who pens a stanza when he should engross," 
 
 if we can escape for a time from the drudgery of our 
 ordinary calling, and soar into some higher atmosphere 
 where we can breathe more freely, we feel like a bird that 
 has escaped from its cage, or a prisoner who has thrown 
 off his shackles. Merely in getting out of our groove, 
 in forgetting for a few hours the iron realities of our 
 daily life, and imagining ourselves something else, 
 there is a new and unwonted sensation. New faculties 
 are called into play, and we experience a delight akin 
 to that which is felt in our dreams, when we fancy 
 ourselves giants, and perform physical impossibilities. 
 Hence Pascal has remarked that if an artisan could 
 imagine for twelve hours that he was a king, he would 
 be almost as happy as a king who for twelve hours 
 imagined himself an artisan. 
 
 Again, in a man's true calling, wherein he has won 
 distinction, he sees and appreciates all the difficulties
 
 184 OUR DUAL LIVES. 
 
 to be overcome; and because they loom up in fearful 
 proportions, and seem insurmountable, he sinks into 
 despondency while others are echoing his praises. It is 
 precisely because he has adopted a lofty standard, be 
 cause he is haunted by an ideal which forever lures 
 him on, yet, like the horizon, forever flies before him, 
 mocking him with its unattainable beauty, because, as 
 he climbs one rugged steep after another, 
 
 " Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise," 
 
 that he is self-dissatisfied, and regrets that he did 
 not choose some other calling. In an art, however, for 
 which his genius does not fit him, in which no im 
 possible ideal tantalizes him, he sees no difficulties 
 which he does not readily overcome, and, being easily 
 self-satisfied, applauds himself where the true artist, 
 the master, would be filled with profound dissatisfaction 
 and melancholy. Yet it is doubtless true that chance, 
 not the bent of one's genius, often determines his pro 
 fession, and hence "the round man" often gets into 
 "the square hole," and dies in obscurity, when, under 
 different circumstances, he might have won distinction 
 and happiness. 
 
 Vanity may fool one here, but who will deny that 
 a vast amount of talent in society does thus run to 
 waste? Who has not thought, again and again, of 
 what, under more favorable circumstances, he might 
 have been? Do angels ever weep? It must be when 
 they see men walk through life as through a masque, 
 veiling their true selves from every eye, giving only 
 occasional glimpses of the real man in whimsical tastes 
 and eccentricities, drudging through tasks in which 
 they feel no enthusiasm, acting up to characters im 
 posed upon them, doing nothing from the heart, and
 
 OUR DUAL LIVES. 185 
 
 "goring" their best thoughts to make them lie still. 
 When we consider how much of the world's menial 
 work must be done by those who feel within them 
 selves incessant promptings to nobler tasks, we see the 
 need of Christian principle that we may stand like true 
 soldiers to the posts which our Maker has assigned us. 
 Viewed in this light, no labor that is necessary can be 
 low or sordid, but, as good George Herbert beautifully 
 sings : 
 
 "A servant with this clause 
 
 Makes drudgery divine: 
 Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws, 
 
 Makes that and the action fine." 
 
 Again, when we reflect how many thousands are 
 compelled by stern necessity to follow vocations unsuited 
 to their tastes and powers, we shall pause before think 
 ing meanly of any man on account of the lowliness of 
 the duties which God has called him to perform. 
 There is a class of religionists in the East, says a writer, 
 who will strike no animal, from a belief that possibly 
 the soul of some late endeared relative of their own 
 may now occupy its body; just so, when we feel dis 
 posed to contemn the lowly duties of any man, we 
 might do well to consider that possibly faculties are 
 there which might, under advantageous circumstances, 
 have ruled "listening senates," or "waked to ecstacy 
 the living lyre." 
 24
 
 MEKRY SAINTS. 
 
 MERRY saints! Yes, reader, and why not merry 
 saints, as well as jovial sinners? Why, if reli 
 gion be designed to make us happy, should it come to 
 us always in the shape of a death's head and a cross- 
 bones, or any other memento morif When will the old 
 theological idea that mortals are sent here as to a place 
 of sore chastisement and mortification, be rooted from 
 our minds? We are not living in the middle ages, nor 
 can we be made to believe that the sect of Flagellants, 
 who lashed themselves during the day till the blood ran 
 into their shoes, and who sang penitential psalms all night 
 in cold rooms in midwinter, or any of the other old 
 saints the longitude of whose faces so far exceeded the 
 latitude, had the true secret of piety. "True godliness 
 is cheerful as the day," wrote Cowper, himself lugubrious 
 enough ; and even the founder of our faith, by direct 
 ing us when we fast to anoint our countenances, and 
 not to seem to fast, enjoins a certain liveliness of face. 
 It has been well said that all great, whole-hearted peo 
 ples have been lively and bustling, noisy almost, in 
 their progress, pushing, energetic, broad in shoulder, 
 strong in lung, loud in voice, of free, brave color, bold 
 look, and bright eyes. They are the cheerful people in 
 the world, 
 
 Active doers, noble livers, strong to labor, sure to conquer, 
 and soon outstrip in their course the gloomy and the
 
 MERRY SAINTS. 
 
 despondent. An hilarious elasticity of nature is surely 
 one of the most invaluable qualities a man can have; 
 why, then, should not the faculty of being merry, of 
 finding an eager pleasure in all sorts of objects and 
 pursuits, be trained and encouraged? And why should 
 the man who goes through the world with sober, solemn 
 jowl be thought to be showing a deeper sense of the 
 worth of life, and to be making more of his abilities, 
 than the elastic man? We would not see the pious 
 man with a perpetual broad grin on his face, for the 
 pious are thoughtful, and thoughtfulness cannot endure 
 to be a long while yoked with "laughter holding both 
 its sides;" yet there is a harmless mirth, as old Fuller 
 calls it, in the middle zones between frantic merri 
 ment and the indigo blues, which the devout man will 
 find no hindrance to the cultivation of his religious 
 feelings, while it is the best cordial for his spirits. 
 
 It was a maxim of Bishop Elphinstone, an eminent 
 Scottish saint, that when any one sits in company, and 
 any merry thought comes into his head, he ought to 
 give utterance to it immediately, so that all present 
 may be benefited. Sydney Smith, when a poor, strug 
 gling curate at Foston-le-Clay, a dreary, out-of-the-way 
 place, wrote : " I am resolved to like it, and to reconcile 
 myself to it, which is more manly than to fancy myself 
 above it, and to send up complaints by the post of 
 being thrown away, or being desolate, and such like 
 trash." Acting in this spirit, he said his prayers, made 
 his jokes, cheered and helped his neighbors, and upon 
 fine mornings used to draw up the blinds of his little 
 parlor, open the window, and "glorify the room," as 
 he called the act, with sunshine. Yet this was nothing 
 to the sunshine that flooded his heart and lighted up 
 his face; and so buoyant was he in spirit when his
 
 188 MERRY SAINTS. 
 
 physical strength was nearly exhausted, that, just before 
 he died, he playfully described his condition by saying, 
 "I feel so weak, both in body and mind, that I verily 
 believe if a knife were put into my hand, I should not 
 have strength or energy enough to stick it into a dis 
 senter." 
 
 A more striking example was Robert Hall, who 
 could indulge in merry jests and pungent sayings even 
 when suffering from sharp pain. " Mr. Hall," said some 
 one to him, "I understand you are going to marry 
 
 Miss ?" "I marry Miss ! I would as soon 
 
 marry Beelzebub's eldest daughter, and go home and 
 live with the old folks." To a solemn brother who 
 rebuked him for his vivacity, he replied: "You carry 
 your nonsense into the pulpit ; I keep mine out." Even 
 when stricken with mental hallucination, he did not 
 lose his relish for a jest. When a stereotyped condoler 
 called upon him at the asylum, and asked, in a whining 
 tone, "What brought you here, Mr. Hall?" he signifi 
 cantly touched his head and replied, "What'll never 
 bring you, sir! too much brain, sir! too much brain!" 
 Thomas Paine, writing against the Bible, he character 
 ized as "a mouse nibbling at the wing of an archangel." 
 Dr. Gill's Commentary was a "continent of mud;" the 
 writings of Owen "a valley of dry bones." When we 
 think of the dreadful agonies that racked Mr. Hall's 
 powerful frame, we cannot wonder that he thought of 
 heaven chiefly as a place of rest, nor that his experi 
 ence was sometimes clouded by storms and darkness, 
 just as many of his majestic sermons are tinged by 
 the shades and terrors that grew upon his great soul; 
 but it is a marvel to which we can find nothing more 
 wondrous in the whole library of brave anecdote, that, 
 after tossing and writhing upon the rug before the
 
 MERRY SAINTS. 189 
 
 fire, the only place in which he could get ease, he could 
 start up livid with exhaustion, and with the sweat of 
 anguish on his brow, to proclaim without a murmur 
 from his pulpit the message of God to a lost world. 
 "I suffered much," the noble hero used to say after 
 these paroxysms, "but I did not cry out, did I? did I 
 cry out?" 
 
 We do not deny that a laugher may be, nay, too 
 often is, a scoffer and a scorner. Some jesting there 
 is that is like "the crackling of thorns under a pot;" 
 and some jesters there be, who are fools of a worse 
 breed than those that used to wear the cap and the 
 bells. But, as Archdeacon Hare so justly observes, 
 though a certain kind of wit, like other intellectual 
 gifts, may coexist with moral depravity, there has often 
 been a playfulness in the best and greatest men, in 
 Phocion, in Socrates, in Luther, in Sir Thomas More, 
 which, as it were, adds a bloom to the severer graces 
 of their character, shining forth with amaranthine bright 
 ness when storms assail them, and springing up in 
 fresh blossoms under the axe of the executioner. It is 
 the strongest and most thoughtful mind that perceives 
 most keenly the manifold and perpetually-occurring 
 contradictions, and incongruities, and inconsistencies of 
 life; and hence a great writer regards humor as often 
 " the natural associate of an* intense love of truth, if it 
 be not rather a particular form and manifestation of that 
 love," leading one to strip off the artificial drapery 
 and conventional formalities of life, and to look straight 
 at the realities hidden beneath them in their naked con 
 trasts and contradictions. Such was the humor of 
 Luther, of whom it has been said that he was "open 
 as the sky, merry as the sunshine, bold and fearless as 
 the storm." He believed that the earth was the Lord's
 
 190 MERRY SAINTS. 
 
 and the fulness thereof, and never thought that he 
 honored God by wearing a long face. So he cracked 
 jokes with Lord Gate, as he playfully called his wife; 
 talked to his cat, and patted the head of his old dog, 
 which he had for sixteen years; laughed, body and 
 soul, at the caricatures of the Pope which hung upon 
 his study wall; and replied to the denunciations of 
 his enemies by merry jests. Not so John Calvin. To 
 him this world was a waste, howling wilderness ; God's 
 curse was upon it, and therefore he had no eye for its 
 beauty, no ear for its music. He had no favorite cats 
 and pet dogs, no flutes and pictures and merry games, 
 like Luther; he rarely smiled, and still more rarely 
 laughed; and when he did laugh, it was a very weak, 
 thin, sniggering, husky affair, what Carlyle calls a 
 kind of laughing through wool, not at all like the 
 clear, loud, ringing laugh of Luther. We may respect 
 the great Genevan as a giant of theology; but who, as 
 he reads his biography, thinks of clasping him to his 
 heart, as he does Doctor Martin? 
 
 That pink of propriety, Lord Chesterfield, thought 
 it ungentlemanlike to laugh. It was a shocking dis 
 tortion of the face. " I am sure," he wrote to his son, 
 " that since I have had the full use of my reason, no 
 body has ever heard me laugh." We cannot help 
 thinking that it would have been far better for him if 
 he had occasionally given way to his feelings, and not 
 impressed the world with the notion that he was all 
 starch and formality, that everything he said or did 
 was calculated. He was the politest, best-bred, most 
 insinuating man about the Court; and yet he was con 
 tinually outflanked and outmanoeuvred by Sir Eobert 
 Walpole, who had the heartiest laugh in the Kingdom, 
 and by the Duke of Newcastle, who had the worst
 
 MERRY SAINTS. 191 
 
 manners in the world. The over-sober Christian will 
 hardly be proud of Chesterfield as an ally. 
 
 The truth is, the best men have been the fondest 
 of innocent mirth. It has been truly said that the 
 clergy, as a body, are among the most humorous of 
 men. Were their quips, and pranks, and mirth-pro 
 voking jests collected into a volume, they would make 
 one of the most amusing books in literature. Old Dr. 
 Em-mons, of Franklin, Mass., said as pungent things 
 at table as in the pulpit. His wit was as sharp as his 
 logic. A young preacher occupied his pulpit one day, 
 and at dinner angled for a compliment. "I hope I 
 did not weary you by the length of my sermon, Doc 
 tor?" "No, nor by its breadth, either." "I am 
 afraid," said another young clergyman, "I did not get 
 fairly into my subject, in my sermon to-day." "Well, 
 young man, do you know the reason why? It was 
 because your subject never got into you." Lyman 
 Beecher was full to bursting with humor. Some friends 
 wished him to prosecute a libeller. "I once threw a 
 folio of divinity at a skunk. I got a new suit of 
 clothing, and had to pay for the rebinding of the 
 volume." Henry Ward Beecher's witticisms would fill 
 a volume. To a brother who was to preach an official 
 sermon in Plymouth church, who was celebrated for 
 the length and ponderosity of his performances, the 
 pastor said: "Eight under your feet is a genuine 
 Baptist pool. It is of the orthodox dimensions, and 
 half full of water. The spring is under my foot. If 
 the preacher is dry and long, I touch the spring and 
 let him in!" Spurgeon is noted for the keenness and 
 causticity of his wit, and during his gravest sermons 
 the hearer's face often relaxes into a smile. When a 
 well-known bore sent word to him that " a servant of
 
 192 MERRY SAINTS. 
 
 the Lord" wished to see him, "Tell him," was the 
 reply, " that I am engaged with his Master." In preach 
 ing to a company of butchers, he opened with the hymn, 
 
 Not all the blood of beasts 
 On Jewish altars slain, etc. 
 
 When told that twins were born to him, he cried out: 
 
 Not more than others I deserve, 
 Yet God has given me more. 
 
 Some years ago a clergyman near Boston asked 
 another, who was noted for his prolixity, to preach for 
 him. "I cannot," was the reply, "for I am busy 
 writing a sermon on the Golden Calf." "That's just 
 the thing," was the rejoinder; "come and give us a 
 forequarter of it." 
 
 The fact that so many men who have been brimful 
 and running over with wit and humor have been among 
 the simplest and kindest-hearted, nay, among the de- 
 voutest of men, convinces us that it is the harshness 
 of an irreligious temper, masking itself as religious zeal, 
 that scowls on all manifestations of mirth. If in the 
 Church of to-day there are many conscientious persons 
 who 
 
 " In arioso trills and graces 
 
 Never stray, 
 
 But gravissimo, solemn bases, 
 Ham away," 
 
 it was not so with Latimer, Bishop Earle, Fuller, Fene- 
 lon, and many others whom we could name, in the 
 olden time. Then, a ready wit and a talent for clever 
 answers were deemed not unsuitable accompaniments to 
 a devout soul completely resigned to the will of heaven. 
 Some of the sharp sayings of Thomas Aquinas are to be
 
 MERRY SAINTS. 193 
 
 found among the pleasantries of Joe Miller. Where is 
 the writer whose pungent witticisms oftener provoke a 
 laugh than do those of Dr. South, of the English 
 Church? What humorist ever shook the world with 
 more inextinguishable laughter than the gloomy and 
 mortified Pascal ? Though he belonged to the sour sect 
 of the Jansenists, the " Old Light " seceders of the Kom- 
 ish Church, yet his Provincial Letters is the wittiest 
 book that France can boast. One of the most illus 
 trious divines whom that Church has produced thus 
 speaks of jocular discourse in a treatise whose express 
 object is to inculcate holiness: "As for jesting words 
 which are spoken by one to another with modest and 
 innocent mirth, they belong to the virtues called Eutra- 
 phelia by the Greeks, which we may call good conver 
 sation, by which we take an honest and pleasant recrea 
 tion upon such frivolous occasions as human imperfec 
 tions do offer ; only we must take heed of passing from 
 this honest mirth to scoffing, for mocking causeth 
 laughter in scorn and contempt of our neighbor, but 
 mirth and drollery provoke laughter by an innocent 
 liberty, confidence, and familiar freedom, joined to the 
 witness of some conceit." So talks one of the old, me 
 diaeval writers of the Church; and yet an opinion 
 prevails that they were a set of crabbed, morose, ascetic 
 religionists, who were shocked at every burst of laughter, 
 and looked upon a jest with horror! Why, they were 
 the very incarnation of mirth, compared with some of 
 the gloomy, long-faced pietists of the present day.
 
 ONE BOOK. 
 
 AMONG the maxims which have come down to us 
 from antiquity, there are few wiser than the 
 Latin proverb, "Beware of the man of one book!" 
 By "the man of one book" is meant, not, as some 
 interpret the words, the man who has read but a single 
 volume, but the person who has made some book his 
 pet, his chosen companion, devoting his time to the 
 critical, exclusive study of it till, like the iron atoms 
 of the blood, its ideas have become a part of his men 
 tal constitution. Who can doubt that such a study 
 would be eminently profitable to the majority of readers 
 to-day? Of two young men of equal capacity, let one 
 read widely and miscellaneously, browsing freely upon 
 every kind of literary provender that falls in his way, 
 and let the other limit himself to the vigorous and 
 exhaustive study of some great paramount author, some 
 masterpiece exacting close attention and continuous 
 thought, such as Butler's Analogy, Edwards on the 
 Will, Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants, Burke's 
 French Revolution, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, etc., or 
 Mill's Logic, conning and brooding over it day by 
 day and hour by hour, and can any man doubt which 
 of the two students would be the most dangerous an 
 tagonist in the intellectual arena? While the former 
 would have acquired a mass of heterogeneous impres 
 sions lying in confused masses in his memory, like the
 
 ONE BOOK. 195 
 
 shreds and patches of a rag-bag, the latter would have 
 both enriched his mind and gymnazed it by a rigid 
 mental discipline, invigorating every faculty. 
 
 But we are not left to theorize on the effects of 
 such a discipline, for the biographies of the profoundest 
 thinkers and the most accomplished orators and authors 
 show that they have been preeminently, in the just 
 sense of the phrase, "men of one book." Demosthenes, 
 we are told, was so fascinated by the history of Thucy- 
 dides, that, to obtain a perfect mastery of his style, he 
 recopied the work eight times. Sir William Jones 
 never wearied of the works of Cicero, reading them 
 through every year. Leibnitz, who drove all the 
 sciences abreast, spent a large portion of his leisure 
 hours upon one or two chosen authors. At such time, 
 Virgil, his favorite, was always in his hand, and, when 
 old, he could repeat whole books of the ^Eneid by 
 heart. Dante, too, thumbed the Roman poet from 
 morning till night. Clarendon acquired his masterly 
 style of literary portrait-painting from Tacitus, whom 
 he read day and night; and Montesquieu, the tersest of 
 French authors, got the secret of condensation from 
 the same Roman historian, who, he said, "abridged 
 everything because he saw everything." Voltaire had 
 always at his elbow the Athalie of Racine and the 
 Petite Careme of Massillon, the one the finest model 
 of French verse, the other of French prose. Rousseau 
 went to Plutarch, Montaigne, and Locke for inspira 
 tion, and Lord Chatham hung over the pages of the 
 mighty Barrow till he could repeat some of his long 
 sermons by heart. Tonson, the bookseller, rarely called 
 upon Addison without finding Bayle's Dictionary on 
 the table. Gray drank inspiration from Spenser; 
 Coleridge lighted his lamp at that of Collins. In a
 
 196 ONE BOOK. 
 
 large circle of men of letters, some years ago in Eng 
 land, the readiest man was one who had diligently and 
 devotedly studied Homer, so diligently and devotedly 
 indeed, that, upon any line being given him, he was 
 able in most cases to repeat the next. The old bard 
 was his passion, his idol, his book of books; and there 
 was not a difficulty in the idiom, an obscurity in the 
 allusion, a labyrinth in the construction, or a subtle 
 beauty in the poetry, with which he was not thoroughly 
 familiar, and could not acutely and agreeably explain. 
 By the intensity of that study he had not only so 
 developed his reasoning powers as to become a most 
 prompt and clear-headed debater, but he had also 
 acquired a completeness of execution which he carried 
 into every pursuit, and, more than that, his intellect 
 had gained a weight and power which were felt by all 
 who knew him. 
 
 Pycroft, in his Course of Reading, tells us that an 
 eminent literary character of the present day was often 
 found in his childhood lying on his bed, where he 
 would not be interrupted, reading Robinson Crusoe. 
 "Only reading Robin, only Robin," was the constant 
 excuse for all absence or idleness; and, beginning as a 
 boy with this devotion to one book, he became a man 
 of one book, making Shakspeare his favorite author, 
 and devoting a lifetime of labor to the interpretation and 
 illustration of the thousand-souled bard. Are there not 
 many desultory, indiscriminate, wholesale readers, mere 
 "helluones librorum," or book-gluttons, who would 
 profit by thus thoroughly digesting and assimilating one 
 great author, instead of regaling themselves upon all the 
 luscious, lulling fruits that tempt their literary appetites ? 
 Is it not as true now as in the days of Seneca, that- 
 "he that is everywhere is nowhere," and that the trav-
 
 ONE BOOK. 197 
 
 eler who is always in motion, though he may experience 
 much hospitality, will make no friendships? 
 
 "We are aware of the replies that may be made to 
 all this; that the man who feeds upon one kind of 
 intellectual diet, will be in danger of mental scurvy; 
 that mental, like physical stomachs, have their idiosyn 
 crasies, and no one sweeping rule can be laid down for 
 all; that variety of knowledge is always useful when 
 pursued with singleness of aim, and, if it result in 
 mere superficiality, it is because it "goes into a bad 
 skin;" that though a weak mind, which cannot digest 
 a single wholesome meal, may be rendered still weaker 
 by indulging its whimsical incongruous tastes, and 
 nibbling at a multitude of dishes, yet such is the con 
 stitution of a healthy intellect, that it can grasp from 
 every side with avidity, and yet without surfeit, thought 
 of all sorts, studies from every direction, varieties, coin 
 cidences, differences, and contrasts, and assimilate them 
 all to its growth and needs. All this we do not dis 
 pute, for literary history abounds with instances of men 
 who have plunged headlong into a sea of miscellaneous 
 reading, and found in it a stimulus and an inspiration 
 which they could never have found in a single pond 
 or lakelet of thought. Sir Walter Scott and Dr. John 
 son are examples. The former, when a boy, had an 
 anaconda-like digestion; history, poetry, tale, romance, 
 legend, all were devoured by him with a most voracious 
 appetite. But is an intellect like Scott's to be a gauge 
 of the capacity of men in general ? The mind of the 
 great "Wizard of the North" was a law unto itself, and 
 independent of common discipline. There are cases, 
 and his was one, where the very strength of the 
 craving more than compensates for the absence of an 
 outward rule. His mind swooped down like an eagle
 
 198 ONE BOOK. 
 
 upon everything that was suited to its tastes, fastened 
 upon it instinctively, and converted it into just the 
 kind of nourishment it required. Not a jot or tittle 
 was wasted; every thought, anecdote, illustration, simile, 
 was assimilated, and became a part of his mental life- 
 blood. 
 
 But how many Scotts are there in every nation or 
 generation? Is it not clear that a tithe of the indis 
 criminate reading which he could digest so quickly 
 and profitably, would only breed dyspepsia in an ordi 
 nary mind? Does not the truth still remain, that, 
 for the generality of men, miscellaneous reading is, as 
 Rev. F. W. Robertson says in one of his letters, "the 
 idlest of all idleness, and leaves more impotency than 
 any other;" that "it becomes a necessity, at last, like 
 smoking, and is an excuse for the mind to lie dor 
 mant, while thought is poured in, and runs through a 
 clear stream of unproductive gravel on which not even 
 mosses grow?" Widely and indiscriminately as John 
 son read, ranging, as he did, over all the fields of 
 literature, he did not commend his example to others. 
 " Beware," he said, " of the man of one book. Beware of 
 the man who knows anything well. He is a dangerous 
 antagonist" What was it, but his profounder knowl 
 edge of the history of American politics than any other 
 man had, that made Horace Greeley so formidable an 
 opponent ? That profound thinker, Hobbes of Malmes- 
 bury, used to say, that if he had read as many books 
 as other men, he should have known as little. It may 
 be doubted whether the facilities for obtaining books in 
 these days are not a curse to many persons rather than 
 a blessing. Certain it is that the literary giants of old 
 were very differently situated in this respect, and that 
 this was, in no small degree, the secret of their greatness.
 
 ONE BOOK. 199 
 
 The very scantiness of their libraries, by compelling 
 them to think for themselves, was an advantage, just 
 as, by the law of compensation, financial poverty is often 
 a blessing in disguise. The great majority of men must 
 concentrate, must patiently cultivate some province of 
 thought, or they will experience the disappointment 
 of those heroes whose empire has been lost in the ambi 
 tion of universal conquest. 
 
 Take note that, in so warmly commending the man 
 of one book, we do not mean the reader who ignores all 
 others, but one who, while making not a few great works 
 his companions, yet selects one among them to be 
 not only his companion but his bosom friend, which he 
 will nocturna versare manu, versare diurna, with 
 which he will commune till his mind is thoroughly 
 saturated with its thought, dyed and colored by its 
 ideas, yet, while drinking in its inspiration in ox-like 
 draughts, never losing his own mental identity or inde 
 pendence, but growing in stature and strength by what 
 he feeds on, upon the principle that serpens, nisi ser- 
 pentem comederit, non fit draco. We emphasize the 
 word communion because it is evident that though 
 reading is common, communion with books is rare in 
 this hurrying age, and that if we would get the greatest 
 good from any great thinker, we should cultivate the 
 closest acquaintance with him, till we have sounded all 
 the depths of his intellect, and made his intellectual 
 treasures our own. Of such a communion with books, 
 especially if they are the bravest and noblest books, 
 books forged at the heart and fashioned by the intellect 
 of the bravest and noblest men, who can be dull 
 enough not to feel the benefit when he returns to the 
 common world?
 
 PULPIT ORATORY. 
 
 "TTT~HY is it that pulpit oratory is productive of 
 VV comparatively small results? Why is it that 
 of the millions of sermons delivered annually in the 
 United States, so few are remembered for a day, fewer for 
 a week, and fewer still make a lasting impression, and 
 revolutionize men's convictions, feelings, habits, tastes, 
 characters ? Reasoning a priori, would not one suppose 
 that the results of pulpit oratory would be so brilliant 
 as, in comparison, utterly to "pale the ineffectual fires" 
 of the lecture-room, the hustings, and the forum ? Had 
 an ancient critic, an Aristotle or a Quintilian, been told 
 that a time was coming when myriads of persons should 
 assemble every seventh day to be addressed upon the 
 truths of a religion sublime beyond all the speculations 
 of philosophers, yet, in all fundamental points, within 
 a child's apprehension, that the loftiest, the profound- 
 est, the most heart-moving of all themes were to be the 
 topics of the address, that the reception given to it 
 might, and probably would, affect the hearer's condition 
 for weal or woe through inconceivable cycles of time, 
 could the critic for a moment doubt that such occa 
 sions must train up a race of consummate orators, the 
 overwhelming effect of whose eloquence must make the 
 efforts of Demosthenes and Cicero seem puny and con 
 temptible? Yet what is the fact? Out of the fifty 
 thousand or more discourses that will be delivered next
 
 PULPIT ORATORY. 201 
 
 Sunday between the St. Croix river and the Golden 
 Gate, how many will startle or coax men out of their 
 sins ? Will one in a hundred of the arrows shot by 
 the clerical bowmen prove barbed ones, not only lodg 
 ing in the heart, but sticking there ? Or, will not the 
 fact be, that, with comparatively few exceptions, they 
 will but graze the surface of that organ, or scratch the 
 epidermis of the hearer, or, perhaps, fall short of the 
 mark, in other words, that while the preacher is ha 
 ranguing, some of his hearers will be brooding over 
 problems in their business, others planning a "cor 
 ner" in wheat or some stock, others pursuing a strain 
 of thought suggested by some chance word of the 
 speaker, others building air-castles, others uneasily pull 
 ing out their watches and counting the minutes to 
 dinner or bed-time, and others criticising their neigh 
 bors' dresses, or criticising the preacher, and wondering 
 that on so inspiring a theme he should harangue in 
 so humdrum a way? We fear the latter supposition 
 will prove to be the correct one, and we propose to 
 state what we think to be one of the fundamental rea 
 sons why the ministrations of the pulpit are so often 
 abortive of results. 
 
 This reason, we believe to be, in the vast majority 
 of cases, not a defect in the matter, but in the manner, 
 chiefly the delivery, of discourses. Of course, in the 
 clerical, as in all other professions, there are men who 
 have mistaken their calling. Many a man, as South 
 says, "runs his head against a pulpit" who should 
 have followed the plough; and it is still true as when 
 Milton uttered his sarcasm, that "if any carpenter, 
 smith, or weaver, were such a bungler in his trade as 
 are many clergymen in their profession, he would starve 
 for any custom." It is perfectly true that ministers
 
 202 PULPIT ORATORY. 
 
 fail, like other men, from incapacity, dullness, laziness, 
 half-heartedness, from all the causes that cripple men's 
 intellects, and paralyze men's energies. So long as 
 parents continue to think that weak, sickly boys, who 
 have not force enough to succeed in law, medicine, or 
 trade, "will do" for the ministry, that a youth who 
 has not sharpness enough to sift evidence or expose a 
 sophism, who lacks nerve to badger a witness or ampu 
 tate a leg, may yet be qualified for that profession 
 whose members are to scatter the sophistries of Strauss 
 and Renan, and to smite wickedness in high places, 
 the pulpit will continue to have its incapables. With 
 all these concessions, however, it is still true that the 
 main element of ineffectiveness in preaching is the dis 
 regard, the almost contempt, of manner in speaking. 
 The crying want of the pulpit to-day is not profound 
 scholarship, hair-splitting metaphysic subtlety, rhetori 
 cal talent, a firmly accentuated conscience, or the moral 
 aroma of character, but oratorical skill and power. Of 
 what use is learning to a preacher, if it is communi 
 cated to his hearers in squeaking tones that grate on 
 their ears, or in a drawling, sing-song voice that puts 
 them to sleep? What matters it that a soldier has a 
 sword of dazzling finish, of the keenest edge, and the 
 finest temper, if he has never learned the art of fence ? 
 All life abounds with illustrations showing that 
 manner is as potent an element of success as matter, 
 form as substance. It is said that Dryden used to 
 speak his plays so coldly as utterly to emasculate them; 
 while Nat Lee delivered very poor dramas with such 
 force and taste that a performer threw down his part, 
 in despair of acting up to the recital of the author. 
 That famous angler and devout man, Izaak Walton, 
 who, being a brother-in-law of Bishop Ken, knew inti-
 
 PULPIT ORATORY. 203 
 
 mately many of the most successful clergymen of the 
 seventeenth century, seems to have understood the 
 secret of fishing for men better than many of the 
 professors in our theological seminaries. In "The Com 
 plete Angler" he tells of a certain youthful sprig of 
 divinity, who, going "to procure the approbation of a 
 parish," and wishing to make his success certain, bor 
 rowed of a fellow student a sermon which the latter 
 had preached with great e"clat. After a few days the 
 borrower came back very much crestfallen, and com 
 plained that the sermon, which he had delivered word 
 for word, was a failure. "I lent you, indeed, my fid 
 dle," was the reply, "but not my fiddlestick." From 
 this, honest Izaak very sensibly concludes that "the ill 
 pronunciation or ill accenting of words in a sermon 
 spoils it." 
 
 The truth is, there never was a great preacher who 
 was not also a great orator; and there was never a 
 great orator who did not pay immense attention to the 
 science of expressing by tongue and gesture the burn 
 ing thoughts within him. Some of the most extraor 
 dinary effects of oratory have been produced by passages 
 which, when we read them in our closets, seem tame 
 and commonplace. The Country Parson justly remarks 
 that we can see nothing remarkable in those quotations 
 from Chalmers which are recorded as having so over 
 whelmingly oppressed those who heard them. It was 
 his manner, not his matter, that electrified his hearers. 
 The elder Booth, being once asked to repeat the Lord's 
 Prayer, did it with such power and pathos that every 
 heart in the room was hushed, and every eye was wet; 
 and the gentleman who made the request said : " I have 
 heard the words a thousand times, but I never heard 
 the Lord's Prayer before."
 
 204 PULPIT ORATORY. 
 
 It is, indeed, astonishing how much weight, and 
 effect, and pathos may be communicated by sonorous 
 depth and melodious cadences of the human voice to 
 sentiments the most trivial; and, on the other, how the 
 grandest may be emasculated by a style of delivery 
 which fails in distributing the lights and shadows of 
 a musical intonation. In what other way can we ac 
 count for the fact that some of the profoundest and 
 most scholarly discourses, discourses which, when read, 
 seem full of "reason permeated and made red-hot with 
 passion," have fallen almost powerless from the lips 
 of their authors, while a single verse of Scripture, com 
 ing from the lips of another man, has acted like an 
 electric shock, "tearing and shattering the heart," to 
 use De Quincey's fine figure, " with volleying discharges, 
 peal after peal?" 
 
 If there is a preacher in this country who, by the 
 weight of his thought, and the impressiveness of his 
 style, could afford to dispense with elocutionary helps, 
 it is Dr. Bushnell. He is a preacher of the rarest in 
 tellectual gifts, whose masterly sermons on "The New 
 Life" show that, except in the charms of delivery, 
 which he undervalues, if not despises, he has no supe 
 rior in America. Yet, in spite of the weight of his 
 thoughts, the cogency of his logic, and the dazzling 
 fence of his rhetoric, who could listen to a sermon of 
 his for the fourth, or even third time, without a sense 
 of being bored? Yet such was the charm of White- 
 field's oratory, that a man heard him preach the same 
 discourse seventeen times, and liked it the seven 
 teenth time far better than the first time. Indeed, the 
 cold-blooded and skeptical Dr. Franklin, who was so 
 often swept away from his conservative moorings by the 
 mighty flood of Whitefield's eloquence, declared that his
 
 PULPIT ORATORY. 205 
 
 oratory never reached its full height till he had deliv 
 ered a sermon forty times. Were Dr. Bushnell to listen 
 to one of his own impressive discourses pronounced by 
 a Summerfield or a Spurgeon, or any other preacher 
 capable of presenting it to his ear in its full signifi 
 cance, he would probably be amazed at its vast possi 
 bilities of impressive utterance, and would cease to 
 recommend to neophytes, as he did a few years since, 
 to cultivate mental gifts to the comparative neglect of 
 oratorical, even if he should not half doubt whether he 
 were listening to his own production. Even of Henry 
 Ward Beecher's sermons, it has been justly observed, 
 that he who knows them only as they appear in print, 
 can form but a dim conception of their omnipotence as 
 they burst into being from the flaming breath of the 
 great preacher. "Show me," said Omar the Caliph to 
 Amru the Warrior, "the sword with which you have 
 fought so many battles, and slain so many infidels." 
 "Ah!" replied Amru, "the sword without the arm of 
 the master is no sharper nor heavier than the sword of 
 Farezdak the poet." 
 
 The immense importance of manner in preaching is 
 still further illustrated by an anecdote which Professor 
 Lawson, a theological teacher in England, used to tell 
 of one of his pupils, Andrew Fletcher. Dr. Fletcher, 
 after completing his theological studies, passed th^ first 
 two years of his ministry in a colleagueship with his 
 father, a clergyman of Perthshire, Scotland. When the 
 father preached, the listeners were few; when the son 
 discoursed, the house was flooded. The father's sermons 
 elicited no praises, the son's were loudly applauded; 
 whereat the former became jealous and irritable. At 
 length the son borrowed one of his father's sermons, 
 and on the following Sunday preached it from memory
 
 206 PULPIT ORATORY. 
 
 with great emphasis and animation. The hearers were 
 louder than ever in praise of the youthful orator, and 
 one worthy remarked, "The old man never in his life 
 preached a sermon equal to that!" It has been well 
 observed that a discourse delivered by one man becomes 
 an entirely different discourse when delivered from 
 another's lips, and charged with another's spirit. When 
 Mirabeau's friend complained that the Assembly would 
 not listen to him, that fiery leader asked for his speech, 
 and the next day electrified the Assembly by uttering 
 as his own the words they had refused to hear from 
 another. "The words were the same; the force and 
 the fire that made them thrilling and electric, were not 
 his friend's, but his own." 
 
 Need we add to all these illustrations the further 
 ones that, according to Lord Chesterfield, the Duke of 
 Argyle, his contemporary, though the shallowest thinker 
 and the weakest reasoner, was listened to with more 
 delight than any other man in the House of Lords; 
 and that while the speech for the Gregorian Calendar 
 by Lord Macclesfield, a consummate astronomer, was 
 received with yawns, that of Chesterfield himself, who, 
 as he himself tells us, was utterly ignorant of the science, 
 but a captivating orator, chained the attention and won 
 the votes of the House? 
 
 Bishop Berkeley once said that nine-tenths of the 
 talent and learning of England were lost to it for want 
 of attention to elocution. The profoundest knowledge 
 of the elocutionary art, and the most perfect facility in 
 the application of its rules, will not avail, however, 
 without deep feeling, unaffected earnestness, in the 
 preacher. Next to lack of oratorical skill, the greatest 
 defect of our preachers, as a body, is, not that they 
 are, but they too often seem to be, wanting in heart.
 
 PULPIT OKATORY. 207 
 
 They are not flames, but icicles. They preach to the 
 head, not to the heart. They may argue with logical 
 precision, but they argue coldly. They convince the 
 understanding, but do not manifest sensibility enough 
 to touch the warm sympathies, and make a vivid im 
 pression upon the feelings of even the devout soul. 
 Instead of giving a deep and commanding interest to 
 their arguments by applying them to those feelings 
 which are common to all hearts, and which will eagerly 
 answer when appealed to, they endeavor to interest the 
 understandings of men in opposition to their feelings, 
 and to set up the intellect in contemptuous despotism 
 over every generous and glowing sympathy. Who can 
 wonder, when religious truth is enforced in this dry, 
 argumentative, phlegmatic manner, when the preacher 
 reads his drowsy lucubration without lifting his nose from 
 the text, or venturing to earn the shame of an enthu 
 siast, that the harangues of the pulpit are so destitute 
 of living energy, and fail to alarm the profligate, or to 
 animate the desponding? What would be the result, if 
 an actor at the theatre, instead of throwing his whole 
 soul into his "counterfeit presentment" of feeling, his 
 mimicry of the "billowy ecstasy of wo," should drawl 
 through his part in the freezing manner of many 
 preachers? Would he not be hissed from the stage, or 
 play to empty boxes? 
 
 Lord Erskine, who is so celebrated for the delicacy 
 and tenderness with which he sometimes describes 
 scenes of domestic endearment and felicity, and for the 
 lofty tone of indignation with which he lashes and 
 scourges their invaders, remarks, in the letter introduc 
 tory to the published speeches of Fox, that "intellect 
 alone, however exalted, without strong feelings, with 
 out, even, irritable sensibility, would be only like an
 
 208 PULPIT ORATORY. 
 
 immense magazine of powder, if there were no such 
 element as fire in the natural world. It is the heart 
 which is the spring and fountain of all eloquence." 
 Sheridan, himself, in the opinion of Burke and Fox, 
 the greatest orator of modern times, held evidently the 
 same opinion, for he said of one whose ministry he at 
 tended, "I go to hear Rowland Hill, because his ideas 
 come red-hot from the heart" Nothing can be more 
 true. To be eloquent, a man must be himself affected. 
 He must be sincere. He must be in earnest. In his 
 own heart must burn the fire which he would kindle 
 in the bosoms of others: 
 
 " Si vis me flere, dolendum est 
 Primum ipsi tibi," 
 
 says Horace, and the maxim will hold to the "last syl 
 lable of recorded time." There must be a certain hon 
 esty and open-heartedness of manner, an apparently 
 entire and thorough conviction of being in the right, 
 an everlasting pursuit of, and devotion to, the subject, 
 to a seeming neglect and unconcern as to everything 
 else: emotion, feeling, passion. Even in discourses of a 
 logical character, where the reasoning approaches almost 
 to mathematical demonstration, the hearers will not be 
 impressed, they will scarcely listen with patience, un 
 less they are persuaded that the conclusions to which 
 the speaker would force them, are the deliberate and 
 solemn convictions of his own mind. A cold-blooded, 
 phlegmatic preacher may produce a discourse irresistible 
 in argument, elaborately perfect in rhetorical embellish 
 ment, and painfully correct in style, but nothing can 
 give it that electric fire which darts through and 
 through an audience, kindling each heart into enthu 
 siasm, save natural feeling expressed with the fervor of 
 earnest sensibility.
 
 PULPIT ORATORY. 209 
 
 The only way to be eloquent in the pulpit is to 
 banish every thought of self, to forget everything but 
 God and duty. The triumphs of true eloquence, touch 
 ing, grand, sublime, awful, as they sometimes have 
 been, are seen only when the orator stands before you 
 in the simple majesty of truth, and, overpowered by 
 the weight of his convictions, forgets himself and for 
 gets everything but his momentous subject. You think 
 not of who speaks, or how he speaks, but of what is 
 spoken; transported by his pathos, your rapt imagina 
 tion pictures new visions of happiness; subdued by the 
 gushes of his tenderness, your ears mingle with his; 
 determined by the power of his reasoning, you are 
 prompt to admit, if not prepared to yield to, the force 
 of his arguments; entering with your whole heart and 
 soul into the subject of his address, you sympathize 
 with those strong emotions which you see are in his 
 bosom, burning and struggling for utterance; and soon 
 find yourself moving onward with him on the same 
 impetuous and resistless current of feeling and passion. 
 "It is amazing," says Goldsmith, "to what heights elo 
 quence of this kind may reach. This is that eloquence 
 which the ancients represented as lightning, bearing 
 down every opposer; this is the power which has turned 
 whole assemblies into astonishment, admiration, and 
 awe; that is described by the torrent, the flame, and 
 every other instance of irresistible impetuosity." 
 
 To conclude, let our theological professors cease to 
 expend all their energies in cramming their pupils with 
 Hebrew, ecclesiastical history, and exegesis, and spend 
 more time in teaching them how to communicate their 
 knowledge, thoughts, and feelings in a pleasing yet 
 weighty and impressive manner. Let the student be 
 told with continual iteration, till the truth is burned
 
 210 PULPIT ORATORY. 
 
 into his brain, that he may be armed cap-a-pie with 
 the most approved theological weapons, yet fail to win 
 a single victory from lack of skill in using them. A 
 few pebbles from a brook, in the sling of a David, who 
 knows how to send them to the mark, are more effect 
 ive than a Goliath's spear and a Goliath's strength with 
 a Goliath's clumsiness.
 
 ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 AMONG the complaints made against the literature 
 of our day, one of the commonest is that it lacks 
 originality. Not only the poets, as Tennyson, Long 
 fellow, and Alexander Smith, are accused of stringing 
 their lyres to the old tunes, and singing songs which have 
 been sung substantially a thousand times before, but 
 our philosophers and historians, our novelists, essayists, 
 and theologians, are included in the same sweeping 
 condemnation. There are some cynieal critics who not 
 only claim that originality is rare, almost as rare as 
 honesty in Congressmen, but contend that it is nearly, 
 if not quite, impossible. If an enthusiastic reader goes 
 into raptures over what he fancies to be some fresh, 
 unique, and suggestive work, full of seed-thoughts, and 
 which positively gives him a new sensation, these criti 
 cal Velpeaus will proceed to dissect it, and show that 
 every thought and illustration is traceable to some pre 
 ceding writer who flourished a hundred or a thousand 
 years ago. The raw material out of which poems and 
 novels are made is limited, they say, in quantity, and 
 speedily exhausted. The number of human passions 
 upon which the changes can be rung is very small; 
 and the situations to which their play gives rise may 
 be counted on the fingers. Love returned, and love 
 unrequited, jealousy and envy, anger, pride, avarice, 
 generosity, and revenge, are the hinges upon which all
 
 212 ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 poems and romances turn, and these passions have been 
 the same ever since Adam. In Homer, Virgil, Plautus, 
 and Terence, we have an epitome of all the men and 
 women on the planet; and there is nothing new in the 
 world except the costumes of men and the cut of their 
 hair and whiskers. Even in invention, it is urged, there 
 is nothing new. The moderns have utilized many old 
 ideas, but they have originated nothing. Franklin stole 
 the thunder, if not the lightning, of somebody else; 
 Colt's revolver is as old as Cromwell's troopers; and it 
 is quite certain that neither Fulton, nor Watt, nor 
 the Marquis of Worcester, nor Blasco de Garay, but 
 some countryman of Confucius, living centuries ago, 
 invented that wondrous engine through which the lawless 
 winds have been made to cower before the mightier 
 powers of steam. In short, in literature and in science 
 it is alike true that there is nothing of which it may 
 be said, " See, this is new ! " but, as Chaucer complained, 
 five hundred years ago, 
 
 Out of the olde fields, as men saithe, 
 Cometh all this new corn fro year to year; 
 And out of olde books, in good faithe, 
 Cometh all this newe science that men lere. 
 
 Is this a just statement of the case? Must we ad 
 mit that every domain of thought was preempted before 
 the moderns appeared, that the ancients stole all their 
 ideas before they had them, and that to seek for 
 originality in our day is to chase a will-o-the wisp? 
 To answer this question, it is necessary to understand 
 clearly what " originality " is. If by originality is meant 
 the invention of something absolutely new, whether in 
 science, art, action, reflection, method, or application, 
 it is hard to believe in its existence now or at any
 
 ORIGINALITY IN LITERATUEE. 213 
 
 time since the germs of thought first began to shoot 
 forth in the prehistoric ages. No people on the earth 
 can claim, independently of others, to have struck out 
 any thoughts for the good of mankind. Of all the 
 nations of antiquity, the Phoenicians might most plausi 
 bly make this boast. The first known metallurgists, 
 they also displayed a brilliant genius for navigation 
 and trade, and introduced the letters of the alphabet 
 into Europe. But as to originality, they had none, 
 except "original sin." Possessing a powerful receptive 
 nature, and imbibing largely from earlier and more 
 Oriental peoples, they quickly digested and assimilated 
 their borrowed knowledge, and, as the great middle 
 men between the East and West, played an important 
 part. But, though admirable literary merchants, they 
 were not producers of thought. So, too, the Arabs, 
 with all their wonderful quickness and muscularity of 
 intellect, were "the hierophants, and not the oracle." 
 They were the purveyors and expounders of science be 
 tween ancient Greece and modern Europe; but they 
 gave to the world nothing un thought of before. 
 
 Nearly all the great discoveries and original inven 
 tion^ of modern times have been shown to have ex 
 isted in their germs, if not in full bloom, thousands 
 of years ago. Disraeli believes that the Romans knew 
 the secret of movable types, but would not let it be 
 known, for fear of the spread of knowledge, and the 
 loss of the aristocratic monopoly of enlightened thought. 
 De Quincey holds that printing was long known to the 
 ancients, but made no progress for want of paper. 
 Gunpowder was a pyrotechnic plaything long before it 
 was used to kill men. Telescopes, some scientists tell 
 us, must have been directed to the stars of the antique 
 heavens, or their astronomy could not have existed.
 
 214 ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 Alexander's copy of the Iliad, inclosed in a nutshell, 
 could hardly have been written without a microscope; 
 and the gem through which Nero looked at the distant 
 gladiators was essentially an opera-glass. " The mallea 
 bility of glass, the indelibility of colors, and fifty other 
 things of importance, dropped by the ancients into the 
 stream of time," says a well-informed writer, " we have 
 to fish up anew." Photography, which the nineteenth 
 century claims as beyond all cavil its own invention, is 
 described by a French writer in 1760 with even greater 
 perfection of detail than we can now attain to, pho 
 tography producing color as well as form; and M. 
 Fournier has shown that the magnetic telegraph was 
 invented more than two centuries ago. 
 
 What shall we say, then? That originality in our 
 day is an impossibility? that Parnassus has been 
 robbed of its richest laurels, and the unhappy writer of 
 this century can only pick up what bygone explorers 
 have left behind? Yes, if by originality is meant an 
 absolute creation of new material, an isolated act of 
 bare imitation, instead of an act of adaptation or 
 moulding so as to resemble a new creation, and, in 
 deed, to be one. But if by originality is meant a just 
 selection and vitalizing of materials that already exist, 
 a fresh and novel combination of ideas, imparting new 
 life to what is combined, and this is the only origin 
 ality that is or ever was possible in any age, then 
 the writers of to-day are as original as any that ever 
 held a stile or dipped their pens in ink. To be a 
 literary creator, it is not necessary that a man should 
 make a tabula rasa of his brain. Genius would soon 
 starve and pine away, if not ceaselessly fed by the 
 memory. As Burke justly says, " there is no faculty 
 of the mind which can bring its energy into effect,
 
 ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE. 215 
 
 unless the memory be stored with ideas for it to work 
 upon;" to which we may add that the very best pumps 
 will not play till you pour in water to start them. 
 Originality in the creative arts, as well as in science, 
 may be displayed as signally in method as in subject- 
 matter. To reproduce is, in fact, to produce again. 
 The process is the same, provided that it is carried 
 out with equal energy; and it is simply nonsense to 
 say that vigor ceases to be vigor because it starts upon 
 a beaten track. 
 
 True, it is the mark and the prerogative of genius, 
 as John Foster has said, to be capable of lighting its 
 own fire; but it is no mark or proof of theft or lack 
 of inventive power, if it sometimes kindles its fire by 
 an electric spark caught from some kindred mind. 
 Grant that Morse, for example, who is regarded as the 
 inventor of the electric telegraph, was indebted, like 
 Franklin, Watt, and Arkwright before him, to the sug 
 gestions of others; grant that Leverrier, as he searched 
 the boundless realms of space with his telescope for a 
 spot in which to locate the undiscovered planet, availed 
 himself of the labors and recorded demonstrations of 
 Newton; and that even the starry Newton availed him 
 self of the numerical labors of a humble contemporary 
 at the very moment when he lay under suspicion of 
 trying to retard that individual's hard-earned profits 
 and impede his fame; do these facts detract one jot or 
 tittle from these great men's fame? By no means. It 
 is true enough that when Franklin sent his kite into 
 the clouds, the world was not wholly ignorant of the 
 laws of electricity; he had some scattered facts and 
 ideas to start with ; but it was the step beyond that gave 
 him immortality. Admit that Morse stood on the 
 shoulders, so to speak, of Priestley and Franklin, ap-
 
 216 ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 propriated the labors of Galvani and Volta, and even 
 derived from the all-suggesting Jackson, in 1832, as 
 the ship Sully was breasting the waves, the first hint 
 of the magnetic telegraph, still his merit is not less 
 ened. The fact is, that in all cases of invention the 
 praise of it is due not to the first conceiver of it, but 
 to the last complete applier of it. As Dr. Paley 
 says, "He only discovers who proves." Twenty men 
 thought of steamboats, but Fulton is the inventor of 
 the steamboat, because he first set a steamboat a-going ; 
 the rest were dreamers, inventors mentally, but not 
 inventors in the art. 
 
 All of the great poets have at some time been ac 
 cused of being great thieves; but nothing can be more 
 foolish than most of these attempts to rob them of 
 their fame. Every great writer is necessarily indebted 
 both to his contemporaries and to his predecessors. 
 The finest passages in prose and poetry are often but 
 embellished recollections of other men's productions. 
 Thought and memory, it has been no less finely than 
 justly said, are the Alpheus and the Arethusa of meta 
 physics; commit any material to the latter, and after a 
 long period of forgetfulness, by some subterranean tran 
 sition, it will appear floating on the surface of the 
 former, as though it had been thrown up from no 
 other sources than those of pure invention. Had Shak- 
 speare, thousand-souled as he was, been confined from 
 childhood to a desert island, could he have written the 
 poorest of his matchless dramas; or could Newton, un 
 aided by the preceding mathematicians, have discovered 
 the law of gravitation ? What, indeed, is every great 
 poem but a compendium of the imagination of centu 
 ries? What the masterpieces of painting, but a com 
 bination of the finest lines and the most exquisite
 
 ORIGINALITY IN LITERATUBE. 217 
 
 touches of earlier and inferior artists, or the noblest 
 works of statuary, but a blending into one form of 
 angelic beauty of the loveliest features and the most 
 graceful lineaments wrought by hands and chisels long 
 ago crumbled into dust ? 
 
 In all ages, the greatest literary geniuses have been 
 the greatest borrowers. Omniverous devourers of books, 
 with memories like hooks of steel, they have not 
 scrupled to seize and to turn to account every good 
 thought they could pick up in their readings. Milton, 
 who has been called " the celestial thief," boldly pla 
 giarized from Dante and Tasso, and all of them from 
 Homer; and who believes that Homer had no reservoir 
 of learning to draw from, no mysterious lake of knowl 
 edge, into which he could now and then throw a bucket? 
 Goethe laughed the idea of absolute originality to scorn, 
 and declared that it was an author's duty to use all 
 that was suggested to him from any quarter. "What 
 is a great man," asks Emerson, "but one of great 
 affinities, who takes up into himself all arts, sciences, 
 all knowables, as his food? * * * Every book 
 is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of 
 all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every 
 man is a quotation from all his ancestors." There are 
 some minds, and those, too, really productive, that 
 require the provocation of more suggestive and stimu 
 lating ones to make them work. They need the fertil 
 izing pollen of other men's thoughts to make them 
 productive. To attract every available thing to itself is a 
 natural characteristic of the magnetic ardor of genius. 
 
 All these great poets had enormous powers of assim 
 ilation; and it is evident to every scholar who reads 
 their works, that the metal in which they wrought was 
 not dug newly from the earth, but, like the Corinthian
 
 218 ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 brass of the ancients, was melted up from the spoils of 
 a city. 
 
 Occasional accidental coincidences of thought and 
 expression will not detract from a writer's just fame. 
 It is only the habitual and conscious thief, the man 
 who lives by plunder, and who thus shows himself to 
 be both weak and wicked, that merits the pillory. 
 Literal, bald borrowing, whether of the plan or treat 
 ment, the substance or form, the thoughts or expres 
 sions, of a work, is absolutely indefensible ; but he is 
 not a thief who borrows the ideas of a hundred other 
 men and repays them with compound interest. It is 
 one thing to purloin finely-tempered steel, and another 
 to take a pound of literary old iron, and convert it in 
 the furnace of one's mind into a hundred watch-springs, 
 worth each a thousand times as much as the iron. 
 When genius borrows, it borrows grandly, giving to the 
 borrowed matter a life and beauty it lacked before. 
 When Shakspeare is accused of pilfering, Landor replies : 
 "Yet he was more original than his originals. He 
 breathed upon dead bodies, and brought them into life." 
 It has been said of Pope that, whatever jewel he appro 
 priated, he set it in gold. Perhaps the best definition 
 of legitimate appropriation was given by Hegel, when 
 Cousin was accused of stealing his ideas. "Cousin," 
 said he, "has caught some small fishes in my pond, 
 but he has drowned them in his own sauce." This was 
 quite different from the case of a patchwork essay 
 read by a Mr. Fish, of which an old lady complained 
 that it was "so full of pollywogs that she could'nt 
 see the Fish." 
 
 For these reasons, about the meanest business a 
 literary man can engage in is that of arraigning authors 
 for theft on the score of petty parallelisms and coinci-
 
 ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE. 219 
 
 dences. The small critics who stoop to this are like 
 constables who thrive by catching thieves; they hunt 
 down the culprits, not because their moral sense is 
 outraged, but because they get a fee for hanging the 
 offender. The instinct of imitation, that affinity for 
 beauty and brightness, wherever found, which leads to 
 the appropriation and assimilation of other men's con 
 ceptions, that delicacy of sympathy, which causes the 
 mind to be possessed and haunted by their beautiful 
 thoughts and images to a degree that defies expulsion, 
 is one of the surest marks of genius. 
 
 "When Moli^re was taunted with having plagiarized 
 a scene here, a situation there, a character elsewhere, 
 he replied: " Je reprends mon bien ou je le trouve, 
 I recover my property wherever I find it." The whole 
 philosophy of plagiarism lies in that sentence. A man 
 of genius takes unhesitatingly whatever he can organ 
 ize; a vulgar plagiarist is a vulgar thief, a liar, and a 
 braggart, calling upon men to admire the peacock 
 splendor of his wretched daw nature. Nine-tenths of 
 what is denounced as plagiarism is only such as the 
 plants exercise upon the earth and air, or the bee 
 upon the flowers and honeysuckles, to organize the 
 stolen material into higher forms, and make it suitable 
 for the food of man. 
 
 The fact is, our literature, and all literature, abounds 
 with those similarities of thought and expression which 
 are so hastily denounced as larcenies. Eoman litera 
 ture was one immense plagiarism. The Roman drama 
 tists adapted Greek plays, just as the English now 
 adapt the French. Virgil "conveyed" many of his 
 most beautiful passages, picturesque images, and strik 
 ing epithets from the old Greek and Latin poets. 
 Chaucer borrowed from the Italian and Provencaux
 
 220 ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 romances and the fabliaux of the middle ages. Paley, 
 Butler, Southey, Gray, helped themselves freely to other 
 men's thoughts. "Garth did not write his own Dis 
 pensary." Ben Jonson got the materials of his mosaics 
 from the classics. His song, "Drink to me only with 
 thine eyes,'* is from the love-letters of Philostratus ; 
 "Still to be neat, still to be drest," is from a Latin 
 poem of Jean Bonnefons; and two of his others are 
 boldly borrowed from Catullus. Happy adaptation, old 
 Ben believed, was as great an act of genius as inven 
 tion. Mirabeau got the ablest of his speeches from 
 Dumont. Fox was often primed by Burke, and Burke 
 by Bolingbroke. Critics with provokingly tenacious 
 memories have declared that many of Eobert Hall's 
 gems of illustration were "conveyed" from Burke, Grat- 
 tan, and Warburton ; and that some of them have been 
 reconveyed by Macaulay from Hall. Coleridge "lifted" 
 from Frederica Brun the framework of his glorious 
 hymn to Mont Blanc. It has been asserted that all 
 the thinking in Chalmers's astronomical discourses is 
 cribbed from Andrew Fuller's TJie Gospel Its Own Wit^ 
 ness. 
 
 Byron, who helped himself freely to other men's 
 ideas, declared that all pretensions to originality are 
 ridiculous. Tom Moore once caught him with a book 
 filled with paper marks, and asked him what he was 
 doing. Byron replied, "Only a book from which I am 
 trying to crib, which I do whenever I can, and that is 
 the way I get the character of an original poet." Moore, 
 in relating this incident, says of Byron's reply, "Though, 
 in imputing to himself deliberate plagiarism, he was, of 
 course, but jesting, it was, I am inclined to think, his 
 practice, when engaged in the composition of any work, 
 thus to excite his vein by the perusal of others on the
 
 ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE. 221 
 
 same subject or plan, from which the slightest hint, 
 caught from his imagination as he read, was sufficient 
 to kindle there such a train of thought as, but for 
 that spark, had never been awakened, and of which he 
 himself soon forgot the source." 
 
 A writer in the British and Foreign Review, speak 
 ing of this laboring after originality, says Burton's 
 Anatomy of Melancholy is almost a centoism of ex 
 tracts, "yet, like the irregular forms and intricate colors 
 of cathedral windows, they produce a solemn and re 
 ligious harmony, of which the effect is more transparent 
 than the cause or the components." Dean Swift was a 
 notorious poacher. His voyages to Brobdingnag and 
 Laputa were borrowed from Cyreno Bergerac. M. Veri- 
 cour, in his work on Modern French Literature, tells 
 us that Rousseau borrowed largely from Sidney and 
 Locke; Byron borrowed from Rousseau and Goethe's 
 Faust. The German, Klopstock, borrowed from Mil 
 ton; Herder from Vico. Goethe openly acknowledged 
 his indebtedness to Shakspeare. M. Vericour, speaking 
 of Sir Walter Scott's habit of appropriating fragments 
 of history scornfully rejected by modern historians, and 
 weaving them into his romances, beautifully illustrates 
 this departure from originality by relating that, in the 
 Lincoln Cathedral, there is a beautifully-painted win 
 dow, which was made by an apprentice out of pieces 
 of glass rejected by his master. It was so far superior 
 to every other window in the church, that, according 
 to the tradition, the vanquished original artist killed 
 himself from mortification. 
 
 Literature is filled with stock ideas and illustrations, 
 which have become the property of whoever chooses 
 to use them. Calhoun's "masterly inactivity" is only a 
 translation of Horace's strenua inertia. Webster's " sea
 
 
 . 
 
 222 ORIGINALITY V JN LITERATURE. 
 
 '* t- 
 
 of upturned faces " was supposed jto be very fine and 
 very new, until some literary retriever scented it in the 
 page-of Scott. Paley's watch was obtained on tick 
 from Dr. Bernard -Nieuwentyt, a learned Dutchman. 
 Bacon's saying, " Antiquitas seculi juventus mundi " is 
 as old as Giordano Bruns, wh<rsaid that the first peo 
 ple of the world should rather be called the youngsters 
 than the ancients. Talleyrand's famous saying, "Lan 
 guage was given to man to conceal his thought," has a 
 long pedigree. It has been traced to Goldsmith, to 
 Voltaire, to South, to Job, and, we know not how many 
 others. Macaulay is deemed in original writer, yet few 
 authors have been indebted more to books for illus 
 trations. His ,^ew * Zealander dates back to Kirke 
 "White, to Shelley, to Horace Walpole, and to Volney. 
 Everybody laughed over his* famous hit at Dr. Nares, 
 but few who were tickled by the conceit suspected that 
 he had borrowed the weapon he was using. Some 
 mouser in mediaeval history at last discovered that the 
 Italian, Boccalin, was the author of the sarcasm. He 
 pretended that the laconic Venetian Senate once con 
 demned an unfortunate author who had been convicted 
 of using ttfree words where two were sufficient, to read 
 once over the history of the war of Pisa by Guicciar- 
 dini. The culprit with great agony labored through a 
 single page, and then prayed his judges to commute 
 his sentence to labor at the galleys for life. Another 
 saying is quoted from Macaulay, to the effect that it 
 was not so much the pain given to the bear, as the 
 pleasure experienced by the spectators, that led the 
 Roundheads, during the English civil wars, to put a 
 stop to bear-baiting. The same remark was made by 
 Hume long before, and was probably adopted by him 
 from some antecedent author.
 
 ORIGINALITY -Itf LITERATURE. 223 
 
 * ^ '"* , 
 
 The complaint so often made that " there is n*6tbing 
 new under the sun " is itself old, as old as literature 
 itself. Ovid complains of the early writers forfiaving 
 "stolen all the good things;" the early writers stole from 
 the Greeks; the Greeks ( cribbed from the Egyptians; flie 
 Egyptians filched from the antediluvians; and they, we 
 suppose, purloined from the Prometheus who stole the 
 fire directly from heaven: <It'is easy to raise the hue- 
 and-cry of plagiarism; but^in many cases, the si^ilari-^ 
 ties upon which the literary tipstaff puts his finger are 
 no more thefts than a chemical compound, the result 
 of mysterious affinities, is identical with the elements 
 that enter into it. " There is all the difference between 
 suggestion and plagiarism," says 'Henry Kogers, "that 
 there is between making blood from blood, and receiv 
 ing it into the veins by transfusion." " There are some 
 persons," says Pascal, " who would never haye an author 
 speak of things of which others have spoken ; otherwise 
 they accuse him of telling them nothing that is new. 
 But if the subjects he treats of be not new, the method 
 of treating them may be new. When two men play at* 
 tennis, they both play with the same ball, but one directs 1 
 it best. I should as soon accuse him of using old words ; 
 as if the same ideas did not form another body of dis 
 course by a different arrangement of them, just as truly 
 as the same words express quite different ideas by a 
 different arrangement."
 
 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 
 
 "V7~ES! will be the prompt and indignant reply of 
 JL nineteen out of twenty of those who, as Lamb says, 
 suck their sustenance, like sick people, through a quill : 
 and they will be astonished that any one should ask 
 the question. Did not Scott long ago say that litera 
 ture does well enough as a staff, but not as a crutch, 
 as a dilettante pursuit, but not as a means of getting 
 one's bread and butter? Have you forgotten the fate 
 of Chatterton, Otway, and Savage ? how the " impran- 
 sus" Johnson struggled through his fifty years of pov 
 erty? and what an amount of hack-work Goldsmith 
 did to keep the wolf from his door while he was pro 
 ducing those exquisite poems, essays, and fictions, which, 
 though they have made his name immortal, could not 
 keep him from dying 3,000 in debt? Is it not noto 
 rious that Shelley's writings brought him no profit, 
 having hardly a hundred buyers? Did not Schiller 
 translate at a shilling a page? Has not Goethe told 
 us that his works were " an expense to him," though 
 all Europe rang with his name? Did not Godwin, 
 while startling England with his extraordinary works, 
 earn his crust by bookselling ? Would M. Jasmin have 
 been able long to delight France with his songs, had he 
 abandoned his humble calling of a hair-dresser? Have 
 you never heard how the spirituelle Maginn lived and 
 died, how Hogg's last moments were passed, and that
 
 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 225 
 
 he who sang the "Song of the Shirt" with a pathos 
 that thrilled all Europe, died with the sad plaint that, 
 though his friends might be able "to urn a lively 
 Hood " after his death, he could not do it while living ? 
 Is not Sheridan Knowles's hand-to-hand struggle with 
 want yet fresh in the public memory, and do we not 
 remember the three Caudle Letters of Laman Blanchard, 
 penned in his wife's dying hours to keep the Sheriff 
 from his house ? 
 
 Again, if literature is well paid in this nineteenth 
 century, why can it boast no profound, encyclopedic 
 scholars, no great poets, like those of past ages? We 
 have swarms of essayists and feuilletonists, magazine 
 scribblers, who manufacture fiction by the hundred 
 weight, and more thoughtful writers who exhaust their 
 mental wealth on reviews; but where are our great 
 epic and tragic poets ? Where are our great linguists ? 
 Where is our Scaliger, our Jones, our Person, or our 
 Parr? Would the exquisite and myriad-volumed learn 
 ing of the second keep him, in these iron, utilitarian 
 times, from starvation; or would his command of all 
 the treasures of Greek lore insure to the third any 
 place or station commensurate with his merits? Have 
 we not seen the greatest scholars of the age starving 
 in England in miserable curacies, and in other coun 
 tries in miserable professorships, while lawyers of less 
 ability have clad themselves " in purple and fine linen," 
 ridden in coaches drawn by long-tailed, silky-coated 
 steeds, and fared sumptuously every day? 
 
 In replying to these questions, and affirming that 
 literature, on the whole, is well paid, we shall leave 
 out of consideration the amateurs who " write for glory, 
 and print for fun," and speak only of the toilers, those 
 who devote themselves to literature as a regular calling,
 
 226 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 
 
 a means of subsistence and of self-advancement. We 
 maintain that Paternoster Kow is not a misnomer, for 
 which, on account of its step-motherly heartlessness, 
 Noverca Kow might be aptly substituted; that, what 
 ever provocation Campbell might have had for saying 
 that he forgave Napoleon his crimes because he once 
 shot a bookseller, it is not true that publishers drink 
 their sherry out of authors' skulls; that literature, far 
 from being necessarily associated with vexation and 
 penury, is, when pursued steadfastly and conscientiously, 
 as sure a means of support and of advancement as law, 
 medicine, or trade. 
 
 In considering the profitableness of the literary call 
 ing, it should be remembered that there is hardly any 
 other which requires so little capital for its pursuit. 
 The lawyer must have an office, and at least an apology 
 for a library, to say nothing of furniture, signs, and 
 advertisements. The physician must have all these, and, 
 in addition, a horse and carriage, besides being well 
 dressed, for nobody will trust in his skill till, by an 
 air of prosperity, he indicates that he is trusted by 
 others. Even the artist must have his studio and a 
 steady supply of canvas and paint. But all the capital 
 the writer needs is a few quires of paper, a steel pen, 
 and five cents worth of ink. If he lives in a city, the 
 public libraries will furnish him with books ; he may 
 travel in horse-cars, live in the fourth story of a cheap 
 boarding-house, and dress, if he pleases, like a scare 
 crow, yet, if he have real ability, meet with brilliant 
 success. But, setting aside these compensations, let us 
 see whether literary labor during the last two or three 
 hundred years has been well requited. To begin with 
 the "Father of English Poetry," Dan Chaucer, though 
 his last days were clouded by embarrassment, yet,
 
 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 227 
 
 during most of his life, he held profitable offices, and 
 was even employed in diplomatic negotiations. Shak- 
 speare we do not cite as a proof of our position, because, 
 though born a wool-stapler's son, he retired with a 
 large fortune. He never published his works, except 
 on the stage, and made all his money by acting and 
 shrewd investments. Spenser received from Queen 
 Elizabeth a grant of three thousand acres of land in 
 Ireland, which, it is true, was very much like giving 
 him a domain in Florida, inhabited by rattlesnakes and 
 prowling Indians; but then he also received a pension 
 of fifty pounds, equal to three hundred pounds or more 
 now, for burning incense to the "Maiden Queen," and 
 transforming, by the magic of genius, her red wig into 
 "yellow locks, crisped like golden wire;" and though 
 he was driven by Tyrone's Rebellion to die in sorrow 
 and distress in London, yet he provoked his fate by 
 his injustice to a proud and savage people, as Clerk of 
 the Council and Sheriff of Cork, and by his recom 
 mendation of coercive measures against them in his 
 "View of the State of Ireland." How much money 
 "rare Ben Jonson" received we do not know; but it 
 is probable that only his continual guzzling of canary 
 wine, and other intemperate habits, kept him from be 
 coming rich. 
 
 In the next century we find Milton receiving but 
 13 for his grand epic; but we must remember that 
 he held an important State office, and enjoyed a degree 
 of consideration not estimable in money. Moreover, he 
 was eminently unpractical, and had a boundless scorn 
 for those "drossy spirits" that are forever seeking to 
 turn a penny, that "need the lure and whistle of 
 earthly preferment, like those animals that fetch and 
 carry for a morsel." Dryden, who received 1,200 for
 
 228 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 
 
 his translation of Virgil, and who, as poet-laureate and 
 stockholder in a theatre, had a fixed income of 1,000 
 a year, was not ill-paid. With a brain of such fecundity 
 that he could dash off the " Ode on St. Cecilia's Day " 
 at a single jet, he must have won riches as well as 
 honors but for the shrew who called him husband. 
 The hunch-backed, spider-legged dwarf of Twicken 
 ham, who would have starved in almost any other call 
 ing, got 8,000, an almost fabulous sum in those 
 times, for his translation of the Iliad only. Swift 
 attained to ecclesiastical preferment, and might have 
 had the object of his heart's desire, a bishopric, had he 
 not shocked Archbishop Sharp by his profanity and in 
 decency, and learned furens quid femina possit by lam 
 pooning the Duchess of Somerset. Addison rose to be 
 Secretary of State, and Prior, from a pot-house boy, 
 became like our Irving, Motley, Gushing, and Bancroft, 
 an ambassador. 
 
 Johnson, it is true, had a long, up-hill fight against 
 adversity. It was not the golden age of authors when 
 he ate his dinners behind the screen in Cave's parlor, 
 back of the shop, because he was too much out at the 
 elbows to be presented at a tradesman's table; and 
 when Savage, as if to show by contrast the inferiority 
 of civilized life to the days when 
 
 " Wild through the woods the noble savage ran," 
 
 roamed about the streets of London all night, for want 
 of a shilling to pay for a lodging. But Johnson con 
 quered success at last, and his position, when he had 
 scaled the literary Alps, and could scornfully reject the 
 tardily proffered aid of Chesterfield, not to speak of a 
 later period when he was the seven-tailed bashaw of 
 the literary realm, was an enviable one. Hume, from
 
 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 229 
 
 absolute obscurity, .raised himself by his writings to 
 considerable wealth, and to high offices which brought 
 him more, so that he died with an income of a 
 thousand a year, and leaving an estate of fifteen 
 thousand pounds. Goldsmith was always in hot water, 
 and died three thousand pounds in debt; but he re 
 ceived large, and even splendid sums for his writings; 
 his society was courted by the most brilliant wits, 
 artists, statesmen, and men of letters; and even when 
 wasting his exquisite genius as a literary hack, he 
 might have won an independence but for his extreme 
 improvidence, his almost childish generosity, his passion 
 for pleasure and fine clothes, and, above all, his pro 
 pensity for gambling. 
 
 Coming to the nineteenth century, we find Sir Wal 
 ter Scott, who, as a barrister, would probably never 
 have been heard of outside of Scotland, earning a world 
 wide fame, fabulous sums of money, and a title, as an 
 author. Had he trusted to literature only, instead of 
 dreading its precariousness, and becoming a publisher, 
 he might have died worth a hundred thousand pounds, 
 and realized his life-long dream of a landed and titled 
 family. Again, look at Wordsworth and Southey. The 
 former was never rich, but some admirer of his genius 
 or office-holder became always conveniently defunct at 
 every crisis in his finances, leaving him money or a 
 place, and he lived an eminently dignified and happy 
 life. The latter, a man of second-rate genius, but of 
 colossal industry, won comfort if not affluence, by his 
 pen, and when disposed to grumble at his enforced 
 drudgery at literary ephemera, used to exclaim, "Pa 
 tience! it is, after all, better than pleading in a 
 stinking court of law, or being called up at midnight 
 to a patient. It is better than being a soldier, or a
 
 230 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 
 
 sailor, better than calculating profit and loss on a 
 counter, better, in short, than anything but independ 
 ence." Would Campbell, who spoke so spitefully of 
 publishers, have lived in the same style, moved in the 
 same circles, and been petted as he was, had he been 
 a poor teacher or preacher? Yet to one of the latter 
 callings he seemed destined when, a poor, friendless 
 youth at a Scottish University, he had not yet by his 
 first poem won friends and fame. Jeffrey, mainly 
 through his literary celebrity, became rich and a Judge. 
 The author of Lalla Rookh got a large income from 
 his writings, besides a pension of 300; Byron received 
 princely sums from Mr. Murray, coining even his mis 
 anthropy and "blue devils" into guineas; and if Cole 
 ridge was always steeped in poverty, it was because he 
 was morally as well as physically out at the elbows, 
 and so wayward and capricious, so utterly untrustwor 
 thy, that he could never have kept his head above 
 water in any calling. 
 
 Has any profession "paid" better than the literary, 
 all things considered, during the last fifty years ? Look 
 at the large sums which Macaulay received, besides a 
 coveted title and a seat in Parliament! Think of the 
 enormous receipts and the world-wide fame of Dickens, 
 originally a poor and obscure newspaper reporter! 
 Think of the fortune acquired by Fenimore Cooper! 
 Consider the price paid to Tennyson for a single poem, 
 or to Disraeli for a single novel, the large earnings of 
 Miss Evans, of Lewes, Trollope, Dumas, Miss Braddon, 
 Fronde, Reade, Ruskin, Yates, Milman, Mill, and the 
 two Bulwers, especially Lord Lytton ! The latter pub 
 lished nearly seventy volumes, some of them upon sub 
 jects exacting much special research ; and for many of 
 his novels received 1,500 each, besides winning a Bar-
 
 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 231 
 
 onetcy and a seat in Parliament as the result of his 
 literary distinction. And yet how hard, think you, did 
 Bulwer work ? Never, he tells us, so laboriously as to 
 degenerate into a slave of the pen, a mere literary 
 drudge. He won his proud position by devoting, as a 
 rule, not over three hours a day to reading and writing; 
 and yet Bulwer was not a man of genius. He was only 
 a man of prodigious talent, who narrowly escaped being 
 a ' genius. 
 
 Think, again, of the generous sums paid in our 
 own country to Irving, Mrs. Stowe, Motley, Prescott, 
 Emerson, Longfellow, and hundreds of minor literary 
 magnates, many of whom have swelled their income by 
 lectures, not a few of whom have been Ambassadors, 
 Consuls, etc., etc., and all of whom have held a position 
 in society which no amount of mere wealth would have 
 secured to them ! Look at the remuneration of author 
 ship., in France, where, it is said, Victor Hugo was paid 
 $80,000 for "Les Miserables"; where Lamartine earned 
 and squandered a fortune; where Dumas, George Sand, 
 Paul Feval, and Eugene Sue have been paid enormous 
 sums ; and where Scribe left to his heirs $800,000 ! In 
 view of these facts is it just to whine about the beg 
 garly rewards of literature, and the doom of indigence 
 and starvation which are so often said to hang over 
 those who give themselves to pen and ink ? 
 
 But, says an objector, the instances you have men 
 tioned of well-remunerated authorship are exceptional. 
 You omit all mention of the innumerable scribblers 
 who have stranded on the sands of popular neglect; 
 you cite all the prizes in the lottery, and say nothing 
 about the blanks. What of Collins, of Burns, of Clare, 
 Nicoll, and Poe? In reply, we readily admit that 
 some men of letters have lived lives of penury, ending
 
 232 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 
 
 in starvation, that some of the works which have 
 charmed the world, have been written with the heart's 
 blood of their authors. But are such failures the 
 doom of literary men only ? Do we not see them in 
 every calling and walk of life? Are there no starving 
 doctors who find it harder to keep the vital spark in 
 their own bodies than in those of their patients, no 
 lawyers, of whom some future Gray may truthfully sing : 
 
 But ah I to them no clerk his golden page 
 Rich with retaining fees did e'er unroll ; 
 
 Chill negligence repressed their legal rage, 
 And froze the quibbling current of the soul? 
 
 Has not the Church its army of martyrs, pastors 
 steeped in poverty to the lips, yet having as many 
 mouths to feed as the anti-Malthusian John Rogers? 
 Is money a drug with every druggist, is every tailor 
 as familiar with turkey as with goose, and are teachers 
 never impecunious? Is an<y fact better established than 
 that ninety-five out of every hundred merchants quit 
 business in disgust, or become bankrupt? Not much 
 is said of the unhappy lot of these men ; but we hear 
 a continual ding-dong about the miseries of authors. 
 
 The New York World, in speaking of the pecuniary 
 receipts of the authors of that metropolis, says that 
 they do not average five hundred dollars a year. "No 
 profession," it adds, "even when successful, is so preca 
 rious, demands greater brain-labor at smaller compen 
 sation. There are dozens of literary men in this city, 
 whose names are popularly familiar, living on incomes 
 that a stone-cutter would laugh at." This, we believe, 
 is an exaggerated statement; but allowing it to be sub 
 stantially true, why is the fact thus ? "We cannot help 
 thinking that, in a great majority of cases, it is the fault
 
 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 233 
 
 of the literary men themselves, of their own impru 
 dence. When a vulgar mortal, a tailor, mechanic, or 
 stone-cutter, despises economy, and spends in one day 
 the earnings of ten, he goes to wreck. He knows per 
 fectly well that no matter how hard he may work, unless 
 he carefully husbands his receipts, and jealously guards 
 against the little leaks of useless expenditure, he can 
 never become independent. Why should the man of 
 genius expect to be exempted from this rule? Does he 
 expect a miracle to be worked, or rather a series of 
 miracles, to save him from the consequences of his 
 own acts ? 
 
 Look again at Goldsmith. How is it possible for 
 any man to thrive who squanders his money so reck 
 lessly as he did his? Emptying his pockets as soon 
 as they were filled, he was eternally harassed by 
 creditors; and though receiving large sums for his writ 
 ings, had always his daily bread to earn. No sooner 
 had the proceeds of the " Good-Natured Man" come 
 into his hands than the bulk was spent in purchasing 
 and furnishing with elegance a set of chambers in the 
 Temple, paying for this four hundred pounds, at a time 
 when he had just been sorely distressed by his debts. 
 At another time, when he had not a shilling in his 
 pocket, he gave away his bed-clothes to a poor woman, 
 and was found sleeping on the feathers of his bed, 
 with his arms thrust through holes in the tick. Gold 
 smith might have been independent had he not thrown 
 away his earnings. True, he died three thousand pounds 
 in debt, as we have already stated; but when was any 
 other man in similar circumstances so trusted? 
 
 There are scores of literary men at the present day 
 of whom Goldsmith was a prototype. They realize for 
 years a fair or a large income ; they live beyond it ; they
 
 234 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 
 
 get into debt, and are dogged by sheriffs; they borrow 
 of their friends till they can borrow no longer; house 
 less, moneyless, shabby, and hungry, they join in the 
 cry about the miserable rewards of literature and the 
 woes of literary men. Yet who does not see that, till 
 the laws of nature are reversed, they cannot reasonably 
 expect, unless they themselves change, a change in their 
 condition ? 
 
 It is a misfortune of the literary profession that it 
 is one to which hardly any person is bred. It is re 
 cruited largely by persons who, having tried several 
 other callings and failed, adopt this as a pis-aller, or 
 because they have, or fancy they have, for it a natural 
 taste. It is made up, in short, of the vagrant talent 
 of the world. The complaint of Pope, and of Horace 
 before him, is too true of the Bohemians of to-day: 
 
 He served a 'prenticeship who sets up shop ; 
 Ward tried on puppies and the poor his drop ; 
 But those who cannot write, and those who can, 
 All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble to a man. 
 
 It is well, perhaps, that there is such a ISHopital 
 des Invalides , such a House of Kefuge, for the lawyers, 
 doctors, clergymen, and others, who have found out 
 that, in the pursuit of their callings, the round men 
 get into the square holes. It is fortunate that there is 
 one kind of business in which any man who has a 
 nimble brain, a quire of paper, a steel pen, and an ink- 
 bottle, can set up shop. But, having adopted this call 
 ing, the writer should consecrate himself to it reli 
 giously. He should give up his gipsy habits, his con 
 tempt for rule and system, and recognize the iron 
 conditions that hem every man in. He should realize 
 that he has a life of toil before him, and brace himself
 
 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 235 
 
 to it with all the coolness and energy of a man of the 
 world. He should see, and profoundly feel, that, while 
 he has many advantages over other toilers, in the ability 
 to command his time, and go to bed when he has a 
 headache or a heart-ache, he is not, at other times, to 
 be continually dwelling among the roses and lilies of 
 life, but must grapple with its stern realities. 
 
 He should never forget that on him, as on his 
 brethren of coarser clay, the world will press with its 
 prosaic needs; that the tax-gatherer will visit him as 
 well as others; that, if he run in debt at Christmas 
 time, around his head will drive a snow-storm of bills. 
 It has been well said that "the finest expression will 
 not liquidate a butcher's account. If Apollo puts his 
 name to a bill, he must meet it when it becomes due, 
 or go into the gazette." The literary adventurer, there 
 fore, should abandon all hope of following out his own 
 fancies merely, at least while the world spins on the 
 principle that bread and meat are to be got only for 
 cash. Not having had any special preliminary training 
 for his profession, he should, for that very reason, set 
 himself deliberately to work to remedy his defects. He 
 should take especial care of the tool or instrument he 
 is to work with, his mind, giving it edge and sharp 
 ness by the right studies, enlarging it by serviceable 
 knowledge, and keeping it clear and bright instead of 
 letting it rust by indolence, or dimming it by dissipa 
 tion. He should browse freely in all the fields of liter 
 ature and history, and acquaint himself with the leading 
 facts of physical science, political economy, politics, and 
 philosophy, as a part of his necessary stock in trade. 
 Above all, he should rid himself of the silly notion that 
 it is the nature of genius to be wayward and irregular. 
 Instead of working by fits and starts, lying idle six
 
 236 IS LITERATURE ILL- PAID? 
 
 days and crowding into one day the labors of six, he 
 must, as a rule, toil at stated times, and if he is con 
 tributing to a periodical or newspaper, do his work 
 punctually and to the wishes of his employer. 
 
 But whether an employe or working independently, 
 let him husband his gains, remembering that to be 
 poor is the surest way to keep poor, and that the only 
 way to command the money of others is not to need 
 it. While he should never economize so far as "to 
 think candle ends" and become a niggard, he should 
 yet seek to be independent by all honorable means, as 
 necessary not only to his self-respect, but to the un 
 trammelled arid vigorous exercise of the faculties by 
 which he is to earn his bread. Can anyone doubt that 
 a literary man thus equipped and thus acting would 
 make head in the world? Is it not as true of this 
 calling as of every other, that so far from first-class 
 employment being wanting for first-class men, the men 
 are' wanting for the employment ? Need any author 
 plead his fine tastes as an excuse for extravagant ex 
 penditures, when Burns, with seventy pounds a year, 
 could keep free of debt? Or will anyone talk of the 
 incompatibility of vulgar cares about beef and bread with 
 the lofty conceptions of genius, when he remembers 
 that Shakspeare, the king of authors, amassed a sum 
 equal to more than two hundred thousand dollars in 
 our own day, and that Scott neglected no duty as a 
 man and a citizen while he wrought out his marvellous 
 fictions ? 
 
 The truth is, it is with other literary men as it is 
 with the toilers connected with the daily and weekly 
 press; their calling is what they choose to make it. A 
 generation ago there was a deal of cant in the news 
 papers about the hard lot of the gentlemen of the press.
 
 IS LITERATURE ILL-PAID? 237 
 
 Almost every country editor had his monthly or quar 
 terly Jeremiad, in which he indulged in a long and 
 lugubrious wail over his herculean labors and his beg 
 garly receipts. Now that, by energy, tact, and persist 
 ence, the press has become an engine of power, 'the 
 "Fourth Estate" of the realm, we hear no more of 
 these piteous plaints. A journalist thrives or fails, 
 according to his qualifications and habits. The "b'hoys" 
 and "fast" men of the profession who "go in" for a 
 short life and a merry one, who mortgage morrows 
 of happiness for moments of present gratification, 
 whose fingers itch to get rid of a dollar the moment 
 they receive it, who make larger investments in cham 
 pagne suppers than in interest-bearing notes, who de 
 spise the homely virtues of temperance and frugality, 
 and, Micawber-like, are always counting upon some 
 miraculous piece of good fortune to "turn up," this 
 class is, doubtless, miserable enough, and think their 
 profession, as they would think any other, if they be 
 longed to it, the hardest-worked and most poorly-re 
 quited in the world. Such men are always "hard up" 
 for ideas and money, have a natural horror of the' 
 printer's devil, and when not engaged in digging (5ut 
 leaders from their brains, are excavating their own graves. 
 But those who stick to their legitimate business, and 
 do their duties faithfully, steer clear of bar-rooms 
 and billiard-saloons, have a horror of race-courses, go 
 home at night before the key-hole is "stolen," pay one 
 hundred cents to' the dollar, and bear in mind that 
 there is a "rainy day" coming, for which it would be 
 well to lay by a snug sum, get along well enough,^ 
 and find their calling as pleasant and profitable, to say 
 the least, as that of feeling pulses, preaching to sleepy 
 congregations, or piercing the skulls of stupid jury-
 
 238 IS LITEEATTJKE ILL-PAID? 
 
 men. The owners of our great representative journals 
 are always on the watch for such men; they have the 
 eyes of a lynx to detect them in the humblest and 
 most obscure positions; and If to these qualifications 
 they add mental grasp, large resources, and that tact 
 and worldly knowledge which put the key-stone to the 
 arch of all their other qualifications, their ascent to the 
 topmost round of the ladder will be as sure and rapid 
 in this profession as in any other.
 
 CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. 
 
 AMONG the amusing and instructive books that 
 remain to be written, one of the most piquant 
 would be a history of the criticisms with which the 
 most celebrated literary productions have been greeted 
 on their first appearance before the world. Such a vol 
 ume, if faithfully written, would probably show that if 
 works of genius are rare, just criticisms of them are 
 rarer still; that if Homer sometimes nods, Aristarchus 
 is often found napping; and that the oracles of litera 
 ture are just as fallible as all other oracles, and never 
 make more egregious or ludicrous mistakes than when 
 they are most confident and most dogmatic in their 
 decisions. The circumstances that may warp the judg 
 ment of the critic are legion. Not only jealousy, envy, 
 bigotry, self-conceit, an exclusive love for special kinds 
 of literature, a latent idiosyncrasy, may cause an ob 
 liquity in his judgment, but he is almost always too easily 
 accessible to outside influences to pronounce an unerr 
 ing opinion. The mind of almost every man is as deli 
 cately poised, and as easily moved, as those scales which 
 are so nicely constructed that a passing insect's wing 
 will disturb them; and the mental insects are some 
 times very large and numerous, and flap their wings 
 most vigorously. 
 
 Who can credit the fact that the poet who overtops 
 all the other poets of ancient or modern times as
 
 240 CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. 
 
 Mont Blanc overtops the other Alps, was denounced 
 by "a great critic" in the seventeenth century as 
 "raving and rambling in tragedy, without any cohe 
 rence, any spark of reason?" Yet such was the judg 
 ment of Kymer, for whom Dryden had a profound 
 reverence. Othello he pronounces " a bloody farce, with 
 out salt or savor," which can only fill the head with 
 " vanity, confusion, tintamarre, and jingle-jangle. * * 
 No woman bred out of a pigstye could talk so meanly 
 as Desdemona." Voltaire pronounced Shakspeare's tra 
 gedies "monstrous farces;" Mr. Secretary Pepys, an 
 inveterate play-goer, thought A Midsummer NigMs 
 Dream the most insipid, ridiculous play he had ever 
 witnessed; Goldsmith, in his Citizen of the World, 
 declares the famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy a 
 chaos of incongruous metaphors ; and Wallack, the actor, 
 tells us that when he attempted to read Macbeth to a 
 French friend, the latter broke out in the first scene 
 with the most violent exclamations of disgust: "Eh 
 Men! now dis is not nature! dis is not common sense! 
 Oh, no! De tree old veetch shall nevare to go out to 
 meet upon de blasted heath with no close on in tondare, 
 lightning, and in rain. Ah, no! It is not common 
 sense! ma foi, day stay at home! Aha!" Byron con 
 tended most stoutly that Pope was equal, if not superior, 
 to the thousand-souled dramatist. 
 
 "Rare old Ben Jonson," if we may credit Drum- 
 mond's notes of his conversation, was anything but a 
 just and impartial critic. His judgments on contempo 
 rary poets were insolently magisterial, in the very tone 
 of Sir Oracle. " Spenser^ stanzas pleased him not, nor 
 his matter." Donne, though the first poet in the world 
 in some things, for "not keeping of accent, deserved 
 hanging." Sharpham, Day, and Dekkar, were all rogues ;
 
 CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. 241 
 
 and Abram Fraunce, "in his English hexameters, was 
 a foole." The facile, melodious Waller, who never 
 wrote a line that touches the heart, saw nothing in 
 Milton but a poor, blind old schoolmaster, who had 
 written a dull poem, remarkable for nothing but its 
 length ; and even Milton himself preferred the cold intel 
 lectual conceits, the metaphysical ingenuity, of Cowley 
 to Dryden's masculine energy and " full-resounding line." 
 Dryden objected to Milton's blank verse, to which he 
 is positive the author of Paradise Lost was driven be 
 cause "rhyme was not his talent." Locke, of whose 
 Essay on the Human Understanding the acute De Maistre 
 says that it is a misnomer, and that it should have 
 been entitled "An Essay on the Understanding of 
 Locke," declares that, Milton excepted, all the other 
 English poets are mere ballad-makers compared with 
 "everlasting Blackmore." Yet the verse of this now 
 forgotten poet was so rough that it was said that he 
 wrote to the sound of his own chariot-wheels. Pope, 
 the little wasp of Twickenham, who stung so many 
 rivals by his criticism, writhed more than once under 
 the stings of his enemies. His Essay on Criticism was 
 characterized as " a pert, insipid heap of commonplace ; " 
 his Windsor Forest as a " barbarous rhapsody ; " and on 
 one occasion when, angling for a compliment, he asked 
 his friend Mallet what new things there were in litera 
 ture, he was answered, "Nothing worth notice; only a 
 thing called an Essay on Man, made up of shocking 
 poetry and insufferable philosophy." "/wrote it! "cried 
 Pope, stung with rage, and his friend blushed, bowed, 
 and darted out of the room, never to return. 
 
 It seems incredible that the great literary bashaw 
 of the eighteenth century, Dr. Johnson, should have 
 blundered so egregiously as he did in some of his crit-
 
 242 CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. 
 
 ical judgments. Analyzing with extraordinary acuteness 
 and sagacity poetry of the same class as his own, and 
 dissecting with Velpeau-like precision the nonsense and 
 extravagances of the metaphysical poets, he fails utterly 
 when he applies his scalpel to the more imaginative 
 bards. In his estimate of the classic poets, like Pope 
 and Dryden, he has shown a mastery and solidity of 
 criticism rarely rivaled; but the moment he treads the 
 enchanted ground of romantic poetry he betrays an 
 almost utter want of perception. Like a deaf man 
 seated at a symphony of Beethoven, he lacks a sense; 
 and hence for what is picturesque and passionate, 
 the "enchanting ravishment" that "would take the 
 prisoned soul " of a more sensitive critic and " lap it in 
 Elysium," he has no ear. The reading of Paradise 
 Lost he pronounced a duty rather than a pleasure. He 
 declared the diction of Milton's Lycidas harsh, its num 
 bers unpleasing; and told Anna Seward that "he would 
 hang a dog that read that poem twice." Gerald Griffin 
 says that, when he was a reviewer, he used to receive 
 novels from the publishers, accompanied with a request 
 not to cut the leaves, a request that prevented him 
 from employing Hood's expedient for rapid reviewing, 
 to cut the leaves, and smell of the paper-knife ! John 
 son's mistakes sometimes provoke one to believe that 
 he adopted a similar method in doing hack-work for 
 Cave and his confreres. He confessed that he never 
 read Milton through till he was compelled to do so, to 
 gather words for his dictionary. Chatterton he pro 
 nounced "a vulgar, uneducated stripling;" and Collins, 
 the author of the Ode to Evening, a poem that floats 
 into the reader's mind like a stream of celestial music, 
 and which has been compared to a melody of Schu 
 bert, he pronounces harsh and prosaic in his diction.
 
 CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. 243 
 
 Beattie, the poet, moralist, and metaphysician, stig 
 matized Churchill's verse as "driveling and dull;" and, 
 in speaking of the fastidious Gray, who pruned and 
 polished and repolished his poetry with ceaseless care, 
 commends his "unlabored art!" Dr. Kenrick declared 
 Goldsmith's Traveller flimsy, and the Deserted Village 
 "pretty, but deficient in fancy, dignity, genius, and 
 fire." Gray could not see a spark of genius in Vol 
 taire, except in his plays, which no literary resurrec 
 tionist now thinks of disentombing; nor could he dis 
 cover any merit in Rousseau's Nouvelle Heloise. David 
 Hume, he said, had continued all his days an infant, 
 but, unhappily, had been taught to read and write. 
 The luxurious dreaminess and ^Eolian-harp-like music 
 of Thomson's finest poem, TJie Castle of Indolence, Gray 
 could not appreciate; and he thought Collins lacked 
 imagery. 
 
 When the "Wizard of the North" was charming 
 the world with his matchless creations, the author of 
 "Crotchet Castle" could see no merit in "Waverley" 
 or any of its successors. All of Scott's romances, he 
 boldly declared, were like the pantomimes of the stage. 
 "They are both one, with a slight difference. The one 
 is the literature of pantomime, the other is the panto 
 mime of literature. There is the same variety of char 
 acter, the same diversity of story, the same copiousness 
 of incident, the same research into costume, the same 
 display of heraldry, falconry, minstrelsy, scenery, monk 
 ery, witchery, devilry, poachery, robbery, piracy, fishery, 
 gipsy astrology, demonology, architecture, fortification, 
 castrametation, navigation; the same running base of 
 love and battle. The main difference is, that the one 
 set of amusing fictions is told in music and action; 
 the other in the worst dialects of the English language.
 
 244 CUEIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. 
 
 As to any sentence worth remembering, any moral or 
 political truth, anything having a tendency, however 
 remote, to make men wiser or better, to make them 
 think, to make them even think of thinking, they 
 are both precisely alike." When Gibbon's " Decline and 
 Fall" was published, it was received with a tempest 
 of enthusiasm only paralleled by that which greeted 
 Macaulay's "History of England." Yet Person, in 
 speaking of its style, said that there could not be^ a 
 better exercise for a schoolboy than to turn a page of 
 the work into English. Thomas Moore found Chaucer 
 absolutely unreadable, and Samuel Rogers had no admira 
 tion for Shakspeare. 
 
 The savage Gifford, who broke so many bardlings on 
 the wheel of his satire, did good service to literature; 
 yet nothing can be more senseless than some of his 
 critical judgments. Think of a reviewer calling Hazlitt 
 a dull blockhead, and affirming that Shelley's poetry 
 was generally meaningless! The slaughterer of the 
 Delia Cruscans long had the unenviable distinction of 
 having killed Keats with a critique, and Byron gave 
 currency to the story by expressing his astonishment 
 that 
 
 The soul, that very fiery particle, 
 Should let itself be snuffed out by an article. 
 
 But Keats, sensitive and tender-souled as he was, was 
 made of stuff too stern to be stabbed by a goose-quill. 
 Such an onslaught, however, as that of the Quarterly 
 on his first literary venture, could have been dictated 
 only by the bitterest political partisanship, mingled with 
 religious bigotry. The critic who declares the Prome 
 theus Unbound to be "driveling prose run mad," may 
 be expected to characterize T7ie Eve of Si. Agnes as 
 " gratuitous nonsense."
 
 CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. 245 
 
 The reader has seen from these examples that of 
 all the critics upon poetry the most fallible are poets. 
 The frequency with which their predictions concerning 
 the popularity of a brother bard are falsified, shows that 
 the time has gone by when 
 
 The sacred name 
 Of poet and of prophet was the same. 
 
 The poet may sing like an angel, but when he 
 leaves the sky and touches the earth, he may trip like 
 other mortals. He does better on his wings than on 
 his feet. Having a secret bias toward that species of 
 literary composition in which he himself excels, an 
 author is often the very poorest judge of writings radi 
 cally different from his own. What, then, is more natu 
 ral than that he should invent canons that would limit 
 all literary merit to the limits of his own school ? How 
 otherwise could Byron have called Spenser "a dull 
 fellow," Chaucer " contemptible," and scornfully charac 
 terize Wordsworth's chief poem as 
 
 A clumsy, frowsy poem called The Excursion, 
 Writ in a manner that is my aversion? 
 
 Who has forgotten the reception with which Words 
 worth was greeted from all quarters on the publication 
 of his maiden volume ? From John O'Groat's to Land's 
 End, his Lyrical Ballads provoked a loud roar of laugh 
 ter; he was the butt of small witlings, and the object 
 of the critic's hissing scorn. His theory of poetry was 
 looked upon as a defiance to all the laws of criticism, 
 and to his brethren of the tuneful tribe was hardly less 
 startling than if he had announced some new and mon 
 strous heresy. The Edinburgh Review, especially, out- 
 Jeffreyed Jeffrey in its merciless sarcasms; it not merely
 
 246 CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. 
 
 ridiculed his perversities, his occasional puerility of 
 theme, and tastelessness of diction, but scoffed at some 
 of the finest productions of his genius. Ruth, TJie Pet 
 Lamb, We are Seven, and the immortal Intimations of 
 Immortality, were dismissed with the same flippant and 
 contemptuous criticism as Alice Fell, and such verses 
 as these: 
 
 A household tub, like one of those 
 Which women use to wash their clothes. 
 
 Is it not strange that a poet who had himself been 
 the victim of so merciless and scornful criticism, should 
 speak in the most sweepingly depreciatory terms of 
 some of his famous contemporaries and predecessors? 
 Yet Dryden's great music-ode, which rushes on with 
 a swing and a flow like that of Pindar himself, and has 
 been called the Heroic Symphony of Beethoven in 
 words, he stigmatizes as "a drunken song;" and for 
 some of the most glorious poetry of Burns he professes 
 a profound contempt. Mrs. Hemans tells us that the 
 poet and herself were sitting on a bank overlooking 
 Rydal Lake, and talking of the Scotch bard, when she 
 said, "Mr. Wordsworth, do you not think his war ode, 
 * Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,' has been a good deal 
 overrated, especially by Mr. Carlyle, who calls it the 
 noblest lyric in the language?" "I am delighted to 
 hear you ask the question," was the reply ; " overrated ? 
 trash! stuff! miserable inanity! without a thought, 
 without an image!" Then he recited the piece in a 
 tone of unutterable scorn, and concluded with a da 
 capo of "Wretched stuff!" Southey called "The An 
 cient Mariner," of Coleridge, "the clumsiest attempt at 
 German sublimity he ever saw ; " and Wordsworth 
 attributed the cold reception by the public of the
 
 CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. 247 
 
 "Lyrical Ballads" to that poem, now admitted to be 
 the gem of the book. 
 
 It is well known that neither Wordsworth nor Cole 
 ridge could see any merit in Gray's Elegy. Fielding 
 thought Kichardson a solemn prig, and Eichardson 
 could never adequately express his disgust at Fielding's 
 vulgarity. Keats regarded the poets of Queen Anne's 
 time as "a school of dolts," who had no more than 
 
 A puling infant's force 
 That swayed upon a rocking horse, 
 And thought it Pegasus. 
 
 Who has forgotten the fierce attack of the Quarterly 
 Review on "Jane Eyre," in which the unknown author, 
 who was a clergyman's daughter, is pronounced "a per 
 son who, with great mental powers, combines a total 
 ignorance of society, a great coarseness of taste, and a 
 heathenish doctrine of religion ? If we ascribe the 
 book to a woman at all," continues the keen-sighted 
 critic, "we have no alternative but to ascribe it to one 
 who has, for some sufficient reason, forfeited the society 
 of her own sex." 
 
 To conclude, about the rarest thing in the world, 
 next after a work of genius, is a bit of genuine criticism. 
 The man of creative genius is hardly less disqualified 
 than the unthinking million to decide upon the merit of an 
 original production. The very fact that one has attained 
 to mastery in some high walk of art shows that some 
 of his faculties have been developed at the expense of 
 the rest; for, as another has well said, it is not given 
 to the human intellect to expand itself widely in all 
 directions at once, and to be at the same time gigantic 
 and well proportioned. One painter is distinguished by 
 his exquisite finishing. He toils day after day to bring
 
 248 CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. 
 
 the veins of a cabbage-leaf, the folds of a lace veil, the 
 wrinkles of an old woman's face, nearer and nearer to 
 perfection. In the time which he employs on a square 
 foot of canvas, a master of a different order covers the 
 walls of a palace with gods burying giants under moun 
 tains, or makes the cupolas of a church alive with 
 cherubim and martyrs. Will either of these artists be 
 likely fully to appreciate the other? or will the critic, 
 who is charmed with the savageness of Salvator, and 
 the " corregiosity of Correggio," do justice to the grand 
 eur and lofty imagination of the frescoes of the Sistine 
 Chapel and to the cartoons?
 
 TIMIDITY IN PUBLIC SPEAKING. 
 
 WHENCE comes that bashfulness which men of 
 great ability so often feel in addressing a large 
 assembly ? How happens it that a man who never hesi 
 tates or stammers in pouring out his thoughts to a friend, 
 is embarrassed or struck dumb if he attempts to say the 
 same things, however suitable, to fifty persons? Why 
 is it that though he is awed by the presence of no one 
 of them, and feels himself to be intellectually superior to 
 every individual he faces, yet collectively they inspire 
 him with a kind of terror? Why is it that while a 
 man can talk fluently enough if sitting in a chair, yet 
 perpendicularity paralyzes him; that the moment he 
 gets upon his legs, his ideas, like a sailor's money on 
 shore, like a twenty-dollar note in New York, or like 
 thieves at sight of a detective, make themselves wings 
 and fly away ? Whately finds a solution of the problem 
 in the curious and complex play of sympathies which 
 takes place in a large assembly, and which increases in 
 proportion to its numbers. In addressing a large as 
 sembly, a person knows that each hearer sympathizes 
 both with his own anxiety to acquit himself well, and 
 also with the same feelings in the minds of the rest 
 He knows that every slip or blunder he may make, 
 tending to excite mirth, pity, or contempt, will make a 
 stronger impression on each of the hearers from their 
 mutual sympathy and their consciousness of it, and
 
 250 TIMIDITY IN PUBLIC SPEAKING. 
 
 this doubles his anxiety. Again, he knows that each 
 hearer, putting himself mentally in the speaker's place, 
 sympathizes with this increased anxiety, which is, by 
 this thought, increased still more ; and finally, if he be 
 comes at all embarrassed, the knowledge that there are 
 so many to sympathize, not only with that embarrass 
 ment, but also with each other's feelings on the per 
 ception of it, heightens the speaker's confusion to the 
 extreme, and makes him, perhaps, speechless. 
 
 Whatever may be the explanation of the phenome 
 non, we are all familiar with that perturbation, that 
 Belshazzarish knocking of the knees, and that cleaving 
 of the tongue to the roof of the mouth, which seizes 
 upon newly-fledged orators, when they look upon a 
 "sea of upturned faces," especially for the first time. 
 That panoramic aspect of the human face divine has a 
 powerful fascination for most men, a terrible one for 
 the sensitive, or those inexperienced in public addresses! 
 They may express themselves fluently enough in soli 
 tude, or to a small circle of friends, but the moment 
 they mount the rostrum and face an audience, their 
 intense consciousness of the human presence, of its 
 reality, and of the impossibility of escaping it, petrifies 
 the mind, paralyzes all its powers. Even the most 
 distinguished orators tell us that their first attempts 
 at public speaking were fiery ordeals; and not a few 
 broke down opprobriously, "throttling their practised 
 accents in their fears," and losing the thread of their 
 thoughts in an access of helpless consternation. The 
 finest wits have been disgraced in this way, as well as 
 the dullest. Indeed, men of the most thorough accom 
 plishment in other respects, often fail as public speak 
 ers from sheer excess of ideas and good taste, while a 
 mere parrot of a fellow, with little culture and but a
 
 TIMIDITY IK PUBLIC SPEAKING. 251 
 
 thimbleful of brains, "goes off" in a steady stream of 
 words, like a rain-spout in a thunderstorm. It has 
 been well observed that the very delicacy of perception, 
 the exquisite sensibility to impressions, and the impul 
 siveness, which are essential to eloquence, are almost 
 necessarily accompanied by a certain degree of nervous 
 tremulousness, just as a finely strung harp vibrates at 
 the slightest touch, or whenever the faintest breeze 
 passes over it. 
 
 Addison and Gibbon attempted oratory in the Brit 
 ish senate, only to fall flat and shame their worshipers. 
 The latter tells us that the bad speakers filled him 
 with apprehension, the good ones with despair. Pope, 
 whom one would suppose to have been a pale, austere, 
 self-sustained mortal, could not speak ten consecutive 
 words correctly in public. It is amusing to hear from 
 him, who never feared to confront the stoutest adver 
 sary with his pen, and who demolished a host of ene 
 mies at one fell swoop in the most sweeping, fierce and 
 brilliant satire in the whole range of literature, the con 
 fession that he could tell a thing to three persons very 
 well, but if his audience were a dozen, his polished 
 intellect was bewildered ; that he was unequal to a con 
 versation with twelve individuals! Perhaps his dwarf 
 ish stature had something to do with his nervous tim 
 idity; and if, instead of having, when he got up in the 
 morning, to be sewed up in stiff canvas stays, in order to 
 stand erect, and having to plump out his meagre, spec 
 tral legs with three pairs of stockings to give them a 
 respectable look, he had had the average bulk and thews 
 of a man, he might have flashed and thundered with 
 his tongue as well as with his" pen. The "little, crooked 
 man " was once examined as a witness in the House of 
 Lords, in the case of the Bishop of Kochester; and
 
 252 TIMIDITY IN PUBLIC SPEAKING. 
 
 though he had only to state how the bishop spent his 
 time at Bromley, and though when the poet cast his 
 eyes along the nearest bench of peers (for he dared not 
 look farther,) he saw they were nearly all his personal 
 acquaintances, he actually made three blunders in a 
 testimony of less than twenty words. Erskine, the 
 great advocate, was at first painfully unready of speech, 
 and so embarrassed in his maiden efforts that he would 
 have abandoned the attempt to be an orator, had he 
 not felt, as he tells us, his children tugging at his gown, 
 and urging him on, in spite of his boggling and stam 
 mering. Sheridan, as all know, "hung fire" in his 
 first speech; and Curran was almost knocked down by 
 the sound of his own voice when he first addressed his 
 "gentlemen" in a little room of a tavern. 
 
 Sir Philip Francis, of whose audacious letters even 
 Burke tells us that they made his blood run cold, (for 
 we assume that Francis was the real Stat No-minis 
 Umbra, the mysterious Junius,) was hesitating and 
 unready in speech. He said on one occasion in the 
 House of Commons, " I am not accustomed to speak 
 in public, and I very much fear, that, although what 
 I have to say is clear enough in my own mind, it will 
 appear in great disorder." At another time he says: 
 "I am thoroughly conscious of my own infirmities. 
 Even signs and gestures are sufficient to disconcert 
 me." Cowper is another instance of extreme bashful- 
 ness, or lack of presence of mind, before a public assem 
 bly. In early life, through his aristocratic connexions, 
 he obtained the place of clerk in the House of Lords, 
 where his duties would have been little more than to 
 stand up and read parliamentary notices or documents 
 to the House; but so timid was he, that the idea of 
 being obliged to speak before a large audience terrified
 
 TIMIDITY IN PUBLIC SPEAKING. 253 
 
 him exceedingly, and so wrought upon his imagination 
 as the time drew near when he should begin his attend 
 ance, that he gave way to an agony of apprehension, 
 and tried to hang himself. Eather than make a figure 
 in the eye of the public, he deliberately got a rope, and 
 tried to put an end to his mental sufferings. But for 
 a servant, who entered the room as he was about exe 
 cuting his design, the world would have wanted some 
 immortal songs. Cowper's shyness and fear of the pub 
 lic eye never wholly forsook him. While he lived in 
 retirement with Mrs. ITnwin, her son and daughter, he 
 avoided the company of strangers; and he was often 
 known in his rural walks to leave the road, and con 
 ceal himself inside the fence, if he saw any one, espe 
 cially a lady, approaching. When the danger was past, 
 he would come forth and proceed on his ramble. 
 
 Theodore Hook complained, to his dying day, that 
 he had never completely overcome the unpleasant sen 
 sation felt on entering a room ; and an English reviewer 
 tells of an eminent law-lord, the very model of senato 
 rial and judicial eloquence of the composed and dignified 
 order, who has been seen to tremble, when he rose to 
 address the House of Lords, like a thorough-bred racer 
 when first brought to the starting-post. Even the great 
 reviewer, Jeffrey, though generally fluent, once stuck in 
 a speech. When John Kemble was about to quit the 
 Edinburgh stage, some of his admirers decided to give 
 him a dinner and a snuff-box, and chose Jeffrey to 
 make the presentation address. As the latter rose, the 
 great tragedian, who sat beside him, rose also with 
 most formidable dignity. Being thus forced to look 
 up to his man, Jeffrey found himself annihilated by the 
 tall tragic god, who sank him to the earth at every 
 compliment, by obeisances of overwhelming grace and
 
 254 TIMIDITY IN PUBLIC SPEAKING. 
 
 stateliness. Beginning well, the great critic got con 
 fused, and mortified his friends by sitting down, and 
 not only leaving his speech unfinished, but even for 
 getting to thrust the box into the hands of the intended 
 receiver. Dr. Chalmers, though a giant in the pulpit, 
 never was able to speak extempore in a way satisfactor 
 ily to himself, though the cause was not bashfulness, 
 but the overmastering fluency of his mind. Thoughts 
 and words came to his lips in a flood, and thus impeded 
 each other, like water which one attempts to pour all 
 at once out of a narrow-mouthed jug. 
 
 Even years of practice in public speaking do not 
 always extinguish the timidity which many feel in con 
 fronting an assemblage of listeners. John Quincy 
 Adams, who was one of the readiest of public debaters, 
 and seemed always armed cap-a-pie, told Governor Slade, 
 of Vermont, that he never got upon his legs to speak 
 without nervousness and fear of failure. Gough is said 
 to be still troubled with stage-fright, though he has 
 lectured for twenty-six years, and appeared before Bos 
 ton audiences three hundred and fifty times. Many 
 speakers who have no fear of a familiar audience, are 
 yet nervous in a new position. Lord Eldon once said 
 that he was always a little nervous in speaking at the 
 Goldsmiths' Dinner, though he could talk before Parlia 
 ment with as much indifference as if it were so many 
 cabbage-plants. 
 
 The question has been asked: Why is it that men 
 who have ranked high as writers, have so often misera 
 bly failed as speakers? They who may be said on 
 paper to roar you in the ears of the groundlings an 
 'twere any lion, aggravate their voice on the platform 
 like a sucking dove. The explanation is that very dif 
 ferent and quite opposite intellectual gifts are required
 
 TIMIDITY IN PUBLIC SPEAKING. 255 
 
 to form a good writer and a good speaker. Abstraction 
 of mind, seclusion from the din and tumult of public 
 assemblies, unwearied patience in gathering the mate 
 rials of composition, and exquisite taste, that will be 
 satisfied only with the utmost nicety and finish of style, 
 are demanded by the writer ; while quickness of thought, 
 boundless self-confidence, tact in seizing upon the most 
 available, though not the most satisfactory arguments, 
 and a certain intellectual coarseness that is not offended 
 by a slip or a blunder, are necessary to the orator. 
 Again, a writer may spend an hour in choosing a word, 
 and a day in polishing a sentence, but, as the author 
 of Lacon has observed, eloquence, to produce its full 
 effect, must start from the head of the orator, as Pallas 
 from the brain of Jove, clad in full panoply. The fas 
 tidious writer may blot out words and substitute new 
 ones by the hundred, and it is his own fault if the fact 
 is known to his dearest friend ; but if an orator chances 
 to boggle once with his tongue, the detection is imme 
 diate, and the punishment certain. Great writers, too, 
 having a reputation to support, often suffer as speakers 
 from a self-defeating over-anxiety to do well ; like 
 Sheridan, who was said to have been all his life afraid of 
 the author of " The School for Scandal," they are fright 
 ened at the shadow of their own reputation. 
 
 Let, then, the stammerers, the tongue-tied and scat 
 ter-brained members of society console themselves, for 
 this is the moral of our remarks, under their inability 
 to wield at will the fierce democracy. If the os magna 
 sonaturum is denied them, let them remember the say 
 ing that speech is silver, but silence gold; that Grant 
 is tongue-tied in public; that Moltke is silent in eight 
 languages; that Hawthorne was dumb before a large 
 company, and that Irving could not give an after-dinner
 
 256 TIMIDITY IN PUBLIC SPEAKING. 
 
 toast without fright ; that neither Washington nor Jeffer 
 son were orators, nor even glib talkers, and yet John 
 Adams said of the former that he had the most remark 
 able mouth he had seen, for nothing foolish escaped 
 from it; that deeds are higher proof of genius than 
 words, and that 
 
 " One true thought, from the deepest heart upspringing, 
 
 May from within a whole life fertilize; 
 One true word, like the lightning sudden gleaming, 
 
 May rend the night of a whole world of lies. 
 Much speech, much thought, may often be but seeming, 
 
 But in one truth might boundless ever lies."
 
 NOSES. 
 
 TTOW very odd that poets should suppose 
 * ' There is no poetry about a nose, 
 When plain as a man's nose upon his face, 
 A noseless face would lack poetic grace ! 
 Why, what would be the fragrance of a rose, 
 
 And where would be the mortal means of telling 
 Whether a vile or wholesome odor flows 
 
 Around us, if we owned no sense of smelling? 
 'Neath starry eyes, o'er ruby lips it grows, 
 Beauty in its form, and music in its blows! 
 
 So sings a modern bard, with more truth than poetry. 
 To us, as to him, it has been always a profound and in 
 explicable mystery that poets and other writers, in extoll 
 ing the glories of the human face divine, should so 
 uniformly turn up their noses at its most prominent and 
 significant feature. The eye, whether of lustrous gray 
 or of witching hazel, of sweet, pellucid blue, or of the 
 mysterious, unsearchable black, has been pictured as 
 "the window of the soul;" the peach-like beauty of 
 the cheek has never wanted praise ; the mouth has been 
 called the dwelling-place of the loves and the graces; 
 but the nose has been contemptuously overlooked, or 
 handled only to be snubbed. Many a bard has indited 
 a sonnet to his mistress's eyebrow; but who ever heard 
 of one's making a woful ballad to his mistress's nose, 
 or entreating her to drink to him only with her nose,
 
 258 NOSES. 
 
 or to "take, oh, take that nose away"? Had Byron's 
 famous stanza run 
 
 When we two parted 
 
 In silence and tears, 
 Half broken-hearted, 
 
 To sever for years, 
 Pale grew thy nose and cold, 
 
 Colder thy kiss, 
 
 the lines would have been true to nature, for the cheeks 
 cannot be cold without the nose being cold also; yet 
 we fear there is hardly a critic in the land who would 
 not regard this change of a word as absolutely fatal to 
 the pathos. 
 
 Not only poets have thus failed to discover any 
 ideality or sentiment in this feature, but all the essay 
 ists have regarded it with equal coldness. Neither Mon 
 taigne nor Swift has devoted a chapter to the Nose, 
 though the one has given us a learned and elaborate 
 dissertation on Thumbs, and the other a disquisition on 
 Ears, in the "Tale of a Tub." Perhaps, in the case of 
 many authors, the reason of this may be that they find 
 it difficult to think seriously of noses. Unfortunately, 
 the nose is the feature where all the mauvaise honte 
 of our nature seems embodied; and it often happens 
 that it is associated in our minds, not with blissful or 
 dignified recollections, but with some ludicrous, mirth- 
 provoking occasion, when a sleeping hearer in church 
 involuntarily startled a whole congregation by a note 
 from his nasal bassoon like that of a trumpet; or when, 
 during a personal rencontre, somebody's nose was tweaked 
 before a crowd of spectators, and, with its owner, made 
 the butt of inextinguishable laughter. Again, we often 
 find it difficult to banish the recollection of some nasal 
 enormity we have seen, such as Martial describes, which 
 almost touches the earth:
 
 NOSES. 259 
 
 Quod pene terrain tanget indecens nasus; 
 
 * 
 
 or that which is the butt of a still sharper epigram: 
 
 Tongilianus habet nasum; scio, non nego; sed jam 
 Nil praeter nasum Tongilianus habet. 
 
 Placed conspicuously in the very front of the human 
 countenance, the nose is in many respects the most 
 unhappy of human organs; no other is so exposed to 
 the rude buffets of the world; no other in its delicate 
 and sensitive organization is so subject to disgust. As 
 a valiant champion of its rights has said: "Boreas as 
 sails it; Sol burns it; Bacchus inflames it. Put for 
 ward as a leader in front of the battle, men follow it 
 blindly in a course which it is very often unwilling to 
 pursue, and then blame it for every mischance. What 
 ever hard blows are given, it comes in for more than 
 its share, and, after weeping tears of blood, has to 
 atone for the faults of other members, over which it 
 has no control. The fists are continually getting it 
 into scrapes; its bad neighbor, the tongue, brings down 
 upon it indignation undeserved; the eye plays it false 
 on a thousand occasions ; and the whole body corporate 
 is continually poking it into situations the most repug 
 nant to its better feelings." 
 
 In spite of the neglect and insult to which this 
 feature of the face has been by turns subjected, we be 
 lieve there are few sciences which will more richly re 
 ward the pains of investigation and study than that of 
 Nasology. Treated with the precision and the exhaustive- 
 ness and fulness of Eden Warwick, it teems alike with 
 instruction and interest. It has been shown by a com 
 prehensive induction by that writer, leading to a con 
 clusion as inevitable and as unerring as those of mathe 
 matics, that the nose is the great facial sign-post which
 
 260 NOSES. 
 
 points to character; that, in judging of any man, we 
 have only to follow our nose, or rather his nose, to be 
 on the right road to knowledge. A broad, expansive 
 forehead, and a low monkey one, do not more cer 
 tainly indicate greatness and littleness of intellect, than 
 the varieties of nose indicate the peculiarities of the 
 intellectual and moral man. Not to refine too nicely, 
 the pointed and flexible nose has always indicated a 
 capacity for keen research, as also a fox-like, prying, 
 mischievous disposition ; the hawk-nose, a Jewish shrewd 
 ness and penetration; the broad, flab nose, enthusiasm 
 of temperament; the thin, pinched, starved nose, a 
 sneaking, miserly disposition, so well portrayed in the 
 inimitable picture of "The Misers," in Windsor Castle, 
 whose sharp-pointed noses so strongly mark their avid 
 ity ; and the cocked nose, a conceited and contemptuous 
 feeling. What other feature forms so perfect an anthro- 
 pometer or index of the man whom it prefaces ? Where 
 else, so vividly as upon the nose, do intemperance and 
 lust write their degrading signs, scorn her vulgar sneer, 
 concentration its singleness of aim, and blood its gradu 
 ated refinements? What other direction so terse and 
 significant as "Follow your nose"? what other syno 
 nym for imbecility so striking as "To be led by the 
 nose " ? and by what other term so expressive as " Nose 
 out of joint," can one describe mortification or defeat? 
 It is, indeed, marvellous how much this small organ, in 
 its form and relation to the other features, may express. 
 From the nostrils, spiritually thin, and the graceful, 
 long arch of the finest Caucasian type, to the thick, 
 flat proboscis of the African, is a change that marks 
 the very extremes of culture and civilization. 
 
 In all ages of the world a liberal allowance of pro 
 boscis has been admired, while a niggardly one has
 
 NOSES. 261 
 
 been held in contempt. The Komans liked a long, 
 large nose, like Julius Caesar's; and it is a significant 
 fact that the same word in Latin, Nasutus, means hav 
 ing a large nose, and acute or sagacious. All their dis 
 tinguished men had snuff-taking organs not to be 
 sneezed at. Cicero had a large nose, with the addition 
 of an excrescence thereon. Ovid, it is well known, de 
 rived his sobriquet of Naso from the magnitude of that 
 appendage; and it was upon the strength of this, no 
 doubt, that he aspired to the affections of Julia, the 
 daughter of Augustus. Juvenal speaks of a nasus, quasi 
 murus, oculis interjectus, a nose thrown up like a wall 
 between the eyes. Catullus even went so far, on a cer 
 tain occasion, as to express a wish that he were all 
 nose. In modern days, large noses have been not less 
 coveted and esteemed than in the ancient. "Give me," 
 said Napoleon, "a man with a large allowance of nose. 
 In my observations of men I have almost invariably 
 found a long nose and a long head to go together." 
 The philosophy of this seems to be that a man thus 
 favored is usually endowed with large energy and intel 
 ligence, seeming to say (as his fingers, with the thumb 
 for a pivot, describe a spiral at the tip of his facial 
 bowsprit) to all who would outwit or overreach him, 
 " Not as you knows on." On the contrary, a small pug 
 nose is generally indicative of feebleness of will and 
 vacillation of purpose. A pug may be smart and witty, 
 quick at repartee, and capable of writing a newspaper 
 paragraph or a song; but when did a pug conquer a 
 kingdom, write an epic, carve a statue, or invent a new 
 mode of locomotion? Never. Is there a pug among 
 all Plutarch's heroes remarkable for anything, even 
 for pugnacity? 
 
 Let us not, however, be misunderstood. By a large
 
 262 NOSES. 
 
 nose we do not mean a huge, disproportionate organ, 
 nor a diseased, unhealthy one, such as a reader is too 
 apt to picture in his mind's eye when a generous nose 
 is spoken of. We refer to no such enormities as the 
 well-fed beak of Bardolph, glowing with carbuncles, and 
 hissing hot with the fumes of sack ; or Cromwell's pro 
 boscis, whose warty rubicuudity was compared by Butler 
 and other lampooners to a meteor, "perplexing monarchs 
 with fear of change." Far less have we in view so im 
 mense a promontory of flesh as that which jutted out 
 from the face of the traveller in Slawkenbergius ; or an 
 eccentric cutwater like Sulla's, which the besieged Athe 
 nians called "a mulberry dredged over with meal," a 
 joke, by the way, which cost the inventors of it dearly, 
 when the revengeful dictator put his nose within their 
 gates. From all such bulbous excrescences, such nasal 
 monstrosities, we pray to be delivered; as also from 
 the alderman's nose of a thousand bottles, concentrating 
 in itself the fiery essences of " potations deep," a poly- 
 petalous enormity, " whose blushing honors," says Horace 
 Smith, " as becoming to it as the stars, crosses and rib 
 bons of a successful general, are trophies of past victo 
 ries, the colors won in tavern campaigns." Such noses 
 are our horror; yet Shakspeare seems to have regarded 
 them with a kindly feeling, and even to have petted 
 them. How long and fondly does his wit buzz and 
 hover about Bardolph's red nose ! That volcanic prom 
 ontory threatens to coruscate forever on his page; and 
 when he parts with it finally, he does so with profound 
 and evident regret. 
 
 Among the great poets of the present century, few 
 have had countenances more strikingly intellectual than 
 Wordsworth ; and to what was this owing ? Not to the 
 eyes, for they lacked lustre, and were always more or
 
 NOSES. 263 
 
 less diseased; nor to his cheeks, for they hung loose; 
 nor to his chin, which was small and retreating; nor 
 to his mouth, for it was by no means handsome or 
 suggestive of the refined qualities he exhibited. Most 
 of his features were commonplace; but they were re 
 deemed by a noble expanse of forehead, and, above all, 
 by the nose, which was worthy of a Trajan or an An 
 toninus. What a contrast with this was the physiog 
 nomy of Coleridge! Hazlitt, who has painted him to 
 the life, represents him as having a mouth gross, vo 
 luptuous, open, eloquent; a chin good-humored and 
 round; "but his nose, the rudder of the face, the index 
 of the will, was a small, feeble nothing, like what he 
 has done." No wonder that Charles Lamb wrote, after 
 his death: "Coleridge has died, leaving behind him, it 
 is said, forty thousand treatises on Metaphysics and 
 Divinity, not one of them complete" Equally character 
 istic was the nose of Tom Moore, as described by Leigh 
 Hunt. It was "sensual and prominent, and at the 
 same time the reverse of aquiline; there was a very 
 peculiar characteristic in it, as if it were looking for 
 ward to and scenting a feast or an orchard." 
 
 One of the largest noses ever attached to the human 
 face divine was possessed by the Abbe Genest, who flour 
 ished in the time of Louis XIV. Rarely has the world 
 seen such a nasal enormity, such a Brobdingnagian 
 olfactory; it was literally an immense nose, and when 
 its owner sneezed it must have startled the bystanders 
 like the trumpet stop of an organ or the explosion of 
 distant cannon. The Duke of Burgoyne and the Duke 
 of Maine, his scholars, made it the butt of endless 
 pleasantries; and even his royal friend, the grand mon 
 arch himself, lost his gravity, starch, and stateliness, in 
 beholding it, and burst into a laugh. Nay, we are told
 
 264 NOSES. 
 
 he so far forgot his dignity as to join in the espiegleries 
 of which the Abbe au nez royal was the victim, and to 
 hurl a shaft of his own at the unoffending proboscis. 
 One of the happiest anagrams on record is one made by 
 a wag of the day, in allusion to the Abbe's nose, on the 
 latter^ name, which was Charles Oenest : "Eh! c'est 
 large nez Eh ! it is a large nose." Such a nose would 
 have been invaluable to Hiss, the immortal chairman of 
 the Massachusetts " smelling committee." Hardly less 
 imperial in its proportions was the nose of Cyrano de 
 Bergerac, who flourished a little earlier in the same 
 century. Like most persons thus gifted, he was sensitive 
 regarding any allusion to its size, and fought several 
 duels to maintain a due respect for it among his neigh 
 bors. If his portrait may be trusted, his nose was such 
 a one as many men who lack a sign of power on their 
 faces would be glad to own; and we are told that he 
 defended it with his pen as well as with his sword, 
 retaliating upon his irreverent commentators by showing 
 how the inhabitants of the moon destroy at birth all 
 small-nosed infants, having no hope for their future. 
 
 It is said that Francois, Duke of Anjou, had a nose 
 so swollen and distorted that it seemed to be double; 
 which provoked from his countrymen, among other sar 
 casms, the gibe that the man who always wore two faces 
 might be expected to have two noses also. Still more 
 unfortunate was Turner, Bishop of Ely, who in 1691 fled 
 from England to the Continent to avoid apprehension 
 for treason. His friends considered his escape almost 
 hopeless, " for his nose was such that none who had seen 
 it could forget it." Hardly less marked than this was 
 the nose of Grimm, the German scholar, which was large 
 and twisted, but, according to a shrewd observer, " twisted 
 always in the right direction"; or that of Godwin, au-
 
 NOSES. 265 
 
 thor of "The Political Justice," which had so fearful 
 a "downward elongation" that Southey declared that 
 no language was vituperative enough to describe it. 
 
 Among the modern wearers of large noses, few have 
 eclipsed Sir Charles Napier, the hero of Scinde. He had 
 a prodigious proboscis, and his energy was in proportiou. 
 Everyone remembers the colossal proportions of President 
 Tyler's nose, and the inflexibility, not to say obstinacy, 
 of will which always accompanied it. Among modern 
 literary men, Bulwer arrests attention by the extraor 
 dinary size of that organ, which is quite Dantean in 
 length and shape. Of all the famous authors of our 
 time, none owe less to genius and more to persistent 
 effort. 
 
 Directly opposed to the Roman style of noses is the 
 Greek, the owners of which have far less firmness, deci 
 sion, and energy than the Romans, but more subtlety, 
 tact, craft, and refinement. Men with this kind of nose 
 prefer diagonal action to straightforward ; they are pow 
 erful obliquely, by the indirect rather than by the direct 
 stroke. All the history of Greece confirms this view. 
 The Greeks loved the arts better than war; they liked 
 to talk better than to fight. They were ten years in 
 conquering Troy, when the Romans would have battered 
 it down in three months. When Rome aided Greece 
 against Philip of Macedon, the Athenians, according to 
 Livy, furnished none of the sinews of war ; they could 
 contribute to the common cause only declamations and 
 despatches " quibus solum valent." If the Greeks have 
 made a prodigious noise in history, they may thank 
 Homer, ^Eschylus, Demosthenes, and Phidias, not Alex 
 ander or Epaminondas. 
 
 While strength of character, persistence, and intel 
 lectual breadth are thus indicated by a large nose, docility,
 
 266 NOSES. 
 
 or willingness to be led by others, is revealed by nasal 
 flexibility though this quality has other meanings, 
 dependent on the other peculiarities of the organ. The 
 docility of the elephant is indicated by the wonderful 
 flexibility of his proboscis, while the rhinoceros betrays 
 his stubbornness by his inflexible snout surmounted by 
 a horn. It has been suggested that the men of Braze- 
 nose College, Oxford, may have acquired that appellation 
 by their obstinate and unyielding disposition, as a per 
 son of opposite temper is said to be easily led by the 
 nose. 
 
 The Jewish or hawk nose generally indicates shrewd 
 ness in worldly matters, especially when accompanying 
 the narrow, concentrative forehead, which is so symboli 
 cal of singleness of purpose. Scholars with this nose 
 are generally curious wranglers, ingenius cabalists, fine 
 splitters of hairs, keen detectors of discrepancies and 
 analogies, rather than men of deep wisdom or profound 
 learning. Among the Romans, according to Horace, 
 this kind of nose was looked upon as signifying a turn 
 for wit and sarcasm ; for, speaking of his friend Virgil, 
 he says that though he was one of the best of men, he 
 was no joker, and no match in sneering for those who 
 had sharper noses than his own; 
 
 minus aptus acutis 
 Naribus horum hominum; 
 
 that is, as it has been translated 
 
 Unfit 
 For the brisk petulance of modern wit. 
 
 Akin to the hawk, though a distant species, is the hook 
 nose, of which William Pitt's was one of the most striking 
 examples. The great commoner had a perfect bowsprit
 
 NOSES. 267 
 
 of a nose, a pert, hook-shaped appendage, on which his 
 enemies used to say that " he dangled the Opposition " at 
 his will. It was a nose that snuffed every evil intent 
 of his enemies with the keenest scent; but in most 
 other respects was one of the most unpromising noses 
 that genius ever blew. 
 
 Of all the odious forms of noses, perhaps the flat 
 was the most execrated by the Greeks and Romans. 
 The Hebrews coincided in this opinion, and held such 
 a frontispiece to be so great a blemish in a man's char 
 acter, that, though of the lineage of Aaron, he was abso 
 lutely excluded by the laws of Moses from the sacerdotal 
 office. In our estimation, a more unfortunate form of nose, 
 perhaps the most unfortunate, take it all in all, that one 
 can possess, is the snub. The wearers of them are often 
 amiable; they have rich stores of humor and drollery, 
 and are " men of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy," 
 rendering them the most glorious of boon companions; 
 but, unfortunately, their 'noses invite aggression, every 
 body regards them as made to be tweaked. Tristram 
 Shandy's father indicated the general opinion of them 
 when he said that no family, however high, could stand 
 against a succession of short noses. Eden Warwick, who 
 is so enthusiastic upon noses in general, says of this: 
 "Poenitet me Jiujus nasi. The mind shrinks from the 
 thought that, after contemplating the powerful Roman- 
 nosed movers of the world's destinies, or the refined and 
 elegant Greek-nosed arbiters of art, or the deep and 
 serious-minded thinkers with Cogitative noses, it must 
 descend to the horrid bathos, the imbecile inanity, of 
 the snub/' Yet nature delights in freaks; and there 
 have been cases of men and women born into the world 
 with this despised species of nose, who have attained 
 to great eminence, and outstripped in the race of life
 
 268 NOSES. 
 
 men with far more auspicious noses. "Was not Kosci- 
 usko's a snub nose ? Was it not the petit nez retrousse of 
 Marmontel's heroine that captivated a sultan and over 
 turned the laws of an empire? Was not the downfall 
 of another empire, so eloquently portrayed in the immor 
 tal page of Gibbon, written under a nose of the very 
 snubbiest construction ? So intangible was the historian's 
 smeller, that it is said, when his face was submitted to 
 the touch of a blind old French lady, who used to 
 judge of her acquaintances by feeling their features, she 
 exclaimed : " Voila une mauvaise plaisanterie ! " Wilkes, 
 the immortal demagogue, had a nose of this kind, and 
 was in other respects so ugly that a lottery-office keeper 
 once offered him ten guineas not to pass his window 
 while the tickets were drawing, lest he should bring 
 ill-luck upon the house; yet so bewitching were his 
 conversation and his courtesies, that in thirty minutes 
 he could talk away his ugly face! 
 
 One of the oddest and most eccentric noses that 
 the world has ever seen, was that prefixed to the front 
 of Lord Brougham. Nasologists have vainly tried to 
 classify it. It is a most perplexing nose ; a nose sui 
 generis; one which comes within no category, and which 
 defies all classification and analysis. It is Mke no other 
 man's; it has its good points, and bad points, and no 
 point at all. We doubt whether the painter or daguer- 
 reotypist ever lived, however dexterous, who could catch 
 " this Cynthia of the minute." It is a perfect Proteus ; 
 when you think it is going right on for a Roman, it 
 suddenly becomes a Greek; when you have written it 
 down a Cogitative, it becomes as sharp as a knife. 
 Generally it may be pronounced a compound of Ro 
 man, Greek, Cogitative, and Celestial, with a button at 
 the end of it It is said that its owner used to punct-
 
 NOSES. 269 
 
 uate his sentences with it; that just at the end of a long 
 parenthesis he turned up his nose, which served to note 
 the change of subject as well as, or better than, a printed 
 mark. Few noses have been a more fruitful theme of 
 wit. There was no satirist of his Lordship who did 
 not make it a point to gird at his proboscis. A mil 
 lion of conceits have hung from it as from a peg. For 
 years it was the target of Punch' 's jokes, till it became 
 almost a part of his stock in trade: 
 
 A thousand scapes of wit 
 Made it the father of their idle dream, 
 And racked it with their fancies. 
 
 Such a nose, though a godsend to the wags of the 
 press, must be the despair of painters. Yet, with all 
 its lines, " centric and eccentric," it is not more puzzling 
 than have been others of less equivocal beauty. When 
 in 1784 Gainsborough painted Mrs. Siddons, then in the 
 prime of her glorious beauty and in the full blaze of 
 her popularity, he found great difficulty in delineating 
 the nose; and, after repeatedly altering its shape, he 
 exclaimed, "Confound the nose! there is no end to it" 
 Persons unskilled in physiognomy cannot understand 
 how the nose can be significant of character. To talk 
 of an organ so unchangeable as being expressive, seems 
 to them absurd. In opposition to this, Dugazon, a 
 French actor distinguished in the period immediately 
 preceding Talma, used to maintain that the nose is the 
 most complete organ of expression, and that there are 
 forty distinct modes of moving this single feature with 
 variety of effect. Many a cool, calculating hypocrite, 
 who has gained a complete mastery over the expres 
 sion of his thoughts and feelings by his other facial 
 features, has been betrayed by a refractory nose. Bal-
 
 270 NOSES. 
 
 zac, in his Theorie de la Demarche, tells of a cunning 
 dissembler, who had schooled his countenance into a 
 wonderful immobility, eye, cheek, and lip becoming at 
 nis bidding absolutely devoid of meaning, and who 
 had reduced his voice to an imperturbable evenness of 
 tone, yet could not subdue the end of his nose. " Que 
 voulez-vous?" he adds: "le Vice n'est pas parfait" 
 
 While it is just to speak of some noses as eccentric 
 and provocative of laughter, it must not be forgotten 
 that all beauty is relative. Though in Europe and 
 America the Grecian nose is accepted as the highest 
 type, yet the Kalmucks prefer a dumpy club nose, the 
 Hottentots a flat one, and the Chinese a short, thick 
 one. The wife of the celebrated Jenghiz Khan, the 
 Tartar, was deemed irresistible because she had only 
 two holes for a nose. Artists, however, contend that 
 a nose, to be well formed, should be one-third of the 
 length of the face, from the tip of the chin to the 
 roots of the hair. It should also be straight, with 
 the nostrils small and fine, springing well from the face, 
 and meeting in that delicate bracket which seems lightly 
 to sustain the weight of both nose and forehead, yet 
 also open and instinct with life, for the breath of man 
 resides in them. Even the most hideous nasal enor 
 mity, however, provided it be a bona fide flesh-and-blood 
 nose, is preferable to an artificial nose, a bogus frontis 
 piece, a mere nasal hypocrisy, however beautiful. It 
 is a remark of Lessing that "every man has his own 
 style, like his own nose;" commenting on which, Car- 
 lyle adds, that no nose can be justly amputated by the 
 public, if only it be a real nose, and no wooden one 
 put on for mere show and deception. 
 
 It is a profound remark of the Eoman poet, Mar 
 tial, that not every man is so lucky as to have a nose.
 
 NOSES. 271 
 
 The observation is more applicable to his own country 
 than to ours, for it may be questioned whether in a 
 climate like ours, made up chiefly of highly concen 
 trated and biting Northeasters, and where flowers are 
 so scentless and transitory, noses are not sometimes an 
 inconvenience as well as a blessing. We have six bleak 
 months in our solar year, in which the sensation pro 
 duced by cold upon the nose is as though a rat were 
 hanging from the tip of it by his teeth. 
 
 We conclude our nasological observations with a 
 sonnet by Horace Smith, the banker-poet, who. is evi 
 dently "up to snuff," and speaks what he knows: 
 
 O nose! thou rudder in my face's centre, 
 
 Since I must follow thee until I die ; 
 Since we are bound together by indenture, 
 
 The master thou, and the apprentice I : 
 Oh ! be to your Telemachus a mentor, 
 
 Though oft invisible, forever nigh : 
 Guard him from all disgrace and misadventure, 
 
 From hostile tweak, or Love's blind mastery. 
 So shalt thou quit the city's stench and smoke 
 For hawthorn lanes and copses of young oak, 
 
 Scenting the gales of heaven that have not yet 
 Lost their fresh fragrance since the morning broke, 
 
 And breath of flowers with rosy May-dews wet, 
 
 The primrose cowslip bluebell violet.
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO.* 
 
 Singuliere campagne, oh fai vu trois fois s'echapper de nos 
 mains le triomphe de la France! NAPOLEON. 
 
 OF the sixteen or seventeen decisive battles of the 
 world, there is no one of deeper interest, if there 
 is one of greater importance, than the battle of Water 
 loo. Fought by the greatest Generals of the world, at 
 the very prime of their reputation, and being, as it 
 were, the crown and finish, not only of a splendid 
 piece of strategy, but of the experience of twenty years' 
 war, this duel, which closed the wars of the French 
 Revolution, is one which will always be invested with 
 a peculiar fascination for the reader, whether viewed 
 in itself only, or in connection with the vast results 
 that hung on its issue. Never was a victory more 
 complete than that of the allied armies. It was not 
 only a defeat of the French army and its chief; it was 
 an extermination. It was a shipwreck of a people. 
 On the 18th of June, 1815, between sunrise and sun 
 set, the French empire breathed its last breath; at 
 eight o'clock in the morning it stood erect, with all 
 its hopes, at nine o'clock in the evening it was only 
 a name and a recollection. 
 
 Why was this? How happened it that the hero of 
 Austerlitz, and Jena, and Wagram, whose genius had 
 never shone forth more resplendently than while fight 
 ing against fearful odds in the last campaign before 
 
 * See the map at the end of this essay.
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATEELOO. 273 
 
 his banishment to Elba, was now, after a hundred vic 
 tories, foiled ? Was it because, as is popularly supposed, 
 Marshal Grouchy was treacherous, and failed to inter 
 cept the Prussians, and because of the heavy rains 
 which delayed Napoleon's attack till nearly noon, or 
 was it because of the superior energy, strategy, and, 
 above all, promptness of his foes, that he was so over 
 whelmingly defeated? These questions we purpose to 
 answer; and if we succeed in disabusing any reader 
 of the notion that the Emperor was beaten through no 
 fault of his own, simply because "the stars fought 
 against him in their courses," and that he never showed 
 more consummate generalship than on the fatal day 
 when he left the field of Waterloo for exile, premature 
 decay, and a grave amidst "the immensity of the seas," 
 we shall deem our labor well expended. 
 
 The truth is, Napoleon owed his defeat to himself 
 alone, to a series of blunders and delays which he 
 would have denounced as unpardonable in another chief. 
 Probably no one of his campaigns was more sagaciously 
 planned. The brilliancy and justness of his conception 
 are admitted by every authority except Wellington, nay, 
 even by critics who utterly condemn his execution, and 
 who charge the failure to his inexplicable mismanage 
 ment. His first great error was in beginning the cam 
 paign with such an inferiority in numbers. The troops 
 of Wellington and Blucher numbered about 226,000 
 men, with 496 guns. Napoleon's army amounted to 
 124,000 combatants, mostly veterans, with 344 guns, 
 and under tried commanders. Of this force, 22,000 
 were cavalry, and 10,000 artillery. Compact in organiza 
 tion, homogeneous in composition, speaking one tongue, 
 moving by the volition of a single will, devoted to its 
 chief, and inspired "not merely with enthusiasm, but
 
 274 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 
 
 an actual passion against its enemies," it must be 
 admitted that it was one of the most compactly for 
 midable masses of troops ever moved into the field of 
 war. But Napoleon had, at various points in France, 
 not less than 164,000 troops of the line, and about 
 220,000 of different reserves, such as gardes mobiles, 
 old soldiers, and sailors drawn from retreat, chasseurs 
 of the Alps and Pyrenees, etc. ; and what was there to 
 prevent his adding 40,000 or 50,000 of these to the 
 army with which he was moving upon Belgium? By 
 so doing, he might have fought Wellington and Blu- 
 cher, confessedly the bitterest and most powerful of 
 his foes, with 175,000 men and 500 guns; and as the 
 English and Prussians alone fought with vengeful feel 
 ings, like men personally interested in the quarrel, and 
 impelled, too, by a fanatical love of honor, it was vitally 
 important to cruah-them at all hazards. The Emperor 
 himself acknowledged that a victory over these enemies 
 would have probably broken the alliance. To beat the 
 allies out of Belgium by a masterstroke before the 
 Austrians were ready for action, to win that country 
 to his side, and excite a movement in his favor among 
 the small German states, which should end in dissolv 
 ing the coalition, these, he tells us, were the objects 
 he had in view. The Prussians and English crushed, 
 he would have troubled himself little about the gigantic 
 hosts which the coalition was rolling up from the South 
 and West. Of all soldiers the French need most to be 
 encouraged by early successes. Defeat at the beginning 
 of a war greatly demoralizes them. Napoleon should 
 have neglected no precaution, therefore, to insure a 
 victory at the start in "the Cockpit of Europe." 
 
 On the 15th of June the campaign began. Napo 
 leon had ordered the left and centre of his army,
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 275 
 
 which was all to concentrate at Charleroi, thirty-four 
 miles south of Brussels, to move at three A. M.; but, 
 by sending his orders to Vandamme, the commander 
 of the vanguard, by only one messenger, who was cap 
 tured by the enemy, seven precious hours were lost, and 
 a considerable portion of the army, at least 35,000 
 men, did not cross the Sambre till the next day. An 
 indirect result of this delay was that Ney, instead of 
 advancing to Quatre Bras that night, did not reach it 
 till next day. Nevertheless, Napoleon had at night 
 about 90,000 men on the north bank of the river, and 
 the Prussians, under Zieten, though fighting bravely, 
 had been driven back on Fleurus at every point. Blu- 
 cher had but one corps, namely, Zieten's, of 30,000 
 men, on the ground chosen by the allies for a battle ; 
 another, Pirch's, comprising 32,000, was at Mazy, on 
 the road from Namur, six miles east; a third, Thiel- 
 mann's, 24,000, was at Namur, on the road from Ciney, 
 fifteen miles away; and the fourth, under Bulow, 30,000 
 men, was at Liege, a distance of sixty miles. Mean 
 time Wellington had not moved a man to meet the 
 enemy, and had ordered a concentration, which would 
 have left Ney at liberty to push within fourteen miles 
 of Brussels. The French advance was almost within 
 gunshot of Zieten's corps at Fleurus; why, then, did 
 not Napoleon attack the Prussians early the next morn 
 ing, before Thielmann could come to their aid, when 
 their defeat would have been sure? The Napoleon of 
 Austerlitz and Rivoli would have hurled his men at 
 daybreak on the enemy; in which case, with his great 
 numerical superiority, he could have scattered them 
 like sheep. Scattered as they were, the Prussian corps 
 must infallibly have been beaten in detail. Instead of 
 this, it was not until eight o'clock in the morning,
 
 276 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 
 
 five hours later, that the dispositions of the day had 
 been made; and seven or eight precious hours in all 
 had passed away before his troops began to move. 
 
 By that time the Prussians had collected three-fourths 
 of their army in position at Ligny, to do him battle. 
 Blucher stood awaiting the shock of what he thought 
 the whole French army, with 85,000 men ; while Napo 
 leon, who thought he had only the right wing of the 
 Prussians in front of him, was about to fight them with 
 only 65,000 men. Why was this disparity of numbers ? 
 Because of the Emperor's delay, and because Lobau, 
 with 10,500 men, had been kept back at Charleroi as a 
 reserve. Napoleon's plan of battle, as stated in a des 
 patch to Ney was this: Grouchy was to attack a body 
 of the enemy posted between Sombreffe and Bry; Ney 
 was also to attack sharply what was before him, and, 
 after routing it, to wheel and aid in enveloping this 
 corps. If the latter were first pierced, the Emperor 
 would mano3uvre in the Marshal's direction. The bat 
 tle began at half-past two o'clock, and raged with great 
 fury for five and a half hours, when, at last, the Prussian 
 centre was pierced, and their position carried, with the 
 loss of twenty-one guns. Let us add that the Prussians 
 fought with an obstinacy which can be accounted for 
 only by the positive hatred which, as we have already 
 said, they felt toward the French army. " Man engaged 
 man," says an eye-witness, "with all the animosity of 
 personal rancor. It appeared as if each had encountered 
 in the individual who confronted him his mortal enemy." 
 The main object of the battle of Ligny, with Napoleon, 
 was to prevent the junction of the two allied armies; 
 the secondary object to rout his enemy. The strategic 
 point of the Prussian position, therefore, was evidently 
 the Prussian right, and hence Napoleon did wrong
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 277 
 
 in attacking the enemy at all points at once; for suc 
 cess itself could only drive Blucher's troops back upon 
 Wellington, when the English and Prussians should 
 have been separated at all hazards. Nevertheless, the 
 Prussians got what Wellington, on surveying the ground 
 that morning, had predicted, "an awful thrashing," and 
 Blucher himself was wounded. But now it was night 
 fall, and under the cover of the darkness, the defeated 
 army, by ten o'clock, under the command of Gneisenau, 
 was safely retreating northward on Wavre, eleven miles 
 east of Waterloo. 
 
 Meanwhile, by the mistake of an aide-de-camp, 
 D'Erlon's corps of 20,000 men, which should have aided 
 Ney in attacking the English at Quatre Bras, had been 
 passing the whole afternoon in marching and counter 
 marching between the road to that place and Ligny. 
 So ignorant was Napoleon of the movements of this 
 force, that its appearance on his left paralyzed his own 
 operations ; and he checked the grand and decisive charge 
 which he was about to make on the enemy with the 
 Imperial Guard, in order to receive this supposed dan 
 gerous intruder. D'Erlon's corps had actually been 
 mistaken for Prussians, and the redisposition of his troops 
 lost Napoleon another half-hour. Had D'Erlon, with 
 his 20,000 men and forty-six guns, combined with the 
 Emperor in his attack on Blucher, who can doubt that 
 the French would have inflicted on the Prussians a defeat 
 so smashing as to have prevented them from rallying 
 in season to aid Wellington at Waterloo? As it was, 
 D'Erlon helped neither Ney nor the Emperor. Going 
 back to Quatre Bras, he arrived too late, for Wellington 
 had now 30,000 men on the ground, and Ney, finally 
 outnumbered, was driven back on Frasnes. All the 
 blunders of the allies were redeemed by the bold order
 
 278 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 
 
 for the retreat on Wavre. By moving on a line parallel 
 to the road by which Wellington must retire, the Prus 
 sians snatched from Napoleon the hoped-for fruits of 
 his victory; and his own want of insight into their 
 new combination made complete the triumph they had 
 prepared. 
 
 Having lost seven or eight precious hours on the 16th, 
 Napoleon must lose nine or ten more the next day. Fan 
 cying that the Prussians were in full retreat eastivard, on 
 the road to Namur, he took no steps towards pursuing 
 them till noon. Neither did he molest the English till 
 the same hour, when he gave directions for attacking 
 them in flank. Had he marched by three o'clock in the 
 morning, he could have moved directly upon Wellington's 
 rear "and left flank, and, placed thus between the Empe 
 ror's troops on ftie one hand and Ney's force of 40,000 
 men on the other, the British commander would have 
 been completely enveloped. Wellington knew nothing 
 of the result at Ligny till some hours after daybreak, and, 
 when the news came, he was astonished at the dilatori- 
 ness of the French. He then coolly retreated, and, when 
 his adversary got ready to move, was already well advanced 
 towards Waterloo. Of all Napoleon's inexplicable acts, 
 the most puzzling is this dilly-dallying for so many hours 
 at Ligny. He had often said that the reason why the 
 Austrian s lost so many battles was because they did not 
 know the value of five minutes. Yet here he was wasting 
 hours inestimably precious, nay, an entire half day, in 
 talking with the Prussian prisoners, and conversing with 
 his Generals on party politics, the Royalists and Jacobins, 
 and other such topics. 
 
 It was after mid-day when he called Grouchy to his 
 side, and placing under him 33,000 men, directed him 
 to pursue the Prussians, complete their defeat, and report
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 
 
 to him by the Namur road. Grouchy, justly disliking 
 so vague a charge, with such critical responsibility, re 
 monstrated against this order; and, showing that it would 
 be next to an impossibility to overtake or discover the 
 Prussians, with their long start in advance, begged to 
 go with the Emperor against the English. Immovable 
 in his decision, and asking him if " he pretended to give 
 him lessons," Napoleon directed him to march on Gem- 
 bloux, and find out at what the Prussians were driving. 
 He did not, however, at any time, order Grouchy to 
 reconnoitre the roads between the Marshals line and his 
 own, by which the whole of Zieten's and Pirch's corps 
 had gone to Wavre. The Prussian army at that place 
 was now strengthened by the junction of Bulow's troops, 
 30,000 strong, which had taken no part in the fight at 
 Ligny. Meanwhile, Wellington, before deciding to fight 
 on his chosen ground next day, had had the full as 
 surance of support by Blucher. Wellington had 68,000 
 men only on the field, but had 18,000 on detachment 
 ten miles to his right, and 90,000 Prussians twelve miles 
 to his left, while Napoleon's fighting strength was re 
 duced to 72,000 men. The only possible aid the latter 
 could receive was from Grouchy's 33,000; and these 
 were double the distance from him that Bluchers army 
 was, and this owing to his own orders! Is it not evi 
 dent from these facts that the hero of Austerlitz had 
 been completely out-mano3uvred, and that, both by the 
 superior strategy of the enemy and his own blunders, 
 he was placed at a fearful disadvantage in the struggle 
 of the morrow ? 
 
 The counsel of Grouchy that the whole French army 
 should pursue the English, was undoubtedly the best 
 that could be given. Had Napoleon accepted it instead 
 of sending off the Marshal on a wild-goose chase after
 
 280 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 
 
 the Prussians, the result at Waterloo might have been 
 wholly different. He would then have had a hundred 
 thousand men at Waterloo, besides force enough to defend 
 his left flank against Bulow. Though he made a num 
 ber of glaring blunders on that day, it was the lack of 
 troops which, as much as any other cause, caused his 
 overthrow. His attacking force was weakened to the 
 extent of 16,500 men by the necessity of keeping off the 
 Prussians from his right. Napoleon's worshipers are 
 always declaiming about the treachery or stupidity 
 of Grouchy. Had he not been a dull leader or a 
 traitor, they say, he would have marched on the 18th 
 upon Waterloo. But if he was wanted at Waterloo, why, 
 in the name of common sense, did Napoleon send 
 him in the opposite direction? The Emperor's orders 
 were, " Move to Gembloux. You will reconnoitre the 
 roads to Namur and Maestrecht, and will follow up the 
 enemy." Grouchy's conduct, his position at nightfall, 
 and his occupation by cavalry of Sart-les-Walhain, were 
 the exact performance of these orders. Struggling along 
 in the torrents of rain and over frightful roads, he made 
 the utmost progress possible. It was not Grouchy who 
 put off the hour of pursuit until the fine half of the day 
 was spent It was not Grouchy who sent Grouchy to 
 the east instead of north toward Wavre, where the 
 Prussians were concentrating, or west across the Dyle. 
 It was not till two o'clock on the morning of the 18th 
 that the Marshal learned what route the Prussians had 
 taken. 
 
 But why, it is said, did he not march upon Water 
 loo at eleven o'clock, when the deep and constant roll 
 ing from the left told his practised ears that Napoleon 
 was engaged in another general battle? Why, let us 
 ask in return, did Napoleon send him so far a-field
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 281 
 
 that he could not have reached Waterloo until the fate 
 of the day was decided? It has been shown conclu 
 sively that, with the utmost exertions, Grouchy could 
 not have got his troops over the fourteen miles of diffi 
 cult ground, as the roads then were, and with an un 
 certain river passage to make, in less than eight or 
 nine hours, that is, at seven or eight in the evening. 
 At four in the afternoon he received his first and only 
 communication from Napoleon, distinctly telling him 
 that the Emperor was about to fight the English at 
 Waterloo, and ordering him " to direct Ms movements on 
 Wavre" What more natural than that the Marshal 
 should thereupon conclude his noonday choice to push 
 on to that place, instead of wheeling about towards 
 Waterloo, to have been the correct one ? The rest of 
 this letter, which we have not space to quote, shows 
 that even then Napoleon, though made aware that some 
 of the retreating Prussians had moved in a line parallel 
 to his own, looked on them as a mere detachment, 
 and still clung to the delusion that a great part, at 
 least, of Blucher's troops had gone eastward. How 
 ridiculous, then, Napoleon's complaints against the Mar 
 shal for not aiding him in his last struggle! As the 
 Marshal himself justly said, a Lieutenant cannot conduct 
 a war of inspirations, but must obey orders. Never was 
 a brave officer more outrageously maligned, never was 
 a single reputation more grossly sacrificed to salve 
 national vanity, than in this matter of Grouchy and 
 Waterloo. That his old age was not crowned with 
 honor, is due simply to the popular cry in France for 
 a scapegoat to bear the shame of her defeat, and to 
 the readiness with which Napoleon supplied it in his 
 Lieutenant. 
 
 Even had Grouchy overtaken the Prussians after
 
 282 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 
 
 their unmolested retreat, he had not force enough to cope 
 with them. Blucher's army, be it remembered, though 
 beaten back at Ligny, was neither routed nor disheart 
 ened. At Wavre it was joined by 30,000 men under 
 Bulow, who had not been under fire. In spite of his 
 defeat, Blucher was as indefatigable as ever in bringing 
 his men into action again, and had the resolution to 
 expose a part of his army, under Thielmann, to be over 
 whelmed by Grouchy at Wavre on the 18th, while he 
 urged on the mass of his troops over the swampy roads 
 to Waterloo. " It is not at Wavre, but at Waterloo," 
 said the old Field-Marshal, " that the campaign is to be 
 decided;" and he risked a detachment, and won the 
 campaign accordingly. 
 
 The sum of the whole matter is this : Napoleon made 
 two fatal mistakes, first, in permitting himself to be 
 ignorant of the direction of the Prussian retreat, and of 
 their flank march from Wavre ; and second, in supposing 
 that, without the aid of Grouchy, he could whip Wel 
 lington. Up to the 17th, all had prospered with him ; 
 but from that hour his star of destiny steadily waned. 
 On the morning of that day he was operating with 
 100,000 men against 200,000. It was absolutely indis 
 pensable, therefore, that he should defeat, separate, and 
 paralyze the armies of Wellington and Blucher, as his 
 only hope of reestablishing himself on the throne of 
 France. The Anglo-Allied army was the greatest obsta 
 cle in his way, and against it he should have led his 
 last man and horse ; for, the English defeated, it would 
 have been comparatively easy to crush the Prussians. 
 Instead of doing this, and playing a great game as he 
 should have done when all his fortunes were staked, he 
 divided his army, and from that hour his doom was 
 sealed. The strategy to which he had looked to atone,
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 283 
 
 as in his early glories, for inferiority of numbers, failed 
 him utterly when opposed to the concerted union of 
 Blucher and Wellington, and in the desperate struggle 
 of the 18th, the sword was wrested from his grasp for 
 ever. Of that memorable fight we shall now proceed to 
 speak. 
 
 Notwithstanding his blunders on the 16th and 17th, 
 Napoleon on the morning of the 18th was fully confident 
 of success. Believing that he would have only the 
 English to contend with, he felt sure of victory, and, on 
 seeing them posted before the forest of Soignes, he 
 exclaimed, "At last I have them ! Tliere are nine chances 
 to one in my favor" Marshal Soult warned him not to 
 be too confident, and Gen. Foy observed, " The English 
 infantry are the very devil in the fight " ; but the Emperor 
 treated their remonstrances with contempt : " You think, 
 because he beat you, that Wellington is a great General." 
 His whole air and bearing was that of one who scented 
 a coming triumph, and he indicated neither by word 
 nor look that he feared such a disaster as might follow 
 the arrival of a fresh army on his flank. In his own 
 narratives of the battle there is no allusion to any possi 
 ble aid from Grouchy, nor any hint that he thought 
 the Prussians near. 
 
 From midday on the 17th to four o'clock in the 
 morning of the 18th, the rain had been pouring down 
 in torrents, the ground was terribly beaten up, and the 
 troops on both sides had suffered much in their marches 
 and in the bivouacs. Was this the reason that led 
 Napoleon to suspend his attack till eleven o'clock in the 
 forenoon ? Did the miry state of the soil make it impossi 
 ble for his cavalry or artillery to manoeuvre till after 
 the sun had shone for some hours, or was he trying to
 
 284 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 
 
 strike terror into a part of the motley army opposed 
 to him by an imposing array of his forces? Did he 
 secretly cherish a hope that the Belgian regiments would 
 quit Wellington in a body, and range themselves under 
 his own eagles? Be all this as it may, he again lost 
 hours, when every minute was precious to him, and 
 played into the very hands of his enemies. Had he 
 begun the attack two or three hours sooner, he might 
 have thrown his whole army upon Wellington, and thus, 
 perhaps, have crushed him before Bulow arrived. Gen 
 eral Jomini, an acute French critic, denies the validity of 
 the Emperor's excuse touching the state of the ground ; 
 and Brialmont, the able Belgian critic, holds the same 
 opinion; "ground is not made much better," he says, "by 
 a few hours of dry weather." Besides this, Napoleon him 
 self tells us in his Memoires, that the artillery officers 
 who had examined the ground announced at eight o'clock 
 that the guns could be manoeuvred, though with some 
 difficulty; and we know that Wellington by the same 
 hour had made all his dispositions for the battle. 
 
 The position in which "the Iron Duke" awaited 
 the attack of his adversary, and which he had sur 
 veyed a year before for this purpose, was one of great 
 natural strength, and its selection was a proof of his 
 military sagacity. Let any one traverse the field, as we 
 have, and, after a careful survey, he will find it hard 
 to regard the battle, as delivered by Napoleon, as better 
 than butchery. The scene of the battle, as is well 
 known, was a valley between two and three miles long, 
 of various breadths at different points, but generally 
 not exceeding half a mile. On each side of the valley 
 there is a winding chain of low hills running nearly 
 parallel with each other. The English army was posted 
 on the Northern, the French army on the Southern
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 285 
 
 ridge. The highroad from Charleroi to Brussels bisects 
 both the French and English positions nearly in the 
 centre. Merk Braine, a village and a ravine, secured 
 Wellington's right, while his left was less strongly 
 protected by two small hamlets, called La Haye and 
 Papillote. The key to his position was an old Flemish 
 farm-house of brick, called Hougoumont, which, with 
 its outbuildings and large garden inclosed by a very 
 high and strong brick wall, also its orchard, and 
 copse of beech trees, of about two acres, surrounding it, 
 and pond serving as a moat, was a small fortress. 
 This stronghold, which fronted the British right, was 
 strengthened by loopholing the walls for musketry fire, 
 and, by the erection of scaffolding, to enable the troops 
 within the garden to fire from the top of the wall. 
 Nearly in front of the British centre, at a less distance 
 down the slope, was another smaller farm-house, called 
 La Haye Sainte, which, like Hougoumont, was filled 
 with English troops, and not a little strengthened the 
 English position. During the whole of this fierce con 
 test there was no strategy, no attempt at turning 
 flanks, but all was straightforward fighting, from the 
 first gun to the last. 
 
 Napoleon's first mistake, we have seen, was in delay 
 ing his attack till nearly noon. A far greater blunder 
 was his neglect to occupy with a small infantry force 
 the "Wood of Paris, through which the Prussians had 
 to pass on their way from Wavre to attack his right 
 wing. By this neglect, Bulow was enabled to form 
 therein and debouch upon his right, to defend which 
 Napoleon was compelled to detach during the battle 
 not less than 16,500 of his choicest men, and 66 guns, 
 which he had intended to employ against Wellington. 
 Of this we shall speak again in a more appropriate
 
 286 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 
 
 place. His next mistake was in throwing away so many 
 troops on the almost impregnable fortress, for such 
 the English had made it, of Hougoumont. Napoleon 
 began the battle by hurling Jerome's division against 
 that post. Had "the Iron Duke" himself chosen the 
 point at which he should be assailed, he would un 
 questionably have selected that. It was the very strong 
 est British bulwark. Column after column of the 
 French swept down the ridges, and assailed it with 
 fiery valor; but it was like butting their heads against 
 a wall. It has been well said that "all defensive posi 
 tions would be successful, if the adversary would attack 
 them on the points where there are the best advantages 
 for receiving him. Few defensive positions are success 
 ful, because the adversary is generally cruel enough to 
 attack them in quite a different place." Not so with 
 Napoleon; against Hougoumont he sent 10,000 men, 
 all of whom were placed, sooner or later, Jiors du com 
 bat. Foy's division alone lost 3,000 men; 1,500 fell in 
 a single half-hour. 
 
 The wood which surrounds the chateau, and which 
 was occupied by some of the British guards, was taken 
 and retaken several times, and finally remained in the 
 possession of the French ; but the chateau itself was im 
 pregnable to the last. Why, at the outset, a strong 
 howitzer battery was not directed upon it, as it was 
 after some hours, nobody can tell. Only the upper 
 part of the walls and buildings, however, was assailable 
 by cannon; they could be reached only by shells. 
 There was no necessity, we think, for making a for 
 midable attack upon this post, for it lay in front of 
 the British extreme right, and might have been neg 
 lected by the Emperor altogether. His aim should 
 have been to overwhelm the British left, where they
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 287 
 
 were weakest, and where the Prussians were expected 
 to join them. It has been said that this was pre 
 cisely the object of Napoleon, that in the attack on 
 Hougoumont he was only manceuvering to draw off 
 the attention of "Wellington to his right, and thus to 
 mask the main attack on his left. If this was so, 
 why did Napoleon send so many troops against the 
 chateau, when he saw that he was only sending them 
 to be butchered to instant death? A very strange 
 kind of feigned attack, surely ! 
 
 About half-past one o'clock, Napoleon perceived at 
 a great distance a sort of mirage, or mist, which some 
 declared to be troops in motion, some to be a column 
 halted, and others to be trees. It was soon discovered 
 to be a body of troops in motion, on the hill of St. 
 Lambert; but whether they were Prussians, or a detach 
 ment of Grouchy's force, none could tell. The appa 
 rition did not apparently alarm Napoleon, as he sent 
 only two divisions of light cavalry, 2,400 sabres, to 
 check the strange corps. He was not long in igno 
 rance. A Prussian hussar was brought in with a letter 
 from Bulow, announcing his arrival at St. Lambert, 
 about midway between Wavre and Waterloo. Bulow 
 had been delayed for two hours by a fire breaking out 
 in Wavre in the narrow street through which his corps 
 defiled; and he was kept back still more by the miry 
 nature of the lanes through which he had to march. 
 On hearing the alarming intelligence that 30,000 Prus 
 sians were approaching his flank, the Emperor sent off 
 Lobau with two infantry divisions to support the cav 
 alry, thus detaching a force of 10,000 men to resist the 
 Prussians at Planchenoit, while pressing his own battle 
 with the rest of his troops. Three times the Prussians 
 fought their way into that place, and as often did the
 
 288 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 
 
 French drive them out. The combat here was desper 
 ate and bloody, the hate of the combatants being such 
 that quarter was seldom given or even asked. 
 
 No attempt had been made to arrest the enemy in 
 their passage over the deep valley of the Lasne; yet, so 
 difficult was this by nature, and so many were the ob 
 stacles in Blucher's way that it took three hours from 
 Bulow's first appearance on St. Lambert before half 
 his corps could be brought into action. It was half- 
 past four when the Prussians began their attack. Here, 
 again, we cannot but regard Napoleon as guilty of an 
 unpardonable neglect. Blucher saw at once the import 
 ance of the steep valley of the Lasne, and, lest his 
 movement should be discovered and intercepted, seized 
 the Wood of Paris on the other side. But Napoleon, 
 still clinging to the delusion that only a detachment 
 or two of Prussians had gone to "Wavre after the fight 
 at Ligny, had taken no steps to prevent their march to 
 "Waterloo. Upon the capture of the huzzar, he at once 
 dispatched to Marshal Grouchy intelligence of the inter 
 cepted letter, with orders to march upon St. Lambert, 
 and take the enemy in rear. "Lose not an instant in 
 drawing near to us," he added, " in order to crush Bu- 
 low, whom you will catch in the very act (en flagrant, 
 delit)." This letter reached Grouchy, but not till seven 
 in the evening, when he was engaged in a fight with 
 Thielmann. Of course, he could lend no help to the 
 Emperor that day, and was obliged to content himself 
 with the hope that Napoleon might have triumphed 
 without him. 
 
 Napoleon made, during the battle, five distinct at 
 tacks on the English line, only one of which was suc 
 cessful, and that but partially. His second attack, which 
 was made by D'Erlon's infantry corps, 18,000 strong,
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 289 
 
 aided by Kellerman's cavalry, was a furious onslaught 
 on the British centre and left wing. Led by Ney, " the 
 bravest of the brave," and supported by an artillery fire 
 from 74 guns, in battery upon the French right, it 
 drove before it the Dutch brigade forming the front 
 line of the allies; but received so deadly a volley from 
 Picton's English infantry that it reeled back in confu 
 sion, and lost 2,000 men as prisoners. The chief fault 
 of this charge was that the columns were too deep for 
 attack, and too close to be deployed. Unfortunately, 
 owing to the softness of the soil, the artillery was obliged 
 to remain stationary, and fifteen pieces were captured 
 by the pursuing English squadrons, and rendered use 
 less by being upset in the mud. It was now half-past 
 three o'clock, and, though Wellington's army had suf 
 fered severely, the British line remained everywhere un 
 broken, while each passing hour had carried away a 
 fragment of Napoleon's Empire. 
 
 The third attack was that made by the French 
 cavalry, unsupported, upon the British centre* These 
 magnificent troops passed through the first line of the 
 enemy shouting, "Vive rEmpereur!" but the second 
 opposed to them an impenetrable barrier. Squadron 
 after squadron, amounting to not less than 12,000 men, 
 dashed against the British squares, but in vain. They 
 could not break through the impenetrable hedges of 
 bayonets, while, as they retreated, the fire from the 
 inner ranks mowed them down like grass. Through 
 whose fatal blunder the first brigade, requested by Ney, 
 was followed by the whole of the reserves, nobody can 
 tell. It was a fearful mistake. Napoleon declares, in 
 his Memoirs, that he sent Gen. Bertrand to recall them, 
 but that, when he arrived, it was too late, as they were 
 already engaged, and a retrograde movement attempted
 
 290 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 
 
 under such circumstances is very dangerous. After 
 wards, as he crossed the threshold of tlje Tuilleries, he 
 is said .to have remarked: "Ney behaved like a fool. 
 He sacrificed my cavalry." These stories may be true, 
 but they look to us like fictions invented after the fact. 
 Can any one believe that Napoleon, sitting in the midst 
 of a great battle, fought on a narrow space, and sur 
 rounded by an ample staff, was unable t$ ^prevent jjis 
 lieutenants from sacrificing his cavalry at _the wrong 
 moments? The murderous loss to that splendid, arm, 
 which resulted from the useless assaults on tke British 
 squares, may not have been caused by Napoleon's orders 
 or by Ney's; but both permitted the vain charges to 
 be repeated, until the horsemen were almost totally 
 destroyed. This disaster not only had a fatal influence 
 on the fortunes of the day, but w ;Jrf|fep- main cause 
 that Napoleon's defeat became one ^^^ne most over 
 whelming routs known in history.^ 
 
 Napoleon's fourth grand attack^ made by infantry 
 under Ney's direction, was the only successful one of the 
 day. It lodged the French in La Haye Sainte, and pene 
 trated, for a brief time, the British line. The grape- 
 shot from several field-pieces, which, the French had 
 brought up, tore fearful gaps in the German brigades, 
 and the side of one square was lite'rally blown away by 
 a tremendous volley from the French guns. Meanwhile 
 the howitzer batteries upon the French left had set fire 
 to the chateau of Hougoum'ont, where the English con 
 tinued to maintain themselves amid flames and ruins. 
 This resistance, however, scarcely arrested the attention 
 of the Emperor, who was concerned wholly about the 
 centre, where the crisis seemed at hand. For the first 
 time the situation of the allied army was really critical. 
 The Anglo-Netherlands troops were growing impatient
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 29i 
 
 at acting always on the defensive; the promised suc 
 cor had not arrived; and Wellington often turned his 
 glass toward the left. Had the Young Gua^d been pres 
 ent to sufport Donzelot at La Haye Sainte, the result 
 to Wellington -might have been most disastrous. Whv, 
 then, were they not there ? Because they had been sent 
 to Planchenoit, on Napoleon's right, to aid, Lobau in 
 keeping off Bulow. In like manner, the last desperate 
 attacks 'on the British line, made at half-past seven 
 o'clock, by the two columns of the Imperial Guard, 
 failed because there was no cavalry to support them. 
 And why was there no cavalry? Because this force 
 had been needlessly sacrificed in the third attack, and 
 because some 2,500 of them had been detached against 
 the/ Prussians early in the afternoon, when, by seizing 
 the-defile of Lasnes with an infantry force, Bulow might 
 have been kept back without a horseman being sent to 
 that ; point. The Guard was attacked by a destructive 
 fire both in front and flank, and whole ranks fell at 
 once, like grain before the reaper. Even under thaw 
 disadvantageous circumstances, it might have maintained 
 somewhat longer its impetuous attack, which has been 
 called "the madness of despair," but at this moment a 
 cry of alarm was heard pn'tfye right; it announced the 
 arrival of the Prussians unde* Zieten, who, debouching 
 from the Chain road upon the English left, and, attack 
 ing the French right wing, drove all before it In vain 
 did Napoleon order uj) his four squadrons of body 
 guard, all .the cavalry 'he had left; what could that 
 feeble band do to stem x such a torrent ? The allies were 
 pouring, wave after wave, across the plain ; five squares 
 of the French wen l.n-k. -n. and cut to pieces; and now 
 the effect produced on th.- rest of the French army by 
 the repulse of the Guard and the sudden onslaught of
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 
 
 Zieten, was completed by the general advance, for which 
 Wellington, with the instinct of genius, suddenly for 
 sook his attitude of defence; and, as Blucher's victori 
 ous legions were pouring across the sole line of retreat, 
 while the last reserves of the French had been ex 
 hausted, the defeat was turned into a panic and a rout 
 unparalleled in history. Napoleon, seeing that all was 
 lost, was anxious to die in Cambronne's square; but 
 Soult turned his horse away, saying, "Ah, sire! the 
 enemy are fortunate enough already ! " From that mo 
 ment the man of destiny fled like the rest. " The eagle 
 was no more in the keeping of the gods." 
 
 To sum all up, the defeat of Napoleon at Water 
 loo, which decided the fate of the Empire, and sent 
 the victor of so many fields an exile to St. Helena, 
 was due to no accident, but to his own blunders, and 
 the superior strategy of the allied Generals. It resulted 
 simply from his own delays before and after Ligny; 
 from his failure to separate the Prussians in that bat 
 tle from the English, by attacking their right wing, 
 instead of the centre and left; from not employing 
 D'Erlon's corps either to help Ney or to crush the 
 Prussians, instead of suffering them to reorganize and 
 retreat on Wavre ; from sending Grouchy to the east to 
 pursue them, when they were out of his reach, and 
 thus placing 33,000 men "in the air;" from fighting a 
 battle with Wellington on the 18th of June, instead of 
 on the 17th, when Blucher could not have helped him ; 
 from beginning the battle at Waterloo several hours too 
 late; from the non-occupation of the Wood of Paris, 
 and the worse than useless slaughter of thousands of 
 brave soldiers at Hougoumont; from the hurling of his 
 troops against the enemy in too dense masses; from 
 the failure to support his infantry charges by cavalry,
 
 THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 293 
 
 and his cavalry charges by a sufficient force of infant 
 ry ; and lastly, from the terrible mistake of suffering the 
 cavalry reserves to be engaged too soon. " A few drops 
 of water, more or fewer," says Victor Hugo, "pros 
 trated Napoleon." What nonsense! Did not the rain 
 retard the Prussians ? What else was it but the execra 
 ble roads that kept them from attacking the French 
 several hours earlier? "But Wellington would have 
 been beaten, but for the arrival of the Prussians." In 
 deed! Was he not looking for and counting upon the 
 approaching army of his ally as part of the fight? 
 Was he not watching from early afternoon the lessen 
 ing pressure which told him that Napoleon was forced 
 to strip himself of his formidable reserves, to keep off" 
 the Prussians? Above all, had he not prepared, on 
 the days before, in concert with the fiery old Prussian 
 Marshal, this fatal stroke of war, and was it not pre 
 cisely because of this that he took up the gauntlet 
 which Napoleon had thrown down?
 
 Frames 
 
 
 4 
 
 .4 
 
 />
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abuse, not an argument against 
 the use of things, 96. 
 
 Actors, as conversers, 10. 
 
 Adams, John Q. 254. 
 
 Addison, his conversation, 12; 
 his care in writing, 117; his 
 fondness for Bayle's Diction 
 ary, 195; his worldly success, 
 228; his failure as an orator, 
 251. 
 
 Alba, Duke of, his cruelty, 74. 
 
 Alcibiades, his conversation, 15. 
 
 American literature, its defects, 
 161. 
 
 Andrew Fletcher, 205. 
 
 Angelo, Michael, 170. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon race, the, unsympa 
 thetic, 144. 
 
 Anjou, Francois, Duke of, 264. 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas, 193. 
 
 Argyle, the Duke of, as an ora 
 tor, 206. 
 
 Artists, their coarseness, 180. 
 
 Authors, as conversers, 9-15; 
 their writings not always a 
 key to their dispositions, 170, 
 174, 179; their poverty, 233, 
 234; advice to, 235, 236. 
 
 Authorship, examples of unpro 
 fitable, 224; its remuneration 
 in France, 231; not ill-paid, 
 224-238 ; often a pis-atler, 234 ; 
 its prerequisites, 235, 236 ; not 
 incompatible with vulgar cares, 
 236. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, his essays, 23 ; his 
 conversation, 24. 
 
 Bail lie, Joanna, quoted, 14-83 ; on 
 Mackintosh's talk, 29. 
 
 Beattie, Dr. James, his literary 
 criticisms, 243. 
 
 Beaumont, Francis, on the con 
 versation at the "Mermaid" 
 tavern, 20. 
 
 Beecher, Dr. Lyman, his wit, 191. 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, his wit, 
 191 ; his elocution, 205. 
 
 Beethoven, a slow composer, 1 i:< ; 
 anecdote of, 113. 
 
 Bentley's Miscellany, 33. 
 
 Beranger.a laborious writer, 118. 
 
 Beresford, author of " Miseriea 
 of Human Life," 181. 
 
 Bergerac, Cyrano de, 264. 
 
 Berkeley, Bishop, on elocution. 
 206. 
 
 Blanc, Louis, on Robespierre, 180. 
 
 Blanchard, Laman, 173, 225. 
 
 Blucher, Field Marshal, his de 
 feat at Ligny, 276. 
 
 Boasters, not always coward*, 72. 
 
 Boileau, epigram by, 59. 
 
 Bon mots, their power in France. 
 141. 
 
 Book, one, value of ita excludr* 
 study, 194-199. 
 
 Books, their cheapness not wholly 
 a blessing, 199; communion 
 with, 199. 
 
 Booth, Junius Brutua, the eMer. 
 his reading of the Lord'* Pray 
 er, 208. 
 
 Boesuet, his labor in writing. 1 
 
 Bravery, sometime* ftMUuhwl 
 with cruelty, 78, 74 
 
 Brougham, Lord, hi* noM,9H 
 
 Brown, Dr. Thoma*, 188. 
 
 Browne, Sir ThomM, on Physi 
 ognomy, 85.
 
 296 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Buckle, Henry Thomas, his con 
 versation, 41. 
 
 Buffon, 12, 24; a fastidious 
 writer, 118. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, his conversa 
 tion, 40, 41 ; his fastidiousness 
 as a writer, 117 ; on the French 
 idealism in government, 154, 
 155 ; a type of the English 
 mind, 158; on political ab 
 stractions, 158. 
 
 Burns, Robert, his conversation, 
 27, 28 ; a fastidious writer, 116. 
 
 Burton, Robert, his Anatomy of 
 Melancholy, 221. 
 
 Bushnell, Dr. Horace, 204, 205. 
 
 Butler, Samuel, his conversation, 
 13; on the tongue, 1 ; epi 
 gram on, 61 ; his miseries, 172. 
 
 Byron, Lord, his conversation, 
 28 ; on De Stael's, 34 ; a rapid 
 writer, 110 ; his opinion of his 
 poems, 169 ; his melancholy, 
 172; on originality, 220; his 
 income. 230; his literary criti 
 cisms, 240, 245. 
 
 C. 
 
 Ctesar, Julius, 16, 169. 
 
 Calvin, John, contrasted with 
 Luther, 148, 190. 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, his conversa 
 tion, 14; a fastidious writer, 
 116; his opinion touching his 
 masterpiece, 169, 170; his 
 worldly success, 230. 
 
 Canning, George, his labor on 
 his speeches, 119. 
 
 Canova, sculptor, 168. 
 
 Carlini, actor, anecdote of, 173. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, his conversa 
 tion, 39. 
 
 Cellini, Benvenuto, his boastful- 
 ness, 73. 
 
 Chalmers, Dr. Thomas, 203, 220, 
 254. 
 
 Charles II., on Butler's conversa 
 tion, 13. 
 
 Chateaubriand, his occasional 
 obscenity, 180. 
 
 Chatham, Lord, his conversation, 
 40; his fondness for Barrow, 
 195. 
 
 Chaucer, 219, 227. 
 
 Cheerfulness, its value, 186, 187. 
 
 Chesterfield, Lord, on laughter, 
 190 ; his oratory, 206. 
 
 Christina, of Sweden, saying of, 
 26. 
 
 Cicero, his conversation, 16. 
 
 Clarendon, Lord, 195. 
 
 Cleveland, John, his epigram on 
 the Scots, 60. 
 
 Clubs, literary, 44-52 ; when ob 
 jectionable, 44-46 ; the London 
 "Literary Club," 46; advan 
 tages of, 46, 52. 
 
 Cobbett, William, on writing, 
 108. 
 
 Coincidences, literary, 221, 222. 
 
 Coleridge, S T.,his conversation, 
 34-36 ; on the French, 121 ; his 
 indebtedness to Collins, 195; 
 a literary borrower, 220 ; why 
 always poor, 230 ; his nose, 263. 
 
 Composition, literary, hints on, 
 107-8; speed in, 109-113; ex 
 acts labor, 114 ; also time, 120. 
 
 "Contentment better than rich 
 es," a fallacy, 79. 
 
 Conversation, of authors, 9-15 ; 
 of actors, 10; of the ancients, 
 15 ; requisites of good, 40 ; the 
 art dying out, 42-43; neces 
 sary to culture, 50-52. 
 
 Conversers, the great, 9-43 ; need 
 of a work on, 9; authors and 
 actors not good, 10. 
 
 Cooper, Fennimore, 220. 
 
 Corneille, 12 ; 
 
 Courier, Paul Louis, his style, 
 138. 
 
 Cowley, Abraham, his conversa 
 tion, 24. 
 
 Cowper, William, his conversa 
 tion, 12 ; on care in writing, 
 110; his mental gloom, 171; 
 his bashfulness, 252.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 297 
 
 Criticism, curiosities of, 289-248 , 
 how biased, 239; rarity ol 
 genuine, 247. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 102, 104 ; con 
 trasted with the French revo 
 lutionists, 147. 
 
 Curran, John Philpot, his first 
 speech, 252. 
 
 Cuvier, 102. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dante, 195. 
 
 David, painter, 168. 
 
 De Maistre, Count Joseph, on 
 France in 1796, 122; on the 
 proselytism of the French, 143; 
 on the French Constitutions. 
 157. 
 
 Demogeot, J., on French civiliza 
 tion, 142. 
 
 Demosthenes, 195. 
 
 Denham, Sir John, on Cowley 
 and Killigrew. 24. 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas, on Cole 
 ridge's conversation, 35; his 
 own conversation, 38-39; on 
 his own physiognomy, 86; on 
 improvisation, 112; on the in 
 vention of types, 213. 
 
 Descartes, 12. 
 
 De Stael, Madame, her conversa 
 tion, 34. 
 
 DeTocqueville, Alexis, on the 
 French, 124 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 230. 
 
 Difficulty, a blessing, 97. 
 
 Diogenes, his sayings, 15. 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, epigrams on, 
 64,65. 
 
 Disraeli, Isaac, quoted. 
 
 Dissatisfaction, a law of life, 81. 
 
 Dolabella, 16. 
 
 Domitian, 178. 
 
 Dorset, the Earl of, on Butler's 
 conversation, 13. 
 
 Drudgery, the Bishop of Exeter 
 on, 119. 
 
 Dryden, John, his conversation, 
 12 ; his elocution, 202 ; his in 
 come, 228. 
 
 Dualism, in men's lives, 168-185. 
 Duclos, on papal elections, 101. 
 Duelling, repressed by satire, 
 
 164. 
 Dugazon, actor, on noses, 270. 
 
 E. 
 
 Economy, private, a public bless- 
 ing, 78. 
 
 Eldon, Lord, epigram on, 58 ; on 
 public speaking, 254. 
 
 Ellis, George, his conversation, 
 28. 
 
 Eloquence, the heart its source, 
 208. 
 
 Elphinstone, Bishop, 187. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, on origi 
 nality, 217. 
 
 Emmons, Dr. Nathaniel, his wit, 
 191. 
 
 English periodicals, their solem 
 nity, 159, 160. 
 
 English, the, their slowness, 127 ; 
 their pertinacity, 128; th-ir 
 gruffness, 133 ; their hospital 
 ity, 133; good colonizers, 185; 
 inferiority of their writers aa 
 stylists to the French, 188; 
 their wealth, 138; their nar 
 rowness, 144 ; their orators com 
 pared with those of the Frrn.-h. 
 149 ; defects of their literal u n- , 
 152, 153 ; their contempt of po 
 litical abstractions, 155; tin ir 
 political inconsistencies, 158; 
 their legislation, 157; their 
 love of precedents, 157. 
 Epigrams, 53-71 ; why good one* 
 are rare, 58; their requisites, 
 54; the changes they hare un 
 dergone, 55; collection of, by 
 Rer. J. Booth, 55; Martial's. 
 56-58; neatness of the French, 
 59 ; surprise an element of, 00; 
 the great age of, 61 ; on Marl- 
 borough, 61, 63; on names, 64; 
 when formidable, 08, 09 ; why 
 Marly obsolete, 09-71. 
 Erasmus, 168.
 
 298 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Erskine, Thomas, Lord, on elo 
 quence, 207, 208; his maiden 
 speeches, 252. 
 
 F. 
 
 Faces, 85. 
 
 Fallacies, popular, 72-84. 
 
 Ft' in' Ion, a rapid writer, 111. 
 
 Fielding, Henry, 247. 
 
 Foote, Samuel, 17. 
 
 Foster, John, his con venation, 37. 
 
 Fox, Chas. James, his conversa 
 tion, 40 ; on Burke's, 41 ; on 
 the French, 136. 
 
 France, the focus of civilization, 
 142; the interpreter between 
 England and mankind, 142. 
 143. 
 
 Francis, Sir Philip, 252. 
 
 French, the, their versatility, 122, 
 123; their paradoxical char 
 acter, 123, 124 ; described by De 
 Tocqueville, 124; caricatured 
 by the English, 125 ; the lead 
 ing nation of Europe, 125 ; 
 their mercurial nature, 126 ; 
 their lack of patience, 127 ; 
 128; their fondness for the 
 theatrical, 128-132 ; their van 
 ity, 132 ; contrasted with the 
 English, 132; their love of 
 glory, 132 ; their self-con 
 sciousness, 133; their divorce 
 of profession and practice, 134; 
 their dependence on others for 
 happiness, 134- their gregari- 
 ousness, 134; their failure as 
 colonizers, 135 ; their litera 
 ture, 137-143; clearness of 
 their literary style, 139 , their 
 sociality, 140 ; their superiority 
 in conversation and letter- 
 writing, 140; their brilliant 
 wit, 140; their appreciation of 
 foreign ideas, 141 ; their ppirit 
 of proselytism, 143 ; their sym 
 pathy with the down-trodden, 
 143; their preeminence as lo 
 gicians, 145, 147; their ten 
 dency to scepticism, 146 ; their 
 
 lack of profound convictions. 
 147; their dogmatism, 148; 
 their preeminence as orators, 
 148 ; their inferiority in poetry, 
 149, 151 ; their passion for ab 
 stract ideas, 151-153; their 
 idealism in politics, 153, 154, 
 157. 
 
 French language, its defects, 146, 
 151. 
 
 French traits, 121-158. 
 
 Frenchwomen, their coquetry, 
 131. 
 
 Fuller, Margaret, on Carlyle'* 
 conversation, 40. 
 
 G. 
 
 Galiani, the Abb, his definition 
 of sublime oratory, 7. 
 
 Qarrick, David, on Adam Smith's 
 conversation, 18. 
 
 Garrow, Baron, 59. 
 
 Gay, John, his epitaph, 172. 
 
 Gauls, the, described by Julius 
 Caesar, 128. 
 
 Genest, the Abbe, 268, 264. 
 
 Genius, men of, their self-igno 
 rance, 169. 
 
 Germanic literatures, their merits 
 and defects, 150, 151. 
 
 German writers, their obscurity, 
 139, 140. 
 
 Gibbon, the historian, a rapid 
 writer; his failure as an ora 
 tor, 251 ; his nose, 266. 
 
 Gilford, his critical judgments, 
 244. 
 
 Girardet, painter, 168. 
 
 Godliness, true, is cheerful, 186. 
 
 Godwin, William, his talk, 13; a 
 rapid writer, 111; his nose, 
 265. 
 
 Goethe, John Wolfgang, 70; on 
 originality, 217 ; his borrow 
 ings, 221. 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, as a convener, 
 12, 13 ; on Johnson's conversa 
 tion, 12; on Burke's, 41 ; his 
 care in composition, 115 ; on 
 the solemnity of contemporary
 
 TXDI:\. 
 
 IN 
 
 English writers, 160, 161 ; his 
 distresses, 172; on eloquence, 
 209 ; his earnings as a writer, 
 229 ; causes of his poverty, 
 233 ; his criticism of Hamlet's 
 soliloquy, 240. 
 
 Gough, John B., 254. 
 
 Graham, of Claverhouse, his 
 cruelty, 74. 
 
 Gray, Thomas, a slow writer, 
 117 ; his love of Spenser, 195 ; 
 his literary criticisms, 243. 
 
 Greeks, the ancient, 265. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, 198. 
 
 Grimaldi, the actor, his looks, 87. 
 
 Grimm, 264. 
 
 Grouchy, Marshal, 278-282, 288 ; 
 
 Guizot, on French civilization, 
 141 ; on French science and 
 politics, 152. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hall, Robert, on Mackintosh's 
 conversation, 29 ; his own con 
 versation, 36-37 ; contrasted 
 with Coleridge, 37 ; a slow 
 writer, 111 ; his jests, 188; his 
 patience in suffering, 188; a 
 literary borrower, 220. 
 
 Hamilton, Philip, G., on solitude, 
 50 ; on modern landscape paint 
 ing, 180. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir William, on teach 
 ing, 52. 
 
 Handel, a rapid composer, 113. 
 
 Hannay, James,on old witticism**, 
 17. 
 
 Harrison, Frederic, 159. 
 
 Harte, Bret, on physiognomy, 87. 
 
 Hare, Archdeacon, on playful 
 ness, 189. 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, on the 
 French and the English as 
 revolutionists, 143. 
 
 Haydn, a slow composer, 118 
 
 Haynan, Gen., 74. 
 
 Hazlitt, William, on authors and 
 actors as conveners, 10; on 
 Godwin's conversation, 18 ; on 
 Lamb's, 83 ; on Northcote's, 84. 
 
 Hegel, on Cousin's literary bor 
 rowings, 218. 
 
 Henry IV., of France, 147. 
 
 Heron, author of " Comforts of 
 Human Life," 181. 
 
 Hobbies, 174-178. 
 
 Homer, a profound student of. 
 196. 
 
 Hobbes, of Malmesbury, on read 
 ing 198. 
 
 Hood, Thomas, his melancholy 
 look, 87, 181; his menul 
 gloom, 174 ; his poverty, 225. 
 
 Hook, Theodore, 86, J 
 
 Horace, his satir*-. 
 
 House of Commons, the, a prac 
 tical body, 156. 
 
 Hugo, Victor, on Paris, 24 ; on 
 Napoleon's defeat at Wati-rloo, 
 105, 293. 
 
 Hume, David, as a convener, 12 ; 
 on factions in the Greek Em 
 pire, 101 ; his income, 228, 228. 
 
 1. 
 
 Improvisation, in literature and 
 music, 112; the present an age 
 of, 120. 
 
 Intercourse, the best teacher, 48. 
 
 J. 
 
 Jameson, Bin., on the French. 
 180. 
 
 "Jane Eyre," characterised by 
 the Quarterly Review, 247. 
 
 Jeffrey, Francis Lord, 230, 258. 
 
 Jerrold, Douglas, extract from. 
 90; his projected treaUM OB 
 natural philosophy, 148. 
 
 Joan of Arc, 105. 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his coow 
 sation, 10, 28-27; on Burke'a, 
 41 ; his advice to young 
 writer*. Ill hln rapid com 
 position, 118; his cat, 180; hi* 
 rudemws, 181 ; an omolrcroos 
 reader, 107, 108; his final sue. 
 cess as an author. 228; hto 
 literary criticisms, 241, 841.
 
 300 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Jones, Paul, 180. 
 
 Jones, Sir William, 195. 
 
 Jonson, Ben, his conversation, 
 20-21 ; on Bacon's conversa 
 tion, 24 ; a great borrower, 220 ; 
 his literary criticisms, 240. 
 
 Journalism, as a calling, 237, 238. 
 
 K. 
 
 Keats, John, 244, 247. 
 
 Kenrick, Dr., his criticisms of 
 
 Goldsmith, 243. 
 Killigrew, 24. 
 Knowledge, variety of, necessary, 
 
 197. 
 Kosciusko, 268. 
 
 La Fontaine, 12. 
 
 Lamartine, 180. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, his talk, 82 ; his 
 laboriousness in writing, 117; 
 on laughter, 165 ; his hours of 
 melancholy, 178. 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage, on Shak- 
 speare's pilfering, 218. 
 
 La Place, his atheism, 146. 
 
 La Rochefoucauld, his care in 
 writing, 119. 
 
 Laughter, its beneficial effects, 
 165, 166; needed by Ameri 
 cans, 166; Chamfort on, 106; 
 Swift's opinion of, 166. 
 
 Lavater, anecdote of, 90. 
 
 Law, as a means of repressing 
 vice, 93-99. 
 
 Lee, Nathaniel, 202. 
 
 Leibnitz, 195. 
 
 Lewis, Sir George C., 178. 
 
 Ligny, battle of, 276. 
 
 Liston, the actor, his looks, 87; 
 deemed tragedy his proper call 
 ing, 169 ; his love of Young's 
 " Night Thoughts," 182. 
 
 Literary appropriation, examples 
 of, 221, 222. 
 
 Literary workshops, a peep into, 
 107-120. 
 
 Literature, pleasantry in, 159- 
 167 ; gravity of English period 
 ical, 159, 160; not ill-paid, 
 224-238 ; its advantages as a 
 profession, 226. 
 
 Livy, on the admission of ple 
 beians to the Consulate, 105. 
 
 Locke, John, 241. 
 
 Louis VII., of France, 101. 
 
 Louis XIV., conversation at his 
 court, 24-26; his compliment 
 to Conde, 25. 
 
 Luther, Martin, as a talker, 17- 
 19, 40 ; sayings from his " Table 
 Talk," 18; contrasted with 
 Calvin, 148; his humor, 189, 
 190. 
 
 Lytton, Sir E. Bulwer, his liter 
 ary earnings, 230; his nose, 
 265. 
 
 M. 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, his conversation, 
 30; his care in writing, 119; 
 on French literature, 142; a 
 literary borrower, 220, 222; 
 his income, 230. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, his talk, 
 29. 
 
 Maginn, on laughter, 167. 
 
 Malherbe, a slow writer, 117. 
 
 Man, the inner and outer, often 
 contrasted, 168-185. 
 
 Marlborough, the Duke of, epi 
 grams on, 62. 
 
 Marmontel, 12. 
 
 Martial, on noses, 259, 270. 
 
 Masson, Prof., on French dogma 
 tism, 148. 
 
 Mendelssohn, a slow composer, 
 113. 
 
 " Mermaid," the, wits of, 19. 
 
 Miller, Joe, his book, 17. 
 
 Mill, J. S., on persecution, 76; 
 on contentment, 83; on the 
 French idealism in govern 
 ment, 153, 154. 
 
 Milton, John, on the removal of 
 sin, 104; his preference for
 
 IXDEX. 
 
 301 
 
 "Paradise Regained," 169 ; his 
 literary appropriations, 217 
 227, 241. 
 
 Mirabeau, his delivery, 206. 
 
 Moliere, 12; his slowness in 
 writing, 117; on plagiarism 
 219. 
 
 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley 
 saying of, 48. 
 
 Montaigne, on physiognomy, 90 
 on lying in France, 130. 
 
 Montbelliard, 24. 
 
 Montesquieu, 195. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, epigram on, 63 ; 
 his epigrams, 63, 64; his de 
 scription of Nourmahal, 91 ; a 
 slow writer, 116; his income, 
 230; his opinion of Chaucer, 
 244 ; his nose, 263. 
 
 Morality, compulsory, 93-99. 
 
 Morley, John, on absolutism in 
 France and in England, 152; 
 on French and English apho 
 ristic literature, 152. 
 
 Morse, the real inventor of the 
 electric telegraph, 216. 
 
 Murder, not always detected, 75 ; 
 instances of it, 75. 
 
 N. 
 
 Napier, Sir Charles, 265. 
 
 Napoleon I., his cruelty, 74 ; hia 
 love of Ossian's poems, 180; 
 causes of his defeat at Water 
 loo, 272-293; his complaints of 
 Grouchy, 281 ; contrasted with 
 Wellington, 132 ; contrasted 
 with Nelson, 132. 
 
 Nasby, Petroleum V., his letters 
 during the civil war, 164, 165. 
 
 Neal, John, 107. 
 
 Nelson, Lord, hia cruelty, 74. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, his great dis 
 covery, 103. 
 
 Nicolle, saying of, 12. 
 
 Niebuhr, on English conversa 
 tion, 26 ; on literary composi 
 tion, 108. 
 
 Northcote, James, hia conversa 
 tion, 84. 
 
 Noses, 257-271 ; neglected by the 
 poets and essayists, 258 ; their 
 afflictions, 259; an index to 
 character, 259, 260, 269 ; large 
 ones admired, 260, 261 ; pug, 
 indicative of feebleness of will 
 261; Greek, 265; flexibl. 
 hawk, 266; flat, 267; snub, 
 267; when well-formed, L'Tn ; 
 sham, 270. 
 
 Nott, Dr. Eliphalet, effects of hia 
 humor, 165. 
 
 O. 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel, on English 
 
 Acts of Parliament, 157. 
 Oken, anatomist, 108. 
 Opinion, public, does not alwaya 
 
 find expression, 76. 
 Oratory, pulpit, 200-210. 
 Originality, in literature, 211- 
 
 223; in invention, 212-214; 
 
 defined, 212-215. 
 
 P. 
 
 Painters, their conversation, 83. 
 
 Painting, landscape, its modern 
 development due to big cilleii, 
 180. 
 
 Paris, 122, 129, 180, 185, 186. 
 
 Parr, Dr. Samuel, epigram on, 05. 
 
 Parsons, Dr. T.W.. epigram 00,68. 
 
 Pascal, Blaise, on Mark Anthony. 
 101; origin of hia tract on 
 sound, 102; his care in com 
 position, 117; hia style, 188; 
 hia ridicule of the Jmuit*. 183; 
 on happiness, 188; hU "Pro 
 vincial Lettera," 198 ; on plagia- 
 rism, 223. 
 
 Persecution, often auceoaaful. 78. 
 
 Philanthropy, when moat wo. 
 ceaaful, 98. 
 
 Photography, when 
 Jit 
 itt, William, 266, 267.
 
 302 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Plagiarism, frivolous ctfarges of, 
 216-219. 
 
 Pleasantry, in literature, 159-167. 
 
 Pliny, on the cause of the destruc 
 tion of Carthage, 104. 
 
 Poets, often poor critics of poet 
 ry, 245. 
 
 Pompey, 16. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, his conversa 
 tion, 12 ; his epigrams, 60 ; his 
 habits of composition, 114 ; his 
 ridicule of fashionable vices, 
 163, 164 ; his income from his 
 works, 228; criticised by his 
 enemies, 241 ; his timidity in 
 public speaking, 251. 
 
 Person, Richard, his criticism of 
 Gibbon's history, 244. 
 
 Preachers, who have mistaken 
 their calling, 201, 202; their 
 neglect of elocution, 202 ; their 
 apparent lack of feeling, 207. 
 
 Prescott, the historian, on Macau- 
 lay's conversation, 31. 
 
 Pulpit, the modern, its wants, 
 202 ; importance of manner in, 
 202 ; its coldness, 207. 
 
 Puritanism, reaction against in 
 England, 94. 
 
 Pycroft, Rev. James, of Steevens, 
 the Shakspearean commen 
 tator, 196. 
 
 Q. 
 
 Quatre Bras, battle of, 277. 
 
 R. 
 
 Reading, miscellaneous, to whom 
 
 profitable, 197, 198 ; generally 
 
 injurious, 198. 
 Reformation not due only to the 
 
 sale of indulgences, 105. 
 Richardson, Samuel, 247. 
 Ries, on Beethoven's care in 
 
 composition, 114. 
 Robertson, Rev. F. W., on Paris, 
 
 130 ; on miscellaneoua reading, 
 
 198. 
 
 Robinson, Crabbe, 42. 
 
 Rogers-, Henry, on plagiarism, 
 223. 
 
 Rogers, Samuel, his conversa 
 tion, 31 ; on Moore, 22 ; his 
 epigram on Ward, 66. 
 
 Rose, Sir George, epigram by, 
 59, 66. 
 
 Rossini, his advice to a young 
 composer, 113 ; a rapid com 
 poser, 113. 
 
 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, on the 
 conversation of authors, 10; 
 on his own conversation, 12; 
 cause of his eccentricities, 49 ; 
 his painstaking in composition, 
 118; his favorite authors, 195. 
 
 Rymer, Thomas, his criticism of 
 Shakspeare, 240. 
 
 S. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, his painstaking in 
 composition, 118 ; his style, 138. 
 
 Saints, merry, 186-193. 
 
 Sand, Maurice.on the French, 135. 
 
 Scaliger, Joseph, his conversa 
 tion, 19; on Justus Lipsius,19. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walte%his conversa-- 
 tion, 28 ; on Coleridge's, 36 ^ 
 on that of lawyers, bishops, 
 and wits, 40; his rapidity in 
 literary composition, 109, 112; 
 believed himself designed for 
 a soldier, 169 ; an omnivorous 
 reader, 197; his historical 
 romances, 221 ; on literature 
 as a profession, 224 ; his earn 
 ings as an author, 229 ; his 
 novels criticised, 243. 
 
 Selden, John, his table-talk, 
 
 91 94 
 aiftid. 
 
 Seneca, 181. 
 
 Sermons, modern, 200, 201 ; their 
 effect dependent on good deliv 
 ery, 204. 
 
 Shakspeare, his discontent, 82, 
 171 ; his opinion of his sonnets, 
 169 ; criticised by Rymer, and 
 others, 240.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 303 
 
 Sharp, " Conversation," 41. 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe', a fastidi 
 ous writer, 116. 
 
 Shenstone, William, on fine writ 
 ing, 115. 
 
 Sheridan, R. B., his habits as a 
 writer, 117 ; on Rowland Hill 
 208. 
 
 Siddons, Mrs., actress, 269. 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, quoted, 96. 
 Sieyes, the Abbe, his political 
 
 constitutions, 154, 155. 
 Smith, Adam, his conversation, 
 
 13 ; a rapid writer, 111. 
 Smith, Horace, his sonnet to his 
 
 nose, 271. 
 Smith, James, his conversation, 
 
 33 ; Digram by, 66. 
 Smith, ^Sydney, on Mackintosh's 
 conversation, 29 ; his talk, 29, 
 30 ; on Macaulay's conversa 
 tion, 31 ; epigram on Jeffrey, 
 63 ; a rapid writer, 110 ; on 
 Lord John Russell, 122; on 
 English charity, 144 ; his " Let- 
 _ters to Peter Plymley," 164; 
 
 his merry temper, 188. 
 Socrates, his conversation, 15 ; 
 * his looks, 86. 
 Solitude, its advantages, 49 ; De 
 
 Senancour on, 50. 
 South, Dr. Robert, his wit, 193. 
 Southy, Robert, 229^.246. 
 Speaking, public, timidity in, 
 249-256 ; qualifications for. 254, 
 255 ; consolations for failure 
 in, 255. 
 
 Spendthrifts, not public bene 
 factors, 77-79. 
 Spenser, 227. 
 Spinoza, 180. 
 Spurgeon, Rev. Charles H., his 
 
 wit, 191, 192. 
 
 Stanhope, Lord, anecdote by, 26. 
 
 Stephen, Sir James,* on Frencli 
 
 style, 139; on the French 
 
 mind, 145. 
 
 Sterling, John, his conversation, 
 
 41. 
 
 Sterne, Lawrence, 115; on the 
 39 
 
 French, 131 ; his treatment of 
 his wife and mother, 181. 
 
 Style, literary, French and Eng 
 lish contrasted, 138 ; clearness 
 of the French, 138 ; obscurity 
 of the German, 139. 
 
 Sumptuary laws, 94. 
 
 Suwarrow, his looks, 86. 
 
 Swift, Dean, on Frenchmen and 
 Englishmen, 157; his discon 
 tent, 172 ; a literary borrower, 
 221; why not made a bishop, 
 228. 
 
 T. 
 
 Taine, H., his comparison of the 
 Latin and the Germanic litera 
 tures, 150. 
 
 Telegraph, the electric, when 
 first invented, 214. 
 
 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 
 his advice to writers, 111 ; his 
 " Book of Snobs," 164 ; his ten 
 der-heartedness, 181. 
 
 Themistocles, his sayings, 15. 
 
 Thorswalden, sculptor, his " Mer 
 cury," 102. 
 
 Tooke, Home, his conversation, 
 27. 
 
 Trifles, the power of, 100-106 
 
 Turgot, 178. 
 
 Turner, Bishop of Ely, 264. 
 
 Turner, the painter, 180. 
 
 Tyler, John, President, 265. 
 
 U. r*. 
 
 Utrecht, Treaty of, 101, 104. 
 
 V. 
 
 Vaugelas, his slowness in writ 
 ing, 118. 
 
 Vericour, M., on Sir W. Scott, 
 221. 
 
 Virgil, a laborious writer, 115; 
 his literary " conveyances," 
 219.
 
 304 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Virtue, true, 96 ; Milton on fugi 
 tive, 96, 97. 
 Voltaire, 195. 
 
 W. 
 
 Waller, Edmund, his opinion of 
 Milton, 241. 
 
 Walton, Izaak, on the reading of 
 sermons, 203. 
 
 Ward, R. P., epigram on, 66. 
 
 Waterloo, battle of, 272-293. 
 
 Wellington, the Duke of, con 
 trasted with Napoleon, 132. 
 
 Whately, Archbishop, on timid 
 ity in public speaking, 249. 
 
 Whitefield, Thomas, his oratory, 
 204. 
 
 Wilberforce, William, his talk, 
 28, 29 ; his merry face, 88. 
 
 Wilkes, John, 268. 
 
 William III., of England, his 
 struggle with Louis XIV., 128. 
 
 Wilson, John, Professor, his 
 " Noctes," 51. 
 
 Wit, Anglo-Saxon and French 
 contrasted, 140; French appre 
 ciation of, 141 ; its effects in 
 France, 141. 
 
 Wits and humorists, their util 
 ity, 1C2-1 ':> ; often melancholy, 
 170, 171. 
 
 Wolfe,Qen. James, his bravado,73. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, 229 ; his 
 early poems ridiculed, 246 : 
 his literary criticisms, 246, 247 ; 
 his nose, 262, 263. 
 
 World, New York, the, on au 
 thorship in New York, 232. 
 
 Writing, hurry not always preju 
 dicial to, 11*2. 
 
 Y. 
 
 Young, Alexander, his epigrams, 
 61 ; his looks, 88 ; on hasty 
 composition, 115 ; his joviality, 
 182. 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zimmerman, 49.
 
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